Question: What did you want to be when you were in school???

Christine Switzer answered on 14 Jun 2011:

First I wanted to be a vet. I think I was about nine or ten when a friend told me if I was a vet I would have to treat snakes, too. We lived in Japan at the time and I was afraid of the poisonous snakes there. So I changed my mind again and decided to be a doctor. I changed my mind about both of these at university.

Do you know yet what you want as a career? It’s ok if you don’t. I do some mentoring with the first year students in my department and we start the year with this same kind of conversation. I tell them that “I don’t know” is just as good an answer as anything else. In one of their classes each year, they are supposed to do professional development planning (PDP) which is something that most people do once they are out of school/university and working. They are supposed to write about how the academic year is going, what they think of the classes, etc, etc. I ask my students to make sure that the classes are going ok but also think forward. I ask each of them to make a plan for trying different things while at university based on their own interests. It could be organised things (classes, projects, field trips, etc) or individual things (summer jobs, research, attending careers talks or visits, etc). For the students who don’t know what they want, the idea is to try as many things as possible to see what they like or don’t like. For those who do know what they want, they should come back after whatever experience even more confident in their choices. If you know what you want, great. If you don’t, can you think of some ways to try out different things?