Changing Professions: What Makes It an Appropriate Strategy?

[BillTre]

It occurred to me that changing professions can be done in a variety of ways, with different purposes, and different success, by a lot of people.
An obvious example of such a change might be (taking two major sub-populations of PF) from doing some kind of science to writing Science Fiction.

I have done this a few times, but mostly have retained a connection to my well learned core knowledge base. Work in research labs in various ways (grad. student, lab tech, post doc), which transitioned to running/designing facilities (more management, less science), to working for a equipment producing company, running my own specialized supply company, to retired activities. Many of these transitions, for me, were gradual and overlapping changes, which made things easier to deal with.

In my case, I have a strong connection to the science I was trained. Biology is a constant thread through my professional life. I would guess there are plenty of people who took a different approach, changed significantly, and were successful.
What makes this an appropriate strategy for them?
I see this as potentially useful advise for a lot of people.

 

[jedishrfu]

For me it was programming, with a physics BS I went from I/O clerk to a mainframe applications programmer, to customer service agent, to software quality assurance in one company then jumped to another company doing VLSI tool controllers and test case language design then to internationalization, future OS designs, data mining, data warehousing when DM fell flat and in my last job to acoustical applications. In each case, I had to learn the ins and outs of a new field in order to write programs in it.