How life influenced your career, and vice-versa?

[Keraron]

What were the decisive influences in your life that made you choose what you're currently studying or working for?

 

How did your career influence the significant elements of your life, e.g. did it help you find your soulmate?

[waveseer]

I choose my career because it was sure to be in demand and not many other people do it.

 

It has in no way helped me find my 'soulmate' if even such a person exists.

[easyguy]

I don't feel that I chose a career, it chose me. There was never a moment when I thought, "I want to be a professional musician." I've always been on that path, like a kind of tunnel vision. I'm not gigging professionally yet (still an undergrad student), but always work towards that and have the highest aspirations. I love music, and can't imagine not being involved in it in some form or another as a profession.

[SayWhen]

When I was 16 my parents forced me to get a job. It happened to be working with kids, and I completely loved it. I became very invested in education for myself and also for the children who I spent my time with. Eventually, I enrolled in an education program and read the book "Savage Inequalities" by Jonathan Kozol. I then realized that not only did I want to follow education, but I wanted to invest myself completely in Urban Education. I currently work at a school in North Philadelphia (it's a warzone there) and honestly, I couldn't be happier with what I am doing. I am not teaching yet because I am still working towards my degree...but I will be there soon enough. I currently assist students who need help with literacy. The school has a proficiency score of 3% in literacy and 11% in math. To give you an idea, my suburban school was close to 100% in both. Education is in a sad state in the USA. I think this has influenced my life because it's what I want to do for a career and really just as a lifestyle...if that makes sense. My boyfriend is pre-med so he really doesn't have much to do with my career path but we are both in "caring professions" which makes us pretty compatible on that end...and we learn a lot from each other which is always good. I'm looking forward to Tuesday when the kiddos come to school

[Lonewing]

Layoffs and the instability of modern life have led me to the Armed Forces looking for a stable longterm career.

[shes2smart]

Always listened to the radio as a kid. On a road trip when I was still of a single-digit age, my dad started complaining about the repetition of the songs being played on the top 40 station that was on the car radio. I tried to explain why they were doing that....unfortunately, I didn't have the language and vocabulary to explain music rotation and top 40 formatics at that age...but I just understood it.

 

I was 15 when I first head a female DJ on the radio....and I knew that's what I wanted to do. I did that for 25 years. Now I'm moving into full-time freelance voiceover work from my home studio. 25 years of doing a daily radio show plus commercial production was, perhaps, the finest training ground one could have to be a voiceover person.

 

Radio didn't help me meet any romantic interests, but it did help me meet some friends, some fans and a lot of......odd socks. It influenced my non-work life with its standard 6 day work week/no holidays off, ever scheduling and its (for many years) low pay.

 

But, really, as I was working in it and even as I look back on it now, I had no other options in terms of career. Nothing else was going to be as good a fit as that. And, eventually, the business changed enough (and I changed enough) that it wasn't a good fit anymore.

 

So, now I'm doing something else with everything I learned from radio....

[Crazyaboutdogs]

a glut of people in my field and few real jobs in it influenced my decision to switch gears and take my career down a slightly different path within the same field. It has not helped me find my soulmate.

[catfeeder]

I learned to separate my career life from my social life very early, and it has served me well. I'm able to enjoy drama-free work relationships that are friendly and fulfilling in their own right, while my social and love life are on my private time. Operating this way has spared me from office gossip, risky politics and potential damage to both my emotional well being and my career path.

 

That said, there's always room for social networking on contract work at the end of a project. While this might sound contradictory to my above statement, work IS a social environment--it just should never be confused with a therapeutic one, or a dating service.

 

I cultivate professional frienships during work, and as I'm about to leave a project, I reinforce those and develop them socially after I'm gone. It's a different story when I'm on one location for a year or more. I keep it professional, and I'm careful not to cross any lines of intimacy that could mix into work stresses and cause a crash n' burn.

 

For the record, I see us all as soul mates.

 

Cheers,

Cat

[Plastic_Monkey]

Even when I was really young, I looked at people going to work, thought it didn't sound like much fun, and decided that as long as one had to spend 80% of ones life working, it had better be something interesting. So far, halfway through my career, I think I've done that.

 

Helping me find my soulmate? No luck there. Sometimes I think maybe if I hadn't been quite so career-driven, maybe I would have had better results with that.

[WomanWriter]

I wanted to be a psychologist because I've always been curious about solving mysteries. I was the annoying kid who always asked "Why." But then when I got older, I realized how much work that was going to be. I had always worked hard in school but was terribly burned out...and it didn't help that I had social anxiety. So I didn't go for my Masters in Psych; I turned to Education instead and went after an MS in that.

 

In my credential program, I enjoyed the research that went along with it. I enjoyed creating units based on tried-and-true cross-country methodologies. I enjoyed the kids I student taught and evaluating their progress, tailoring interventions to students as needed.

 

What I didn't enjoy, however, was the drain...drain....drain on my energy, how it zapped my health. I was constantly sick physically and mentally. I had mentally ill students who Admin. refused to help me with. I was stuck in a school that did not cater to the kids or teachers. I felt used and abused. I didn't like getting up in front of the class daily and lecturing them about how to behave. I wanted to TEACH, but I felt like I was babysitting. I'm an introvert too, so it wasn't a lot of fun because I was mentally overstimulated by the stress but unstimulated by the lack of motivation... and overspent physically.

 

Now I'm laid off and substitute teaching. I hate subbing because it's unpredictable in every sense and takes too much energy...but at least I don't get called much anymore with this economy (which is also bad).

 

I have enjoyed work in the past--what I liked was tutoring. Sitting with someone and working one-on-one was very enjoyable for me. Plus, a lot of my friends were there with me and we'd play boardgames after hours in the Center. I also enjoyed working at an amusement park and summer camp...but only in the background, as a cashier or food prep person.

 

My best job was as a high school English test writer. I got paid to basically write English tests! I got to do this over the computer, from home. It was pretty much my dream job (with a few glitches).

 

I'm dying to be a "real writer" and am finally taking University classes on how to do it. But I know I can't expect to jump into a writing career yet with little experience in the field. When I'm writing, I feel free. When I'm teaching a whole class, I feel trapped.

 

P.S. I did not meet my soulmate...BUT I did meet my ex fiance when we worked together in the tutoring center. I met my ex before him in the amusement park. Maybe I'll meet my next ex at my next job...lol.

[Alezia]

Well i'll go against the grain. I don't really believe in the soulmate concept but I did find my fiancé in University. We now have two kids =)

 

The only thing is that it makes for some unspoken competition in the field. He's pretty good at not letting my success get to him. I used to date a guy which was in my classes and he would always get pissed off that I always had higher grades than him.

It's not always a blessing =)

[Lonewing]

My girl is now an Executive Director, she has an A.A. in psycology. I have a B.S. in Geology and a M.A. in Library science.

 

My first field is highly prone to economy fluctuations, the second is in a revolution that is taking out the professional aspect of the field left and right.

 

I never once had a problem with her being more successful than me, if anything I loved the sense that I could be there for her at home for her family while she was doing the heavy lifting. But she wasn't happy, and she got herself a new man. some women want to do it all, and in her case she wanted both the pants AND the apron, because if I tookt he Apron then she would feel guilty about how much I was doing for her and how little she was doing foe me...I know, so much better off with out her!!

[Difficult]

Layoffs and the instability of modern life have led me to the Armed Forces looking for a stable longterm career.

 

I was in the same exact boat, a cum laude college degree wasnt getting me a cup of coffee. Couldnt join because I didnt want to lie about my mental condition and get a fradualent discharge, which is a felony.