How did you find your career path/help me please!

GoingNowhere

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#1
Just what the question says...

I've been searching internships for the past 2 hours and feel like I'm just flailing in the ocean. I really don't have a clue what I want to do (am currently taking pre-vet prerequisites and double majoring, but want to consider other options - possibly some not so "hands on" with animals). Last summer was fun and a great learning experience, but it made me realize that I absolutely do NOT want to work on a farm/with hours like that. I don't want to say that it killed my passion, but it definitely left me feeling a bit sick of horses. Of course, two months out of it and I'm re-obsessed, but I don't want to pursue a career that immerses me so much into my hobby that it becomes "work" and is no longer fun.

There are so many choices and I don't have a clue where to begin. I love the sciences and math. I love to write as well, but can see myself hating writing for deadlines. I was fascinated by my anatomy class even though brute memorization of names isn't something that I excel at. Genetics is fascinating and I think I'd find nutrition pretty intriguing as well although I didn't enjoy my professor's teaching style when I took the class. So without further ado, how did you land in the job that you have? Does it relate to your college major? Do you like it? Do you recommend turning a hobby/passion into a career?

And of course, I'm open to any ideas that might fuel a search so I don't feel so 'out in the open.' I do know that I want to interact with people on a daily basis, have relatively regular daytime hours (no more 2 AM ultrasounding please!), earn enough to live comfortably, and do something that requires me to think (ideally a job that requires a degree). I will be earning a dual degree with a BS in Animal Science and a BS in Psychology and possibly a minor in Chemistry. But I don't have a clue where to go from here if I decide not to pursue vet school.
 

JessLough

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#2
I haven't started in a career or anything yet, but...

I think work/career and hobby should be kept separate. My original plan was to do vet tech and then work to vet. After a semester, I quickly realized that I would wear myself out. At the end of a long day of working with animals, I couldn't come home and just ignore my animals if I was tired. I had to do stuff with my animals, which just, after working with animals all day, started feeling like... well... work.

I think a career should be something you enjoy doing, and something that allows you to do your hobby, but that is separate from your hobby.
 

Laurelin

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#3
I stumbled into my job. I needed something stable pretty bad at the time. Knew someone that liked being a geotech and new the industry was big around here and that they paid decently. So I applied a few places. It was my first offer and I jumped on it.

It does and doesn't relate to my major. It is a science based job but I have a math degree. I'm actually using it on this current project looking at some rates but most the time it's data management and administrative assistant type stuff.

I like it a lot most days. There's a lot to do and enough varying tasks to keep me entertained. My teammates are most the time pretty good. The stability is also very nice.

I can not turn my passion into a career. It kills my passion. I much much prefer working on something sort of interesting to me and then leaving my hobbies as my hobbies.

I may or may not go back to school but I see myself sticking with the industry either way. I plan on being at my current job for quite a while though.
 

yoko

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#4
Add me to the stumbled on to it.

I never wanted to work with people at all nor am I anywhere close to loving style. But I started working for my company and fell in love with my team and the company itself and can't see myself changing any time soon.

I do still love animals and I do help friends out with basic commands and basic clicker training and getting the dogs house trained for a few bucks. But every time I've tried to do a job with something I love I just started hating it...

So right now I think I'm going to stay where I am and love it :D

Just don't ignore something. Sometimes you stumble onto a good thing
 

joce

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#5
I think if you turn your hobby into your career eventually you don't enjoy it as much(see this with horses so often!). And generally other than vet it does not pay well.

I looked at it as work is work and not happy fun time and I worked out how much I needed to make to have the lifestyle I wanted. I then looked at those careers and which school was shortest/cheapest/most available. Might not sound so romantic and great with people doing what they love all day blah blah but I make good money and can afford all of my many hobbies.

I think my psych nursing fits me. Love psychology and I really like to help our patients.

I wish I could have been a horse trainer or barn manager if money wasn't involved. Boarded dogs to. My horses dont expect me up at 5am like work does. I love them for it!
 

Southpaw

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#6
I think it depends on the person and perhaps the hobby, whether or not it's a good idea to turn your hobby into a career. Although being a vet tech may not have been the perfect fit for me, it was not because I decided I didn't want to work with animals - I LOVED working with animals. And it did not make spending time with my own pets seem like a chore. Not at all. I'd still come home and hang with my dogs, or happily help other people trim their dogs nails or (attempt to) express anal glands. Maybe the difference for me was that the things I was doing at work, were not things that I typically did with my own pets on a regular basis (restraining, drawing blood and whatnot).So it didn't feel like an extension of work, because it really wasn't the same. And plus my pets are just way more awesome than most of the ones I would see at work :p

But that is all I have to offer on this subject, because I am still stumbling trying to figure out what to do with myself. I can't even think of things that interest me.
 

CaliTerp07

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#7
I think the best way to figure out what you should do is to try stuff out, just like you're doing. Every job teaches you something about what you do or don't like, or what you can/can't handle.

I started out as a mechanical engineering major in college, because I was good at math and physics and didn't really know what I should study. I didn't fit in with the other engineers at all, so I transferred to the business school as an information systems (computer science lite) major. Threw on a double major in operations management (optimization), because it had a lot of math in it. I graduated with multiple job offers in my lap, all in the IT consulting world. All offering lots of money. I took one.

Managed for 2 years before I came to terms with the fact that it made me miserable. I needed to see a larger purpose to what I did, and "save the military money by designing a more efficient procurement system" wasn't cutting it. I was fortunate to be married to someone who does find fulfillment in such things (he too is an IT consultant), so I had the flexibility to look at lesser paying jobs. I went back to school on the weekends while working full time during the week. 2 years later, I graduated with a degree in secondary math education.

I'm now in my second year of teaching 8th grade algebra. It is a ton of work (I spend at least 10 hours over the three day weekend lesson planning and grading), but it is so rewarding to me. I love that my efforts directly impact peoples' lives. I, personally, needed a career where I could see that impact daily.
 

Beanie

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#8
I love that my efforts directly impact peoples' lives. I, personally, needed a career where I could see that impact daily.
Same goes for me. This is why I love whenever I get to work as a dog trainer so much. It's emotionally fulfilling rather than emotionally DRAINING like working at the radio station was... I actually looked into getting a degree in kinesiology not that long ago with the idea of becoming a sports PT or something, because that's something else I have a passion for and I love the idea of being able to help people... but unless I quit my job I couldn't do it because I could only take about half the required classes at night/weekend/online. =/
But not everybody is like that. It's an important component of a job I want to have. Everybody has different criteria for what is important in a job.
I agree you just need to try some stuff out and explore more... find out what KIND of job you like rather than just such and such job. That will lead you down a path where you'll see what kind of stuff you'd like to do.

Personally I don't mind mixing my hobbies with my work because they don't overlap seamlessly. Like graphic design trips my creative circuits but it's not illustration which is where my heart is. I get to use illustration in my designs sometimes but it's not the same kind of illustration I would be doing on my own. Training dogs is like that too, I find teaching other people how to train their dogs is not the same as training my own dogs. The former is working with people and teaching a skill rather than... well, teaching a dog LOL. I think if you can find something you enjoy and are passionate about and yet it's not exactly the same, like it's in that general field but is not a duplicate of what you would do in your leisure time, that can work.
 

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