I naively thought that when I finished my undergraduate degree I would set off on the path to my career, paving the way as I went. Granted, I shouldn't be too hard on myself for thinking such a thing, as it's only been a year - even though I would've told you then that I knew better. However I would've also told you throughout my five years of working towards my bachelor's degree, that I would never want back into the academic world. Wrong. I didn't even make it a full year before wishing I could crawl back into the educational womb, all safe and cozy, and free to develop - whatever that means...
This job search coming right after only my 23rd birthday has had me thinking. Okay, everything always has me thinking...this job search has made me wonder even further than being bored in my work over the last few months, what am I gonna do...for forever?
I have been blessed to be the kind of person who is happy to do lots of things, though I also know when there are things I really don't like doing. For instance, sales. I won't sell something I don't fully believe in, and I don't fully believe in a lot of things. Talking on the phone, I really don't like it but in a work environment it's fine. I don't mind boring tasks, but if that's my day-in-day-out I'll go crazy. I need people, I need dynamic environments. Writing approximately a million cover letters gets me thinking about my selling points; what about me is desirable to an employer? Which only leads me right back into, what do I want to do?
The biggest thing I learned in the last six months of being bored hanging out with paper, I learned I absolutely need interpersonal interaction in my work. That's what I was made for. I'm an extrovert, and when extroverts spend all day looking at paper behind a desk, it's mysterious but they come home tired. Funny how that works...But it's not just because I enjoy people, though I do. It's because I'm good at it; I've been told, and I can tell. I like helping people, seeing them succeed and grow. I naturally tend toward pointing others to their strengths or gifts. I like to give the insight I have into situations.
In the last year it's really dawned on me, that I would love to go into counseling! Which I've only been unable to commit to due to my previous theories about what I would do with my life, which I'll get to in a bit. So it is that I've pondered this as a possibility, and thought if there were something I'd actually enjoy going back to school for it would be to study people and how to help them, so that I could help people for a living! What a concept!
Freshman year of high school, we were required to take a class called WINGS (Winning Info For Ninth Grade Students - oh acronyms!) that was geared toward helping us strategically move toward our careers through our education. We took an aptitude test - and I remember things like it said I should be a truck driver because I said I liked driving, though I didn't even have a permit yet. Then we had to research and present on a career we would pursue out of our list. I chose Writer. Throughout high school, I went from wanting to be a writer, to wanting to be a photographer, to wanting to be a journalist. Turns out I studied all of those things in my college career.
Then there became the dream. Somewhere in college, probably after I realized I'm not ambitious enough for a reporting career - although my brain holds fiercely fast to some very random facts, when this dream was birthed I don't quite know - I realized I want to start a magazine. This dream is still in the forefront of most of my decisions about a career path, but the steps to get there are almost completely unknown. It's also never been something I plan to make a lot of money off of; in fact I doubt it'd have many employees, and hopefully run off of donations.
Which sort of leads to yet another graduate school option: Nonprofit Management. Not only would it be helpful in starting essentially my own nonprofit, but if I didn't it would be a foot in the door to other jobs.
And then there's communications. Essentially, maybe the most logical choice given my career goal of starting a magazine, but also another wise choice regardless of if that dream comes to fruition. I've thought I could also use this to go into something such as business consulting.
Being someone who doesn't really enjoy academia, I find myself at quite an impasse when it comes to strategically moving forward in my career. Also for being someone who's not typically very ambitious, I'm surprisingly thinking about how to do something bigger than I want to let myself realize. Which doesn't make sense, probably, to anyone but me...
So I'm torn. Unemployment has only further highlighted the issue. Take yet just another something to keep paying off the student debt I already have, and for the roof over my head, the food in my belly, etc. Or wait for something that actually moves me along. Which is difficult to do when I don't know exactly where I'm moving along to. Life's little conundrums, you know.
