How did you get into your field of work/ study?

[Raja]

This is kind of going off of the career thread that we have on the forum - It's pretty clear that we have a pretty diverse group of people in GenChat, so I thought it would be interesting to hear about how/ why you picked your field of work?

It's a question I often ask when I meet people IRL, mostly because choosing my profession was something I stumbled into as opposed to having a clear idea of what I wanted to do and I find it intriguing to see if other people ended up in their line of work in a similar fashion.  

So, how/ why did you become a laywer, teacher, nurse, vet, urban planner, chef etc.? 

 

[Tears of Lys]

I became a court reporter on the advice of a state appeals court judge (whose son I was dating.)  But I wore many other hats before I landed here: retail shop owner, one successful, one not so much; computer company tech support person/automaton, to name a few.

I'm very well qualified for being a court reporter in some ways, but I detest other parts of the job.  Good thing I'm nearing retirement! 

[Which Tyler]

I always wanted to be involved in the field.

I've always wanted to do something medical, to help people; but didn't like the hours and separation from family my father put in as a GP (I now know that most of this was to get away from us, rather than the job per se). I also never really wanted to cut anyone open.

Always enjoyed working with my hands, carpentry, metal work etc, so looked at manual therapies from the age of 13 or so, and gradually worked it down from there. Physio seemed a bit broad for me, where I preferred to specialise (again, I now know better - actually, I think I'd have done better as a physio), so it was between chiropractic or osteopathy when it came to uni applications. Chiropractic meant studying by the coast, whilst osteopathy meant central London, factor in the use of X-rays, the techniques appealing to my mind a little better and better options to travel, so I chose the former, and love it (though I do a LOT of soft-tissue stuff for a chiro, and wish there was more options for working as part of a team)

[Tempra]

28 minutes ago, Tears of Lys said:

I became a court reporter on the advice of a state appeals court judge (whose son I was dating.)  But I wore many other hats before I landed here: retail shop owner, one successful, one not so much; computer company tech support person/automaton, to name a few.

I'm very well qualified for being a court reporter in some ways, but I detest other parts of the job.  Good thing I'm nearing retirement! 

Like dealing with attorneys? 

[Jaxom 1974]

I studied English and Theatre in college so of course I ended up in the food and beverage industry...

[The Wedge]

Just now, Jaxom 1974 said:

I studied English and Theatre in college so of course I ended up in the food and beverage industry...

I got a history degree.  I needed money to pay for rent, car, and beer. A friend worked for a consulting firm.  He heard I needed money for rent, car, and beer. I have been in telecom for the last 19 years.

[Whitestripe]

I needed a job as an undergrad, and my roommate worked on the sound crew for the campus theater/student activities. I joined the tech crew and feel in love with it. During the summers I worked as a member of the local crew/spotlight operator for a big outdoor arena. (The local crew basically fills in and assists the roadies who travel with the band.) My hopes of being a lighting designer were dashed when it became evident that I could not draft/draw for sh!t, and I am so old that you had to do it all by hand then.  I thought I might be a stage manager, and I was asked to go on tour with a touring theater company, but I was engaged to be married that summer. While my (then new) husband was in grad school, I worked for the local tmstagecraft union. There came a point when I had to decide if I was going to join as an apprentice and get my yellow card. Work in the stagecraft unions can be feast or famine, and it takes a long time to make master electrician. Plus, I'm a girl and the field is heavily dominated by men. I decided that it probably wasn't for me, so I got a master's degree in non-profit/performing arts/museum studies  management. Now, I direct the performing arts department and concert series  of a small liberal arts college. I love it

[Mlle. Zabzie]

When I was in my senior year in college, I didn't know what I wanted to do after I graduated.  I knew I didn't want to be an investment banker, consultant or accountant, and I didn't want to work for the government.  I had some small notion of going to graduate school for economics.  So I studied for the GRE, and for the heck of it also studied for the LSAT.  I did very well on the LSAT and applied to law school almost on a whim.  I got into better law schools than grad schools, so decided to go to law school.  THIS IS AN OBJECTIVELY TERRIBLE REASON TO GO TO LAW SCHOOL.  Anyhow, I ended up loving it.  I decided to go into tax based on the experiences I had in my second summer clerkship/internship.  I enjoyed the work, and got a lot of encouragement from the partners in the group to join.  So I did.  And it turns out, I'm pretty good at it.  I've stayed at a big law firm because (i) I genuinely love the work and the rush I get from solving problems, (ii) I'm a glutton for punishment and (iii) they pay me really well.  

[Lany Freelove Cassandra]

The same way most things in my life happen, by accident.

I had to graduate earlier than planned with a degree in English Lit and History (without the teacher certification). I went to a temp company, and the second long term assignment I got was at a mortgage company, copying files.

Got hired full time, worked my way up to Senior Loan Specialist; moved into Mortgage Backed Securities as an analyst; and now I manage the due diligence on asset sales (mortgages) in Capital Markets division of my company as a Quality Assurance Analyst 4. 

[Xray the Enforcer]

I'm a journalist and a magazine features editor, but I definitely didn't ever intend to become either when I set out. I actually studied biology and chemistry and worked on molecular self-assembly once I got into the workforce. Did that for years. But I always had writing and illustration as hobbies, and at one point when I was feeling burned out with research I semi-randomly got connected with some science journalists. Next thing I knew, I'd moved to New York and was working at a magazine. I had zero qualifications, aside from being able to clearly explain complex scientific concepts in simple terms, but that was apparently enough! I learned all of my editing and journalism skills on the job, which was sometimes a real trial by fire, but I love the work and I'm quite good at it. 

[Iskaral Pust]

I qualified as an actuary but then moved into actuarial-related investments and am now moving towards broader institutional investments. 

Growing up as a very smart kid in Ireland when I did, becoming an actuary was the highest paid available profession and my high school principal recommended it after my early showing in math class.  So I did an undergrad in financial & actuarial math, resisted some interest from an i-bank in London and a hedge fund (the naivety of youth) and finished my actuarial qualification instead working in consulting.  Internships taught me to avoid insurance companies.  After a few years I realized how dull and limited is the actuarial field and pushed to switch into investments instead.  I'm very glad. 

I grew up in a small country, with a limited economy, raised by blue collar parents.  I was the first generation to attend university.  I did not have access to the kinds of career choices my son will have, but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.   Moving to the US definitely widened my opportunity set, but I was still making changes only in small increments. 

[Mr. X]

I teach high school math. I had long been interested in teaching (as far back as when I was in high school), but didn't do anything serious in pursuit of it. My undergraduate degree is in mechanical engineering, which I chose because (A) I enjoyed physics and math in high school and (B) my dad is an engineer. 

After doing nothing with that for a couple years, I found myself traveling to NYC from the DC area on a regular basis to play drums for a friend of mine. He was teaching high school math at the time and, knowing that I was interested in the field, told me that if I was serious, I should bring some nice clothes and a resume on my next trip to the city because his school was hiring a bunch of new math teachers.

14 years later, I'm still teaching while that friend is off playing music somewhere other than NYC.

[SkynJay]

I went to school to be a history teacher (something I wanted to do from the seventh grade on) and ran into a recession and 10,000 history majors who didn't know what to do with their degree (honestly; my wife works HR at one of the local districts and the application pool was typically 200 minimum).  I was working restaurant management and just had to get out.  I ended up in a specific line of construction sales on the retail end only because they offered me a spot.  

I never thought I would stick with it for ten years but the company treats me wonderfully and it turns out that when I moved to sales I was pretty good at it.  It is also a company that has a team that combs the web for mentions of their name so in no way would I actually say who I work for.

[sologdin]

as far back as i can remember, i always wanted to be a revolutionary.  so i made the oblique approach thereto by assimilating to the status quo as an attorney WTFZOMGBBQ

[Starkess]

I am a management consultant. I absolutely tripped into this job due to a random encounter with someone who was married to a fellow alumni of my alma mater. I had gotten out of the Navy and wasn't having a lot of luck with the job hunt, so I took the position. It's pretty boring and not challenging at all, but the pay is decent and the hours are good. It is also convenient with my boyfriend's career, since my firm does a lot of defense contracting and so higher chance of being able to work while moving with him. But I'm also toying with the idea of trying to pursue my PhD and trade in non-challenging and good pay for challenging and crappy pay.

[peterbound]

My old man was a Fire Fighter for a big city, and to be honest I didn't think I wanted to get into that field.  He was gone a lot, he obsessed over the job, we were poor as fuck, and it seemed to take a toll on his body/mind.  I got into a shit ton of trouble in high school (got kicked out, had to go to 'alternative' school, got my GED), and then got kicked out of my house.  After I got kicked out I moved down to phoenix and got a job in IT (dammit, I should have rode that shit out), but was fired from Motorola after too much partying and lack of work ethic (I would have fired me).  

On the drive home I stopped by a recruiter's office in a strip mall that had all the branches connected to one another.  None of my family were in the military, so I had no preference about what branch I signed up for.  The Marines and army guys were out of the office and the navy weren't that impressive (looked bad in their uniform, out of shape, messy... just bad), so I went into the Air Force guy, who seemed pretty solid, and he said that he could get me out within a week.  That alone was enough to get me to sign up... so I did. So I signed up and went to MEPs within a week.  I took my asvab and shipped out to basic training the next Thursday.  I was open general, and scored high enough to land a pretty nice intelligence job (Sigint).  I did that for a few years, and started to miss the culture that I was raised in.  The camaraderie, the 'brotherhood', the work ethic, the job, all the shit that was involved in fire fighting thing.  So I cross trained into fire.  Did the for about 8 more years in the Air Force, and then I got out and went to be a private contractor in Iraq for 2 years.  

When I got back I wanted to be a doctor so I enrolled in a premed program at the local university.. that shit sucked though.  The academic experience seemed fake as fuck to me, the professors lived in a fantasy land of academia, and the whole 'college' experience that everyone talks about as being valuable was worthless, so I looked at getting back into the workforce.  I landed a gig at Ft Carson as a fire inspector, and then applied at a large metropolitan fire department in the state and got the job.  And here I am. 

[all swedes are racist]

Well, given the winning combination of profound stupidity, laziness and an extreme antipathy for the cares and concerns of my fellow man bordering on misanthropy, I had two options; retail or work for the RMV. Fairly certain state employees are subject to drug tests, so here I am!

[Tears of Lys]

8 hours ago, Tempra said:

Like dealing with attorneys? 

No.  I quite like many of them.  They're just people - some good, some bad. 

What I don't like is the adversarial environment.  I'm a pretty friendly, easy going person who likes to chat with others, and at depositions (which is what I mainly report) 99% of the folks in the room don't really want to be there.  Anyone who comes in in a good mood is fairly certain to leave in a bad one.  I like being around happy people, so my days are fairly shitty.  What I like is the technical part of my job, getting a high translation rate on the code I'm writing to my computer and making it come out "pretty"; i.e., translating perfectly into English with all the punctuation in the right spots, etc. 

[Ser Ronan Storm]

Still attending university, so technically I'm not in a field yet, though I do help manage a non-profit art house. Studying professional communications/public relations because I watched The Thick Of It as a snarky teen and thought Malcolm Tucker's job was the best place for me to be. Got into History by accident and absolutely loathe it (I love learning about historical events/eras, but the scholarly writing in History is so tedious, it makes me want to self harm), but I'm a three courses away from the degree, so I'm sticking with it. Also got invested in studying Irish politics, because I plan to live there in the near future.

[litechick]

When I was a wee lass--agricultural village, mid-west US--I used to imagine a Big Book of Acceptable Jobs.  Based on that, I first imagined being a chemist because I liked mixing shit together and pretending that I had created a Powerful New Substance. 

As a teenager I became enamored with heavy metal music.  I remember clearly one day as I watched a dupe of Iron Maiden Live After Death, so exhilarated as the credits rolled, and I thought 'these are people who are paid to be at an Iron Maiden concert.'  Imagine a life where your job is to be at an Iron Maiden concert every day.

Of all the job titles that whizzed by, I honed in on Lighting Designer.  It caught my imagination.  I noticed the way that the truss moved in and the fog filled the stage for Rime of the Ancient Mariner.  I scanned the liner notes on my cassette tape, detailing the crew schedule:  8am rigging (I didn't know what that was); 9am Lights; etc.

It caught my fancy and it occurred to me that one doesn't have to pick from the Big Book of Acceptable Jobs. 

Unfortunately, my local guidance councilor had no idea what to tell me in terms of planning a life on the road with a heavy metal band.  I have since learned that Lighting Design is a major at some colleges but it is theater specific.  I pursued a degree in Electrical Engineering because I could, not because I had any aspirations of ever being an electrical engineer.  Lights use lots of electricity so it was sort of relevant. 

After college I moved to a city where I knew there were lighting professionals.  I submitted my resume several times and found a sneaky way of bypassing the receptionist in order to get a chance.  I paid my dues, yada, yada. 

I never made it on the bus with a heavy metal band.  The best I could do was a bus with a polite, Christian pianist.  I got my foot in the door but that was all. 

Happily, I learned that I really like lighting.  I am interested in it and challenged by it in all its forms.  I dedicate myself to whatever lighting job is at hand but I do love the rock 'n' roll flash and trash best.  I look for opportunities to insert flash to corporate gigs.  I am devoted to my yearly dance show.

Most people in my field seem to have fallen into it.  I am proud that I pursued it and succeeded (so to speak.) 

 

 

aside to solo:  in high school I was voted Class Revolutionary, so we have at least a little in common.