I was really curious to see if other non-trads are in my boat.
I'm 25 years old, and I've been thinking a lot lately about how the things that happened in my life when I was 18 are still really affecting where I am now. Also, in the past week, I met another 25 yo that is doing the exact job that I hoped to be doing now, so, it's caused me to reflect a lot on the path that my life has taken.
In high school, I was always extremely interested in advertising and marketing, read tons of books on it, etc. I went by myself to one of the top undergrad business schools in the country, and planned to focus on that and be excited about that career. I love the way that marketing forces one to be creative in order to affect people's decisions. But once I got to college, I was really lonely, and had a really hard time making friends. In the middle of my freshmen year, I dropped out, headed home, went to a few other places, and finally graduated at a small mediocre near home (where I was pretty happy for my final two years of college).
I was so focused on just trying to find a place where I had friends and I could be happy that I really did not achieve any of the things that most people from my original school achieved by the time of their graduation, like impressive internships, participation in business clubs, leadership in organizations, etc.
All my jobs since college have had nothing to do with advertising, and in almost all certainty, I won't ever get a job at the top ad firms, etc.
My few years since college have been doing boring cubicle jobs that I don't care about, things just to pay the bills.
I could probably get into a good MBA program (good grades and good GMAT score), yet, there's no "business" job that really appeals to me at this point. And, given my complete lack of success that I've had when I've applied to jobs that interest me, I think I'm just sort of cynical that I could ever get a job in the business world that interests me.
I was unemployed for a while last year, and finally landed in my current job in September. Once the stress about having a stable income dissolved in September, I've been giving constant thought as to what direction I would like my career to head. Starting this past fall, for the first time in my life, I considered being a physician. I started thinking that after four years in the corporate world showed me how tough it can be to get a good-paying job, and while realizing that my current career path has no direction. I surveyed the career landscape and figured that the most realistic and likely way for me to get a six-figure job with high stability lies in health care. I'm currently taking Gen Chem I at night this semester.
I read the other threads about "passion", and I don't think that that describes how I feel about medicine.
There still are many other topics that I find more interesting reading about as compared to reading about medicine. They include...
-Advertising (I read 'Ad Age' all the time ... but trust me, especially since 'Mad Men', tons of people have wanted to get into advertising, but there just aren't that many jobs in the field)
-Foreign Affairs (not that many jobs in that field, at least relative to the number of people that would like to work in it)
-Economics (I'm fascinated by the human psychology aspect, but, the only decent career prospects involve getting a PhD, and even then, the career prospects are quite shaky, I know lots of Economics PhDs that are constantly working on semester by semester contracts with schools, and making not that much money ... and, the number of economics jobs in the private sector have been cut big-time since the financial crisis of 2008)
-Sports (I'm a male that loves sports. Shocking, right?)
So, my pursuit of medicine doesn't come from the fact that it's the subject that I find more interesting than any other, but more from the fact that, given where I am right now, it's the most practical way for me to achieve a comfortable salary over the course of my life. I feel like I have stopped thinking about "what interests me" and started looking at "what is the economy/market offering". I spent four years (albeit in one of the worst recession in American history) trying to find a job that "interests me", and I'm sick of doing that, as it hasn't been successful for me at all.
One reason that I never considered medicine as a career was because I never found science interesting. It was impossible for me to care about something that had no connection to human emotions / feelings (the way that English / History / Economics) interested me.
A big thing that I've realized over the last few years is that I'm MUCH less entrepreneurial than I always thought I was. I'd much rather be Charlie Rose than being a guy out on the road selling drill bits. I don't like the notion that the success of an entrepreneur/salesman depends so much on someone else buying in to you. Being a successful doctor is primarily about accumulating all the knowledge and being able to make wise decisions about information in front of you. That is VERY different than the skills needed in the business world, and I am now much more drawn to the latter. (All this is to say that I do have a fear or trying to start my own business).
I do think that I'd be happy being a doctor; at the very least, happier being a doctor than being a typical cubicle monkey for the rest of my life. But I'd be lying if I said that the topic of "medicine" currently interested me more than any of the topics mentioned above; hopefully that would change over time.
Anyone else have a similar mindset to me?
I'm 25 years old, and I've been thinking a lot lately about how the things that happened in my life when I was 18 are still really affecting where I am now. Also, in the past week, I met another 25 yo that is doing the exact job that I hoped to be doing now, so, it's caused me to reflect a lot on the path that my life has taken.
In high school, I was always extremely interested in advertising and marketing, read tons of books on it, etc. I went by myself to one of the top undergrad business schools in the country, and planned to focus on that and be excited about that career. I love the way that marketing forces one to be creative in order to affect people's decisions. But once I got to college, I was really lonely, and had a really hard time making friends. In the middle of my freshmen year, I dropped out, headed home, went to a few other places, and finally graduated at a small mediocre near home (where I was pretty happy for my final two years of college).
I was so focused on just trying to find a place where I had friends and I could be happy that I really did not achieve any of the things that most people from my original school achieved by the time of their graduation, like impressive internships, participation in business clubs, leadership in organizations, etc.
All my jobs since college have had nothing to do with advertising, and in almost all certainty, I won't ever get a job at the top ad firms, etc.
My few years since college have been doing boring cubicle jobs that I don't care about, things just to pay the bills.
I could probably get into a good MBA program (good grades and good GMAT score), yet, there's no "business" job that really appeals to me at this point. And, given my complete lack of success that I've had when I've applied to jobs that interest me, I think I'm just sort of cynical that I could ever get a job in the business world that interests me.
I was unemployed for a while last year, and finally landed in my current job in September. Once the stress about having a stable income dissolved in September, I've been giving constant thought as to what direction I would like my career to head. Starting this past fall, for the first time in my life, I considered being a physician. I started thinking that after four years in the corporate world showed me how tough it can be to get a good-paying job, and while realizing that my current career path has no direction. I surveyed the career landscape and figured that the most realistic and likely way for me to get a six-figure job with high stability lies in health care. I'm currently taking Gen Chem I at night this semester.
I read the other threads about "passion", and I don't think that that describes how I feel about medicine.
There still are many other topics that I find more interesting reading about as compared to reading about medicine. They include...
-Advertising (I read 'Ad Age' all the time ... but trust me, especially since 'Mad Men', tons of people have wanted to get into advertising, but there just aren't that many jobs in the field)
-Foreign Affairs (not that many jobs in that field, at least relative to the number of people that would like to work in it)
-Economics (I'm fascinated by the human psychology aspect, but, the only decent career prospects involve getting a PhD, and even then, the career prospects are quite shaky, I know lots of Economics PhDs that are constantly working on semester by semester contracts with schools, and making not that much money ... and, the number of economics jobs in the private sector have been cut big-time since the financial crisis of 2008)
-Sports (I'm a male that loves sports. Shocking, right?)
So, my pursuit of medicine doesn't come from the fact that it's the subject that I find more interesting than any other, but more from the fact that, given where I am right now, it's the most practical way for me to achieve a comfortable salary over the course of my life. I feel like I have stopped thinking about "what interests me" and started looking at "what is the economy/market offering". I spent four years (albeit in one of the worst recession in American history) trying to find a job that "interests me", and I'm sick of doing that, as it hasn't been successful for me at all.
One reason that I never considered medicine as a career was because I never found science interesting. It was impossible for me to care about something that had no connection to human emotions / feelings (the way that English / History / Economics) interested me.
A big thing that I've realized over the last few years is that I'm MUCH less entrepreneurial than I always thought I was. I'd much rather be Charlie Rose than being a guy out on the road selling drill bits. I don't like the notion that the success of an entrepreneur/salesman depends so much on someone else buying in to you. Being a successful doctor is primarily about accumulating all the knowledge and being able to make wise decisions about information in front of you. That is VERY different than the skills needed in the business world, and I am now much more drawn to the latter. (All this is to say that I do have a fear or trying to start my own business).
I do think that I'd be happy being a doctor; at the very least, happier being a doctor than being a typical cubicle monkey for the rest of my life. But I'd be lying if I said that the topic of "medicine" currently interested me more than any of the topics mentioned above; hopefully that would change over time.
Anyone else have a similar mindset to me?
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