# If you could choose your career all over again... **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 10, 2004, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-choose-your-career-all-over-again/244525 "2004-05-10T21:52:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![bughunter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/aeb1de/32.png) [@bughunter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bughunter)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2004, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-choose-your-career-all-over-again/244525/1 "2004-05-10T21:52:35Z")
… what profession would you choose? In other words, knowing what you know now, what career would you have pursued starting in high school? (Obviously, this is meant for our older Teemsters.) Me, instead of studying engineering to get that quick 4-year marketable degree, I would have stuck it out and went to med school. Then I would have specialized in _Plastic Surgery_. Hoo Yeah. Babes, Bucks, and Beemers, baby… (All I got now is babies and bills.) ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2004, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-choose-your-career-all-over-again/244525/2 "2004-05-10T22:34:42Z")
I don’t know. I’m really happy with my career right now, I do what I really want. However, I kind of wish I had tried to play professional baseball. I have no idea if I would have made it or not, but I certainly think I would have made my way at least _on_ to a Minor league team. My senior year of high school I was 12-0, 1.52 ERA, 165 K. I had a fastball that topped out around 93 mph. I was contacted by a scout actually, from the KC Royals, but I told them I was enlisting in the Army. Turned me off real fast. By the time I got out of the service and was going for my diploma I was 22, I played in college but an injury I had when I was 20 sort of hindered my ability, I never really threw the same way again. I really don’t consider a career in professional sports a real “life” though, I would consider it a waste of life. But I would have liked to try it for a year or two, just to see if I could have. ---
**Author:** ![bittersweet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/c57346/32.png) [@bittersweet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bittersweet)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2004, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-choose-your-career-all-over-again/244525/3 "2004-05-10T23:19:32Z")
I probably would have gone into something along the lines of pharmaceuticals or even food science, even though I don’t consider myself very “scientifically minded”… (in other words, no one ever mistakes me for a rocket scientist) ---
**Author:** ![minor7flat5](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/minor7flat5/32/258_2.png) [@minor7flat5](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minor7flat5)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2004, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-choose-your-career-all-over-again/244525/4 "2004-05-10T23:56:09Z")
I would have studied to be a doctor. Back when I actually was at the crucial fork in the road in my senior year in high school, I had a ho-hum GPA and my folks were sort of hinting that it was simply natural that I would follow my father’s footsteps and enlist in the Navy. That I did, and it wasn’t until fifteen years later and far better performance in college that I realized that I could have done whatever I wanted back then. Oh well. I’m destined to spend the rest of my days sitting in front of a computer screen. Of course, my daydream isn’t really realistic – it was the Navy that instilled in me the sense of responsibility that allowed a 4.0 GPA in future college days. Had I gone to college instead of the Service, I would have likely repeated my ho-hum lackadaisical study habits of high school. ---
**Author:** ![ccwaterback](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/df705f/32.png) [@ccwaterback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ccwaterback)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2004, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-choose-your-career-all-over-again/244525/5 "2004-05-11T00:51:08Z")
Seems like being a Pharmacist would be a good idea. I did/do computer science things, but unless I move to Shanghai or Bombay, it looks like my future may be dim. ---
**Author:** ![Alice\_The\_Goon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ed8c4c/32.png) [@Alice\_The\_Goon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alice_The_Goon)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2004, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-choose-your-career-all-over-again/244525/6 "2004-05-11T01:05:44Z")
If I could start all over, right now instead of a medical assistant I’d be: Writer. Or doctor. Or sound engineer. Or English teacher. Or television producer. ---
**Author:** ![Crafter\_Man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crafter_man/32/458_2.png) [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2004, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-choose-your-career-all-over-again/244525/7 "2004-05-11T01:16:37Z")
I’d be a **rodeo clown**. Definitely. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2004, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-choose-your-career-all-over-again/244525/8 "2004-05-11T01:20:59Z")
Dermatology. Definitely dermatology. ---
**Author:** ![mailman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8491ac/32.png) [@mailman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mailman)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2004, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-choose-your-career-all-over-again/244525/9 "2004-05-11T01:29:12Z")
Professional musician. My parents badgered me out of even considering the idea. They said you couldn’t make a living at it, but…a lot of other no talent hacks are, why not me? ---
**Author:** ![Briny\_Deep](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/briny_deep/32/17188_2.png) [@Briny\_Deep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Briny_Deep)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2004, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-choose-your-career-all-over-again/244525/10 "2004-05-11T01:47:18Z")
**Qadgop** , it’s because dermotology patients are never cured, and they never die, right? You just give them some cream, and it doesn’t work, and they come back for another appointment. 😃 I have a (midwestern) Ivy League education and my career is in the toilet; has been for years. I’ll never be anything other than an administrative assistant, and it’s damn embarrassing considering I had every opportunity growing up. If I had it to do over again, and I am deadly serious here, I would have gone to trade school, and become a carpenter or a plumber or something. Now _there_’s a useful, fairly recession-proof career, fixing and/or building things. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Tentacle\_Monster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ba9def/32.png) [@Tentacle\_Monster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tentacle_Monster)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2004, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-choose-your-career-all-over-again/244525/11 "2004-05-11T02:03:19Z")
I wish I’d told my dad to go fuck himself and kept writing reviews for GameSpy. ---
**Author:** ![Thaumaturge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/858c86/32.png) [@Thaumaturge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thaumaturge)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2004, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-choose-your-career-all-over-again/244525/12 "2004-05-11T02:35:28Z")
I’d have left out the military and time I spent persuing engineering and went straight into art. Should have followed my heart rather than my wallet. ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2004, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-choose-your-career-all-over-again/244525/13 "2004-05-11T03:51:02Z")
If I could choose my career all over again… \ I’d go back to talk to the high-school me, and try to convince him into going to [the Ontario College of Art](http://www.ocad.on.ca/)\* for drawing and illustration, instead of [Waterloo University](http://www.uwaterloo.ca/) for [architecture](http://www.fes.uwaterloo.ca/architecture/). It was a very close decision; I’d been drawing for as long as I could remember, but I was also interested in architecture and solar-powered houses. I chose the route that I thought would lead to a better career. I had no idea how anyone could make a living as an artist, but I suspected that it involved social skills that I did not then have. Little did I realise that the 1982 recession would hit and I’d never get to work co-op in an architectural-related field. I would discover computers, fail out of architecture, switch to [electronics](http://electrotechnology.sheridaninstitute.ca/), graduate from that, and spend the next 19 years working in various capacities as an electronics engineering _technologist_. (That’s right–not even making as much money as an engineer. So much for the money.) Meanwhile… During the eighties and nineties, the Internet and later the Web flowered. Disney-style animation revived from its torpor; comics boomed; Japanese anime became popular and spread across the land. It became apparent to me that there _were_ ways to survive as an artist. It also became apparent that I was in the wrong place with the wrong qualifications, and I couldn’t see a way from here to there. Twelve years ago in 1992 I tried to bail from electronics, applying to the [classical animation](http://animation-baa.sheridaninstitute.ca/) program at [Sheridan College](http://sheridaninstitute.ca/)\*\*, actually getting into it, and then flaming out after seven months. By the end of those seven months, I [knew](http://www.sunspace.org/wd/wdeshome.htm) (WARNING! 1995-era web design!) what I wanted to do, but at that time the program at Sheridan did not offer it, and I was so burnt out from the effort that I followed the lure of a steady paycheck and returned to working at the same computer company. And then came family crises, one after another. I’m still there at that computer company. I work as a technical writer. And I want out. I still draw. I’m still interested in computers and languages and math and art, just like I was in high school. With a little effort I can find my way around the interior of a Linux box, a TCP/IP network, or a website. Starting in 1998 I’ve been studying Esperanto, then French. I managed to make it to Europe one summer. I hang around with people who’ve built their own solar-powered house. Sometimes I work on my comic book. But I feel trapped by my past choices. Unfulfilled possibilities crowd my mind. I’m now desperately looking for a way back to my art, and forward to a more real life. If I’d graduated with an art degree, I could have gotten in on the ground floor of the computer animation revolution. Am I looking for a better job, more money? Not so long ago, I would have said so, but then I remember that money and a job are but tools to help one realise one’s desires, not ends in themselves. I remember that the best friends I’ve had, I met when I was doing what I want, not what would make the most money. Yet I need to eat, to pay the rent. And that is the core problem of my life, more important than the reconstruction of myself in counseling, the slow painful learning of social skills (and the attendant realisation of [why](http://www.udel.edu/bkirby/asperger/putnampaper.html) I was so crappy in the romantic arena), or the long struggle out of near-bankruptcy… and it hasn’t changed in twenty years: _how the hell do I support myself while doing something that nourishes my soul???_ If I could give one piece of advice, it would be what **Thaumaturge** so succinctly put: > [@](#): > > Should have followed my heart rather than my wallet. If you have to crawl across broken glass on your hands and knees to do it, _follow your heart_. You will slowly wither and die otherwise. [sub]\*Now known as the Ontario College of Art _and Design_. \*\*Now known as the Sheridan College Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning. Both institutions have substantially expanded in the last few years and are offering university-level courses.[/sub] ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2004, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-choose-your-career-all-over-again/244525/14 "2004-05-11T12:19:06Z")
I’d go into the mortuary business. I’d have done it then, only I hadn’t thought of it yet. ---
**Author:** ![Epimetheus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c4cdca/32.png) [@Epimetheus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Epimetheus)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2004, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-choose-your-career-all-over-again/244525/15 "2004-05-11T12:31:32Z")
I follow MY heart. 😉 It leads me to my wallet. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2004, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-choose-your-career-all-over-again/244525/16 "2004-05-11T13:00:56Z")
Not doing badly now, but if I had to do it all over again I’d head out to LA and break in the film industry. ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2004, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-choose-your-career-all-over-again/244525/17 "2004-05-11T13:08:55Z")
I might turn to pharmacy, like ccwaterback. I’m scientifically minded, was a Chemistry major for a while, before I switched to Physics. I like medicine, but am not really interested in being a doctor or nurse, and you can make a nice living as a pharmacist. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2004, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-choose-your-career-all-over-again/244525/18 "2004-05-11T13:47:20Z")
I like what I do–programming-- but wish I’d gotten the customary CS degree. My biggest regret in hindsight is that I had so little direction and motivation while I was in school. I managed to maintain a decent GPA through high school, college, and grad school, but could have done a lot better if I’d been more enthusiastic. ---
**Author:** ![FairyChatMom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fairychatmom/32/21906_2.png) [@FairyChatMom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FairyChatMom)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2004, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-choose-your-career-all-over-again/244525/19 "2004-05-11T13:59:20Z")
When I was in high school, I absolutely loved foreign languages, and I found learning them easy. But the only future I could see was teaching languages, and at the time, there were so many French and Spanish teachers in my county, I’d have to fight of a job. Yeah, I had a very narrow world view back then. Had I known better, I’d have pursued more languages and gone to work in some intelligence-related field. I think I’d have done well. Ah well, engineering has been fun…