How did you figure out what you wanted to do for a living?

[Eclair_de_XII]

Just wondering how everyone came to know what career they wished to pursue.

 

[russ_watters]

Just wondering how everyone got into their particular fields of interest.

Your title question and this sentencence don't match. You may want to think about that...

 

[DaveC426913]

I never did.

I have the classic "shadow career". It is interest-adjacent.
I am an artist by heredity and by nature, but I was always too chicken to try to make money at it, so I went into photo-processing for a few decades, now in web development.

If I don't do well in my shadow career, it's no skin off my soul.

If I were to fail as an artist, I would fail as a person.

TMI?

 

[Eclair_de_XII]

You may want to think about that

Noted and edited accordingly.

 

[DaveC426913]

Oh. I change what I wish to pursue about every decade.

I knew I had art skillz in Kindergarten.
Of course, it didn't hurt that both my father and my sister were professional artists.

As for my actual adult career in web design, I was unemployed and my counselor at Employment Canada told me they had $8K for retraining that was about to go away if it wasn't used. I had a tough choice between pneumatics and robotics and computer programming. I chose the latter.

I guess it didn't hurt that I was obsessed with my Commodore 64. One of my first major purchases as an adult.

 

[Borg]

I change what I wish to pursue about every decade.

That about sums it up for me as well.

 

[HankDorsett]

I didn't select my career, I fell into it. Early on I noticed understanding technology came easy for me. Because of this and the lack of any higher education I sold consumer electronics. I left sales in my mid-twenties after realizing sales wasn't for me. I then started working for a office supply catalog company as pre and post sales technology support. After about a year an IBM AS400 operations analyst position opened up in information technology. Even though I had no experience with mid-range computing or even any part of IT I still got the job. I only got the job because they were unable to find any applicants in our small area and I was the only internal candidate that applied. This started my 18-year career in information technology with a final position as a manager of IT systems engineering for a Fortune 500 company.

 

[jasonRF]

I didn't select my career, I fell into it.

That kind of sums up my story as well. I went to graduate school in electrical engineering because I wanted to become a professor - primarily for the teaching. By the time I was starting to write my dissertation it was clear to me for a number of reasons that obtaining a faculty position was not going to be my path, so I started applying for jobs. This was in the US in the late 1990s before the dot-com bubble burst, so companies were eager to hire EE PhDs, even those of us who specialized in areas like plasma physics that are not directly applicable. The first job offer came from a place where one of the engineers who interviewed me came right out and said he did not like working there, so I passed. But I accepted the second job offer even though I didn't really understand what I would be doing there. Why? Because they had excellent people, the company had a great reputation, the pay and benefits were good, and it was very close to where my wife had found a job. Plus, if it didn't work out I wasn't worried about finding another job in that market. I am still at that same company about 20 years later, and I am enjoying it now even more than ever. I have been very fortunate.

jason

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Just wondering how everyone came to know what career they wished to pursue.

Start with your interests :)

 

[PeroK]

Start with your interests :)

It's not easy to become a professional golfer with a 14 handicap. So, I had to look for something else.