I am currently in my final week of university life. I still have my final practicum to go, but as for university time, this is it. I can recall days in high school when I thought this day would never come (being almost done with education), until I choose to once again further my education.
Remember filling out those forms in grade 1 stating what you thought you wanted to be? I know that we have watched the UP-series, but what about in our personal life. Were we right about what we wanted to be? I can't remember for sure what I wrote, but I am pretty sure I wrote teacher, I am sure my mother has it somewhere. Now for myself, I have swayed on what I wanted to be for a while in school. I thought about all sorts of things, coroner, veterinarian, nurse... but at times I look back and question WHAT WAS I THINKING? Coroner, for example, I couldn't imagine seeing a dead body. Yet for some reason I thought I would enjoy attempting to solve the mystery of what caused the death of that person. Again, I shall repeat WHAT WAS I THINKING??? As for the other ones, they were a bit more reasonable.
But for the people who have never changed their ideas of what they wanted to be, I must question why? I feel that I, as a child, adolescent, and now adult, I am very different and have gone through many phases. I am different than I was, and I did at times change my mind about the focus of where I wanted to be in the job force. But for anyone to have not swayed the opinion or looked at different options I question if they are even allowing for other possibilities.
I understand that some people just know what they want to do, but the whole time? I guess maybe I just am not good at sticking to a decision but I can't understand not ever considering something else. I know that our older generations didn't have all the exposure to the jobs we do. I think this would also have influenced our thought process on which job we would want to have. If we were a part of the older generations we wouldn't have had as many job options or had the ability to know about them as much. I think this is a positive thing for a few reasons, we won't have to just fit into the common every day job, we can explore paths that are right for us as individuals and be able to do different jobs.
I know that my career is very fitting for my individualness and I am hoping to have a long career as a teacher. Did any of you change your career paths during your education?
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Brandie,
ReplyDeleteTeaching is my second career already. I didn’t exactly know what I wanted to do when I graduated from high school, all I knew is that I wanted to do something in science. So my first year of university I took all the first year science courses and I remember hating the first chemistry course. That made me reconsider everything. I continued with biology and geography courses for my second semester and found that I didn’t really like that biology course (I think it was microbiology or something) so then I was really at a loss. If I didn’t like chemistry or biology, what would I do? I didn’t know what other subjects I would like. So I took some of those career counselling tests and found that most of my interests were related to nature and the environment and the U of C had an environmental course which I thought could be interesting so that’s what I took. The funny thing is I took many chemistry and biology courses to get my degree…apparently the first year courses weren’t that much of a deterrent. Anyways, I worked as an environmental consultant for three years before I decided that that really wasn’t what I wanted to do either. Somewhere along the line I thought that helping others is what I wanted to do and teaching fit with that, so I pursued this course. Some days I still question whether teaching is what I really want to do, you know those days that you feel nothing goes right? But ultimately I love teaching and I love being able to help children succeed and make a difference in their lives.
I think it is normal for people to question their career choice and to change careers in their life. Or maybe I think that simply because that is my experience. I don’t remember what I wanted to be when I was little either but I wish I could. I think it would be interesting to know what I was interested in and see if it’s anything like what I’m doing now. I think it’s funny talking to older adults (like my parents or friends of my parents) who are retired or close to retiring and they say they still don’t know what they want to be when they grow up. It makes me wonder if eventually we just settle into something because we need to make money and pay the bills.
I also wonder about those that know what they want to do from day one and they do not stray from that path in the slightest. I also wonder if they are so set on that career that they do not allow any other possibility to enter their mind. In some ways I am jealous of those people because I have struggled with figuring it out but in other ways I wonder if they truly know that is what they want. I wonder if once they are in that job for a few years, if it is not what they thought it would be and they do not enjoy it, if they would be extremely lost because they have not thought of anything else besides that one career. I guess that might be putting a pessimistic view on things because I am sure that there are some people that know what they want to do and pursue it and love their career. That’s great for those individuals, I just don’t know if that’s the exception or the norm nowadays.
I’m sure you’ll be a great teacher and have a long and happy career as a teacher! It definitely suits your personality!