Education was basic high school. I under performed (to put it mildly) in the last two years of school and didn’t go to university.
Training was “pay as you go” at a flying school in Dunedin, New Zealand. The private licence took about 18 months then the commercial licence took another 6 months after that. Then I had a job doing scenic flights in single engine aircraft for several years followed by a few years when I wasn’t flying. I then got an instrument rating and started flying small multi-piston engine planes for my current company. Progression was then to first officer on a tubro-prop to capt on the same, then first officer on a jet and finally captain on the jet.
There was a fair bit of good luck, good timing, knowing the right people, etc to get here.
The place I work for is actually a contract company with a wide range of aircraft types so I was able to make the progression from piston engines to jets without moving from job to job.
I know a lot of pilots who are in their second career. People who started out as nurses, engineers, avionics techs, etc who switched to flying when they were better able to afford it.
Back in the 1940s chemistry sets had real chemicals, real experiments, a real alcohol lamp. Liability issues have scuppered that. Anyway, I fell in love with chemistry and wanted to be a chemist. I always did well in math, but could not imagine doing that as a career. In college, and working in a lab, I discovered that lab work is not for me, but I discovered real math and fell in love with that. That happened in 1957, 57 years ago and I am still doing and publishing math (although a retired professor) and I still love it.
I wanted to work in a recording studio more than anything in the world. I left school at 16 to do a vocational course, picked up a lot of unpaid work. And hated it. I found it so very dull it almost killed me. It was just slightly before full digitising of the process and, given that I’d never been the sort of kid who would tinker with a synthesiser or anything similar, I’m sure I would have just got left behind anyway.
So, I went to Uni anyway, did a degree then later another and a Masters. Now I’m a business psychologist with a specialisation in user education for software. I spend my time designing education programmes for an ERP company, I’m really bloody good at it and I enjoy it a lot.
My 15 year old self would sigh in despair though - it’s a much more conventional life than I planned. Much better paid though!
Me too. Like all the nicest little boys in the UK in the early / mid 1950s ;), I wanted to be a railway locomotive driver (the great majority of our trains were steam then). If I had actually tried, aged about 15, to make this dream a reality; I’d have been dragged back bodily by my parents / guardians, and made to go back to school and carry on and pass further General Certificate of Education exams. Steam finished in regular service on the UK’s state railways in 1968, anyway. In the event, I spent the majority of my working life as a clerk in accounts / payroll offices.
When I was younger, I wanted to be a cop. Later on, when chop-socky movies were all the rage, I wanted to be a Black Belt.
I spent 9 years as a cop. I went from that profession into computers and I loved that profession. Still do, even though I retired from it at the end of 2013. Why did I retire? I became a Master Instructor in Taekwondo and wanted to run my school and teach full-time instead of part-time. So, in a way, I got to accomplish two of the dreams from my youth.
In vaguely chronological order…
Airline steward
Superhero
Astronaut
Architect
Biologist (abiogeneticist, or geneticist, or xenobiologist)
Journalist
I started off majoring in biology but switched to multidisciplinary (philosophy, human reproduction, technology in the arts).
My first real job was as a graphic designer, first for a printer and then as a home business. Later I worked for a genetics lab.
Recently, the home business no longer being lucrative, and having left the genetic place, I went back to school, originally thinking of nursing, but now psychology with the possibility of going on to grad school. I’m interested in integral psychology, biofeedback, somatics, and peak states. Want to either do research or clinical, or maybe both.
I guess all of my career paths have been linked to my love of science fiction, and combining in various proportions science, the arts, and creative/imaginal/futuristic ideas.
As a child, I wanted to be a librarian. I loved to read, so I must have figured I could do that all day.
I ended up being a software developer. I always had some interest in computers, even if it was video games, but the interest in coding really started to gel in high school
Great stuff, guys! I really do think there ought to be more guidance in High School…there were so many options available to me, that is never knew about …career days need to make a come back
I wanted to be a civil engineer and design bridges and dams and all sorts of amazing things. I now work designing custom windows and doors for snobby rich people.
When I was really young, I wanted to be a paleontologist because I loved dinosaurs. Must have been a kick to adults when they asked this small child what he wanted to be and he came out with that . That turned into a general desire to be a scientist, but around junior high I realized that lab science wasn’t for me: Labs were messy and never worked right. Math, on the other hand, was clean and always worked out right. So, a mathematician me. Somewhere along the line people decided I might be good at administration and convinced me of that, and I’ve been an academic administrator for about 14 years now. In a few years I’m hoping that I’ll no longer need the extra money it brings and can return to just teaching and research. Also along the way a colleague got me to join him in a textbook-writing project, which has turned into a nice second income.
Nothing I’ve done in my life was ever offered to me as an option by a high school Guidance Councillor. Most of the jobs I’ve done didn’t exist before I did them, and that’s the way I prefer it.
Like right now, I’m making DVDs of a series of concerts I shot. In theory, I might have been offered a career as a camera operator, editor or “television producer”. But I’ve created my own niche operating eight cameras at once, directing and editing a concert shoot by myself. I joke that I’ve managed to develop a business model for ADHD.
I’ll never understand why Full Sail and those other places remain packed full of people wanting to work in recording studios. I’ve wired a few studios, and there are few things more dull than sitting in the control room listening to the 27th take of a bass part of a song you wouldn’t listen to if they weren’t paying you.
Live sound at a club doesn’t pay as well, but at least the bands and songs change. And when the concert is over, it’s over.