A bit more on sliderules and calculators. One of my constant memories is of my Dad, an aeronautical engineer, sitting on his easy chair, sliderule in hand and quadrille tablet in his lap. That’s how he did his creative engineering – away from the hubbub of the workplace. Of course there were statistics and computer guys at “the plant,” but at home he would be deeply lost in thought on one thing or another, working on his own. Then one day in the early 1970’s, when I was visiting from across the country, I noticed he had an HP programmable hand calculator (which used RPN). He had programmed in certain key formulas that he commonly used. So even an “old guy” (he was then about 60) could adapt to the handheld calculator and keep himself independent of (well not completely dependent on) the tech guys. Also, believe it or not, the calculus was invented long ago. I saw his textbooks from college in the 1930’s so it must have already been invented by then (:-)). So he knew how to put those new toys to good use.
I didn’t have a fork in the road; I’ve had superhighway interchanges 
First major: Studio Art
First career: Ford Model
Next major: English Lit
Next career: Freelance writer/copy editor/magazine writer
Next major: Computer science (only one semester; I realized quickly that it wasn’t for me)
Next career: Mom (congruent with writing)
Next major (now): Studio Art (full circle!)
Next career: dream job would be curating in a museum (I love to sort and organize as well as paint). Working artist would not suck, either.
To represent the other side of the coin…
I never changed my major in college (Computer Science) and still work at the same company that hired me when I graduated. The only “career change” I’ve made was cutting my hours when my children were born so I could spend more time being a mom. (Best career ever!)
Oh, and I’ve been married to the same man (we met right after I graduated college) and lived in the same house since we got married.
Same job, same man, same house…Depending on your viewpoint I’m either very loyal, or just plain boring. LOL!
One change of major in college; three years of miscellaneous jobs following college (but all revolving around a “career” as a ski coach), before going on to grad school. Got job as a college faculty member following grad school, and have been at that same institution for over two decades, but with one change of department during that time. Contemplating a major career change to something totally different (now doing it during summers) sometime in the next ~4 years or so (got to get my son through college still…).
I didn’t change major as much as finishing one degree and start another…
Undergrad Civil Engineering - focus on buildings with a bunch of architecture studios thrown in. Designed and built one house (my family’s house). Not impressed.
Undergrad Computer Science. Was working as a computer programmer when I decided to do CompSci. 3 semesters prerequisites or 4 semesters for a BS, chose the BS.
Grad Computer Science. Lots of research work on graphics and natural language.
Gets great job writing software tools (we were about 30 years ahead of our time…)
Tries MS Electrical Engineering part time. Halfway thru realizes hardware/EE is way too hard (the math based classes)
Transfers to product development software at work (sort of career change from software tool development)
Gets MS Human Factors / Interdisciplinary engineering which finally taught me the theory behind what I had been doing the last decade…
I just celebrated my 31th anniversary at work, still writing code and still designing user interfaces…
Oh no…majors:
Education
Social work
Undeclared
Undeclared again when prompted
Poli sci when forced to name one Senior year.
So my choices were law school or the Gap:)
My career has been relatively the same, just more responsibility. I work in an area where everything changes all the time, so no boredom.
In 6-10 years tho…career 2: Undeclared
I started college as a vocal music major. Switched to music education. Switched to elementary education. Transferred schools. Switched to speech pathology…and worked in that field for 40 some years…
I started college at 17 as an Electrical Engineering major. After two years, I got tired of the grind, didn’t really see the point of it, switched schools and switched majors, math and philosophy. After a year, I saw even less of a point and switched back. Even though I was an excellent programmer, my favorite areas to study were electromagnetism and satellite communications. Many of my programmer friends are retired.
After 18 months of mandatory 60 hours/week in the industrial northeast and no path for advancement, I moved to a beach town and became a stockbroker. After a year of the “Wolf of Wall Street” lifestyle, I decided to save my soul and went back to engineering. Three of my old co-workers went to prison shortly after I left (hey Stan!). This time I had more room for advancement, and used my high frequency satellite communication knowledge to help speed up the internet. I designed a bunch of stuff for many of our orbiting satellites. I moved to Senior Engineer then Chief Engineer in quick succession. I nearly bought two different companies.
With my wife super-unhappy by herself with the two kids and me almost never at home, I quit my job and took a 40 hour design engineering job at a small company near Seattle, essentially career suicide. We bought a house and had a third child. That was 17 years ago, still in the same place, same job, settled and comfortable. In 15 months S2 will be heading to college and I may look for something a little more stimulating. Or trade it all in and become a math tutor, who knows.
I’ve read every one of these posts and love them all!
@ClaremontMom introduced a new metric when she said “same man” all those years. I met my second wife while I was working at CMU. She was a student, but I’m quick to point out she was not one of MY students (we met rock climbing). We’ve been married almost 38 years, so I guess it was OK.
I’m proud of my ex-brother in law. He went to college on a basketball scholarship. His first career was as an electrical engineer. About 20 years ago, his entire department was laid off. He found hourly work by a few days later. And then he decided to go back to school. He got an education degree and teaching certification and became a middle-school teacher. He then decided to get a Ph.D. He’s now a tenured professor at a state flagship.
In high school, I wanted to be a writer or an artist, wasn’t sure which. I wrote a few stories as a senior, got a few rejection letters, decided I didn’t have it (whatever “it” was) and went off to college to do something more traditional.
My first year of college, I was in the major-of-the-month club: English, PoliSci, History, Communications, etc. Then I transferred schools, going from a directional U to a CityName State U because I was following a boy. 
At CityName State, I took whatever looked interesting while I completed my gen ed requirements. By the time I was done with my sophomore year, I decided that I really like anthropology and philosophy, so I double majored in those with a minor in Spanish.
I went to grad school in Religious Studies with a sociology / psychology focus, then let the psychology lead me into cognitive science of religion for my doctorate - which I didn’t finish after getting orphaned.
At the MA level, I’d been set to become a professor, but some of my students (at a UC, no less!) were barely literate, so I stopped after my MA to become a reading teacher and curriculum developer.
We moved for hubs’ job, and that meant giving up my curriculum work, so I went to (plot twist!) art school until I got too pregnant to reach my drawing board. I was one class shy of an MFA, but turpentine and babies really don’t mix, plus we moved again - 500 miles away from my art school.
So I taught Special Ed. for a few years until some cough organizational changes made it impossible for me to stay.
So then I decided to finish my PhD. Finished my fields right about the time my thesis advisor jumped ship to a different university, which collapsed the entire program I was in.
So I started writing travel, science, news and gossip articles for a major online news platform. It was mere pennies money-wise, but it was pretty fun and after I’d been doing it for awhile, short story and novel ideas started pressing their noses up against the glass.
So I started writing fiction again, and by golly, this time editors started buying it.
Then one of my writing mentors caught me drawing and asked if I had a portfolio. (Remember art school way back when?) Said mentor is just as famous for his art (comics and dragons) as he is for his writing, so I showed him my portfolio. He says my art is every bit as good as my writing, so why am I wasting half of my talent?
So now I’m a full-time sci-fi/fantasy writer, and I’ll be dabbling in the art side of things once we iron out the logistics for yet another move.
This is a great idea for a thread, @digmedia. We can plan all we want, but life has a funny way of adding unexpected forks in the road.
I have a degree in broadcast production/management. My career looked like this:
Computer ad design
Newspaper reporter
Radio ad copywriter
TV traffic coordinator
TV technical director (small market)
TV technical director (large market)
After our children were born I decided that I wanted to homeschool, but I didn’t want to give up my job. I actually attempted to do both for awhile, but I worked at a station in a large market 2 hours (one way) from where we lived; the travel was too much but the cost of living there was too high for us to own a home and save for our kids’ college, so I quit. My plan was to homeschool full-time and work part-time closer to home.
It didn’t work out that way. Our youngest is dyslexic, dyscalculic, and dysgraphic so homeschooling turned into two full-time jobs – teaching during the day and creating curriculum tailored to my daughter at night. Over the years I have done some freelance work (creating promotional materials, writing ad copy, and teaching classes), but haven’t been able to work regular hours for a company.
My daughter will be graduating soon and when she heads to college, I want to return to school and get a computer science degree (with maybe a minor in psych). I’ll be in my early 50’s when I start so I don’t know if I’ll be too old to get a job, but I’d love to write educational programs for students like my daughter.
My path isn’t what I expected, but it’s worked out well for me because I’ve been lucky. I’m healthy (my dad was going blind at my age), I’m still married, and my husband will have a pension when he retires, so I have a backup in case I can’t find work and have to create my own. But I don’t think I’d recommend it to my own children. Too many things have to go right for it to work out.
@DiotimaDM sounds like you should try your hand at a graphic novel!
I had one major Economics.
I always thought being a banker would be fun. Worst job ever!! What was I thinking?
Met my future wife who was working in technology. I was fascinated. Quit banking. Took a crappy job at a start up selling computers. That was awesome. Learned a lot. Left that job and went to work for the company that invented the internet. Sold internet/web hosting. Left that after learning a lot. Went back to work with the guys who had started the computer company, for a web start up. Super fun. Company got sold. They started a new company, I went to work with them again. Company sold. Left that and worked for several more start ups, but none as successful as earlier firms. When we shut the last firm down, I did not go back to work. I’d like to find something again, my old bosses have retired unfortunately.
Amazingly, my wife has worked for the same tech company since we met.
It was many years ago, but I changed my major up to the last minute. My father gave up asking. And my adviser said it didn’t matter as I’d wind up going to grad school, law school or business school in any case. That’s precisely what happened. Once I got to B-School, my best friend had majored in medieval history.
@austinmshauri - Vocabulary lesson for the day.
All: Such interesting stories you have!