after high school

[grunty]

just curious, what do you think you will end up doing after high school. will you go to college, now almost everyone says it but be truthfull.

me - i goin into the military. i just don't know which branch, army navy, airforce, marines.

[Rilla]

I'm going to Uni to study music. I hope, anyway...

[Squirt]

I'm going to go overseas for a little bit, then go to uni, study two years of arts, get sick of it, transfer to a different degree, graduate and then nothing until I can work out what I'm going to do next. Wait, I've already done that ;D

[grunty]

hmmm. it seems we're all going to Uni. wait, uni is short for university, and unic...and unicycle and unipolitopolbaterian.

[Wh|te Fyre]

planning to got to uni and do something! Hey, I have 3 years!

[Kaylan-R]

im planning on going to TAFE, then Uni, then go to Finland for a while, then come back to australia and start my carrer as a writer/poet/philosopher/ military/opera singer.

Interesting

[Squirt]

Military opera Singer eh? SOunds interesting

[Kaylan-R]

i mean be in teh military and the opera singer. Though i suppose
i could sing to my enemies and freak them out:P

[grunty]

alright, this is getting too bad, i can't stand it anymore, PULL OUT

[Min]

Well, I've been out of high school for *counts...on both hands*
...lets just say "many years".
I first thought I was going to do a Science degree. I got fed up with that after a year and a half, and ended up going to Britain for a year backpacking.

Only a couple of years until my 10-year reunion...if someone organises it...knowing Stanthorpe, they won't

Grunty, you know you will probably be sent to war, right?

[scruffy]

I finished high school 10 years ago (which means next year I have to start counting on my toes!)

What I thought I wanted to do at the end of high school was nothing like what i wanted three years later... I was only just 17 when I finished school (I turned 17 on the last day of school!), and I had "always wanted" to do science. So, I went to uni, and did science. My grand plan was "go to uni, study science, do honours, get a PhD and go on to become a great researcher, discover something fantastic, get married, have a family and become a role model for all women demonstrating that you CAN have an amazing career in science, have a family and still be sane, sophisticated and well dressed at the end of it". I think I should be up to the "discover something fantastic" stage, and probably getting married.

The only snag was that sometime towards the end of my honours year, I began to realise that i hated research. I didn't beleive this of course, because it was what i had always wanted to do. SO i stuck at it. at the end of the year, I started working in a research lab, and I still hated it. I still didn't beleive it. Then, I started a PhD. And I hated it. And I didn't beleive it, so I kept at it. After 2 and 1/2 years, I down graded to a Masters. I was now *really* hating it, and what was more disturbing was that I was starting to not like myself...

So, I left science and went to work in retail. I got to be a Manager at a Harvey Norman store (cool) - only took me 12 months! here was something that I was MUCH better at thabn science. Only.... I hated it. I mean, parts of it were fun, and i was good at it... but I hated it.

So, last year I decided to go back to uni, and set about applying to get into Medicine. I also got married (which I hadn't planned on doing until AFTER I had made a career)

Now I am doing Medicine at uni with students who were 11 when I finished high school (which is scary). It's not what I "always wanted" to do. But it's the first time I've done something which I haven't hated.

I guess the point of this strange ramble is that sometimes what you "always wanted" to do isn't what you should be doing. And sometimes you need to take some wrong paths before you find the right one.

(that's what i tell myself, anyway )

[grunty]

its like me and computers, i'm really good, but i hate the living crap out of it.

and yea, i realize that mindy

[Min]

sometimes what you "always wanted" to do isn't what you should be doing. And sometimes you need to take some wrong paths before you find the right one.

Scruffy - I'll drink to that!!
Very wise words!!

[grunty]

wait five years, i can't drink yet

[Min]

If you lived in Oz, you'd only have to wait 2 years

[Siryn]

min said:

sometimes what you "always wanted" to do isn't what you should be doing. And sometimes you need to take some wrong paths before you find the right one.

Scruffy - I'll drink to that!!
Very wise words!!

i really wanted to be a Astronaught!! or a Astronomer, either way.

i finished high school -Lud knows how. then i tried and tried to get into uni, eventually getting in with 'special entry' and Learning Dissability' i stayed for a while and i thought "nah, i'll try this later"

thats when i became one of those 'Uni Dropouts' !!!

i bummed around the house for a while doing small jobs to earn cash, then i started working for IDSC and am a carer for people with intellectual dissabilities and im also an SSO in a lovely little primary school.

[Min]

You wanted to be an astronomer? So did I! That's why I got into the Science degree in the first place, doing physics and math and all that fun stuff (it wasn't until second year that we actually got to do an astronomy subject at UQ, but it was worth the wait for that subject at least!).

I'm glad that I didn't go through with it though. Documentaries make out astronomy to be so exciting, but I guess most of the times like all other research-y type science arenas that you're looking through catalogues at existing stuff for years on end.

Anyway Siryn, I reckon you're where you should be at the moment you're happy there, right?
There's always room to become an ameteur astronomer. That's what I tell myself I am now it's far more exciting.

[Elspeth]

I always wanted to be a writer when I left secondary school, but I realised that it's incredibly difficult to just step out of your last exam and suddenly be able to make a living from writing. So I did an Arts degree with a major in Professional Writing instead. It was probably one of the most boring things I've ever done. In fact, I left after three years with half a semester to go and I didn't finish that until last year. I'm glad I did, but I only ended up finishing the degree so I could do post-graduate study in library sciences eventually.

After a while (about five years ago), I started thinking about jobs that involved books, as I thought they'd inspire me to keep writing. I settled on libraries and went to TAFE to study a two-year Diploma of Library and Information Services. At present, I'm working in a secondary school library as a library technician, although I'm thinking about doing post-graduate study so I can become a librarian.

I still want to be a writer, but I can be incredibly lazy about that...

I think you know when you're on the right track with things, as with the good Scruffy eventually realising she hated study. Even though writing can be hard, I haven't given up on it and I haven't started hating it. So maybe I'll eventually realise that dream of making a living from my writing.

[scruffy]

hehehe... It's comforting to know I'm not the only one out there who's had to where lots of different hats before finding one that fits (AND looks stylish... *twirls in stylish hat*

i've gone trhough lots of stages of wanting to write full time... But I just can't seem to motivate myself to keep on with it all. I have such a disgustingly short attention span - I think that if I ever managed to finish a book, it would probably be the kind I wouldn't want to read!

And so like Min says - we can all become amatuer writers and astronomers and once we have made our fortunes (or inherited them or married into them or discovered how to exist without any money) we can give up our boring mundane lives and spend the rest of our existence writing Pulizter prize winning novels and discovering new stars.

[Cat-Eyes]

Well, after I finish high school what I'd really like to do is go to Denmark for a half year year 13 exchange (because our school year ends in December and in the Northern Hemisphere it ends in july we can finish year 12 here and then go finish high school in a northern hemisphere country as well). I'd like to get into vet science or medicine, I can't decide whcih one and havinmg just had the week from hell and not got exceptionally good marks i'm freaking out.

[Lix]

scruffy said:

I got to be a Manager at a Harvey Norman store (cool) - only took me 12 months!

i cracked up when i read that. i know im feeling my age when my idea of doing soemthing crazy on my birthday is driving out to michael harvey's place to check it out because his dad is so rich and famous. shame i dont know where gerry harvey lives!!

anyway back on the subject i never knew what i wanted to do when i was at high school, ooh cept be a french teacher. But yeah my mum pushed me into doing tourism instead and here i am with a degree doing administration for a construction company. blah. if degrees didn't cost so much id go back to uni and become a teacher

[Dark One]

When i was at school i wanted to do engineering, but a weeks work experience put me off that. I then did the first year of an HND course in electronics, but left after a year cos i couldn't keep up with the maths. I then did a computer course and eventually got an IT job.

I always wanted to be an astronaut though, and i still plan to go into space one day (if i can afford it)

[Swallow]

When i grow up i wanna be.... hang on, i'm 21 this year, isn't that grown up?? *laughs hard and long* I know, of course not.

Well, when i was little, i always loved the idea of astronomy, and i still do, but realised quickly that it wasn't the science of it that was appealing, it was the stories. I love gathering stories on how stars are made. So i suppose if i ever wanted to go into science the best area for me would be geology (considering every geology prac i ever did i aced doesn't hurt either). That's all about stories. About looking at rocks and wondering what story each rock holds and hence the whole story of the planet.

except i always found geology extremely boring.

i love collecting stories, i like writing my own, but i find it fascinating to find out stories of others. So i tried my hand at journalism, and that didn't work so well. It doesn't mesh with my personality.

And now... well, i've set my sights on the UK and buming about Europe for two years at least after i've finished this degree. I've got this dual citizenship i need to do something with. Might as well use it to pull beers in a pub on the other side of the world.

It always seemed like the end of year 12 would mark this amazing step, that the world would suddenly fall into place and everything would be okay. But it seems i only just passed one step and realised i have approx. 62 more years to fill. And somehow i have to get money in the meantime.... kinda scary, but kinda fun...

[Arien]

I have....absolutely no idea
Since I was little, and still now, I've always wanted to do something in the arts area- either painting, drawing, something creative like that..now it's turned kinda to fashion design, since I think that'd be really fun But, gah, I jus don't know. There are so many choices, how am I supposed to pick only one without trying out everything?! Of course, I can't try every job out there, but I'd like to at least have a go at some different things before I decide on what I want to do.

[Squirt]

One of my best friends is studying fashion design, she loves it!