Real Talk: My Alternative Careers

There are very few people that I know who know exactly what they’re going to be when they grow up from a very young age.

People whose parents force them into a career don’t count, since it’s not them making the choice for themselves.

I’m lucky enough to have parents who have always been cool with whatever future I envisioned for myself as a kid. Below are a list of careers  (in chronological order) that I seriously considered spending the rest of my life doing- as well as what I’ve decided to do until some force of nature or another stops me:

1. Palaeontologist (ages 4-7): First things first, I still find dinosaurs to be super rad and I was distraught when my Intro to College English prof told me that brontosauruses weren’t real dinosaurs.

   Going back more than a decade, working with dinosaurs was what I decided was my calling in life. A combination of visiting the Redpath Museum on McGill’s campus many times with school and family, the movie Dinosaur, and a book following the daily routine of a palaeontologist sparked my interest in our fossilised friends.

   I was also very curious as a child (see: I never stopped asking questions) and had a deep love for science-y stuff, meaning that working in an environment where I could discover and explore fossils and perhaps name something after myself — I’ve always been a fan of me — would have been totally awesome.

   This one fizzled out, but more so due to the fact that I fell in love with the next fantastic sounding job than anything else.

2. Teacher (ages of 8-11): I know full well that teachers do not get enough respect from awful children who spend seven hours committing the worst shenanigans. I know, because I was one of those kids, but that’s another story.

   The reason behind this career choice was two-fold: it’s the job you spend the most time around as a kid, which means that you have many instances of I-can-do-that or I-can-do-that-better while you sit in class – and I knew many teachers (family and family friends). I had a lot of those moments where I would come up with ideas of how to approach teaching a given concept (all the way though to CEGEP).

   And I’m lucky enough to be able to teach Sunday School, but I know that I couldn’t handle it as a full time job.

3. Foley Artist (ages 10-14): I love special features in movies- like bloopers, the detailed explanations of CGI, interviews with the cast, etc.

   For the special features of Brother Bear, they had segment on the Foley art used in certain scenes to explain how the sound effects were made.

   And I thought it was the coolest thing ever.

   I didn’t look into schools or anything like that, but I held on to this idea for such a long time because it was something that I knew I could do and would deeply enjoy. Seeing how it was done made me realise that there were careers that I hadn’t even heard of that were options.

   I lost interest of having it be a serious career when I figured out that I wanted to spend my life working with people and helping them.

4. Lawyer (age 9-14): This one’s partially due to the fact that I would always try to negotiate everything with anyone with whom I was trying to come to an agreement. The other part is that I was — and still am — justice and ethics driven and believe that those are things are very important and should be taken into consideration whenever a decision is being made.

   Initially, I was hoping to go into family law since I figured that would help people the most. But then I realised that I couldn’t fully man the operation and the judge had final say on how things went. Meaning that my client could end up worse off that we were hoping.

   I wanted to be more involved with the process of helping the person in need, which you can’t do as much as, a lawyer.

5. Psychologist(age 14 onwards): I hyper-analyse everything and I keep an eye out for those who I consider close to me.

   If I think something is wrong, I’m going to ask, offer to listen, and give advice if that’s what you need in a given situation.

   With time, I’ve refined what it is exactly that I want to do with my studies and with my life: helping at-risk youth stay in school and off of drugs and out of gangs, and teach them communication skills and to be more self-aware.

   Through psychology, I can help people who otherwise would be forgotten about by society, and give them the resources and attention they need.

   My dream is to combine clinical and research work in a longitudinal study, but that still needs some finer tuning — and I have a decade of school left, anyway, so I’ve plenty of time to figure it.

When School Meets World (An Aside)

How much of a student’s day is spent wondering when they’re ever going to use the material in class?

Going off of how much my friends and I complain, I’d say quite a bit.

Sure, we have courses that we need to take at an intro level — or it was the only thing that fit into our schedule — that aren’t overly relevant. I mean, how often are you going to have to analyse Beowulf through a feminist lens on a daily basis?

I hope for your sake, not that often.

And then along comes higher education.

Oh, how I love the freedom of choice it gives you.

You have more options of what to study – and subsequently, what subjects you’ll never have to touch again (*cough* physics) – based on where you think you’re headed in life.

I say “think” because the majority of my peers have a rough idea of what they may want to do later on in life, but they’re still figuring it out.

Or they have no idea.

Which is entirely normal, might I add, so there’s no cause for panic if you fit into those categories.

However, I have a pretty clear idea of where I’m heading, which means that all of the classes I took over the past two years in my program-based courses (that weren’t just filler, as the one I wanted was no longer available – rude) are going to relate to my career.

In first semester, year two, I took three psychology courses: psych of mental disorders, adolescent development, and social psychology.

If I could have taken more, I would have – I adore psychology.

My classmates were mostly social science students, but there were also a mix of liberal arts and science kids who took the course as a complementary.

That being said, the mostly lax vibe that comes with being a social science kid was strong in all three courses.

I still cared about learning the material and not goofing up on a test (see: getting less than an 85), but I was still in this-doesn’t-matter-for-my-future mode until one of my profs were going over material we needed to know for our first test.

My psych of mental disorders prof was talking about how to treat a patient based on the different schools of therapy when it dawned on me that what I was learning wasn’t just going to be on a test or in a paper.

This was going to be my life.

My stomach was in more knots that a three year-old’s attempt at making a friendship bracelet.

No longer could I passively sit through a class when I felt tired or half-heartedly take notes, because who knows when I might need that bit of advice in the future?

Going through that panic-inducing lesson gave me my first taste of the real world. What I was learning would be used in my everyday life. I do still have another decade of school to get through, but that doesn’t change the fact that these ten years will all be going towards a PhD and career in psychology.

Hopefully the above doesn’t send anyone into a state of severe anxiety over their future or how they approach academia. My point is to share my experience in hopes that someone else can keep this in the back of their minds, and not realise it too late.

2 Years in Review (An Aside)

With having my last CEGEP exam today (or my final final, if you will), I wanted to take a look back at the 29 courses that made up my college studies.

It might not be the funniest post – since each class will be described with a one liner/inside joke – but I’m doing this for my future self to look back on when I’m getting a PhD and whatnot and laughing at my previous course load. Aka, I don’t know if anyone else can relate to the follow commentary/jokes, but here we go:

 

Semester 1:

Intro to College English: Dongs and comic books – because that’s what you should expect when your teacher is essentially Seth Rogan. Also, sorry I didn’t know that a Brontosaurus wasn’t a real dinosaur.

Art of the Ancient Americas: Priding myself for my ability to pronounce at least 20% of the cultural stuff.

Dance: I should have done the Running Man for the choreographies’ freestyles.

Spanish: Las sacapuntas.

Research Methods: Group work is a definite nope – not a fan.

Western Civilisation: Fill a 32-page note book in 13 days: check.

Intro to Psych: Freud. Oh, and messing with the students’ minds. (Thanks for bringing a spider to class)

 

Semester 2:

Poetry: It’s all about the Bible (Thank God).

Fitness: At least the gym doesn’t scare me any more.

Astronomy: Space is very large. Like bigger than the amount of time I spend on the internet.

French: Jesus, Harry Potter, and Angry Lobsters.

Macroeconomics: Funlandia needs to look at their tire production rates. A++ .gif usage

World Geography: Did somebody say TFR?

Sociology: It’s nice to know that middle-aged profs still giggle at the word “duty/doodie”

 

Semester 3:

Liars and Thieves (English): In theory, if we were to approach this through a capitalist lens, could we say that…?

American Century: Good luck getting tea stains out of your notes. Also, why was this class two hours long?

Stress Management: Go on, take a nap in class, it’s cool.

International Politics: Billiard ball model and to-the-death Jeopardy games.

Psych of Mental Disorders: I’m actually pretty normal.

Psych of Adolescent Development: Talk Six still sounds like “toxic” to me.

Social Psych: Researchers really like loud, annoying buzzing sounds.

 

Semester 4:

Blogging and Creative Non-Fiction: Show and tell while you steal like an artist.

Biblical Sex (Ethics): You can get a divorce, but no take-backsies.

Cinema and Media (French): Strategically getting the prof to end class early is always the end goal. Also, seduction must always be grand.

Human Biology: Cue card game muy strong.

Stats: I haven’t been this confused since grade 11 physics. Also, plan C is a myth.

Integrative Project: Lookit, I did a pre-pre-pre-thesis!

Honours Social Science Seminar: An excuse to have bagels. Because Montreal.

 

So there you have it, two years wrapped up in less than 500 words.

Feels like it was that short, too.