What did you want to be when you grew up?

[Math Is Hard]

As a child, what did you dream of becoming when you grew up? I remember wanting to be a drum majorette and a veterinarian. I became neither.

What about you?

 

[Evo]

Astronomer or archaeolgist. I became neither and I still would like to.

 

[Chi Meson]

Astronaut. Totally astronaut. My parents woke me up when I was 5 & 6 years old to watch the nighttime Apollo launches. I had astronauts and planets all over my room. I started an Astrophysics major in college. My enthusiasm waned in 1986.

January 28, 1986.

 

[neutrino]

Astronomer or archaeolgist. I became neither and I still would like to.

Ditto! Although I now have a greater inclination towards astronomy than archaeology. :)

 

[Math Is Hard]

Astronaut. Totally astronaut. My parents woke me up when I was 5 & 6 years old to watch the nighttime Apollo launches. I had astronauts and planets all over my room. I started an Astrophysics major in college. My enthusiasm waned in 1986.

January 28, 1986.

I remember that day. I was living in Clear Lake, TX at the time, near NASA.

 

[Moridin]

I wanted to be an adventurous scientist. I watched a lot of MacGyver. Still watch and still want to.

 

[scorpa]

When I was really little I wanted to be a farmer like my daddy haha, then an anthropologist, when I was a bit older I wanted to be a pharmacist but decided that it wasn't for me and sounded to boring. So naturally now I am doing neither of those things and am in medical science which I love.

 

[Math Is Hard]

Nobody want to be a firefighter? Cowboy? Cowgirl?

 

[Darkiekurdo]

I consider myself still a child and I want to be a theoretical physicist or a mathematician.

 

[theCandyman]

I wanted to be a photographer for National Geographic. I loved looking though those, but I never read the articles. Somehow I got it in my head that I wanted to be a stuntman once, must have been too many Jakie Chan movies.

I never went down the science and math route until high school.

 

[z-component]

I wanted to be a commercial airline pilot. I realized that it's not the lifestyle I want, and later decided on being an aerospace engineer. Somewhat related.

 

[Schrodinger's Dog]

I didn't know as a child I was a bit too well all over the place. I think the earliest memory of being asked what I wanted to be was at 7, a guy I didn't like much said he wanted to be a policeman, so I said I wanted to be a criminal.

I think until I left school I never really had any idea, I was interested in a lot of things, but not really heavily into anything. Biology, then something in physics, but only after my college years. Now I want to be a clinical scientist in a hospital, working in medical physics, but it's going to to take time, a whole lot of precious time, a whole lot of patience and time to do it right now . Ten years to be precise.

 

[Math Is Hard]

SD, I think you will be much happier as a scientist than a criminal - of course, you could always combine the two and become an eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeevil scientist. How's your evil laugh?

 

[George Jones]

it's going to to take time, a whole lot of precious time, a whole lot of patience and time to do it right now

George Harrison! (covering ...)

 

[scorpa]

How could I forget, when I was younger I also wanted to be a famous motorcycle racer. That was definitely my funnest most deluded career goal haha.

 

[ekrim]

in order:

1. veterinarian
2. tennis pro
3. oil painting master
4. mathematician
5. pianist
6. mathematician
7. civil engineer
8. back to math...

 

[Integral]

Very early on I wanted to be Doctor. Assemblimng a Visible Man, was the extent of my medical education.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

I wanted to be a veterinarian or park ranger when I was little. Later I wanted to write and illustrate comic books.
I worked in a vet clinic once but hated it. Dead and dying animals are no fun. And I got over comic books but still want to write.

 

[BobG]

I just wanted to file all day.

I wanted to be a doctor or astronaut when I was little. That changed to teacher by the time I was in high school.

I worked with satellites in the Air Force, but most of those jobs wound up being in training shops, or developing procedures, or evaluating the satellite operators' performance (going through the telemetry, commanding record, etc to figure out just where either they went wrong, the procedure went wrong, or the satellite went wrong).

Since retiring from the Air Force, I work with a couple different satellite programs, but I also teach at least one class a month so I still haven't strayed that far away from what I wanted to do when I was in high school.

 

[radou]

Don't know 'bout myself, but my uncle wanted to be a garbage man. He ended up as an art historician.

 

[Evo]

Don't know 'bout myself, but my uncle wanted to be a garbage man. He ended up as an art historician.

Now *that's* a change.

 

[radou]

Now *that's* a change.

Definitely! Note only that he didn't want to be just *any* type of garbage man. He wanted to be one of those who ride on the back of the garbage truck and collect the trash.

 

[physarrista]

Doctor - up until I got into medschool.
Then I quit and went into physics instead - much to the horror of my parents.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Unlike George Jones, I never wanted to be George Harrison.

Garbage man [cool trucks and it looked like fun to hang off the back], priest, pianist, football pro, and later, I'ds say at about age 12, right about the time that I decided that there is NO WAY I am going to be a priest, I decided that "Playboy photographer" would be a cool gig.

My high school physics teacher always assigned a one semester project for the seniors. I can still remeber him saying that the projects were often very good predictors of the careers that would follow. I made a robot, and I now do industrial automation for a living.

 

[Astronuc]

George Harrison! (covering ...)

I too was influenced by the Beatles and other groups when I was about 7. My brother and I thought of becoming rock stars since it seemed like fun. Then a few years later, I wanted to be a scientist.

By the time I hit 11, I was interested in nuclear and particle physics, and astrophysics.

I began university studying physics with specialties in nuclear and astrophysics, but ended up majoring in nuclear engineering.

 

[pivoxa15]

The first serious career would have been to become a pro tennis player.

 

[George Jones]

It looks like I have to clear something up. Even though I admired George Harrison (particularly his post-beatles slide playing), I never wanted to be George Harrison. In post #14, I meant that Schrodinger's Dog, in post #12, borrowed lyrics (which I quoted) from the 80's Harrison hit, Got My Mind Set on You. Ironically, I have never particularly liked the song.

As a liitle kid (during the pre-shuttle sapce programmes), I first aspired to be an astronaut. I can remember that along with packs of sports cards, packs of astronaut or space cards were also quite popular with kids.

 

[Astronuc]

It looks like I have to clear something up. Even though I admired George Harrison (particularly his post-beatles slide playing), I never wanted to be George Harrison. In post #14, I meant that Schrodinger's Dog, in post #12, borrowed lyrics (which I quoted) from the 80's Harrison hit, Got My Mind Set on You. Ironically, I have never particularly liked the song.

I imagined that one was responding to the lyrics, but I didn't read the original post as wanting to be GH. I merely used the reference as an example of influence. My influence goes back to the 1960's.

I wasn't really aware of the US space program until I moved to the US in the mid 60's, and then we began to follow the program as it transitioned from Gemini to Apollo.

As a liitle kid (during the pre-shuttle sapce programmes), I first aspired to be an astronaut. I can remember that along with packs of sports cards, packs of astronaut or space cards were also quite popular with kids.

I think I, like so many of my peers, imagined that man would be a permanent presence in space by the 1980's or 90's or certainly by 2000. I just expected that I'd be a scientist with the possibility of working in space, but I didn't really expect to be an astronaut.

Certainly my goals changed as I learned more about the 'real world'.

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

As a young child, I wanted to be a stand up comedian. When I got to high-school, I switched to electronics engineer. I started to study it in college, but switched to mathematician. Now I'm a software engineer. Who knows what I'll finally turn out to be.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

It looks like I have to clear something up. Even though I admired George Harrison (particularly his post-beatles slide playing), I never wanted to be George Harrison. In post #14,

I knew that but my genetics require that I take cheap shots.

 

[hypatia]

I was never sure what I wanted to be, until I got my first science kit. I think it was a mineral testing kit, because I put on a lab coat and walked around the base and took little samples of every rock I encountered.
In the 4th grade we were given tests, for the girls the out come was grim, with our only options being a nurse and/or a dental asst, office or homemaker!

 

[qspeechc]

Ooh, I wanted to be many things. A swimmer, an athlete, a vet, an engineer, a philosopher... I couldn't stand the idea of operating on cute furry animals, and I have the worst hand-eye co-ordination in the cosmos, so I did none-of-the-above. I plan on disappearing into obscurity.

 

[Tsu]

My poor cousin couldn't decide between sanitation engineer or brain surgeon. He ended up pin-striping cars.