Hey everyone!
I am a student in High school trying to follow the path to become a businesswoman. However, I am not exactly sure what are the appropriate stops along the way are, and the length of time between stops. What was your timeline of events?
For Example:
High School (GPA, notable accomplishments, etc)
College (Name, Type, Etc)
2 years business internship
Grad School (Name, how long, etc)
Job (Position and salary range)
Next job (Company, position, and Salary range)
I am not sure If I am allowed to ask for peoples salaries. Please feel free to opt out of telling me if you feel uncomfortable!
I am just trying to get an idea of what happens after high school, college and everything!
There is no one path. Read some books about successful people and you will see there is no magic formula except this: Find something you do well and keep doing it until you find another. Keep adding to the list throughout your career and you will achieve your goal.
Check with your school, local library, etc to see if there is a Mentoring Program in your area. It sounds like you’d benefit from having a Mentor in the business world.
Remain open to opportunities. Sometimes premature planning, or overplanning, gets in the way. One job can lead to another in unexpected ways. Explore things in college, both academically and in extracurriculars. Intern or volunteer if you can. Things will work out.
Also, while an undergrad business major may lead to a job in the short term, you really can major in anything you want to major in and end up in “business.” Sometimes a more generalist major leads to better opportunities over the long run.
High school: Develop good work ethics. Be a good person. Learn how to work in a team. Develop leadership. Do those ECs that define who you are. Ecs can be generic, no need to be business specific. Of course, nothing wrong with business related ECs either.
College: Utilize diversity internship programs when you are a rising sophomore. Many big-name businesses (particularly so in finance) want to have more female employees. Again, have a life and do those ECs that are meaningful to you. Now, networking is important. Learn how to promote yourself with good stories that are supported by your ECs and academic activities. Try to be able to present yourself as a confident, sharp, trustworthy, and polish person. Attending a reputable college will make your life easier if you want to get in big-league business world. You major may or may not have implications on the line of business that you are able to get in. In general, the more reputable your college is, your major is less critical.
Doing your job: Understand corporate culture. Try not to deviate too much from the norm. A certain level of deviation at right moments can help you differentiate yourself from the pack though. Be a good person. Give back to your community.
Life is marathon, not 100 meter dash. Be able to relax, and not burn out easily or too quickly. Enjoy your life.
Life throws curve balls. Learn to hit them. With the exception of my very first job out of college, all of my positions were gained because I was recruited by someone I knew. If you had told me in high school where I would be in 20 years, I would have laughed you straight out of town.
I was always a fan of Steve Jobs’ Stanford Commencement Address (youtube it). Make plenty of “dots” without worrying about how they’ll connect in the future. Pursue things that interest you right now for their own sake.
Agree with above comments
–The information you are asking for is inappropriately personal and identifying.
–A path in business is almost never the straight line type of progression that one can chart. Things like relationships, luck, changing interests etc. come into play.
–You have not even taken one college level business course so you don’t have the background classes to help determine what type of major and what direction would be a good fit for your interests and aptitudes. One can be a businesswoman in paths as diverse as accounting and marketing all of which would have different paths.
–Why do you necessarily think a businesswoman’s path would be vastly different from a businessman’s path?
–You talk of taking a gap year for ice skating so I it is not yet time to focus on this.
I was not a star high school student. But I graduated in the top 25% of my huge HS class. I went to college, and transferred after one year. Imswitched majors at lease six or seven times until I landed where I landed.
Got my bachelors, worked for 2 years…then got my masters.
Worked for 15 more years and got a 6th year courses beyond my masters.
Worked for 40 some years in the field.
I don’t think most people now would do it my way…many more changes, career changes etc.
I used to think the whole career path thing was like getting shot out of a cannon and your target was the moon. Except the cannon didn’t work, and you were stuck half in, half out, or you landed on Mars instead, and you found you really kind of liked Mars more than the moon, especially when you factored in the benefits and 401k matching.
No magic formula, as others have pointed out, and those who have this defined career path in mind often find that it doesn’t work the way they expected. One thing to try and avoid is the idea that you can’t take risks or make mistakes, that somehow this is fatal, almost everyone successful in any way you want to imagine has had failures (typical entrpeneur has 5 or 6 failures before paydirt). Rather than rely on what others tell you you should be doing, try to find what you want to do, and see where that takes you. While in High school, start seeing the kinds of things you like, the things that motivate and you and don’t. Obviously, getting good grades is important, getting into the school you want to is important, but even there you will find curve balls. I started college thinking I wanted to be pre med (organic chemistry got me), switched to computer science, figured out I didn’t really want to program for a living, ended up getting a job kind of out of left field (career services had this weird “miscallaneous jobs” book), that ended up me finding what I was good at and it became my career…and I didn’t know that going in.
Life paths are kind of interesting things, they are like navigating a boat in the fog, you only start seeing things as they come close:)
I thought I would be living in a big city, designing skyscrapers. Instead, I’m living in a rural part of Maine, designing houses and small buildings. And I don’t mind at all!
I agree with the other posters–network, learn what you can from each experience, be open to new options, and work as hard as you can instead of doing the minimum to get by.
Life is full of surprises–each of my jobs–even those I had in HS and college were useful in learning what I’m good at and like and what I prefer not to do as much and am not as strong in. I’ve switched my job and career several times but each has been satisfying in different ways.
The skills you acquire in one field can often transfer to other areas if you are able to see the connections and be creative.
Enjoy what you do and become the best at it, don’t be intimidated by challenges, lead by example, always respect and support the people you work with and especially the people who work for you. Everything else will follow. I never applied for a job in my entire life - jobs always found me (and I am very successful)
