Should You Wait until You Finish College to Decide What Career You Wish?
By Sonya • 5 Comments
By Sonya • 5 Comments
Deciding which career path to follow – when to make that important decision needs careful consideration.
Choosing a career path is never easy. There are so many options, so many directions and it is virtually impossible to choose. Plus, there are no guarantees that which path you choose will be the best one for you – there are many professionals out there who after a career spanning 25 years long will still tell you that they don’t know what they want to do. Fresh out of college you are having trouble deciding what to wear out at night yet you are expected to make the decisions that will have an everlasting effect on how you map out your future. So when is it the right time to make one of the biggest decisions in your life? Should you wait until you finish school or college to decide what career you wish to follow?
If you ask kids what they want to be when they grow up, things like fireman and ballerina are some of the answers. You are definitely not going to get a 5-year-old saying they strive to become the top systems analyst in their company or want to become a human rights activist. But, if you ask a teenager what they want to be you will get answers like rock star, model, and fashion designer. But when students are about to enter college ask them what they want to do, chances are they haven’t got a clue. And that is okay – there are very few people that know from the day they turned 5 what it was they wanted to do for the rest of their life – the rest of us will spend a lifetime figuring it out.
It is important to start thinking about these things when you have reached your mid-teens – not because you will get a head start on an answer by any means, but it does give you a chance to work out what you don’t want to do. Which is actually a great start – even if it seems like you are working it out back to front. The bottom line to be successful in anything you ever do in life is two things – you must do what you love and do what you are good at. Not all of us are good with numbers, inventory or people – and that needs to be okay. Work with your strengths, acknowledge your weaknesses and make sure you are doing something you love each day.
We may grow up deciding that we really want to own a coffee shop one day – but then after spending a few months working in a coffee shop and seeing what really lies behind the romance of the cupcakes and the cappuccinos might give you some work experience to help you figure out if a coffee shop is for you or not. You might not like the long hours or dealing with customers – so you can tick that one off your list and move forward. Some people never figure it out – some people seem to have it all figured out. Make the decision to further your education – no matter what you do; nothing you ever learn will be a loss anytime in your life.