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Last week we talked about the difference between a career and a job and several good points were brought up. A few people said that a career is a profession you’re in, for example, marketing. Whereas a job is the different jobs you hold over the years in that profession. For example, someone could have a career in marketing but hold several different marketing jobs at different companies over the course of 10 years.
So this week, let’s talk about how our thoughts/ideas on how our careers have changed over the years.
As most of you know, I am currently in my fourth year of university working my way towards my journalism degree. I entered this program thinking I probably wanted to be a reporter at a newspaper, I’m going to be leaving the program in six months knowing that’s not what I want to do at all.
I was given an amazing opportunity to work at a PR/Marketing agency during my time in school and now I know that the PR side of things is the way to go for me. I still love writing and still do - and plan to continue - freelance writing on the side but I don’t see myself as a newspaper journalist anymore.
Ask me again in five years what I’m doing and what I want to be doing and I bet I’ll have changed my mind again and possibly doing something completely different. I think that’s part of having a career, it grows, changes and adapts as we do.
Lots of people do complete 360 career changes in their lifetime. When me and my mom went to that spa retreat back in June, one of our spa therapists told us that she used to be a biochemical engineer! After doing that for six years she was too stressed out and decided she wanted a less intense job. Talk about a major career change!
So, today in the comments, tell me about your career and if it has changed over the years. Has anybody done a complete career 360? What’s your opinion on career changes?
Don’t forget to check back for my replies to your comments and to leave replies on other comments. We’re having a meeting after all!
{ 35 comments… read them below or add one }
When I went to school I majored in Fashion/Design and thought I wanted to be a buyer. I quickly found out that I cannot sit at a desk. I wanted to be out in the field doing the movin’ and shakin’
Sometimes I wonder if I’ll be able to handle a desk job forever. It can be mentally exhausting to stare at a computer for 8+ hours every day!
Originally I enrolled at uni to study Physics because I love it. It’s what I’m passionate about. I just love it. I intended to do follow it with a masters in Forensics and go into that as a career. But (long story short) I failed the physics. Twice. So I decided to try Religious Studies, with no idea as to what I was going to do with it. I did some translation work whilst at uni, because I’m bilingual, but I HATED it. I was offered a job in translation after graduation, but I knew that I couldn’t take it - translation depresses me.
Now, I’m going into teaching English as a foreign language. So far, I love it. Do I intend to do it for the rest of my life? Hell no. I may try translation again at some point (the money is GREAT - that’s it’s lure), but I’d also love to try writing - I don’t know any specifics yet, but it’s an option.
My biggest hope, however is to somehow get back to studying physics - even if I never use it professionally and despite the fact that I no longer want to go into Forensic Science.
So, yeah, things have changed. 360? Honestly, I can’t judge, because it happened so fluidly and organically.
My opinon on career changes depends on the person - some people *know* what they want to do, they love it when they’re doing it and don’t really want to change it. If that’s the case then I think that a career change is unneccessary. Personally, I need to have the possibility of career change - it gives me the courage to try new things and mix things up because I know that I can always change things again. For me, my career is best defined by the Oxford English dictionary as a “course or progress through life” (From Wikipedia), and I can’t restrict that to one profession or area. Yet. That may change.
That’s a great point, Sarah. Knowing that a career change is a POSSIBILITY probably does give people the courage to try new things and then they might find something they really love.
I think the only problem that I have with career changes is people who go from one career to another their ENTIRE lives and never seem to be happy with it.
But I also think that as WE change our ideas about what we want to do change with us!
I majored in Enlgish and History in college. After graduating I did marketing for a casino, now I do research and work with a small business innovation and research program for a national government agency. I’m looking to transition out of that and hopefully go back to school in the next several months to obtain my library science degree. I’m pretty much all over the place, I want to do what makes me happy and doesn’t require me devoting my entire life to work.
My granfather worked for the same company for over 40 years doing the same thing every day. I can’t do that. My opinion of career change is great. I’ve had friends with MBA’s who left their lucrative high paying careers to go be flight attendants or leave teaching careers to go back to school to become a vet. Peoples dreams and desires change over time so I think that changing careers is a very natural process.
SO cool you are going back for your library science degree. I always thought that would be super interesting.
I definitely don’t see myself at the same company for the rest of my life, but the same area/focus, I do see myself sticking with. We’ll see though, like you said our dreams and desires change over time!
i entered college with the idea that i’d work in advertising (but they didn’t clearly have a major for that - so it was advertising photography) as i got into it, it was more like they were teaching me to be a photographer, I wanted to work with photography, but not be a photographer. I found a different major that allowed me to work with print. Switched over. Graduated on time. Out of college-did web design for my dad’s company. worked for a printing company that worked solely on ads. and also interned at redbook. But i wasn’t happy in nyc. So i moved back to the DC area & about 3 months of looking. I got a job working for a non profit publishing company doing layouts & stuff. what i wanted, but my god it was mundane, hardly any creative stuff. But i was good at it.
I stayed there for almost 3 years. I’m at a different company doing layouts and stuff, more creative. But truthfully, i loved my old boss, this boss just doesn’t compare! it pays so-so. it’s a corporation, so it’s like i’m just a little person in a huge company. i know i don’t want to be solely a graphic designer anymore. I actually enjoy all the traffic management stuff — but there’s no room for that here. So i’m not sure what i’m going to do next. I couldn’t go back to school cuz i change my mind often enough, and i truly feel like you have the capabilities to learn things on the job, and that’s what’s pretty much happened to me. The only thing that helped me get the job i have now was the fact i had a bachelor’s degree, and some skills, but a lot of the stuff, I learned directly on the job. so hopefully i’ll find a different place to work at & be doing more than just laying out stuff.
I think you indirectly brought up a point that I never thought of when you said you liked your old boss way better than your new one. I think that we can have very similar jobs at similar companies but the people we work with can make or break the deal. I know a lot of the reason I enjoy my current job so much is because of the people I am working with!
Oh my…I am the queen of changing my mind when it comes to careers! I started out with a plan to study music when I went to university, then decided to focus on business. In my first year I decided to major in Nutritional Sciences, and after 3 years of that I realized how uncertain it was that I would get a dietetic internship/job, and decided to get an accounting diploma while I figured out what I really want to do. I flirted with the idea of completing a degree in business/CGA designation…but I’m really not an accountant at heart.
I’m back at having no idea what I want to do. All I know so far is that I would like to finish my Nutrition degree (for myself - no idea if I want to use it as a career), am interested in personal trainer certification, and really enjoy plugging away at my little blog. I’m sort of an amateur everything and professional nothing.
I have toyed with the nutritionist/personal trainer idea a lot myself. I think when I’m done school and working full-time I may get certified to be a fitness instructor on the side. We’ll see, that’s definitely something I could see myself doing and loving, though!
I was always one of those people who never knew what they wanted to do. I transferred colleges, changed majors and finally ended up with a degree in an Ecology/Agriculture related field. I started my masters in Horticulture but then realized in an internship that it was absolutely NOT what I wanted to do. So I dropped out of grad school rather than to go more into debt for a degree I knew I didn’t want. I’ve jumped around through a series of office type jobs…none were really on track for a career. Oddly enough I’m now in a sales position for a wholesale greenhouse, so I ended up back with the plant thing in a way. Although I’ve been here longer than any job since college (which is only 1.5 years so doesn’t say much), I don’t feel like I’ll stay here for a long time either. Sometimes I think about going back to school for accounting or even something like nutrition or athletic training because that really interests me. I don’t know though. I just wish I could figure out what it is I love to do!
That’s frustrating. You know, sometimes I LOVE my work and the career path I’m on, other times I have moments where I wonder if I’m *really* on the right path and doing the right thing. It’s so up and down! Sometimes I love it and wouldn’t want to be anywhere else, other days (like today) I really do not! Haha
I got my first degree in Christian youth ministry and philosophy. Never knew what I wanted to do, just knew I liked it. Afterwards I got a “summer” job doing medical records at a cancer clinic. After two months I knew I wanted to be a nurse, went back to school, and here I am. It seems a big change, but I consider nursing my ministry and calling.
That’s very cool that you figured out what you wanted to do through your summer job!
a 360? ha, i’ve got one for you. I finished college with a degree in Communication - radio and tv production and thought I would work in a production department at a radio station making commercials and promos. that’s what I really liked. or maybe work at a recording studio as a sound engineer, I was a music major before switching to com.
But the only job I could get was in the management training program at wilson trucking. So I became a truck driver. We’re talking about pulling a pallet jack and driving a forklift on the loading dock, and working my way up to driving 18 wheelers. ha!
i hated that so much that I got married. Then went back to IT school and started working as a programmer and pc technician. So if I can go from radio commercials to truck driving to web nerd, you can make any change you want to as the different opportunities arrive.
and now i can also add half-ironman finisher! what a wild weekend.
Ha, that is a bit of a turnaround! I come from a family of truck drivers so I know what you mean. Truck driver to IT guy is about two 360’s. And congrats on the half-ironman finish, I haven’t made my way over to the race report, yet, but I’m looking forward to reading it!
I have a degree in economics/business but since graduating I’ve worked as a wrangler at a youth ranch, in retail, in the funding department of an automotive financing company, and now I’m working as a medical secretary. I wouldn’t consider any of them “careers” - they’re all just jobs. To me, career is something you’re passionate about - and all of those were more or less jobs to pay the bills! I think I’m too young to have a real “career” anyway …. I like being able to switch to completely different jobs as the opportunities come up
I like that idea, in theory. I think the only problem that I, personally, have with it is that every “job” I’ve had has not been enjoyable for me. So I’ve found that I’m at my job, staring at the clock WILLING the eight-hours to go by.
It is nice to have flexibility, though.
Right now I am trying to figure out what I want to do come spring when I graduate! I have an undergrad degree in english and am doing an education degree right now but I dont think I am ready for real life, so i think I may just work at a camp for a while
I know the feeling. I’m kind-of-sort-of freaking the heck out about graduating. That might be a good topic for another meeting..
I decided I wanted to be a teacher when I was about 16. I was always on the path to teaching, but kept other options open (double major in communications). This is my fourth year teaching and I got my masters so that if I want I can switch to be a reading specialist (same general field, very different job). Some days I think I could do this job forever and others I have to get out right now. There were times last year that my class drove me so crazy I would look at job postings while the kids were at art/gym etc. Not good. I think one year I’ll have a terrible class and really take the plunge into taking a year off to try something else. I actually have a hard time imagining myself doing something else and I think if I was doing something else I’d probably like teaching better- but it still might be nice to have that experience.
Actually that’s a really good point, Kelly. Maybe if we all had to do something different for awhile we would enjoy our current career MORE.
Thoughts, anybody?
I LOVE this topic!!! I didn’t have a chance to respond last week and I wish I had!!
Currently, I don’t find I am in a career. I am holding down a job and while most of them have been similar, they haven’t been in the same field (started out at a non-profit crisis society, worked at a corporate concrete plant, now at a not-for-profit housing corporation).
And I had a hard time figuring out what I want to do “when I grow up”…I did so many different courses in school that I don’t have a degree in ANYTHING just a lot of different classes.
Anyway, I am babbling. I attended a workshop the other day with the HR Advisor for our company (since I assist her 50% of the time) and I had my “AH-HA!” moment where I decided that I KNOW I would like to do HR as a career.
I am working on it in school, but I would love to get myself into a full-time HR position where I can learn more than I am now.
Personally, I would love a job where I stayed with the same company for 10-20 years. I like the comfort of a job and working on something that you have built or you have had input in. My husband is the same way even, he would like to stay at his current job (only with a more steady position) for the rest of his career.
That is what I would like (even though I don’t have the job that I am looking for…what a disappointment would that be if I got it and didn’t enjoy it???) then I guess I would have to change my mind!!
You know, right now I couldn’t imagine staying at a job for a really long time like that, but I’m sure once I’m settled down in ONE city (not flitting back and forth between two) I will want that, too. Your right, knowing that YOU helped build that company up to where it is and have had a part in it’s success for 20 years would be an amazing feeling!
HR is definitely interesting, that’s so great you had your ah-ha moment!!
I really am just starting my career so I haven’t had any major changes yet. however, when I first started college, I was a music major and never planned on doing journalism! then when I switched my major, I never planned on writing for a newspaper either, at least not the news side! I wanted to do magazines, entertainment… I was the editor of my paper’s Arts and Entertainment section. after an internship with a local daily for which I wrote news (but more community features than hard news, but some breaking news…) I realized I COULD do it. but I still didn’t really want to… haha! but then I graduated and had to get a job and there wasn’t much out there, especially in the way of magazines… so when my freelance position at the community weekly I now write for turned into full-time, I had no reason not to accept! I still am hoping to get into magazines and write more features but for now I am pretty happy doing what I’m doing. I know that the residents in my community depend on and look forward to my stories and that what I am doing is worthwhile.
I started working as a teacher in 2004, and immediately began my BA in Psychology. I will be done my BA Honours this Christmas, and plan to apply for my masters in Ed. Psych. Eventually I would like to teach in a University and be a guidance counselor.
It’s early in my career, so hard to tell if I will ever do a 360. Maybe. I did start in operations, though, and now I am in finance, but I think my time in operations helps me be good at finance…
I love my job but there are definitely days where I feel like I could be doing something completely different in 10 years. Like open a bookstore or something.
Or be a Barrista at Starbucks. Because I love my barrista so much and it would be nice to provide something (my caffeine) that is so important to another person. Ha. Being mildly sarcastic here, but some mornings it is kind of life or death until I get that latte!!
If i knew what i wanted to do with my life, i would have a comment. but since i keep changing my mind before i even start something, i’m commentless! lol
Since I’m still in school, I wouldn’t consider my changes career changes yet. But when I started college, I thought I’d want to work in the medical field. One class of Anatomy & Physiology cured me of that! (I hated the science part!) So then I thought about business, because that’s what everyone majored in but it didn’t thrill me. Then I had a friend who was taking teaching classes so I took the 3 pre-req’s I could take and LOVED IT! I spent the next 2.5 years (all the way up to my final internship) thinking I wanted to be a teacher. But I didn’t and had awful, terrible internship experiences and ended up failing my last internship.
So then I switched to journalism, which is where I should’ve been all along. And I hope and pray I didn’t make a bad decision!
I started out in theatre school, but didn’t have the drive to make it happen and after telling people I was an actress while serving them food, hence journalism school. No regrets though.
As you know, I’m in law, and I’m now doing a masters in it as well. I like it, but I don’t know if I LOVE it. And part of me definitely is thinking about whether or not it’s the right thing for me… The only other thing that seems of interest to me would be health/nutrition. BUT the urge to make enough money to feed my spending habits is also very important… So I’ll stick with law for now
I started off as a newspaper writer, then I moved into the copy-editing side of newspapering, then the design side. Then I had children and I do what I can to pick up the most money I can doing editorial work that doesn’t take me from my kids. I do lactation consulting as well. I’ve thought about retraining in something like pharmacy, as newspapering is going through quite a rough patch. But who knows!
I think that this whole topic is one of the fun things about life: we can change our minds and pursue different things. I graduated with a degree in journalism four years ago and have yet to actually have a job in that field. I’ve been ok with it. I’ve had some great jobs. And honestly? I’m not sure I’m looking for a job in that field… but I know I probably will someday.
I love this post! Right now, I’m a junior in college majoring in Marketing and Finance.. and I really have no idea what I want to do. I actually just interviewed for a summer internship today and its scary because the internship I choose for next summer will probably/potentially lead to a full time job after graduation. I’m so not ready to decide where exactly I want to be! It’s nice to read stories of people that have changed their direction/career so much because it gives me faith that even if I don’t pick the right company the first time around I can always change!
I started undergrad as a music education major, planning to be a high school band director. I ended up switching my major to Political Science, still focusing on education (planned to teach government and history).
Got involved in political campaigns in 2004 and 2006 and it became clear that as much as I have the spirit of a teacher (I still tutor and all that jazz), the classroom wasn’t for me. I planned to be a professional political operative, and after about 9 months working for a political campaign realized I could have the job I WANTED and envied of my colleagues a LOT faster if I went to law school than if I just worked my way up.
Now I’m halfway done with law school and when I graduate I’m planning to practice law. Never really thought I would! I’ll probably be doing political and election law (campaign finance and ethics compliance, lobbying, etc.) either in a private law firm or for the government.
When I was 17 and thinking about going off to college I NEVER imagined I’d be here, doing what I am, just six years later. But I’m super happy and wouldn’t change much of anything