Definitely, while my interest is primarily curatorial, I have had the great opportunity to work closely with my local art museum’s education and youth departments and I imagine that’s certainly where I’ll start. And yes, I’ll be a freshman next fall at a university with an art museum on campus - one of the reasons I chose this university - that I will definitely become involved with. I really want to explore the various facets of museum work so I don’t end up limiting myself.
Just out of curiosity, do museum curator roles pay much? Or is it a deal like acting, were a handful of people make big bucks, and everyone else needs to work a second job to make ends meet?
“This makes the value of shadowing, internships, summer jobs, etc very clear but those often come after the college has been chosen based on the major that leads to the career”
-This is absolutely correct in the first part. I do not know the statistics but my D. and many around her shadowed, voluntered and had summer jobs all thru HS. In fact, D. would not get into programs that she was planning to apply if she did not shadow, volunteer, had a job at Med. Research Lab (or at least interned there).
I do not see how any talking can substitute the above. I am glad that at least those who are pusuing medical profession are practically required to participate in these activiities, very good idea!
That’s one of the reasons my high school had the Wednesday program where students spent one day a week doing volunteer work, interning on Capital Hill and exploring careers. I learned in high school that I wasn’t cut out to be a teacher and that what really goes on in a Senator’s office.
Yes, teaching requires a talent, strongly agree, and I do not possess it either. This type of discovery could be done while trying to help / tutor others at your school or outside. This actviity also will help to further develop such skill if one has it already. Actually the tendency to help others with academics led my D. to the best job on college campus - Supplemental Instructor (paid position!!) that she greatlly enjoyed and recognised for.
Any input on journalism? Thanks!
I think it is important to know how many hours a career in law, for instance, requires. There are many firms that require 80 hour weeks. This makes it difficult to have a personal/family life. Not all firms require this but just know that when you are starting out in any career, there is a learning curve. Many of the female attorneys I know from law school are single. They worked so many hours in their 20’s and 30’s that it was hard to have a social life.
But, I also know quite a few of my friends that worked at larger firms right out of law school, paid off their school loans then went to a smaller firm to be able to work slightly less. There are many options for lawyers such as prosecution, defense, civil litigation, transactional work, and even working for companies in a non-legal capacity. It is sometimes difficult to find a job even with a law degree.
I wish I had known to be more savvy when I was in law school when looking at firms or positions.
Does the firm I am interviewing with have female partners?
Does the firm do pro bono work? Do they encourage attorneys there to help as well?
Does the firm promote most of their associates to partner within 7-10 years? Do partners come in to work
on the weekends? Do they require associates to come in for "face time" even when they do not have
work to complete?
what is the dress code? is there a lot of travel? do associates get to assist in trying cases?
I am very glad I am an attorney but there are many things I could have done to make this process smoother.
I’m an attorney too so I will add to the above.
Almost all the female lawyers I know are married to or divorced from other lawyers.E.g. 3 of 3 women in my office. It is almost impossible to have a family with two lawyers working in firms. This is more manageable with (lower paid) government jobs.
What you want to do in law school rarely is what you do do. Most lawyers in civil firms work for insurance companies.
If you work in a civil firm you can go years without a trial. If you want trial time, be a criminal lawyer.
Students need to know that most firms say they have a set number of hours they require you bill per year. That number may or may not actually reflect how many they expect you to bill. Billing is in 6 minute increments. There are some moral/ethical questions associated with billing that you will have to resolve for yourself. For example, when I was at my firm if I called a person and left a message and moved on to a new case I billed at 6 minutes–even though it was 2 minutes tops. 6 minutes is the minimum. Many lawyers I know don’t bill in any less than 12 minute increments so that call would be 12 minutes. The actual work you bill may be reduced by your partner. You will also have to do social/admin stuff that is not billed at all…like going to the “lawyer prom” or interviewing candidates, etc.
In my firm they had expectations about how you dress, what car you should drive (in case clients go in it) and even how you should wear your make-up (sent someone to department store for a make-over).
Firms can be openly political in the Republican/Democrat way. It can chaff if the firm isn’t in alignment with your views.
Your debt will drive where you will work to the extent you have any options. People who want to do environmental law often end up working for mining companies, business, etc.
Travelling for work stops being fun quickly.
Partnership isn’t what it used to be. There isn’t a time when you get to kick back and enjoy. Also, you stop working for salary and new partners often make less than they did as an associate.
The bigger the city, the bigger the firm, the bigger the salary the longer you work. I sometimes think it all evens out on a $/hour basis.
I was talking to my brother and he was mentioned relatives of his in-laws became a stay at home mom with three kids after training as a surgeon. Her husband is a surgeon too. But if you spend all that time and effort, it seems kind of a waste. I know I will get flamed regarding the waste part comment but I have a niece who went straight from High school at age 17 to finish medical school with no specialty, let alone surgery, and she is already near 27. Not young if you think about getting married and have kids, unless you get one of those employers that have the benefit of freezing your eggs. The human body has limitations.
Speaking only for myself, as someone who has not maximized my career potential, EH. I realized at 33 that I didn’t want to live in my office. My job has never been my passion, it’s a way of making money. You can’t make money drinking coffee on the couch with a cat and a book, if I could I would do that full time enthusiastically. And I spend way more time with my child than the f/t lawyers I know.
What cars were acceptable to your law firm?
Not the older Nissan Sentra I had. Not a truck my friend had. New Accords/Camry’s were sort of the bottom line they felt a young lawyer should drive. 4 door and recent vintage.
Well, that just puts the entire men’s business casual clothing thread in perspective. “What kind of car should I wear?”
DrGoogle I felt guilty when I stayed home (because I worked so hard to get here) and I felt guilty when I went back to work. I think most women feel angst both ways. We like being challenged by our careers but we also love our children and know they need time from us. (especially when they are sick like one of my sons was) It is hard to navigate being a working mom. Some companies and certain majors accommodate this better than others.
My BIL was working his first job out of law school, and was driving an ancient beat up Volvo. He had to pick up a partner at the airport, and after the partner had to ride in this beat up old car, the next day my BIL got a major raise in his salary!
Were there any particular brand/nationality issues? Arizona is not in the land of auto industry, so it may not be as big a deal for you compared to if your clients were auto companies, suppliers, or unions.
@woodlandsmom, I think all moms guilty of some kind, stay at home or not. Check out the thread about mom as the designated worrier.
I think a career like a surgeon is hard to take a step back. Who wants to have surgery by someone who has not been practicing for a while. I think you can be part-time doctor or part-time lawyer but I imagine it would be hard to be a part-time surgeon. Plus the time it takes for training and the cost associated with the field.
While it’s true that there are areas of nursing which involve no patient care, I wish that most young people interested in nursing realized that:
1)most nursing jobs offered to new grads are going to involve “dirty” aspects of nursing
2)most nurses performing jobs which involve NO “dirty” aspects of nursing actually worked in the trenches before moving on to these “clean” jobs
3)there is no way to avoid doing the “dirty” aspects of nursing while in nursing school!
I’ve lost count of the times I’ve seen pre-nursing students come to the nursing forum and ask how they can avoid exposure to blood, vomit, and feces in their clinicals because that kind of stuff “makes them sick,” and they have no plans to work in a unit which involves those things.
A lot of nursing hopefuls state that they plan to become a CRNA (anesthesia provider), so don’t want to be involved with doing the heavy bedside nursing most RNs do. Have to burst their bubble and tell them that CRNA schools require at least a year or two of ICU nursing before admittance. Even assuming the unlikely event that a new grad will go straight into the ICU rather than having to put in a fair amount of time on a regular floor or nursing home, ICU nursing is not all technology and code blues. The day in and day out of taking care of patients who are that sick involves a WHOLE lot of body fluids which look and smell very unpleasant. Not for the faint of heart, the queasy, or those who are somehow above doing very basic care of completely bed bound patients.
^^^^^^
100% agree!
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Great topic, and I’ll chime in with a general comment at the end. My background is a biology PhD from 20 years ago, two postdocs, grant funded research position for 10 years (my own grant funding), and now in industry.
Everything that has been written in this thread about academic positions is true. Accept at LACs and non-research colleges, professorship is not about teaching. Universities could care less about that (same thing with Ivy unis)… it’s about bringing in money to support your reason for being. That means grants, which means publishing in prestigious journals, which means working well with others in the lab and collaborating with other scientists in the field. Oh yeah… and being smart and writing well.
The general idea I want to emphasize is this. While you need to be smart and hardworking, succeeding is more about developing relationships with insiders in your field. For me, this started about midway through undergraduate school. After getting a foot in the door (in my case my first research internship because I had a good GPA and was eager), every step in my career was greatly aided by someone else… acceptance into a prestigious PhD program, publications, postdocs, obtaining my first long-term NIH grant, and obtaining literally every position I have held for the past 20 years. In my opinion, it will be difficult to find a good position in academia or industry unless you have the right people connections to that position. I suspect this is generally true across careers.
Cultivate those relationships!