How Do You Know What Career To Choose?
Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 at
9:26 pm
I am going to be a senior in High School and i am having second thoughts about what i want to do. I thought about Interior design for a very long time and I really do love it but I’m not sure that I want to do this the rest of my life. I haven’t taken a lot of math and science courses in High School so it’s too late to start now. Can you give me advice?? Here are my interests:
interior design
acting
makeup
orthodontics
author?
working with movies
Tagged with: Career • Choose • Know • What
Filed under: Orthodontics School
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First, interior design is not that bad of a career choice. Maybe you could mix it with the fact that you seem the like the film or stage and do something with set design (it’s far more important that most people realize)
The author path is an interesting one, but very competative (As is the acting). A good thing about this would be, if you intend on going to college, you could create a fallback by majoring in education with an emphasis in some sort of English (thereby getting you a job that is less competative when you graduate since the world is always in need of a teacher). Also, to go with the fact that you like acting, many authors sell their books to movie studios and have bit parts in the films (Stan Lee (I know comic book, but I count it), Stephen King (repeatedly), Stephanie Meyer (it makes me sick to even think the name))
Orthodontics is a great one, if you manage to stick it through to the end of your schooling and the intern work that will follow. It’s a good one for someone to go into, but I hear that the classes are brutal.
In the end, the choice is yours and the only thing that you can hope to get is advice.
First take the test one, to find out what kind of person you are, and then take test number two. It should help you figure it out. Also, look inside you, and around you. What are you good at? What do you love? What do you hate? What makes you happy? What can you see your self doing every day for the next 50 year pulse? Remember plans change, life happens, roads change. Enjoy life, make the most of it.
Good luck,
Josh
Log into the following website: http://www.oswego.edu/plsi/
Click on the link on the left “Take the PLSI”
#1. Download a scoring sheet. Then click on the link in #2 to take the PLSI. There are forty questions. Put each answer in the appropriate space on the scoring sheet then follow the instructions to complete the score. You should get a four letter score (ie. ENFJ) When you have your score, click on the link to the detailed description (not the brief description) with the title of your personality character (ie. Champion, teacher, provider, etc)
http://www.careertest.net/cgi-bin/q.pl
It is not unusual to be uncertain about what you want to do with your life, and it is okay to be undecided. One thing that may make you feel better is knowing that many people who start in one career, end up changing jobs and careers. I originally decided I wanted to be a veterinarian in high school, I ended up (happily) as a teacher, My husband has been a bouncer, a cook, a paramedic, run his own security firm, and is now a safety director with a construction firm. And I can almost guarantee that he will change jobs again within a few years.
Try to think about it this way. Did you have a favorite pair of shoes when you were in 6th grade? At the time they looked great, felt great, and fit perfectly. What would happen if you tried to put those shoes on today? Even IF they fit- you have changed, and what you like now probably isn’t exactly the same as what you liked then.
Does that mean that as a 6th grader you should have chosen the shoes you call your favorites now? Of course not. They wouldn’t have fit you back then- and you probably would have felt miserable trying to make yourself wear them all in the hopes that you would SOMEDAY grow to like them.
If you really enjoy working in interior design- give it a shot. You could try getting a summer job in the field, and see if actually doing the job makes you happy. Don’t worry so obsessively over the future that you don’t give yourself a chance to do what you love today.
On another note- Just because you did not take a lot of math and science in high school does not shut you out from any jobs requiring them. There are good community colleges in most neighborhoods that could address any deficits in learning you feel you have. So don’t rule something out just because you haven’t been trained for it. It is never too late, barring your death bed, to learn something new.
Good luck!