Current Events > How did you decide what to do for your career?

(+) Yeah! (+)

I need to hear other peoples' rationales that led to your decision :>?

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My career is doing nothing. One day I got sick of working in a cubicle, so I stopped working and stayed home instead

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i picked my first major - chemical engineering - at my parents' suggestion due to my performance in hs chemistry (and my father's actively discouraging me from pursuing a career in software development, having retired as outsourcing really took off)

but i was working on hobby software projects when i should have been studying in college so i changed my major to computer science and stuck with that career path

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"Hey, I could make good money doing this"

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I picked the tallest shiniest building in town, demanded to see who was in charge, told them "wrong bitch it's me" then peed on the floor and mounted them to assert my dominance.

And that is how I became the CEO of Turtle Wax.

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I bumblefucked my way in, as I am wont to do.

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After years of CE telling me that anyone with an IQ under 130 is going to flip burgers I decided to accept my fate

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Im 37 and i still havent decided lol

Ive had the same job for 12 years now......but to me a job and a career are two completely different things.

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I still dont know. Its not a career, i just have kind of a tech job and worked as a computer tech before. My hobbies (music, programming) and what i studied (economics, management) are completely different to what i do. I want to switch to programming as a job but i feel like the competition is too stiff and the learning curve/knowledge level required are too steep/high in the fields im interested in (C++ development) and i dont wanna be just another website-building coder.

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DarthTyrannus83 posted...

I still dont know. Its not a career, i just have kind of a tech job and worked as a computer tech before. My hobbies (music, programming) and what i studied (economics, management) are completely different to what i do. I want to switch to programming as a job but i feel like the competition is too stiff and the learning curve/knowledge level required are too steep/high in the fields im interested in (C++ development) and i dont wanna be just another website-building coder.

I used to be an executive recruiter at a tech agency, and I'm confident that if you have certain skills and just a little bit of experience (including passion projects) you can get your foot in the door fairly easily. I've seen people get 90k+ jobs without that much experience. Tech jobs are aplenty

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I got sick of working at Busch Gardens from getting yelled at by stupid guests and my superiors so I said F this and walked off my job. Found a job cleaning lab animal cages and never looked back. I don't deal with people at all and I get paid over 20 bux an hour to do it. I've been here for 14 years now, I'll keep doing it until they fire me or I retire.

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Joker98 posted...

I used to be an executive recruiter at a tech agency, and I'm confident that if you have certain skills and just a little bit of experience (including passion projects) you can get your foot in the door fairly easily. I've seen people get 90k+ jobs without that much experience. Tech jobs are aplenty

Hey, thanks for input. What holds me back is seeing people like my teachers or advanced programmers with all these math backgrounds that have been in it since childhood and feeling like a johhny-come-late to the party that can never possibly catch up.

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Chemistry interested me since I was a kid, so that was my major in college at first

After a few semesters I realised that it wasn't quite mathematical enough for me, so I switched to ChemEng and never looked back. I'm not in a career yet though; still doing my MSc
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I have a hard on for keeping people alive. Particularly old people

I don't know why. I don't even like people

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Been a barman most of my life and I'm not even particularly good at it.

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Forgettable posted...

I picked a direction and went down that path and now I've got a terrible case of sunk cost fallacy.

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I have a shitty job that I hate that doesnt pay anywhere near enough, stresses me the fuck out, and makes me deeply unhappy.

have to pay bills somehow

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I'll let you know if I ever decide on a career.

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I didn't know what I wanted to do after high school - knew I didn't have the discipline or grades to get into a decent college.

So I joined the military, chose a job that focused on a skill I was interested in (languages).

Recently started going to college for GIS.

I figured that once I retire if I need to I can just get a job doing something similar to what I've done in the military, but with my degree and maybe a certification or two I can branch out from the military-industrial complex and get a more meaningful job working in environmental and sustainability studies. Just trying to maximize options. Plus my dad was a scientist, and while I'm not following in his footsteps specifically I still think it's meaningful to return to the roots a little bit.

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I went after salary. I didn't go after title/job prestige that so many people make the mistake of doing. You have to know yourself, realize what you're capable of, and work towards achieving your goal. A lot also has to do with being at the right place, at the right time. I busted ass, but I was also very lucky and seized opportunities the moment they presented themselves.

Who knew you could make six figures delivering bread. If I knew that back in High School, I would have pursued it more aggressively immediately after graduating. There are many, similarly unremarkable jobs out there like this in the world, and you just have to go search.

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College professor suggested it.

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I found an office that someone left unattended. I sat at the desk, the phone rang and I answered it. Some guy named Elliot lost his job because he used profanity with a customer. I applied for the job, got it, and lock my office door when I leave the room.

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