Either Archaeology, Cullinary or Carpentry… in that order.
Quick anecdote; as I shared before, my wife had an amazing Neurosurgeon perform her delicate back surgery, head of the department at a world class institution, numerous huge awards, accolades, absolute brilliant guy, etc. We were visiting with him months later during a checkup and he indicated he was leaving his post at the hospital and was either going to go to law school and dedicate the rest of his life to pro bono work, or would be attending the seminary. I found that fascinating that someone so skilled at what he did, not to mention well into his 60s, was going to embark on a completely different and challenging career.
I would become an electrician. The only thing that stops me from becoming one right now is that my current job (computer programmer) pays a lot of money for what is a very simple task. If I get laid off I will seek a job as an electrician’s apprentice, which will pay very little (we’ll live on savings), and work on getting a master’s license. If I could go back in time knowing what I know now, I would have skipped college and gotten the master’s license right away.
Right at this moment, I’d say I’d want to go to the Wyoming Tech Street Rod and Custom Fabrication program. I like cars and I like to make things. In my old job I wrote software, but it was for internal use by a large corporation, so I couldn’t really show it to anyone. (Y’know, “look at the cool thing I made!”) After a while, that got to be really dissatisfying; even my bosses often didn’t really understand what I did. But my aptitude tests said I had low mechanical abilities and life has shown that to be sadly accurate, so it wouldn’t really be practical to take the classes unless someone else was paying for it, ha!
Stone Mason. I’d love to build beautiful stone walkways, walls, ponds, chat pits, fireplaces, and the like. There is something very satisfying about working with stone, it’s got a permanence and strength that is incredibly grounding. Living in New England, I’ve got plenty of materials.
I never thought I would say this, but today it’s fashion research and design. Not couture: I’m interested in historical costume, which I guess would really only be profitable if I worked for some kind of movie studio or acting troupe.
Social Scientist. I’m fascinated by how groups of people organize themselves, and the way that the structure of the organization affects people who are born into the organization (as opposed to joining it as a deliberate action).
I left school at fifteen so anything would be great just to be student. Art school, or something in the fields of psychology, sociology or maybe ancient history.
