Did you end up in the career that you planned for , or did it just sort of happen?

fastfredracing · 10-20-2010, 11:32 AM

Just thinking today about how events played out and how I ended up where I am today. It is surely not how I pictured my life turning out when I was in high school or college..
I really had little interest in what I am doing now, until after high school graduation. I planned on going to college, and went for a few semmesters, but I found that I did not enjoy school, and really enjoyed fixing things and as I got a little older I realized that is what I was programmed to do, plus the thought of sitting in an office all day really repulsed me.

flatbutt · 10-20-2010, 11:39 AM

well my planned career led to the one I have now. does that count?

Zeke · 10-20-2010, 11:46 AM

Working on cars, race cars, working for race teams and a guy comes along and gets me a job doing fiberglass (pretty much my specialty at the race shops) on the Queen Mary when it came to Long Beach to become a hotel and tourist attraction. They put me in the painters' union because it was a closed shop (illegal in CA) and that was the closest fit.

Became a union painter w/o having to serve the apprenticeship, so was making journeyman's wages in my mid 20's. That's good money. Been in construction ever since moving thru the trades as fast as I could pick them up. Ultimately became a carpenter and general contractor. That took about 10 years.

Nope, no one in the family has been in construction and I went to college studying English, then marketing.

So, yeah, way different than what my parents had in mind (being a suit). But, when they divorced mid college, I was left to finish up what I could on my own. So, going from being way underpaid at race shops to making a middle class income overnight did capture my attention.

I wasn't cut out to be suit anyway.

peppy · 10-20-2010, 11:47 AM

Yeah, pretty much what I wanted.

stomachmonkey · 10-20-2010, 11:55 AM

No, yes, although one indirectly led directly to the other.

BeyGon · 10-20-2010, 11:57 AM

I worked as a carpenter summers in high school and for a couple years after I graduated. When I got back and out of the Marines I met some old friends that were Surveryors, I liked the hours and the fact in was always on the ground. So I became one. Through that I got to work in Mexico, Colorado, Alaska and California. It's been good to me.

GH85Carrera · GH85Carrera's Garage

Sorta kinda. I was always into photography. I got my first job while sitting in my math class as a junior in high school. The professional photographer that the school hired to shoot pictures for the yearbook hired me because I had taken the majority of his business from him. I worked in the commercial photography business for many years. Digital changes everything and I was lucky enough to get a job in aerial photography. Now I make photographic aerial maps.

Hard-Deck · 10-20-2010, 12:08 PM

My former planned career morphed into what I do now.

legion · 10-20-2010, 12:21 PM

Went to college to study finance--I wanted to learn the secrets to getting rich quick.

I learned that there is no secret to getting rich quick, and many more end up broke than end up set for life by making risky bets in the stock market.

Junior year I gave in to my destiny and added a second major in computer programming. (Father worked for IBM when I was a kid and had been in IT his whole life.)

Graduated in 2000 at the height of the Dot Com boom, and entertained offers in both finance and IT.

The finance offers were along the lines of we will pay you peanuts + commission for the first decade and if and only if you don't wash out will you start to make reasonable money, with an even smaller shot at the big bucks. It's all based on the sales book you can build from walk-ins and cold calls--all of the existing customers go to the experienced brokers. Or I could be a market analyst, in which case you make peanuts without commision until you make some wild ass guess that happens to come true and you get booked on finance talk shows, write a book, and generally try to sound like you understand some deep secrets no one else does.

The IT offers were big bucks and generous benefits now, without the outrageous topside potential of the finance stuff. (And I pretty much guessed I wouldn't be in the .001% that made it big in finance.)

Seahawk · 10-20-2010, 12:26 PM

Snapper can probably relate.

I wanted to serve, preferably fly, in the Navy. I was going to be a two tours and out guy. My rational was that your are only young once: I thought I'd go live it and catch up with my peers later.

Life, as they say, happens.

Worked out that I stayed considerably longer...

Owning my own business now has been, oddly, a natural transition, a nice evolution, as much a result of planning as happenstance.

Dantilla · 10-20-2010, 12:31 PM

I still haven't decided what I want to be when I grow up.

I've been pretty good at acting on opportunity that arises.

GH85Carrera · GH85Carrera's Garage

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dantilla

I still haven't decided what I want to be when I grow up.

I've been pretty good at acting on opportunity that arises.

I never said I grew up. It's never too late for a happy childhood.

masraum · 10-20-2010, 01:01 PM

Well, I'm sort of in the same general direction, but I took a circuitous route to get here.

Out of HS, I was thinking Elec Eng, but I didn't know why really. I thought that since I was good at math and science, that it sounded like the most interesting direction that was lucrative. I didn't actually know what was out there and what I wanted to do, so I didn't apply myself. I quit college and went to work at a retail auto parts store. I was really good at it and advanced quickly, but soon realized that retail was a HORRIBLE option. I moved to Texas after meeting my wife. I still didn't have a clue, but my wife knew some folks and got me into the bar business. I bartended at topless bars for about 5 years. After about 3 years of that I realized that it was an OK job, but not the career for me. By then, I'd noticed the Microsoft certifications and was generally a geek so I started studying Microsoft stuff and got my foot in the door at an entry level position in a call center helping your average idiot get on the Internet. From there, I fell into the position that I'm in now. I'm a network engineer. I don't really work with PCs other than as tools to help me work with Cisco gear, firewalls, Voice over IP, routers, switches, etc.... I really enjoy what I do, and a Comp Sci or Comp Eng degree which is really close to an EE would have gotten me here, but I didn't go that route, because I just didn't know what I wanted to do.

A930Rocket · 10-20-2010, 01:13 PM

I had no idea what I wanted to do after high school. Went to college for a few semesters, then worked for several years at stupid jobs, realized I needed a degree and went back to college to get a degree in mgt. After I graduated, I didn't know what I want to do then either, but had a friend in residential construction. Since I like the outdoors and working with my hands, I went there. It was good until 2-3 years ago. Now I wish I might have taken a different path...

KFC911 · 01:15 PM

Like Steve, I too had exceptional apptitude in math,logic, etc. and arbitrarily picked computer science as my major in college way back when (stating I would change majors if I didn't like it). I was VERY good at it, thrived, and really enjoyed my career for years (only regret, I was hitched to BIG corps due to my niche) and then the corporate bs got old...30 years later, I've changed majors

Burnin' oil · 10-20-2010, 01:17 PM

Under my high school senior picture I stated my career goal, which is what I am now doing. But, when I was in college I modified the plan, intending to follow my original plans but then segue into a completely different occupation. That segue is a little tougher than I anticipated - too many kids, too much personal overhead. . . .

azasadny · azasadny's Garage

It...just...happened...

Hard-Deck · 10-20-2010, 01:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Seahawk

Snapper can probably relate.

I certainly can Seahawk. I was going to serve long enough to get time to be an airline pilot. Got out in 2000 to pursue that....it sucked, 9/11 happened, joined the Army doing something different than flying and I LOVE it.

I'm set up to run my own business when I retire like you as a Colonel and I can afford then to take the risks.

Sure didn't plan my life to be this way but I love it!

stevepaa · 10-20-2010, 01:48 PM

I wanted to be a rocket enginer since grade school, now I are one.

For many years I was doing explosives work with solid rockets, more fun and challenges than you can imagine.

jyl · jyl's Garage

I got my BA in math and thought I'd go on to PhD and then academics. In my last year of college I realized that I was spending 8 hours straight in a chainlink carrel 6 floors underground in Doe library working on math problems. I'd emerge disoriented, no idea if it was day or night, having spoken to no-one all day. I didn't like that. Directionless, I took the GMAT and LSAT and went to law school because that score was higher. So law was an accidental career, though it turned out well. After a decade I realized that the older lawyers weren't very happy people, that I was spending more time on billing and chasing business than on actual lawyering, and I didn't like that. So I took a year off and then went to business school. My goal was to get into investment management, which happened. So this career is somewhat less accidental. I hope to have a third career before I die but can't really think of one right now.