The BN Village - View Single Post - Are you doing what you've always wanted to do?

Madam Butterfly · (#9 (**permalink**))

Maat wrote:

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1) Are you doing what you always wanted to do?

funnily enough i am doing what i always said i NEVER EVER wanted to do lol Which is teaching (although i am actually a teaching assistant. all the fun of the job and none of the stress lol)

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2) how did you get there?

while doing another job i hated, i had alot of free time as it was in the evenings. so i did some voluntary work with children during the day. wasn't really thinking it would lead to teaching. was more thinking about the social work side. But most of my voluntary work was within schools, so that swayed me to teaching. Always liked kids, just never liked the idea of teaching. But after a while i applied for a PGCE, did the course, passed the course and voila!! (almost!)

3) Did you ever go through stages as I am now?

most definatly. the first time i went to uni was because i wanted to go into journalism as i used to really enjoy writing. my aim was to make a name for myself in magazine writing to make publishing a novel easier (ahhh, such childhood dreams lol). In the end (unfortunatly AFTER my degree!) i decided that that whole world was just too cut throat and nasty. So i went through a loooooooooooooooooooooong period of not knowing what i wanted to do at all. (about 3-4 years) It was during this period i had the crappy dead end job and started voluntaring.

4) How did you finally decide what you wanted?

i guess it was decided for me when i started to enjoy wrking with kids in the context of a school. It was during my PGCE though that i felt that teaching itself was just far too stressful. Had a short period of unemployment after my pgce, then got job number one working with children in an educational context, though not in school. and i am continuing to enjoy that job, but now i also have a job as a teaching assisstant and i am also enjoying that. I never thought i could be happy doing the kind of work i had always said i never wanted to do lol

my advice? when thinking about what you want to do, don't cut off any career paths. I know its preferable to focus on what you enjoy or are qualified for, but try to widen your scope anyway. You never know!