hey everyone, i got news that i passed my first year at uni this week, great im over the moon, but im terrified because i have no idea what i want to do when i finish year 3.

i have so many things id love to do and dont know what to settle on and that concerns me... what if i get to 28 (when i finish) and still dont know?!
i waiver between the following occupations

police officer
secondary history teacher
stayin at uni to do a reasearch post
staying at t mobile to become a store manager, then area manager


help!

I'm having the same problem. I just finished my second year of college, and I'm taking a break from school until I decide what I want my degree in. I am totally clueless what I want to do with the rest of my life. Good luck with everything!

if i were to choose one of those careers, i would be a history teacher. good hours, low danger factor, decent pay...and let's face it: history is fun! (not that my opinion matters...maybe you'll feel a stronger pull to one of those when you are done at school...or maybe you will have a set of circumstances that pushes you closer to a choice) ~just relax, the answer will come to you.

If it makes you all feel better, I'm going to be finishing my Ph.D. in Sociology this year and have NO IDEA what I'm going to do afterward. The thing that has become abundantly clear to me since I started graduate school is that I do NOT want to work in academia, which is pretty much the only thing you're qualified for with a Ph.D. in Sociology. Why did I go to graduate school? Because I didn't know what else to do after I graduated college! :/

On top of that, there's the debt...tens of thousands of dollars I've spent on my education...

Good luck, Paula and Stellar! I'm beginning to wonder how anyone figures out what they want to do when then they "grow up."

i know the debt is so depressing!! i know that eventually i want to move to america, as does my fiance, we dont like the uk, and dont intend to stay here.

i dont know which would be best to help with that move to, im thinking the teaching thing to, however the pay is probably lowest out of all of them.

here in england, teachers start on about £20k, police on £25k, management on £40k, its so tough!

I'm not sure about other states, but in Texas, a 1st year teacher makes $42,000 a year with free/very cheap health insurance. I get an automatic pay raise every year, and usually my district gives a pay raise every year too.
Pay can vary dramatically from state to state. And while people make fun of Texas a lot (which we sometimes deserve!) we do have a pretty decent housing economy, cheap standard of living, and a not bad cultural life if you live in one of the more major cities, like Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, Fort Worth, etc. I meet many tourists who are shocked with the number of museums in Houston, lol.
It's not all rednecks, oil fields, and cows out here, ha ha!
I bet there's any number of states with great teaching salaries.

in the cities here, teacher's pay usually starts fairly low, but increases quickly...however in the suburbs (where i am currently attending college)...the starting pay is almost double...more than double for police officers.

You sound like me...I earned my PhD in Social Psychology in 2005 and I tried out the teaching thing and knew academia isn't for me. I've done okay with jobs as a survey/interview person/data analyst/tech writer...they don't exactly excite me though and I'm always looking for a new career (without having to go back to school. Right now my dream job is to be a librarian but that would require another Master's degree and I just can't do that right now).

I agree, I don't know many people that know what they want to do when they grow up even though they've been working for years! I think the best thing you can do is probably find what you love and study that, but keep up with what's going on in the other fields you might pursue, and keep yourself open to new opportunities you can put on your resume later on. In other words, keep your options open and get good at "transferrable" skills.

I graduated with a BA in Art History in 2006. I have a job in the arts that i thought I would love, but ... I don't. The good news is that just having a degree opens up a lot of doors to other careers. I decided to become a secondary school history and ESL teacher and to work towards my MA in education, but I think I could have gotten a job in another field with just the BA (not a teaching position, but something else in a different industry).

And honestly, you won't know if you will like your chosen career path until you're actually working at a job related to your degree, so it's hard to decide before you graduate, at least in my experience. Also, the only thing more grueling than waiting for a diet and exercise regimen to work is waiting to graduate from college, but try not to focus on how long it will take.

In NYC, new teachers with MA's start at around $46K/year, which goes up every year. My plan is to get my MA and my certification, teach at a city school for about 5 years and then go to Westchester (suburb of NYC). Whatever you were making in the city increases by about $20K in those areas, so after 5 years of teaching, I'm hoping to be making around $75-80K/year.

I didn't go straight into college when I graduated high school, and it was the biggest mistake of my life to leave it for this long! I have been out of school three years now, and I need to go back. My degree program will take me 5 years to get my BA now, which means I wont have my degree until I'm 25. Those gap years really hurt my chances for jobs out here in North Wales. Moved to Wales in 2006, but went to high school and was born in the USA. Out here, even with my Diploma and 1 year of community college behind me, I can't get a job in anything other than Admin/Customer Services. And I hated dealing with my last boss's Customers.

I'm starting a 2 year National Diploma this year in Health and Social Care, then I am applying to the newly named Glyndwr University to attend their Social Work course.

I worked for Conwy County Borough Council as an Admin for a Social Worker, and I fell in love with her job. I loved the idea of caring and maintaining lifestyle changes for people in need.

I definitely agree that you need to have a taster for you general day to day activities for each career you might want to go into. Ask if you can job shadow a history professor or police officer for a day or two. It really helps to know exactly what you are getting into.

I *love* Texas. (I live in Louisiana) I want to eventually move out of Louisiana, and so far Texas is the state that's at the top of my list (close enough to home, yet far enough away, similar weather, and I have friends and family there).


I'm so glad to hear/read that others are clueless about their careers! Right now I'm working in a job that I can't do forever that didn't have a thing to do with my major or minor in college. lol

Honestly although you might not think so now - you never know what might happen in 3 years. I know there's a lot of pressure on for you to make a decision and make a plan and all of that ... I think we all go through it at that age. I can remember at 24 or 25 thinking that I was going to be a miserable failure because I still had no idea what I wanted to do with my life.

It wasn't until nearly 4 years later that I figured it out. And now I love what I do - which has absolutely nothing to do with the degree I have or the earlier job experience I gained.

MY advice would be to enjoy what you're doing now. Enjoy your time at school. Take advantage of all that being a uni student offers. And ... to some degree ... let the future take care of itself. Just be open to whatever might come.

You might be surprised!

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no advice on career but i work at tmobile too!!

in the states in customer care.

how do you like it?