How did you end up in your career?

[les]

With the recent job-related talk, I thought it would be interesting to hear about how all of you ended up in your particular professions. What led you to your current field/occupation/job?

[les]

I previously worked in the technology sector, first in the military, then as a civilian. I made a career switch to nursing in my mid-twenties after much introspection. I found my current job through the hospital's website as an internal applicant.

ETA: I work in a surgical unit with a wide variety of cases (trauma, bariatric, plastic, GI, thoracic, vascular, etc.). I love the excitement, fast pace, and unpredictability. The only downside is working weekends and holidays. I don't know if I will stay in this specialty or transition to another when I become an APRN. 

[Deleted]

I double majored in history and business. My plan initially was to work on the business side of a museum, but those positions are very hard to come by. I ended up working for a state agency and working in public accounting is a good fit. I tried teaching for a few years, but it was a disaster, so I moved into accounting at a school, which was great! It was a nice blend for me. I wanted to end up at a university as my next step, but struggled to get into one, so went to another state agency. I'm now at a university and hope to stay in university accounting.

[mbcdefg]

I graduated with a journalism degree. I thought I wanted to be a reporter but as the years went on I realized that I enjoy editing much more. 

I started out as a web editor for a newspaper, posting stuff to the website and proofreading the newspaper before it went out every week. I liked the work but it didn't pay much and had no room to advance so I moved on to doing PR for a private high school, which turned out to be a mistake. I got hired as a copy editor for a magazine after that, and I loved the work but hated the people - they treated me like garbage and unexpectedly fired me one day. Dealt with a few months' unemployment until I found a contract job as a technical writer for a couple of years. I took old electronics manuals from the military and coded them into XML language - basically taking something like a big thick truck radio instruction manual from the 1950s-70s (scanned as a crappy PDF) and converting it so that it could be loaded onto a handheld smart device. Contract ended and I connected with a recruiting agency.

I got another contract job for a medical website as an editorial assistant, where I just did whatever they needed ... took notes at meetings, proofreading, organizing office supply orders, etc. Loved the job and the people, but they could only keep me for a year. The recruiter then set me up with a publishing company as a technical writer after that - very boring and unorganized, but at least the people weren't jerks. Both those jobs were in NYC - I don't miss the commute. 

I don't remember where I found the ad for my current job, but I'm now the editor of a science-related magazine. I post news stories online, get experts to write articles for us, edit and put together our print magazine, talk to people at trade shows, and I also do some writing myself. 

[ddi741]

I was doing accounting at the time, the company I worked for was implementing a new system and needed someone to act as a liason between the users and the developers for a few of the areas (project accounting and HR). They asked me to do it and I never looked back. I never enjoyed accounting but thought I was stuck (that is what my degree was in and I had no interest in going back to school).
I did basically the same job at my next company and added user support and training as well. At my current job I do a little of all of that.

[krisim]

Didn't know what I wanted to do with my life, so I decided to become a career counselor!  

[jinkies]

Majored in Communications with a specialization in Public Relations.

First job was in the PR department at a hospital. I wore a lot of hats, and found that PR was my least favorite part of the job.

I have stayed in the non-profit world doing communications. I've found that in non-profits at least, this tends to be a "catch all" position-- proofing, editing, creating marketing materials, working on newsletters and publications, writing web copy. My last job I also handled advocacy, email campaigns and web updates.

I am currently in the publications department at a non-profit, where I work primarily on their peer-reviewed journal, but also contribute to their membership magazine.

I landed here because it aligned with my skill set, was part time (which I wanted), and is local to me.

[dr.girlfriend]

I wanted to become a journalist a la "Murphy Brown," but the (Ivy League) college I got into had journalism in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, and I decided it would be easier to change majors if I was in the School of Arts and Sciences instead. I had one bobo high school class in Psychology and I liked it, so I picked it as a major. I liked it enough to want to do grad school, but then in grad school I got a part-time job in a subfield that I really loved. Now I'm in that specialty field (I don't like to say what it is on the board because it's pretty identifying).

[hamster]

I was a good writer, so I went to school to be a reporter.
Turns out I"m shy, so I switched to PR because I was too far along to justify leaving the J-school.
Ironically, got a job as a reporter.
Paper shut down, got a job at a magazine as an assistant editor.
Hated my job, took on marketing type tasks at the company to make me hate life less.
Loved marketing.
Found job doing just marketing!

[cjeanette]

I took a temp job 10 years ago and fell into a career.

[Deleted]

I ended up choosing business in college, because i didn't know what else to pick. I majored in finance because I enjoyed it the most and found it easy.

I got my first job in risk management, which was just luck as I'd applied for lots of different jobs. I stayed in the field. It pays well and is low stress.

[Deleted]

I don't know if I can say "ended up" anymore, since I keep landing in different careers! Who knows what's next, haha.

I majored in psychology and went to grad school for Organizational psych, with the idea of working in HR. That wasn't the best path since I learned a ton of stuff that I will never use, but whatever. I got a job out of grad school working for an educational testing company doing survey research and working on an assessment that helps identify places to intervene with students who are struggling in psychosocial areas in school (family support, motivation, initiative, etc). That was interesting, but the actual work I was doing was not quite right for me. Too much sitting at a desk and working on the back end of things rather than actually DOING the things the tests allowed others to do.

So I moved to HR within the same company. I worked in training and loved it, then got moved to the recruiting area to do some reporting and program management (NOT recruiting, just all the stuff surrounding it). I ended up laid off about a year later, and got a temp job basically as an appointment setter in recruiting. I tried to get another HR job somewhere else, but nothing happened there.

I finally found a job working on curriculum at a university in the medical program. I think a lot of the stuff I've done previously has prepared me for the job - there are HR aspects to it, some training, program management, even things like assessment and data management. It's nothing like what I thought I'd be doing and time will tell if this is a new career or just a stop along the way. I still think training is a good fit for me, and I will get to do some of that in this job. Looking toward the future, I'd like to stay working in a university and/or non-profit and be involved in education and training, but IDK what exactly that will look like.

[StJess80]

When I was 17 or so, a friend said there was an opening at the library where she worked, so I applied for it. It's 17 years later and I've never left the library since.

[drloretta]

I took a science writing course during my Postdoc From Hell and decided I wanted to do that in some capacity. I wrote letters to all the local biotechs (back before email etc) and one of them took a chance on me. I've been doing some sort of science writing ever since

[winnied]

Since my teens I've been interested in politics. I went to a college with a great poli sci program, interned, and have worked in politics my entire career. I'm specifically in HR now, which I got into because they needed it in the organization and I transitioned from being an EA to that. I wanted to get into something that could translate into other industries in case I ever got tired of politics or H and I moved somewhere else where I couldn't find political work.

[Deleted]

I was a psych major. Senior year I visited a bunch of schools to apply for my PhD in psychology. I really love psych but realized that I wasn't really in to research. I decided to volunteer at a hospital because I was always interested in healthcare. I loved it and decided I wanted to go to med school.

The following few years I worked in the mental health field and took my prereqs for med school.

How I specifically decided to be an obgyn was a process of elimination. I had no interest in it prior to school, but I fell in love with surgery after my surgical rotation. Obgyn combines the surgical aspects that I love with the patient continuity. I think I eventually just want to practice gyn and/or work in the non profit sector.

[Deleted]

I started college in a nursing program and then I realized I'm an asshole. Business it is...I belong behind a desk. I've had enough management, finance, and accounting positions to realize that it's what I do best.

I also considered majoring funeral services, but it seems like a soul sucking career.

[irene adler]

I went to school for PR. I wanted to plan events.
Got a job in the theatre's costume shop. Because I was not an actor, I got a lot of hours (no rehearsals with which to contend) and a lot of training/experience.
One job lead to another to another to another to grad school.
Got my current job when I was burned out/on the verge of a nervous breakdown with working professionally/moving every six months. I'm a sucker for academia stability.

Then I got bored and started doing side jobs. So now I work with brides/bodybuilders and teach spin as well.

[purpleminion]

I started out by working in a very different, higher stress field that I originally had gone to school for. I worked in that field for a few years and, after some soul searching, decided on teaching instead. Best move I ever made. Well, except for the pay. I took a 50% pay cut. But my quality of life is much, much better now.

[Deleted]

My only ever dream was being a high school English teacher (ever since I was in high school myself). I majored in secondary English education, then moved across the country when my home state had a negative population growth for several years and pretty much no jobs.

I taught high school English for 5 years, and was an adjunct at a community college for 2. I loved teaching, but the quality of life was bad as I was working about 70 hours per week and was making $34,000 (pay was frozen there). I burnt out big time, and wanted to teach full-time at the community college but they only wanted adjuncts (cheap labor).

I left teaching and pursued literally anything that paid more and worked me less. The job I found was pretty cool, Patient Care Coordinator for a surgeon at a teaching hospital. I booked his surgeries and basically ran his office, and learned A LOT of crazy, cool medical stuff.

Then we moved back to our home state, and I found a job as the Executive Assistant to a (crazy) university Dean. I was fired 5 months in, and I had a major period of anxiety over what to do with myself next.

Luckily, in February I was hired to work in Training & Development at the headquarters of an international company. I'm using my degree, and I am really interested in what I do. I think this is my new calling in life, and hopefully my roller coaster ride is over for a while!

[Velvetshady]

I double majored in Management and Marketing (with enough credits to minor in English but my Business school didn't allow minors outside of the program) and thought I was going to go into management consulting. Started in that field, got loaned to a project in an office next to a marketing manager for another group. She pulled me in to help with vs things including doing proposals, managing a website, creating brochures, running a global conference, pulling together am industry survey, editing a book, writing speeches. Turned out I was really good at the proposals and editing and when she ran out of funds to cover me, she reached out to a colleague in our Govt group that ran the marketing group. So 19+ years later, I'm still managing proposals. I didn't even know this was a career option when I was in school but it fits my majors and skills sets well.

[StJess80]

May 5, 2015 13:16:50 GMT -5 papiercherri said:

I started college in a nursing program and then I realized I'm an asshole. Business it is...I belong behind a desk. I've had enough management, finance, and accounting positions to realize that it's what I do best.

I also considered majoring funeral services, but it seems like a soul sucking career.

I work in a library and have found I am best at public services and I am a HUGE asshole.

[v]

I just always wanted to be a lawyer.

Judgment is not my strong suit.

[pinkdutchtulips]

Bc law school didn't turn out the way I wanted it to

[crashgizmo]

I am an executive director of a education reform focused non-profit org.


I majored in political science and criminology and was planned to go into public sector law. Applied to law school, took the LSATs, and decided to take a year off to save money. My mom worked for a non profit and said there was an hourly opening in the fundraising department. I didn't know fundraising, but I knew people after working in the restaurant biz for years. So applied and probably got the job because of my mom. I was there two years with two promotions and then started getting headhunted all over the place (the field is very specialized that I wandered into.)

12 years later, I never made it to law school. I am blissfully happy, most of the time, and make more money with less SL's than my first aspiration of public sector law. No regrets chicken.

[Marmee]

I was bored in HS geometry class so I started using my protractors, rulers, compass to draw floor plans. I got really interested in that & I asked someone (probably my parents) the name of the person that designs houses. I seriously did not know a single one (grew up in small town) or even the name. I did a career day that year & went around with likely about the only Architect in a 30mile radius. I knew from then on (I was 15). I have not really wavered since & that was 25yrs ago. I have put it on hold most of the last 11yrs though to be at home with my kids.

[UnderProtest]

I birthed two children? Oh wait, you mean a career where I actually got paid money instead of screams? I actually was an accounting major and fell into tax work. I hated it but then there ended up being an independence conflict with my job and my husband's job. I ended up having to leave that job and was able to use internal recruiting to find a new job within the same company (they wouldn't have otherwise helped me as they could never fill the tax jobs). It was just fate that I ended up in a role that suited me much better with people who actually acted like human beings. And then I left all that to stay home with kids. What is wrong with me??!!

[krystee]

I majored in English and journalism. I freelanced for a major newspaper and found out my shyness made interviewing terribly painful. Plus the salaries are terrible. I decided to take some PR courses and get an internship in that area. I interned for a nonprofit and Fortune 50 and liked both. Both made offers and I took the Fortune 50. My job was a lot less interesting than the internship was so when the nonprofit asked again, I accepted. I have been there ever since and I love that I get to wear a ton of hats, from crisis comm and social media to media relations and executive communications. Prior to taking this role, I also did editing and proofreading of our member publications. If anything happens with this job to where I need a new role, I've thought about freelancing doing executive communications (speeches, articles, presentations, etc.) for nonprofits.

[Alex]

Business Administration in college. Applied with the federal government straight out of college. Started in the mailroom. 15 years later and I'm in Senior Leadership. Same department and business line.

[sarapocalypse]

Majored in Mass Communication/Communication Studies intending to go into Journalism. Decided I didn't want to go the reporter route so I changed my focus to general and took a combination of journalism and PR classes. Graduated and got a job as a recruiter at a staffing firm. Decent job for being straight out of college but I definitely did not enjoy it. Plus I had a ridiculous commute so I quickly looked for something else. Many of the writing/editing jobs where I lived at the time were military related so I took an online technical writing course and applied for jobs with different defense contractors. Landed a great technical writer job writing stuff for the Navy. After a couple of years, I decided I wanted to move to North Carolina so I applied for jobs like crazy and got my current job. It's been an excellent fit so far! I do enough writing to keep me entertained but I am branching out a good bit too, which will hopefully help lead me to something equally awesome down the road.