This might not be the best community for this, but I don’t know what job I want after high school. I’m afraid of pursuing a job that I’ll end up hating. How do I figure out what job I want when I grow up?
[cynical rant – take with a bucket of salt]
you don’t
you pick something that you are competent at that pays the bills and keeps you alive and gives you enough free time to work on what you actually want to do
traditional boomer advice was to pick something you love, but after putting in endless hours of doing it over and over just to make enough to keep you fed and provide a place to sleep, you will grow to resent it with a passion – for your own mental health, you absolutely must maintain a separation between the job and your personal life
You should pick something that pays the bills and gives you free time to do what you want, but it’s good for it to be something you find some enjoyment in. Not necessarily something you love. But something you can get some level of satisfaction from learning and doing.
Yea that seems about right. I wanna find a job that I’ll be content enough with doing for at least 5-10 years, but not necessarily something I love. Something that pays the bills is very important since it’s what you need to survive and I also don’t want to be stuck in a career where I’m struggling to survive or have room for my hobbies and free time.
I’m shocked people seem to agree with this so much. While there are certainly circumstances where you don’t have much choice, spending your life in a job/career that doesn’t give you meaning and fulfillment will probably depress everyone sooner or later.
Nah, it’s much better that way. I go to my job to get money, not to find purpose in life. My boss and employer does not get to dictate my fulfillment.
My job is my job, I use money from my job to go do stuff that has actual meaning to me.
You do you, but it would drain me too much to work a job just for the money if it doesn’t fulfill me in some way directly. I’d compare it to working a shit job your whole life with the goal to finally retire and enjoy life.
Only then, you’re too tired or have health problems, so you can’t enjoy life after all.
Are you working 80+ hours a week or something? If you have zero free time outside of work, I guess there’s no room in your life to find any kind of meaning or purpose outside your job. Then you’re left trying to find meaning in a shit job.
Trying to find a job that is “meaningful” that also pays the bills are few and far between. Most meaningful things in life don’t pay well or at all, or have very few job openings, or are extremely unstable (self employment or startups). Otherwise you’re left with your life “purpose” in a corporation, which only means “make more money”, which is pretty shallow at best.
Work-life balance is important, and I think keeping work and life separate is a huge part of that. Forcibly mixing the two only causes more stress, either from one adding to the other, or from severely limiting your job prospects overall. Making your job = life severely limits both.
Please don’t take the following the wrong way as it’s not meant to be judgmental.
The fact that you can’t even imagine being employed somewhere AND having a fulfilling job at the same time shows quite some narrow-mindedness IMO. Maybe it’s from bad experience or some kind of ideological antiwork standpoint, I don’t know. But those jobs definitely exist, and it’s never as black and white.
Every job has its downsides, but I would argue there’s always potential to find something better than what any person currently has going for themselves.
Even with only 40 hours a week, a bit-fulfilling job would drain me too much, but I may be rather sensitive in that regard. As a result, I changed my career a few times, and for the first time in my life I feel like I’ve arrived in a place I can imagine doing for the rest of my life, while it also pays the bills.
I’m not sure if this is how you meant it, but I take competent in a bad connotation. I am competent in many skills, but some of them I would despise doing on a daily basis. I would base it on what you’re good at and what you wouldn’t mind doing daily.
That’s the neat part, you dont. I’m in my mid 30s and I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up.
I agree with many of the comments about just choosing a direction and trying out a lot of things - that is absolutely what you should do at first.
However, I disagree with many on the part about just finding something that pays the bills and finances your hobbies. You’re going to do your job for 40 hours a week for almost your whole life. There is nothing you’ll spend more time doing than your job.
I’ve found a job that I love and it makes life much more enjoyable. While my job doesn’t have an exact US equivalent, the best way to describe it is that I work as a teaching assistant during the school day and as a teacher at after-school. Sure, I still hate getting up on Mondays (and the rest of the days too, honestly), dealing with difficult parents and idiot bosses and all the other annoying shit that comes with any job, but all in all I love it and I’d gladly keep working 20-30 hours a week there for free if I won the lottery tomorrow. I could make hundreds or even a thousand dollars more every month if I took say a factory job, but it’s still worth it because I genuinely have fun doing my job.
Try to find something that you really like and still pays the bills. It’s worth it.
I’ll try to find a job that gives me fulfillment/enjoyment at least enough that I’ll be content with doing for a while, but also pays okay so that I have enough for my hobbies and stuff, but I won’t hate my work. Hopefully I find a job that pays okay and I love though.
do quacks quack?
I always liked computers, so I got an entry level job in IT.
Just followed my passion tbh.
Same here. WTF do I do with a history degree… Joined a helpdesk because I liked fixing tech, transitioned to web development because that was more fun, spent years enjoying learning and progressing, then moved into UX because that was more rewarding (and less stressful).
I’m glad I gravitated towards IT because it gave me a lot of freedom and choice - and the money was always good.
I’d be careful with the “follow your hobbies” advice, I’ve known a lot of frustrated people who feel they’ve wasted years studying / trying to get a job in video games, acting, that sort of thing. Seems you have to be in the top 1% and have a ton of luck or connections to stand a chance.
Before you get married and have kids, just do a bunch of shit. Fail a lot, figure out what you like and what you don’t.
I had like 30 jobs between 17 and 23. I was a roofer for a couple days at one point (I do project management now, as a comparison).
Just try stuff and take advantage of the fact that you’re young and you can say “I’m figuring things out”. It’s a lot harder to make that fly when you’re 30.
Lots of stumbling. Thinking I liked something, learning things in life, try other things. Eventually I found something that I really liked.
What do you do now?
For a while I cooked, now I work with computers. I travelled around, pre-covid with that job which was a good time.
Try to find out as much as you can about what the job/career is actually like, ask people who are in that field, if you can try to get some experience as an intern.
The worst thing you can do is focus on a major without considering what the actual work will be like once you graduate. Even if you love studying a topic, the actual work may be much less fun in practice.
Try to get some part-time experience of your own as you can, even at sub-entry level/intern levels it should help you know better what kinds of jobs you would enjoy full time. It’s often hard to envision a job without having some exposure to the field.
What’s a sub-entry level job?
I always liked the idea of going to a college that had a program with a work term so you can see if you like it and also get some experience. I would say talk to some people in areas that you are interested in and see if you find any jobs you may look doing.
After highschool (I actually dropped out) I worked a ton of dead end jobs. Cooking mostly, but there was roofing, painting, digging holes, lots of manual labour.
Eventually I moved to Vancouver and had an opportunity to become a card dealer. It was… How do I put it so you can fully understand… The worst experience by far, ever. It was toxic abusive, exhausting, and just all around the worst.
My partner at the time got pregnant and she actually gave me an out, said I didn’t have to be there at all. I thought my options over and decided I was going to be apart of this kids life and enrolled in college for IT. It was a bit of cheating really, I was already good at it so why not. 18 years later, I’m a consultant, doing well and my daughter is starting grade 12 next year.
Try something and probably change your mind later. Not having payed a fortune for an education before your change of heart would be extremely helpful though.
Try to pick something that gives you freedom instead of limiting yourself. A craft might be good, or an internship before studying if possible.
While Mike Rowe is kind of a piece of shit, he did say one right thing: “Stop looking for the “right” career, and start looking for a job. Any job. Forget about what you like. Focus on what’s available. Get yourself hired. Show up early. Stay late. Volunteer for the scut work. Become indispensable. You can always quit later, and be no worse off than you are today. But don’t waste another year looking for a career that doesn’t exist.”
There is no perfect job. There are jobs you make perfect for you. If the job you are in prevents that, you move on. Never wait too long for a promotion, as you can promote yourself by having the strength and will to find that promotion at a different company.
I enjoyed my computer science classes and had a talent for it so I became a software engineer. For the first 5 years of my career, I loved it and it was a core part of my identity. These days, it’s just a job that pays the bills. I’m still good at it and enjoy parts of it but every job is going to have something that annoys you. These days I define myself by my hobbies and friends which are funded by my job.
Obviously, making more than minimum wage is ideal in life. As long as you’re doing that, your career choice doesn’t have to be something you love more than free Saturdays.
The biggest thing for that to become true is to learn how to save and limit spending. If you make 200k and spend 195k on luxury car leases and other crap, you’re doing the same as a person who makes 45k and spends 40k. Yes the person “making more” has those things, but they’re just as beholden to their job as the 2nd person, and stuff doesn’t make you happy in the end.
On Reddit, I’d normally point ppl to /r/financialindependence but here there is !fire@lemmy.ml which isn’t as active.
I had an average uninteresting job for 10 years. It was fine. But I still went back to school and changed career. Now I love it. Nothing wrong with trying something out, and nothing wrong with changing your mind.
