Hey Pandas, How Did You Decide What To Do For Your Career?

Did you know since you were two? Change your mind in college? Still don't know at age 63? Please share!!

I am back in school... At age 48.... for a bachelor's degree in biology. I have an associates degree in horticulture already. Had to wait on the kid to graduate and leave home before I got started.

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Final score:

5points

Kraneia The Dancing Dryad

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StrangeOne 1 year ago

Congrats. Never too late, nor is there a deadline on education.

2points

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I thought "Hmmm... Literally nobody is thinking about what I'm thinking about, so I might as well try and make it a reality" and yeah.

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Final score:

4points

Nevada McKinney

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Owen Eshelman (ze/zir) 1 year ago

And what is it?

3points

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Oof i went from wanting to be a nurse.
To wanting to be a firefighter(still do).

And now im plannin to go to college for graphic design because well, i make comics and animations and vids so it just made sense..

Who knows maybe be a graphic design major firefighter :3🍩

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Final score:

4points

Do-nut touch da donut

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Funny you would ask.. Up until high school I wanted to be a dentist, in high school I thought I really wanted to study Nordic languages. So, OBVIOUSLY, I graduated from a technical university in electronics area... just to spend the last 20 years in IT. How is that for a recommendation of a career choice? Makes sense, right? RIGHT? 😳

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Final score:

3points

Headless Roach

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Erik Naumann 1 year ago

Yeah. IT's a paycheck, and usually a really good one. I think most of us, at some point, realize we wanted to do something else but... paycheck. And hey, it's skilled work, we can be proud of it. Totally never considered work involving Nordic languages though. I love reading Old English, and I guess somebody made a job of it, didn't they?

1point

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I started working in television as an artist and animator. Worked for a video game company for a while, even did an internship at Lucas Studios. I started doing web development in the 90s to make ends meet. Then a friend had an idea to build an SMS routing system, so had to learn some serious backend development. Our company didn't work out, as Americans didn't really do text messaging for another ten years or so. But by then, I was really good at writing code, and a non profit offered me a job in Egypt to build a system for teachers to share lesson plans. This company took me around the world, then went to work for Nokia researching distributed computation and artificial intelligence. Been doing that for the last 17 years. TL;DR, life happened while making other plans

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Final score:

3points

RafCo (he/him/ele)

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I got hired as a janitor at a local hospital. Thought it was just a stepping stone and it sorta was. I quickly saw i could work 8-10 shifts and still be fresh after work to do things i love. A few years later my son comes into the world and i truly see the benefit of working and being energized to enjoy home life. Fast forward to know, i am general maintenance for an apartment complex. Still love my work. And still come home and im able to spend real time with my family.

I am able to clock out after a full shift and my real life begins.

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Final score:

3points

Enochrises

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When I was three, I decided I wanted to be a veterinarian, and that I was going to be the best veterinarian of all time! The only thing I had to do was pet all the dogs!
Fast forward to the seventh grade. I still wanted to be a vet. I knew a little more about it, but all I really wanted was to pet all the dogs.
One day, my dad was watching a vet show (honestly, why?) and I was bored so I watched as well.
I gagged at the surgery and cried when pets were being put down. These were on the TV! How would I react when I was doing it myself!
I realized that I didn't want to be a vet. I wouldn't survive it.
At that time, I was in an organization called Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA) and loved it. Basically it teaches students business skills (I would continue it through high school and achieve a lot in it). My mom suggested that I go into the business world, and then I can run my own vet clinic and let other people do the dirty work, and I can just pet all the dogs.
I've shifted a bit over to the world of marketing since then and plan to double major in marketing and entrepreneurship when I get to my senior year of college (I still have to pass pre-business and entrepreneurship can only be taken senior year as a double major), but it's still business.

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Final score:

2points

Allydog57

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Allydog57 (Submission author) 1 year ago

"Pet all the dogs" is my mom's term for my goal in life, if you can't tell 🤣

3points

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When I was little I wanted to be a pedestrian. Fulfilled that one real quick. First few years of college I thought I wanted to be a therapist so I switched my major to Psychology. The past few months have really enjoyed my research classes so I’m going into that. I like creating surveys and sending them out to people and analyzing the data to see the results; it’s pretty cool!

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Final score:

2points

Arunataru

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Do-nut touch da donut 1 year ago

Ok do you mean pediatrician??(doctor for kids)... or pedestrian???(a human lol)... either way hope you succeed at bein a therapist:3 🍩

3points

Lots of emotional and physical abuse. I decided if I wasn’t gonna learn anything useful by exposure that wasn’t my choice, I was gonna make sure I changed the algorithm for how people perceive those things so that people could have an example of why not to put people into such small brackets of personalities. I learned the way people perceive it and decided to do the opposite and be the change I wished to see in the world.

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Final score:

2points

Jennifer Menne

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#10

The guidance counselor asked, in 11th grade, what I wanted to study in college. I picked computer science out of a hat just so I had an answer. Turned out I was right, though I dropped out of college because I had a job in the field already and I was good at it.

If I had a do-over I'd have become an entomologist. I can deal with computers, but I like bugs.

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Final score:

2points

Erik Naumann

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#11

I'm 33 and at this point I don't want a career. I want a painless way to earn money where I can have a good quality of life outside of work.

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Final score:

2points