Common wisdom says that we should follow our passions. But....how does one go about that, exactly?
In her last post, my wonderful friend Awkward Pen raised an interesting point. When it comes to choosing a career path, she says, why not look at the things we’ve loved doing for inspiration? I certainly know what she means! I spent four years studying biology under the misguided idea that I wanted to be a geneticist when every sign pointed to the fact that I was better suited for something like history or philosophy. Without fail, I did spectacularly well in every elective I took in those subjects, and enjoyed myself thoroughly while doing so. If I’d paid more attention to what I loved doing, I could have been much further along my career path than I am now.
HOWEVER. While I agree with this, there is a caveat that I would add. As I discovered while working as a career counselor, many of us don’t do nearly enough career exploration to begin with. During my time in career services, I spent many hours with a never-ending stream of recent college, university and high school graduates who knew what they liked doing, but didn’t know what they wanted their next step in life to be. Nearly all of them still faced a crucial problem: how did they go about translating what they liked into a job they liked doing?
Let’s face it. The typical academic university course (outside of professional programs such as nursing) is not job specific. Many recent grads know that they enjoy a particular subject area but don’t know much about the jobs that they would be well suited for as a result. I think that the reasons for this are two fold. For many, the progression through each stage of life has up until that point been pretty clear. But when they leave school, there isn’t a giant list of every job possible. Graduates need to do far more of their own research, but many of them don’t know where to start.
Worse, a lot of university students and graduates don’t have an adequate support system to help them through their career exploration (I say university, as I do not have experience with the college system). Aside from that half-semester careers course you took in high school, exposure to different careers is not built into the educational structure. Now, please don’t misunderstand me: I know that universities do have career offices, career fairs, and many wonderful counselors who are working to help students with the transition from university to work. But in many academic disciplines, educators tend to (most likely unconsciously) emphasize the academic career path, even though the vast majority of their students will not follow them into academia. We often don’t know where to start looking because we simply have not heard about the vast majority of available jobs.
So what can you do? Follow your passions, yes, but if you’re not practical about what you can actually do with them, they won’t lead to much. Instead, try some of the following:
1. Go to your school’s career services office (yes, even as an alumnus). Get to know the counselors. Tell them what you like doing. They’re there to help guide you from those interests to a career that will make use of your skills. Go to their events! Even a brief jaunt through a career fair can start the uncertain limbo denizen off on the right track.
2. Volunteer, volunteer, volunteer! If you’re not sure about the specifics of the area you want to go into, then volunteering is a great way to find out more information. You’ll a) keep busy, something very important for limbo denizens, b) get more of a feel for the working environment and possible career paths and c) find that you might even be able to translate that volunteer position into a job. In addition, some career paths require volunteer/clinical experience before you can study at the graduate level, so this is a great way to get a head start.
3. Do your research. I am not simply referring to career guides. Look at the career listings of various companies, institutions, or organizations. What kinds of positions do they have available? I’m willing to bet that you didn’t know that many of those positions even existed.
4. Ask around. Do you actually know what your uncle does for a living? What about your friend’s mother? Ask the people around you what they do all day long. Ask them about the kinds of people they work with. Ask them if they have any ideas about what you should do. Chances are that the people around you can recognize the skills you have that are applicable to a certain job. Furthermore, they’ll probably be more inclined to let you shadow them on the job, or know someone who you could shadow. You don’t want to discount the many years of experience your parents, relatives and friends have when you’re trying to decide what you want to do with your life.
Once I looked at what I enjoyed doing, it didn’t take long for me to realize that I didn’t want to stay on the science track! But it’s taken me a little bit longer to settle on a career path, and when I did, it happened to be a passing suggestion that my mother had made many, many years ago (and I, of course, dismissed out of hand). What about all of you? Here’s a quick challenge - try and see if you can come up with five jobs that you did not know existed that would make use of at least one skill or interest you have. It’ll be easier than you think it will be!
In her last post, my wonderful friend Awkward Pen raised an interesting point. When it comes to choosing a career path, she says, why not look at the things we’ve loved doing for inspiration? I certainly know what she means! I spent four years studying biology under the misguided idea that I wanted to be a geneticist when every sign pointed to the fact that I was better suited for something like history or philosophy. Without fail, I did spectacularly well in every elective I took in those subjects, and enjoyed myself thoroughly while doing so. If I’d paid more attention to what I loved doing, I could have been much further along my career path than I am now.
HOWEVER. While I agree with this, there is a caveat that I would add. As I discovered while working as a career counselor, many of us don’t do nearly enough career exploration to begin with. During my time in career services, I spent many hours with a never-ending stream of recent college, university and high school graduates who knew what they liked doing, but didn’t know what they wanted their next step in life to be. Nearly all of them still faced a crucial problem: how did they go about translating what they liked into a job they liked doing?
Let’s face it. The typical academic university course (outside of professional programs such as nursing) is not job specific. Many recent grads know that they enjoy a particular subject area but don’t know much about the jobs that they would be well suited for as a result. I think that the reasons for this are two fold. For many, the progression through each stage of life has up until that point been pretty clear. But when they leave school, there isn’t a giant list of every job possible. Graduates need to do far more of their own research, but many of them don’t know where to start.
Worse, a lot of university students and graduates don’t have an adequate support system to help them through their career exploration (I say university, as I do not have experience with the college system). Aside from that half-semester careers course you took in high school, exposure to different careers is not built into the educational structure. Now, please don’t misunderstand me: I know that universities do have career offices, career fairs, and many wonderful counselors who are working to help students with the transition from university to work. But in many academic disciplines, educators tend to (most likely unconsciously) emphasize the academic career path, even though the vast majority of their students will not follow them into academia. We often don’t know where to start looking because we simply have not heard about the vast majority of available jobs.
So what can you do? Follow your passions, yes, but if you’re not practical about what you can actually do with them, they won’t lead to much. Instead, try some of the following:
1. Go to your school’s career services office (yes, even as an alumnus). Get to know the counselors. Tell them what you like doing. They’re there to help guide you from those interests to a career that will make use of your skills. Go to their events! Even a brief jaunt through a career fair can start the uncertain limbo denizen off on the right track.
2. Volunteer, volunteer, volunteer! If you’re not sure about the specifics of the area you want to go into, then volunteering is a great way to find out more information. You’ll a) keep busy, something very important for limbo denizens, b) get more of a feel for the working environment and possible career paths and c) find that you might even be able to translate that volunteer position into a job. In addition, some career paths require volunteer/clinical experience before you can study at the graduate level, so this is a great way to get a head start.
3. Do your research. I am not simply referring to career guides. Look at the career listings of various companies, institutions, or organizations. What kinds of positions do they have available? I’m willing to bet that you didn’t know that many of those positions even existed.
4. Ask around. Do you actually know what your uncle does for a living? What about your friend’s mother? Ask the people around you what they do all day long. Ask them about the kinds of people they work with. Ask them if they have any ideas about what you should do. Chances are that the people around you can recognize the skills you have that are applicable to a certain job. Furthermore, they’ll probably be more inclined to let you shadow them on the job, or know someone who you could shadow. You don’t want to discount the many years of experience your parents, relatives and friends have when you’re trying to decide what you want to do with your life.
Once I looked at what I enjoyed doing, it didn’t take long for me to realize that I didn’t want to stay on the science track! But it’s taken me a little bit longer to settle on a career path, and when I did, it happened to be a passing suggestion that my mother had made many, many years ago (and I, of course, dismissed out of hand). What about all of you? Here’s a quick challenge - try and see if you can come up with five jobs that you did not know existed that would make use of at least one skill or interest you have. It’ll be easier than you think it will be!
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