What do you want to be when you grow up??

[Min]

Because I have no idea.
I feel like crap at the moment because I just had this discussion with Paul and feel like I'm wasting my life trying different things when I have no idea what I want to be. So is it better to think about it seriously, try study as much as you can and get it right the first time, or jump from career choice to career choice? There are some things that I'd love to do but if I choose that path, I'll have to drop everything else and focus on it - which I don't want to do - that's railroading oneself for a disaster!

Anyway, I want to know what you guys want to be, and how you came to that decisions.

[Bobbi]

ooo interesting! first some advice. dont waste your time on something you dont like doing just coz its safe. do what you want to do, you only live once!!! and most of the time the things you love doing are the things youre best at!!! but i dont think anyone should be really set on a career really early on. how can you know what youl ike and what youre good at if you dont experiment?? but at the same time its good to have soem idea of where you think youre going

well i absolutly cannot talk, 1, becuase i havnt even left school yet and 2, because up until a week ago i had no idea what i wanted to do. i mean NO idea at all...it was really quite scary coz theyre asking us to do all this descision making that will affect what we do for the rest of our live sand i had NO idea!!! yes so anyway.... before i get to carried away....ive decided i want to be an interior designer/architect.

i wonder how long that one will last......

[Marija]

Argh!! I WISH I knew... I feel the same in many ways. Although I'm in a psychology degree, I have NO idea what I want to be doing. I don't think psyc is what I want but I only have one more year to go so I may as well finish it off...
But I worry about not having had any 'insight' into what I want to do. Lol! If only we could live in the days of childhood where it seemed so easy to know =P

[Clare]

Does anyone else find themselves insanely jealous of people with enough drive, ambition and focus to have chosen a path and cause for the next ten years of their life? All these people with direction! I'm currently in my second year of an arts degree, majoring in archaeology... which is just fine and dandy... but I know quite well that I'm simply not competitive enough when compared to those who have chosen the subject because it is their life's passion.

And believe me, passion is a requisite of archaeology... what else would drive people to spend their daily hours in pursuit of a task that neither benifets mankind nor offers reasonable employment?

It's a complete mystery to me. How can anyone spend their life fussing over whether three slightly-notched arrowheads are representative of a cultural movement and some suspected battle that was recorded on some monument that has since been destroyed but now its existance is attested to only by a paragraph in some ancient source? How can anyone justify the time and resources spent in destroying the past in order to preserve it?

And does anyone else find that it doesn't matter what they chose... whatever they're doing they'll always want to be doing something else? Sometimes I like to pretend that I'm going to write a novel but I know that if I were to quit uni and start writing proffesionally that I'd start disliking that too. I wonder what I'd start pursuing next?

A lifetime in a supermarket?

[Elspeth]

Good grief, Clare, no! You can't spend your life in the supermarket... not unless you plain to at least become the manager one day and spend all your time at work sitting in the chocolate aisle gorging yourself silly.

I think you said it best when you said "whatever you're doing, you'll always want to be doing something else." Right now, I'd rather be at home, writing.
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Dammit, I had a point, but I lost it. Excuse me while I go and check Cinbin's sword...
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Back to Min's original question: I want to be a writer and I came to that decision at a very early stage, after I realised I enjoyed writing stories. As I got older, I realised that it wouldn't be as easy as I'd like it to be and that I'd better have some sort of back-up occupation. I chose to work in a library because I figured I'd be surrounded by books and could have a long, hard look at the opposition. Oh, and I'd be able to buy food and other reasonably essential items as I worked my way up to my ultimate goal.

[Lix]

taller!

[Dameon]

I want to be a writer too, Buneater!!!
They say it's really hard to succeed as a writer, but I think I will because I'm absolutely determined to do it. Because of my Illness, I don't have much passion or drive to do anything. The only thing that really enthuses me, and the only thing I'm really deeply passionate about is writing. So if nothing else is able to give me that sort of enthusiasm, then writing must be the thing for me, surely?

I love the work I do now. (For those not in the know, I work with kids, mostly kids with social problems, and I teach them to cope through drama and writing.) It's absolutely the best First Job anyone could ever stumble blindly onto! I wouldn't mind doing it for ever, as long as I could write as well.

Without Uni, my life would already be pretty much as I want it! (Except that I want to be a PUBLISHED AUTHOR)

If I EVER get a novel published, I'm going to throw a party. And ya'll will be invited, because Ober.net peeps have always been really helpful and supportive of me and my work!

Buneater and I can be Writers together. We might have to live together in the same shoe box, but at least we know we have the same ambition!

KSL

[brydie]

i never want to grow up.


but then...I really want to finish school...

[Min]

Thanks for all your responses, they're really insightful (even Lix's "taller" lol).

Buneater - you're totally braver and more driven than I am! *gives Buneater a gold star of respect*

Clare - I totally hear you. I studied geology for the most of my uni career (I've never completed my science degree but there's still time *shrugs*), and did an archeology elective. One of the first things lecturers said to the geology first years was "Out of all of you, only one will get a job in this field" - so either there's not enough jobs, or it was a way for the lecturers to make those not really interested in the subject drop it to make the class smaller (or both?). It's a load of bullocks. My three best friends from the geol classes, Matt, Kaia and Tony, all ended up in the field - Matt works for the QLD museum's Palaentology department, Kaia got a geol-driven job in Adelaide and Tony works for BHP as an enviro scientist.
But while I enjoyed all the different things about geol - the way the earth's made up, seismology, palaentology, all of that - I can't imagine doing it for my entire life.
Though I recommend to everyone to finish their degrees (Maria, Clare, etc)!!! - most employers only want to see that you had the conviction to sit through 3+ years of uni.

I guess when it comes down to it my mum was right - "Every brilliant job will in the end just become a job"...

I'm just a bit scared. I love the idea of becoming a games designer, and I'm exploring it a little with my traineeship - but when it comes down to it, I just love the creativity side of anything. That's why I do all this web and java stuff...I dunno if it comes to the crunch, I'm always qualified to teach piano...(tucks that option into the drawers for the old crazy cat lady days).

[Glynnavyre]

I remeber when I did a Semeester of Social Science at UQLD I hated the compulsory subjects but started to pick out the electives I liked to concenrate on them... I'd just come out of school and was under the delusion that to have a career I needed to go to uni and get a degree... I started to tell my parents that I would be swapping subjects because I had a real like for Anthropology and Linguistics... The question they came back at me with was "That's a fine and good but what sort of jobs do they lead to and how easy are those jobs to come by??"

It was a real wake up call and a couple of weeks later I quit Uni and didn't even finish the semester! I was not going to go to Uni just for the sake of it and decided that I needed time away from study to find my life's passion (all this with the support of my parents)

It took me another 6 months of working two dead end jobs to realise that my passion was Australian Rules Football (of ALL things!) an area of my life that I have loved for many years and I thought "I can work in football! - I don't know how but I'll try anything"

Now three years after leaving school with that same pit of your stomach aching feeling of unknowing I work in football with AFL Queensland as a development officer... I'm a few months off finishing my Dipolma of Sports Development, I'm am VERY involved in Football in my local community and My life is moving forward in leaps and bounds... All this from a girl who study majority Arts subjects at school and was top of grade in Drama! Nobody would now believe I'm now back at my High School running football Clinics!

Min... You and I are of similar age and I can see just though your posts that your determined to find whatever it is calling your name. That in itself puts you ahead of many and I would think gives your hope for the future...

Thats my little story (although I make it out to seem easier then it was) but everything does work out in the end... Just enjoy where you are now, cause you never know what might happen tomorrow!

(That last bit was cheesey but... oh well )

[Min]

Glynna, your job sounds AWESOME and it sounds like you have some real determination behind you!! OMG, you'd get on so well with my friend Amie...she LOVES AFL we definately need to have a Brisbane meet!

Nah, wasn't cheezy was great. The only thing stopping me from picking one path is the fear that I'll railroad myself - along with the fear that it'll be taken away from me and I'll be left jobless! ...I'm interested in so many things I'm not sure what'll be right for me...but you're right, I just need to have fun now, enjoy my 20's and see what comes along - right?

[Glynnavyre]

RIGHT!!! ;D

[Elspeth]

Thanks for the gold star, Min! I'm going to take it to decorate the shoe box that Kayt and I will be living in. I only hope there'll be room enough for our computers, or we'll never become writers...

I'm really enjoying this thread. The posts are lengthy and articulate and are really making me think. Thank-you to everyone who has posted so far. You're all pretty damn inspiring!

(Kayt, can I have a cat in the shoe box? I'll settle for a small frog, if not.)

[Glynnavyre]

It's fun to have to opportunity to share a little of our lives away from ober.net...

I've only been on here a few weeks but I was tempted to start a thread to find out what is everybodies day jobs, but I thought that was a little too intrusive!

Tis interesting to share stories and get a greater picture of someone... esp. in their own words! ;D

[Dameon]

Sure, I think there'll be room for a dog, a cat, two computers and two starving authors in one shoe box. We'll probably be all thin and straggly anyway, so we won't take up much room.

*feels guilty talking about how poor she and Buneater will be while everyone else is feeling so inspired*

Oh well, we can be poor AND passionate!!!

KSL

[Bobbi]

nah! you guys will be great!!! kayt have u entered the writing comp?? any poetry?? coz im judging that!!

*feels important*

[Arien]

i dunno what i want to be...
something interesting that i like doing. otherwise i'll get bored and want to change jobs all the time..

[Elspethseeker]

Umm i have swiched a lot but right now since i am really artistic i am looking into design. Like interior and/or landscaping. Put my talents to use and seems like fun. but i am not to sure it may change yet again. ;D

[Elspethseeker]

Oh I forgot i also would like to try writing a book sometime in my life and get it published no big hit of a book.

[Arien]

do you like drawing and stuff?? that's cool, me too
I'd quite like interior design or something...
oo, i know! I wanna work in a theatre restaurant!

[Glynnavyre]

PE... Did you want to be the theatre or the resturant?!?

[Elspethseeker]

Oooo. sounds really cool! i absolutly love to draw and all that! i also am really good in shop and draft well.

[Arien]

Glynnavyre said:

PE... Did you want to be the theatre or the resturant?!?

lol!!! ;D
i wanna work IN one!! dressed up and stuff!! ;D that'd be fun

[Glynnavyre]

The theatre bit.... NOOOW I get it...

I love this smiley... !

[Elondriel]

Min, i totally relate to everything you said.
What do i want to be? I wish i knew.
I've changed ideas soooo many times.
So, when i finished yr 12 (back in 2000, i feel so old) i applied to study a fashion design course and took along my major work (a self- designed, pattened, beaded, embroidered dress and tulled under skirt like what Queen Elizabeth would have worn when she was 16 - i love it) It took 1` year to do and when i took it along the lady interviewing for the uni totally ripped it to peices (there is no way it can be faulted, i'm not exagerating but it is like 95% perfect) and ruined my dreams of studying for my dream job.

So i went o.s. for a year and when i came back i began studying a Bachelor of astronomy and space science but left after the first semester cause it just wasn't for me. and like others have said previously, there is no point in continuing if u don't like it.
So now i'm studying a bachelor of Arts - sociology, i really like it and my current plan is to finish the course at the end of 2005, 2006 go back and finish my psychology degree (which i am doing now too) and then do a dip ed (so i can casual teach whilst i raise a family) But i don't want to be a teacher.

Min, like yourself, i love heaps of things and i fear that i will get bored with whatever profession i choose to do, hence my wide studying now, so i can always switch.
The only problem now that i have finally decided what i want to be is that at the beginning of the year my uni cancelled my course on me. I fought them all the way and i think i am the only person still allowed to do it

If you want something bad enough, fight for it!

It took me soooo long to deide what i wanted to do that i wasn't going to lie down and let them take away 1.5 years of study. I am in constant battle with them and will be till i finish but it will be worth it in the end!

And as for my original dream, well i got a sewing machine for my 21 and am begining to design a kool coat. If i get bored of everything else then i can turn to that.