Career Direction: Which way do I go?

Question

I do not know which career path I would like to take. I have all sorts of interests and cannot decide on just one. The fields that I am interested in is: social worker, interior designing, photography, music production, legal assistant, or a teacher of some sort.

If you are in any of the listed fields above, will you tell me how you feel about your career, pro/cons, if it pays well and special skills required to be successful in the field?

If your career isn't listed above, but you love what you do, your suggestions are welcomed as well. Thank You!

Answer 1

If you want my advice, I say start the other way around. What do you want to be doing with your time? Do you love the idea of dressing up and going to an office each day, do you want to work from home, or would your rather be out, in your car on location? Is it the money that's important, the subject matter or the people that you affect that's most important to you?

I knew all through high school that I wanted to do something with computers or something in advertising (like Darren Stevens on Bewitched, honestly) and I wound up meandering through temp jobs to self teach myself computer graphic design and web and some animation (computers and advertising essentially) - enough to finally get out of the cubicles and office drama that I hated so much and work for myself for the last 10 years making sales tools for big and small companies. Now at 40, I find that is all changing. Suddenly I seem to find myself in more of a role of teacher (homeschooling my kids - and using computers to teach and make materials) and a counsellor (using herbs and theory that helped me recover from my own health issues and those of my kids).

What I am trying to say that if you do this right you will get to be all of those things in your lifetime - and if you know that for sure, the right opportunities will just find you. Astonishing but true, I have found.

Peace!

Answer 2

Apart from your career interest you should also look at the market trend of these careers in the next 5 years ... whether this will lead you to another level or further expansion in this market. Also whether the government is putting resources into these careers for example: Teaching where I believe the government is putting more resource to support the teaching career line of work.

Also if you plan to go overseas in the future where you also need to plan ahead and research what is job market trend for that country and this should be your focus.

Basically you will commercialise your interest with 50% interest and 50% earn a living (some of my friend even look at 20% Interest and 80% Money). Subsequently when you are get more experience and financially mature then you probably looking for something 60/40 or 70/30 "Interest / Money" respectively.

Good Luck

Answer 3

They are very different fields. You might look at some ways that you could combine these (e.g. art teacher or art therapist or doing art in a youth development program). That way it is not a choice. Your career has to be about your passions. If you enjoy artistic expression and working with people look for ways to connect these (there are many good websites that talk about experiential modes of work).

Answer 4

follow what most interests u more.