How did you know what career you wanted?

I keep hearing about career opportunities, work experience etc but I have no clue of what i want to do and i'm in sixth form. i have read countless job profiles in more areas and industries than you can imagine but nothing interests me!
seriously.
so my question to you is how you decided what you want to do/what inspired you to pursue your dream job
i would love to have a career to work towards and something that could motivate me like i've seen it do with others.

Reply 1

This Honest

For me, it was such a diverse course that leads to many different careers.
I won't have the issue of moving from one job to the next
I will benefit myself and the society
It links heavily with my favourite subject in sixth form

And I don't know what else to pursue, so I'm sticking with this career choice :smile:

Reply 2

Etoile

Original post by cheahbeah

I looked at
- what are my best subjects?
- which subjects are the ones I enjoy the most?
luckily those two turned out to be the same ^^
- what jobs are open to be which the courses I am studying? e.g. I can't do medicine because I'm not taking chemistry
- what are my interests outside of school?
- what could I or other people picture me doing?
- what kind of environment would I like to work in? E.g. standing up, outside, in an office, whatever.
- what kind of skills do I have? e.g. good listening, good at picturing things in your mind from a drawing, good at writing etc

Make a list of all that kind of thing and hopefully some kind of thing should emerge!

Reply 3

BO'H

i fannied about for a bit trying to find a way to stay at uni for a couple more years and ended up being a lawyer

but that approach doesn't really work in law since the law society decided to let gdl/lpc providers take 10k off anyone who once watched an episode of la law

Reply 4

aspirinpharmacist

Don't know. I first wanted to be a pharmacist when I was about 10. I liked the idea of working in a pharmacy and giving out lollies to people. :P After a couple of years or so of looking at other things, dentistry, microbiology (for a day), astronomy, I realised that I kept going back to pharmacy. So I thought about it, researched it for a bit and decided that was definitely what I wanted to do. I love the idea of working in a lab and I'd love to work in a community pharmacy. If I don't get an offer from at least one uni for pharmacy, I will break down and cry.

Reply 5

daisydaffodil

Helping people - helping my friends, my family and random people on the street if needed. I love spending time listening to other people and helping them work out solutions - so something along the lines of youth work or teaching seemed the best idea. I realised that I didn't like the idea of being in a school situation where I'm being supervised by a head teacher and scrutinised by other staff members, so I thought a private run counselling business would be a good idea - it gives me the chance to do the things I love every day :smile:

Plus, counselling (informal and formal) has benefited me a lot in the past and I'd love to be able to give the same back to other people, or prevent others from feeling like I've had etc.

Reply 6

hali0112

I knew I wanted to be a doctor since I was 10 years old. I have doctors in the family and whenever they talked about their day at work I always used to listen open mouthed and in awe of everything they said. As I got older cousins of mine who had gone to medical school used to tell us stories about uni and I used to be so interested in everything that they did - from shadowing surgeons in theatre to actually delivering babies. I was so jealous and excited and wanted to do all those things. I can't remember actually consciously making the decision that I wanted to medicine. it was always in the forefront of my mind. going on work experience and open days at uni was just so exciting. seeing the labs, textbooks and anatomy posters just gave me this amazing feeling inside.

anyway, my advice would be to think about what interests you. what sort of things are you good at and what skills are your strengths. for example do you like working with people? do you like a job where you are active and hands on? would you enjoy working in an office? this way you can eliminate careers that are definitely out of the question. do you have a particular subject that interests you at school right now?

Reply 7

cheahbeah

thanks for the response everyone.
to answer some of the questions: my favourite subjects are history and economics. my passions outside of school are mainly sport i watch it constantly and just love sports. i would like to be wealthy. hours - dont mind; just not ridiculous.
if anyone has any interesting stories i would like to hear them.

Reply 8

Sprockette

I took the wrong path first but it lead to my 'true' career :smile:

I got diabetes when I was 12 and Coeliac when I was 13 so I obviously had to start analysing everything I ate! That got me wanting to become a dietitian. I started a course in Dietetics, failed miserably but did my honours project in the lab in Microbiology - and that got me wanting a career in lab work. I've done a top up in Biomedical Science and am considering a Masters in Micro now. Only vaguely considering for now! I haven't managed to get a job yet :frown:

Reply 9

imyza

Did work experience at a school. Realise I enjoyed working with children. Realised I would love doing teaching. I honestly can't imagine myself doing another career!

Reply 10

Mocking_bird

I didn't decide until about 1 day before enrollment... now believe me, that was stressful haha.
I'd kind of wanted to go into vetinary medicine or medicine, but during year 11 I got,, lazy. I wanted to do "easy" subjects at a level. But after alot of hard thinking, I realised I wouldnt be happy with the job those subjects would have got me in the end. If i didn't attempt my chemistry/biology/maths/geography combination and try for Vet med, then i'd regret it for the rest of my life. & Now, I enjoy these subjects so much and i'm insanely happy I made the decision to push myself and do the subjects I know I would struggle with, but with the hard work it'll get me where I want to be in the end. :smile:

So thats that, just think what you want you will be happy doing in the future, just do what makes you happy, because youre going to be doing it for a long time. :smile:

Reply 11

philistine

I could talk for hours on this, but in short;

I wanted an intellectually stimulating career. I wanted remarkably educated peers so I could talk unfettered about literature, music and all the rest. I wanted to wear a very expensive suit with all the trimmings. I wanted a highly respected position in society, part influenced by my intellect, part by my desire to 'be better' than everyone in my family. I wanted a well-paying occupation. I have high aspirations, and falling short would mean misery, especially if I was working in something I disliked or didn't enjoy too much for half a century!

I'm going to fight tooth-and-nail to following my path of becoming a barrister.

Reply 12

oodlesofpoodles

I've always loved reading and writing, English Literature being my favourite subject. Writing seemed like the only thing that I could picture myself being happy doing for the next 50 years, so I've been pretty much set on being a journalist for the last 4 years :h: