What do/did you want to be when you grow up?

Toxic

Toxic

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This question was apparently important enough to spend a school semester answering.

I used to want to be an engineer. Now I've set my sites on the air force.

What about you?
 
I'm training to be a nurse now. It's hard, but it's worth it for the cash. After being a nurse, I don't know yet. But all I know is that I won't be just a nurse. I'll also be one of the people who often have GOOD TIMES during the weekends and days off.
 
Wanted to be a psychologist (was pressured into law but stood up to the family culture). Now, I don't quite know. I'll finish up and then work for a bit. Then go to grad school for counseling. I'll decide if I want the Ph.D. afterward. Thing is, shrinks don't get the money they used to any more. It's all going to MD's (psychiatrists) who have their medical training and residency but are limited in psychoanalytic and therapeutic training. Didn't want to be a psychologist for the money either, I just like listening to people's problems and working with people. But thing is, shrinks are making like 30K-50K a year now. After undergrad, a masters, and a Ph.D.... that doesn't cut it in the face of all those loans to pay back. You'd think up to 11 years of academic training would land you a better net worth in the end. Sad thing is, at least from my school, most of the kids going to medical school (some of which will be psychiatrists) were pressured by mommy and daddy to go. You know the type, parents monitored their friends in high school, they had seven o'clock curfews, they weren't allowed to date, weren't allowed to do much other than destroy themselves over their bazillion AP courses... now they're in college, biomedical engineering, chemistry, chem.eng, neuroscience, and bio majors at age 18, going suicidal over a B+, not really knowing themselves or what they really want, still not allowed to date, and going straight to medical school (many on mom and dad's money) so they can be the hot topic of talk and comparison next time their parents have tea with each other. Sad that most of them really don't have the level of drive to help other people needed for future doctors, sad that most of them haven't even completed adolescence before they graduate.
 
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J. Valjean said:
Wanted to be a psychologist (was pressured into law but stood up to the family culture). Now, I don't quite know. I'll finish up and then work for a bit. Then go to grad school for counseling. I'll decide if I want the Ph.D. afterward. Thing is, shrinks don't get the money they used to any more. It's all going to MD's (psychiatrists) who have their medical training and residency but are limited in psychoanalytic and therapeutic training. Didn't want to be a psychologist for the money either, I just like listening to people's problems and working with people. But thing is, shrinks are making like 30K-50K a year now. After undergrad, a masters, and a Ph.D.... that doesn't cut it in the face of all those loans to pay back. You'd think up to 11 years of academic training would land you a better net worth in the end. Sad thing is, at least from my school, most of the kids going to medical school (some of which will be psychiatrists) were pressured by mommy and daddy to go. You know the type, parents monitored their friends in high school, they had seven o'clock curfews, they weren't allowed to date, weren't allowed to do much other than destroy themselves over their bazillion AP courses... now they're in college, biomedical engineering, chemistry, chem.eng, neuroscience, and bio majors at age 18, going suicidal over a B+, not really knowing themselves or what they really want, still not allowed to date, and going straight to medical school (many on mom and dad's money) so they can be the hot topic of talk and comparison next time their parents have tea with each other. Sad that most of them really don't have the level of drive to help other people needed for future doctors, sad that most of them haven't even completed adolescence before they graduate.
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I think that it takes a decent amount of life experience to make a good doctor. How could that type of person ever relate to what a patient is going through if they themselves have never experienced anything in life themselves? That's certainly not the type of physician that I would want taking care of me, especially in a psychiatric situation. I would think that the best psychiatrists/psychologists would be those people who have experienced much of what life has to throw at them.

We have those same kind of individuals in my field. I'm a computer technician, with vast knowledge in many different facets of the IT industry. There are generally two different types of techs out there, those that went to college and learned everything they know from a book, and those that learned everything they know from a combination of books and a whole lot of hands-on experience. I fall into that second category of techs. Most of us in the industry refer to that first type of person as a "paper tech", since all they have to prove their worth is a little piece of paper.
What is rather unfortunate is that most companies out there would rather foolishly hire that first guy with the degree without any idea of whether or not they would be able to perform their job properly. Personally, to me it makes far more sense to hire someone that has a great deal of experience doing the work, regardless of degree. The world does not make a great deal of sense at most times, but we just have to persevere.

Best of luck to those of you trying to figure out what you want to do with your lives. Those of you that are having a tough time finding your niche, just hang in there. Eventually you'll know what it is that you wanna do with yourself. It's perfectly normal to take a long time to sort that stuff out. Just remember that the most important thing to factor in while making that decision is to choose something that you are not only good at doing, but enjoy doing as well. Keep in mind that you'll likely be doing it for the rest of your life, so it should be something you get some sort of enjoyment/fulfillment from.
 
MORPHEUS said:
I think that it takes a decent amount of life experience to make a good doctor. How could that type of person ever relate to what a patient is going through if they themselves have never experienced anything in life themselves? That's certainly not the type of physician that I would want taking care of me, especially in a psychiatric situation. I would think that the best psychiatrists/psychologists would be those people who have experienced much of what life has to throw at them.

We have those same kind of individuals in my field. I'm a computer technician, with vast knowledge in many different facets of the IT industry. There are generally two different types of techs out there, those that went to college and learned everything they know from a book, and those that learned everything they know from a combination of books and a whole lot of hands-on experience. I fall into that second category of techs. Most of us in the industry refer to that first type of person as a "paper tech", since all they have to prove their worth is a little piece of paper.
What is rather unfortunate is that most companies out there would rather foolishly hire that first guy with the degree without any idea of whether or not they would be able to perform their job properly. Personally, to me it makes far more sense to hire someone that has a great deal of experience doing the work, regardless of degree. The world does not make a great deal of sense at most times, but we just have to persevere.

Best of luck to those of you trying to figure out what you want to do with your lives. Those of you that are having a tough time finding your niche, just hang in there. Eventually you'll know what it is that you wanna do with yourself. It's perfectly normal to take a long time to sort that stuff out. Just remember that the most important thing to factor in while making that decision is to choose something that you are not only good at doing, but enjoy doing as well. Keep in mind that you'll likely be doing it for the rest of your life, so it should be something you get some sort of enjoyment/fulfillment from.
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Yeah! Happy that more people actually know this. Its a very cultural thing too. Growing up, the only three career choices I and many people from my culture had were doctor, lawyer, or engineer. You see kids picking pre-med and failing horribly at their required courses, retaking Gen Chem I and II, thinking "I must do this, my whole life depends on it". I was sleeping-fading-in and out one time last year and my roomie brought over this girl who's from a similar culture. She was the Barbie material girl type, saying "omigod like" every two seconds, and then started talking about how important it is for her to get to medical school. "Omg, like, seriously, like you don't know how badly I need to get into medical school". Girl was dumb as a brick in all other regards but knew how to work in a classroom setting. Absolutely did not have the personality of a doctor being that she was extremely conceited, but apparently she "needed" to get into medical school. I would give the benefit of the doubt but I've been in the Middle-Eastern/East-Indian Must Go To Med-School monster and I know who's doing it for what reasons. Funniest part of it all is that the kids who are the most conceited and who talk of little other than medical school are the ones with the least knowledge of what they really want. They'll go as far as creating personal fables for themselves so people think they are doing it for the right reasons. Plus, there's a huge difference between saying "I want to be a doctor" and "I need/want to get into medical school". Many times, in the latter you have mom and dad threatening to take away the kid's college tuition money if they don't comply to their standards of what career they should have. It's pathetic... but it's cultural.

My ex-gf buckled under that culture. Funny thing was, she was more rebellious than I was, she was one of those anomalies of multiculturalism. Lets say that we had to have a "secret" relationship. She was all about "I'm going to be a psychologist, screw what my parents and family says, I do what I want".... vehemently hated the idea of an arranged marriage. Ran into her a year after we broke up and went out, she applied to graduate school for a post-bacc in hopes of medical school, and is in line to be married to a guy her parents had their eyes on since she was 12. I never knew just how much parents have their adult children in a deadlock until then, since then I've seen this pressure in every one of my East Indian and Middle Eastern friends' families. Parents have no boundaries, they don't respect their kids' independence, and all of this decision-making for them leaves those kids with their identity development pushed back decades. You're a doctor, you hate your job, you wake up in the middle of a marriage with three kids and THEN you realize you just want to go out and be yourself. Disastrous.
 
JSOOGZ said:
now i'm leaning towards DCR or Patrick McCarron
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^This. Except Jade for me, since I'm a lady. Yes. I want to be Jade when I grow up. <3

I wanted to be a psychiatrist when I was younger, but now I've decided to be a translator. I've already got the best job in the world right now though, head cheerleader for Team DCP. :P
 
I wanted to be (Here goes) Singer,writer, and MMA Fighter (Weird list, I know). But now, I've (Hopefully) selected something involving Video Games or Media Arts.
 
I wanted to be a football player (Goalkeeper), I was a GK at some local teams but never went professional XD (it remains a hobby now)
Now I'm an IT and studying computer programming and designing.
 
I used to dream about being a baseball player, football player, skateboarder, etc. Anything majorly athletic. After blowing out my knee in high school and, effectively, shattering my dreams, I now just want to do stuff that makes me, and possibly others, happy.
 
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I wanted to be a football player, but some injuries halted that pretty quickly. Then I wanted to be a game designer, but I could never find the time to sit down and study the stuff I needed to know. Now I'm not even sure to be honest.
 
Well, the earliest thing I wanted to be as a kid was a paleontologist or archaeologist. I was really into dinosaurs.

Then I wanted to be a pro baseball player. Then I wanted to be a pro golfer. Then I wanted to be a pro bowler. Notice how I had to keep lowering my standards.

Now, I have no ****ing idea.

JSOOGZ said:
now i'm leaning towards DCR
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I think you can aim a little higher than that.
 
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