<p>This is a simple question. I’m currently in pre-dentistry, and I just wanted to ask if it would allow significant vacation time. If not, what type of careers would? For instance, I want to be able to take a month off and visit another country. My goal in life is to explore the world, and I’d like very much to be able to take off a month maybe each year to do so.</p>
<p>Teaching gives you a few months off every year…</p>
<p>I would imagine that if you are going to be a dentist and possibly open your own place up, then you could plan your vacations ahead. My first thought was a teacher also, because you do get those summer months off. Is it going to pay you enough though so that you can go to the places that you want to?</p>
<p>One idea, since you are already heading toward dentistry is to finish becoming a dentist. You could join up with a few other dentists and help each other out. I have an uncle that is a dentist and he creates his own hours. When you have your own place though, like he does, it can be pretty expensive. </p>
<p>Besides having all of the same expenses as a second home, you have all the insurance as well as the cost for paying your employee’s. He works a lot so that he can keep his head above water. If you joined forces with a group office, you could lean on each other during off times. It would be more people to split the cost with and you take turns being the emergency care dentist. So that if you were gone for a month and one of your patients needed you, one of your partners could help them. I bet you could do some humanitarian dental work for people while traveling too.</p>
<p>I agree that becoming a dentist and working for yourself is the best option. My uncle works four days a week, takes vacations about three or four times a year not to mention random time he takes off, and he’s verrrryy well-off. Make sure you’re excited about it though; you’re not going to make any money if you’re just working for the time off!</p>
<p>Our orthodontist seems to take a lot of vacations and has regular working hours, too. Very few middle-of-the-night emergencies!</p>
<p>Summer camp counselor
Temporary Call Center Worker
Security Guard at Special Events
McDonald’s Cashier
Nursing Assistant<br>
On-call garbageman </p>
<p>See where we are going with this? Make a name for yourself then you can have all the vacation time you want when you are 40.</p>
<p>Teachers have June-August off every year.</p>
<p>The average public school teacher makes about $40-50k a year. If you picked up additional jobs in the summer, you could probably afford to take a cool vacation to another country every other summer or so.</p>
<p>Otherwise, if you become self-employed, it can work out well, but it can also not work out well. Self-employed people quite literally live paycheck to paycheck and don’t always know when their next business is coming in. They have to make sure to pay their employees before they get paid. Yes, there are perks, such as making your own hours. But, if you take off a month, then your business will be adversely affected by that. Say you take off all of July, then the people who call you in July needing appointments won’t be able to get appointments, so they’ll call somewhere else.</p>
<p>I would never touch high school kids with a 10 ft pole. </p>
<p>There are people in industry that literally do nothing, because they have intellectual property that their company cannot afford to lose to their competitors. What a bunch of undignified freeloaders.</p>
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<p>I don’t think this guy is interested in clipping food stamps.</p>
<p>My boyfriend gets over four weeks of vacation working in the IT department at a credit union… but he’s been there for nine years, and they’d never let him take an entire month off at once unless it was for a VERY special occasion-- they need him too badly. I work in insurance and start with two weeks, after five years I get 3… not eligible for 4 until after 10 years.</p>
<p>Most jobs are not going to hand you vacation time right when you walk in the door, that’s just not reality.</p>
<p>Research professors get to travel a lot. They can apply for grants to travel to conferences and when time allows, they can tack on time for a personal vacation. They can even take a sabbatical semester every couple years to work elsewhere in the world. </p>
<p>That being said, the easiest time to travel is when you don’t have responsibilities yet. Plan plenty of travel into your college education! (study abroad, peace corps, etc)</p>
<p>2 weeks off for starting employees? This might be more serious than I thought. Now, I’m really interested.</p>
<p>Teaching, obviously, gets you about three months of vacation. </p>
<p>If you go into the military the pay isn’t too bad once you factor in things like free/cheap healthcare and housing allowance, and you get 30 vacation days. Granted there’s that whole deployment thing, but then again that’d help with the whole exploring the world thing.</p>
<p><a href=“Careers - U.S. Air Force”>Careers - U.S. Air Force;
<p>As for two weeks for new employees, that’s par for the course at most companies if I’m not mistaken.</p>
<p>A lot of my friends jobs don’t give them vacation until after the first year, and I’ve heard a lot of only one week off as well. I was told over the phone when I got my offer that it would be two weeks, then when I got my benefits package saw that company policy was only one, then it turned out to still be two. Made me a happy camper. Though, I end up using half of them as sick days because my sick days are insubstantial and you don’t realize until you’re working just how few vacation days from work are compared to vacation days from school. You need to use a lot more of them for family and personal obligations, when it comes down to it you have a lot less than you think you will leftover for fun.</p>
<p>Just FYI, during those “three months of vacation” that teachers get, we have to prep for the next school year, including outlines for all classes, creating/revising lesson plans for the whole year, reflecting on the year that just ended and making appropriate changes to courses, and attending hours upon hours of professional development.</p>
<p>So yeah. Not much “vacation” time.</p>
<p>Don’t choice a job just based on how much vacation time you will get. Very, very bad choice.</p>
<p>Lol riku92mr, how long does “reflecting on the year that just ended” take? A month maybe? </p>
<p>I honestly don’t think all those tasks take up three months. Maybe 2-3 weeks of concentrated work. Especially once you’re an established teacher - no need to reinvent the wheel and redesign your curriculum every year. My mom’s a teacher, she works about 2 weeks over the summer, and she isn’t a slacker. It’s plenty of time off. </p>
<p>I disagree that it’s a bad idea to plan a career around time off. I think it’s a great idea! </p>
<p>I think dentistry is a good idea if you can get into practice with a few other dentists. After a few years of building up good will with them, you could take your yearly month off. It pays well enough that if you are frugal it is a practical goal.</p>
<p>I know very few teachers who actually get to take the summer off… their pay isn’t high enough unless they have a contributing spouse. Especially early on.</p>
<p>No, most teachers do NOT have 3 months off. Especially now with all the extra (generally unpaid) workshops they have to do all summer. Plus, teachers need to take x credits every few years to keep their certification, which most do in the summer. The teacher pay is so crappy that most teachers, unless their spouse makes enough money, take extra jobs in the summer (summer school, etc) to pay bills.</p>
<p>Some older teachers do as they’re established and don’t have to worry about their classes and such being rearranged. Most newer teachers do not have that luxury. </p>
<p>You also have to remember that the vast majority of teachers, especially young ones in middle school/high school, are not teaching the same class from year to year due to teacher cuts. They are taking on more and more classes, being forced to teach the unwanted classes, and generally just don’t know what class they’re going to teach next year. Many of my teachers in high school went from teaching just one class to 3 or 4 different classes throughout the day in just a few short years. My boyfriend’s brother is a science teacher. Taught chemistry last year, now was just told he’ll be teaching bio this year. This is not uncommon and teachers have to completely rearrange their class work because of these massive changes and cuts.</p>
<p>Working on an oil rig gives you as much time off as on. Typically, you’re scheduled 7/7, 14/14, 21/21, or even 14/21. Of course you will be working 12 hour days doing demanding physical labor in all kinds of weather. But the employment outlook is good with opportunities for advancement.</p>
<p>Other physically challenging jobs, particularly in remote locations, have this kind of time on/time off schedule.</p>