Bare with me here. I’m 17, senior in high school, and going to college soon. Problem is, I have no clue what. I an need to decide soon for some careers (like engineering). I’m a very hard worker and am inteligent (32 on ACT), so almost any career is possible if I put my mind to it, I just need help finding a direction.
Something people always tell me is find something you love. Well, I don’t “love” anything really. I have things I am good at and like somewhat like business and math more then most subjects, I have hobbies like weightlifting, but I can’t think of ways to choose a career that will be challenging, interesting, and pertains to weightlifting while making good money (I don’t care if I make $100 k or $60k or whatever, I just want enough money to be able to support myself and my future family. Money isn’t happiness to me.)
So what I’m really asking is can anybody give me some career choices that fit my criteria that I could do some more research into? Right now im looking at engineering or actuary, but it’s not likely i’ll become an engineer. I’m kind of stressing out about my lack of direction, and I would really appreciate advice.
yeah i wouldn’t stress out about it, alot of people figure it out while they’re already in college. Thats why most places don’t even make you declare a major until the end of your second year.
Hey man, I can relate. I’m 25 and I’m just now starting to truly realize what type of career I want to begin working towards. I went to college for 3 years and never could settle into any type of major. So, I left and came back home to sorta get my feet back underneath me.
I say all this because I want ya to know that’s it’s okay to take your time figuring this all out. I mean, unless you have a wife and kid(s), you’re free to explore any avenue you want.
You say you don’t have anything that you truly “love” doing right now. That’s cool. Like I said, I’m just now discovering a new direction for myself and it’s all thanks to a desire to become a more fit individual. A year ago, I realized I was bad outta shape and started working out.
Well, I began to want to learn more and more about personal fitness. It’s grown into something that I love to explore and try to understand better. That’s what will make any career you choose successful, a desire to learn and grow.
So, stop stressin’. Go off to college and go on some adventures. Try some things out that you have even just the slightest interest in. Who knows…maybe that’ll be the thing that ignites that spark in you that makes ya say “Yes! THIS is what I wanna go after!” and go after it man.
Whether it be aerospace engineering, weightlifting, or ballroom dancing for that matter, if you find you have a passion for it, you’ll enjoy it and find a way to earn a living doing it.
I agree with Angry Chicken, you’d better start making explicit what it is that you want from life. WRITE IT DOWN, even if it is not a career choice, write down everything.
Make a four column list, negotiable/non-negotiable wants and negotiable/non-negotiable don’t wants.
Then write out everything that you want in life, everything that you want in life but can do without. Even if it is impossible or ridiculous write it down.
Then write out all the shit that you don’t want but can put up with and everything that is an absolute deal breaker.
The point here is to purge yourself of the things that will make you ambiguous and therefore slow to act. Life choices are going to come to you in little ways while you are in college and you must be ready to jump in whole heartedly regardless of whether you are working at the student store, at your first internship or getting high with your friends in the dorm room after finals. This is a filter that will tell you what is right for you or is right for someone else.
That last thing you want to do after a few weeks of thinking hard about what’s important to you (not your coach, not your friends, not your parents just you) You must distill all your thoughts into either an ethic or principle or a long-term/short-term goal.
Finally revisit your list every 3 months and revise it to fit your new place in life. See what you have accomplished, still need to work on and realized what is crap.
[quote]HolyMacaroni wrote:
get you college degree and go be an officer in the military. hell go be an engineer if you want.
great money, great times, great training, and certainly more responsibility than you could get at that age in the civilian world
plus you get to shoot guns and make things go boom.
if you don’t like it you can get out in a few years and have a sweet mark on your resume.[/quote]
HolyMac the recruiter: Makes promises and never keeps them :P!
Speaking of which, i am currently enrolled in a university to become an engineer and i am seriously contemplating going rotp.
It does look like a sweet deal but i’m not quite sure that the engineering they do in the army is “real” engineering as much as it is maintenance and administration.
I’m an engineer to pay the bills - I defintely don’t love it but I’m doing better money wise than most of my non-engineer friends I went to college with (and way better than most of my friends from high school that wondered aimlessly through college with no clear path).
While I agree that it would be fun to take some time in college and figure out what you want to do there are 2 issues I have with that: 1) the more time you waste in college the more you will pay later (college isn’t free and everyone you borrow money from does want it back) and 2) taking a class or classes on a subject doesn’t translate well to the real world, internships and the like do, and you don’t usually get those until after your 3rd year or so in a major (after 2nd year if you are lucky), and oh yeah - most engineering internship pay upwards of $20/hour (depending on how far along in school you are, location, ect.).
I’ll say this: money doesn’t buy you happiness - but it doesn’t hurt either. Most of the engineers I know don’t love their jobs, but we do love the money we get paid and the flexibility with our work schedules that allow us to do the things we acutally love.
Most hobbies aren’t free (and the good ones aren’t even cheap) and once the bills are paid it’s nice to be able to have the money around to do what you want. One other thing to think about: engineering is one of the highest paying fields that only requires a B.S.
HolyMac the recruiter: Makes promises and never keeps them :P!
Speaking of which, i am currently enrolled in a university to become an engineer and i am seriously contemplating going rotp.
It does look like a sweet deal but i’m not quite sure that the engineering they do in the army is “real” engineering as much as it is maintenance and administration.[/quote]
I was/am friends with a couple of guys I went to school with who were in Airforce ROTC in college (we were all engineers). Their biggest complaints were: 1) at graduation time hearing what the non-ROTC guys were going to be making didn’t make them very happy knowing that they would be making a significant amount less (they claimed this was true even when I brought up that they would have many things paid for that I would have to pay for out of pocket) and 2) getting the location they wanted after graduation - all of the other engineers got to pick and choose where they would live based on locations of job offers, they on the other hand submitted a request and uncle sam decided where they would go (and most of them didn’t get 1st or 2nd pick).
One of them is a procurement engineer (he claimed he was going to get to order missels) but I can’t remember what the rest of them do.
endocrinologist… by the time you get done your schooling, all the broskis will be lining up to get TRT. You’ll make plenty of money, it’s challenging and interesting. If you want to play with the business side you could always start your own practice.
If you like the maths, be an engineer homey. Or, it’s a bit risky, but if you like math and business you can go in for Econ/Finance. Here’s the thing about econ and finance though, the range of skill you develop varies greatly. Some people go in, push themselves to the limit, pile on all the hardest classes (usually very difficult math classes) and come out with a useful knowledge. A lot of people go in and dick around, then graduate with the bare minimum of math classes and think they know something. Most jobs are happy to tell them they don’t. The math you use in econ/finance is typically multivariable calc, stats, and at the higher end of mathematical modeling you use a good bit of matrix algebra. If you can dig it, do it.
Pick the field of engineering you are interested in (mechanical, electrical, civil, construction, etc)
Pick a college where you can within 1-2 years become an engineering-technician in that field with the option of upgrading to a full bachelor’s degree at a university thereafter.
Work in that field as an eng-tech and make money while you decide whether or not you’d like to go for the full-on engineering degree, or if you like your job as a tech and your low, quickly-paid-off student loans.
Alternatively, you can decide that you hate the field you’re in and pick something else, saving yourself the tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loans you’d have spent on an engineering degree to only come to the same conclusion.
I majored in English, the subject that almost made me not graduate high school on time. If you told me I’d major in English when I was a senior in high school I would have laughed in your face. Keep in mind, this was all after going to a school of about 500 in New Hampshire to major in Air Traffic Control/Aviation Management - hated it. I went to this school because my guidance counselor made it seem like that if I didn’t know what I wanted to do when I graduated high school at the ripe old age of 17 I wouldn’t be able to find a job. Took a year off. Moved back to CT with my parents to figure out what I wanted to do-I didn’t. Went back to school part, then full-time, at a teachers college in New Hampshire. I would have never seen this coming, and no one on a body building website would have been able to tell me either.
I recommend you go to a larger school with a diverse range of majors, take some classes, and see what you like.
ROTC scholarship. Then go to medical school, again letting the military pay for it, then get some great experience and have some fun, again at the expense of the military. then get out, make great money, work three days a week, and spend your copious amounts of money on the things you love to do. the guy who suggested endocrinology is right on the money (pun intended).
my son is in ROTC right now. he won’t do the med school route,but because he is in the National Guard at the same time as ROTC, he has more money than he knows what to do with, gets all his school paid for, has more fun doing cool shit than any other kids his age, just bought a rockin’ Buell Firebolt…shit, what could be better.
Do ROTC, study hard. They will pay your way to just about any graduate school you can think of. Med school, engineering, whatever.
[quote]waldo21212 wrote:
I’m an engineer to pay the bills - I defintely don’t love it but I’m doing better money wise than most of my non-engineer friends I went to college with (and way better than most of my friends from high school that wondered aimlessly through college with no clear path).
[/quote]
This is good advice. Alot of others are saying to find what you love to do and run with it, but be careful, this doesn’t work for everyone. Some people, probably most people, realize they need a certain amount of money to live, and nothing they “love to do” will provide that amount of money. Perhaps you’re one of the lucky ones that can make a living doing something you love, but make sure you know the difference. Really do your research on specific career fields.
HolyMac the recruiter: Makes promises and never keeps them :P!
Speaking of which, i am currently enrolled in a university to become an engineer and i am seriously contemplating going rotp.
It does look like a sweet deal but i’m not quite sure that the engineering they do in the army is “real” engineering as much as it is maintenance and administration.[/quote]
I was/am friends with a couple of guys I went to school with who were in Airforce ROTC in college (we were all engineers). Their biggest complaints were: 1) at graduation time hearing what the non-ROTC guys were going to be making didn’t make them very happy knowing that they would be making a significant amount less (they claimed this was true even when I brought up that they would have many things paid for that I would have to pay for out of pocket) and 2) getting the location they wanted after graduation - all of the other engineers got to pick and choose where they would live based on locations of job offers, they on the other hand submitted a request and uncle sam decided where they would go (and most of them didn’t get 1st or 2nd pick).[/quote]
The thing is, the average salary of an engineer (starting out) is about 55k a year. That is your starting salary as an “engineer” (more like manager) in the army.
I am really torn on this.