Does anyone else feel dissuaded about career paths?

Pre-College Topics High School Cafe
1

I’ve had a few career paths in my mind, and it seems like they all suck and everyone tells me not to do whatever job I have in my mind.

For example, at one point I wanted to be a lawyer. I log onto forums and it seems like all I can see is people complaining about how they can’t get a job and can’t pay off their massive student loans and basically read stale bread for hours on end. Making peanuts and being bored all day for eight (most likely more) hours? Count me out.

Then I wanted to become a mathematician because math always seems pretty cool. I log onto forums and all I can see is people complaining about how bad being a mathematician is. “The BLS says mathematicians make a lot of money, hahahahahaha. you have a lot to learn kid” one poster on a forum far, far away once told me. Spending 8 years doing something like math and feeling like a tool everyday? Count me out.

Then, more recently, I wanted to become a doctor because science and caring for people seems to be a nice and interesting mixture and all I can see now is people talking about their massive student loans and how little money they make. Spend my days doing a high risk job elbow deep in a man’s chest while having my paycheck eaten by overhead and loans? Count me out.

Rinse and repeat and et cetera for almost any job I can find. Anyone else ever feel this way? Anybody know how to cure it?

2

Honestly, you’re going to hear that about ANY job. There’s always something to complain about. The best thing is to just do what you love. If you do what you love, then you’ll be happy.

3

Don’t allow other people to tell you what the perfect job is (or isn’t).

4

Here’s the thing about forums.

People tend to post things that either make themselves look good, or make others look bad.

Look at hotel reviews. It’s incredibly hard to find one that says “This place was great.” Nope, the people who got great hotels tend to think that it was because they were so smart to choose wisely, not because the hotel was good.

Look at college reviews. They tend to say “this place is awful.” Why? Because the people who love the school are proud that they got in, and are too busy doing all that is positive to post online.

At the end of the day, it’s about YOU. Sure, lots of professions require grad school, and it’s expensive. So there will be debt. You know that going in, and choose wisely in terms of which schools you attend and the amount of debt you accrue.

And know that every single job in the world is work. There will be days when you’re overwhelmed and days when everything goes wrong. That’s life. It doesn’t mean you’ve made a bad career choice, merely that you’re in the world of adults where mommy and daddy can’t kiss your problems away.

My advice is to stop taking the opinions of disgruntled people online. Speak to people IN the profession. Want opinions on being a lawyer? Contact the local Bar Association via email with questions. Likewise any other profession.

My son wants to major in Sports Management. (He’s a Junior.) In starting to look at schools last fall, we noticed a huge variety in approaches: some were more geared towards coaching and Phys Ed, others towards management and business. I wrote to a bunch of local pro teams, asking which type of degree would make him a better candidate down the road.

We got a number of responses. But one was from a man who is very high up in management for a local pro team. He spent half an hour on the phone with my son, talking about his job and what it entailed. He was incredibly positive, and made a huge impression on my son.

So that’s my point. If you want to know, ASK. But don’t ask anonymous people online. Ask those who are good at what they do, and ask them how they got to be so good.

5

This is tangential, but what do you mean by “mathematician”? That’s not a common job title.