My Career Journey: Best and Worst Choices
My career journey has shaped many of my views on education and the pursuit of a life work. Here are some imperatives based on my experiences:
Develop a profitable job skill (such as a trade)
The earlier one learns this skill, the better. After high school, I did an apprenticeship and earned my license as an electrician. While I’m not working in the trade currently, my ability to return to electrical work at multiple points in my career has provided financial and emotional security. If I wanted or needed to return to full time electrical work, I could do so very easily. Most trade careers are in high demand and well-compensated. In addition, a skill like this can provide a nice source of extra income, even if it isn’t a person’s primary line of work. (I literally had a friend call me to offer a small electrical job as I wrote this article.)
Don’t be afraid to delay college
My experience as a student and a teacher contradicts the conventional wisdom that college must happen immediately after high school. I flourished as an undergraduate in my mid-twenties. As a college instructor, I’ve taught outstanding students who were much older. Often these students are married and have children. Most of them do well, usually because they are older than their classmates. Maturity, experience, discipline, and drive are typically advanced in older students, and their college performance is often better as a result.
Do thorough career research
I earned an M.A. in English because I wanted to teach in college. Shortly before graduating, I discovered that virtually all colleges were only hiring people with PhDs to teach full time. If I had been smarter, I would have done a better job of looking at my prospects of getting full-time teaching work at a college before going to graduate school. Instead, I allowed my ambition and the advice of some well-meaning people to inform my choice. Desire and dreaming are important in navigating the career path, but they can also cause us to ignore the facts. Vision must be tempered with data.
Get practical experience in a career before committing
If I’d known how much I would dislike teaching in a public high school, I wouldn’t have spent another year in graduate school earning a license in H.S. Language Arts. I should have looked for ways to spend time in a classroom, talked to administrators, volunteered to work with the students, etc. Instead, I allowed my hope of what it would be like working in this area to inform my decision.
Avoid debt
I avoided debt during my apprenticeship and even during my undergraduate years, thanks to the money I’d saved. As a result, I had more options and less stress. Later, when I accrued debt for graduate school or a mortgage, my options dwindled and stress increased. While my graduate degrees have given me options and opened some doors, it’s debatable whether going into debt to do this has paid off. If I’d pursued a path with no debt or less debt, I might have been happier.
Be a generalist AND a specialist
Frequently, mentors will suggest that these approaches are exclusive, but they aren’t. A student can generalize and specialize, but not necessarily at the same time. Over my journey I moved back and forth from the specialization of my electrical trade to the the generalization of degrees in the humanities. These days, I rely on both. Generalization helps me to communicate and think clearly. Generalization allows me to point to my degrees and show that I’ve accomplished something that many employers value. Specialization means that I have a profitable trade skill in my back pocket whenever I need it. Specialization is also valued by many employers who want to see that I can hone and apply a particular ability, rather than just amass broad knowledge.
