A Little Clarity

Today I began a course on careers. It’s one of those career training courses to try and find my “fit.” I’ve always felt like I was in the wrong place anywhere I’ve worked so I was hoping to get some clarity out of it.

Since I was let go from my job 3 months ago I have tried to spend time learning about myself and what I enjoy to try and figure out what I want.

I am also going for my associate’s degree because why not.

Well, no, that’s not entirely true, I’ve now realized.

When I was in 4th grade we started talking about college. We toured the local state university that year and the following year we toured one in the neighboring town.

I remember very clearly my parents saying to each other that 9 years old was too young to be having college pushed. That they (the school) should wait until we’re in high school so we have time to decide what we want to do and where we want to be.

When I was in sixth grade we continued talking about college. We didn’t get to tour any other campuses but the idea was still planted in our minds that it was the best and only option after high school.

I don’t think college should ever be pushed as the only option, but looking back I think my parents inadvertently pushed against college for me.

Let me explain.

My parents both have associate’s degrees, bachelor’s degrees, and master’s degrees. They also both began PhD programs but neither were able to complete them. In other words: my parents are in a crazy amount of student loan debt.

Growing up I would hear them talk* (*complain) about this constantly. “College is so expensive.” “If you go to school make sure you get financial aid.” “There’s also always scholarships!” “Stick with XYZ and you can get a scholarship.”

So basically by the time I graduated high school here’s what I knew about college: contrary to what they’ll tell you, it’s not the only option and it’s expensive as hell.

So why would I go to university? I felt like there was no reason for me to.

I had friends who needed to go because they wanted to become doctors or lawyers or filmmakers?

I didn’t understand that last one until recently.

So I decided to take a year off after high school and do some volunteer work. After about 4 months I was miserable and figured that meant I wasn’t where I wanted to be so I started looking into career options.

Marketing sounded interesting, so did business, but eventually I settled on hospitality. I packed up my things and moved back home, intent on beginning a hospitality program through the business school at the local community college.

It sucked.

I hated every second of it but I stuck with it because I thought it’s what I wanted.

Never mind the fact that I wanted to work in the wedding industry but had spend the summer before classes began working at David’s Bridal and learning that I didn’t actually enjoy the industry.

And never mind the fact that I thought the only way to get there was by getting a bachelor’s degree in business administration.

There were so many signs that this wasn’t the right path for me but I kept trudging along all the way to failure-town.

Did you know that if you don’t enjoy something you won’t be motivated to do it?

I thought it meant that college wasn’t right for me and I decided to instead focus on my career. I was working at a bank at the time and knew I could work my way up to a certain level without a degree. I also knew that if I stuck around long enough they would pay for me to get a degree that would allow me to keep moving up in the banking world. I was willing to put in the effort for school if it meant keeping my job and continuing to grow in my career. And that I wouldn’t have to pay for it.

That plan didn’t last long because I moved about six months after that decision to quit school and focus on my job and could not find another banking job in my new area.

And just like this photo I felt lost and hopeless.

I shouldn’t say I wasn’t able to find another banking job. There were plenty of bank teller jobs available but I had spent almost 2 years as a teller! I was done and bored and wanted to move up.

So, naturally, I got a job in bookkeeping and cash counting.

And hated it. Why did I ever think it was a good idea to do the exact same thing I’d been doing just with a different title? I have no idea. But it taught me that banking wasn’t where my heart was.

My heart was, and always has been, in writing.

So I contemplated what to do for a while and eventually decided I wanted to try going to school again, for writing this time. The only program available at the community college geared towards writing was Journalism so I signed up for it!

Turns out, I don’t like journalism.

But signing up for school again gave me the boost of confidence I needed to begin searching for another job. My husband got me an interview at his company and that’s how I landed the first job I really enjoyed: front desk administration.

At first, the work was only kind of ok, but I grew to appreciate and love my coworkers and even after some of us have been laid off we still keep in touch and are a close-knit group.

After the first six months at this job, which actually began the same day as my first journalism class (go figure), I realized I wasn’t quite feeling either—the major or the career.

And that’s when I found communications.

Now, to me, “Communications” had always been that major people go into when they feel like they don’t know what to major in or when they have too many choices and decide to go for one degree that fits a bunch of things.

When I first stepped into my small group communications class I expected it to be a bunch of kids who, like me, were avoiding the public speaking class as this was the alternative. It’s not that I don’t like public speaking, but I’d already completed (and failed) the class at my last school and I wanted to give myself the chance to be good at something.

What I got out of the class was so much more. We didn’t just study how to prepare and present something with a group, we learned how groups form and function, what the different roles were, and how that relates to groups we have outside of class and what those different types of groups are. I was so fascinated with it all that I immediately changed my major. I was going to be that person who majors in Communications.

I was pretty open about my schooling with my boss at the time, so when I told him I switched majors I asked if there’s any task he could assign me that would align with my major so I could have real-world experience and confirmation that this is what I wanted to do.

What came from that is what made me love my job.

I began helping my coworker write and prep the department newsletter every month. I started composing and sending mass communication emails that were sent to first the campus and later the whole company. I started to see what a job in communications looks like.

Unfortunately, I also got to see where communication falls short in the corporate world.

Or was it a blessing?

I started studying how the people around me interacted and communicated with one another and attached it to my studies. I was falling in love with both my job and my major.

But I was still attached to the idea that I needed to be moving up career-wise and that school should be only on an as-needed basis. School allowed me to discover something I was passionate about but my job allowed me to find a way to implement it. I don’t blame myself for thinking my job was the end solution (and to be fair, the end solution to school is a job. I just thought I was going to get ahead.)

So it should make perfect sense to you, then, why I decided to leave that job.

It doesn’t?

While, yes, I was getting to do what I enjoyed, I was only getting to do it part of the time. About 75% of my job was dedicated to other tasks and, being the career-focused person I was, decided the best move for myself was upwards and out of that department.

I thought I could do bigger and better things working for executives. Turns out I was even more unfulfilled than before.

But I still. Kept. Pushing. Forward.

Until I couldn’t anymore.

Keep in mind that my whole career journey up until this point had been about continuing to grow job-wise. Only doing school as a necessity to get to something better in my career.

What I wasn’t doing was giving myself the chance to explore.

I had been in the workforce since I was 17 years old. I thought that I could skip college and figure things out for myself—where I wanted to go, what I wanted to do, who I wanted to be—in my job.

What people don’t tell you about college is that it’s a time in your life to explore a variety of avenues. To take risks and try new things.

This is the story I kept telling myself. But it wasn’t the whole story.

When I was 6 months post-high school graduation and made the decision to go to school, it was the most freeing feeling in the world.

I have felt the pull towards a higher education for the past five years and have been keeping myself from it out of fear.

I would make up excuses as to why I couldn’t do it such as: it’s too expensive, I would have to quit my job, it’s too hard to do school and work, maybe I can do online school (which I didn’t like the idea of), there’s lots of careers out there that don’t require a degree, and, my personal favorite, if I gain experience over 4 years it would be the same as going to school except I would be getting paid instead of paying.

There’s nothing wrong with any of those things by themselves. The problem was with my mindset. I spent years convincing myself I shouldn’t be going to school when the reality was that it’s what I really wanted.

I love learning. I enjoy learning. I like being in a classroom and working with other students.

That’s when I realized why some kids I went to high school with went to school for filmmaking. It wasn’t because you can’t do it without a degree, in fact many people in the film industry don’t have degrees. It was because they loved what they did, wanted to learn everything they could about it, and meet other people who loved the same thing.

That’s the part I was missing. That’s the part I’ve been seeking. I want to get to know other people who are just as excited about the things I like as I am.

So. How does the career course fit into this?

Well, first off I am on day 1 of 8 in this course and I am going to be blogging my reflections after each lesson from the day.

Second, the first lesson was about finding and overcoming your blocks in your career. Turns out I’m not ready for a career. I’m ready to be a student. I’m ready to soak up knowledge about the Communications field, meet other people who are inspired by the study of it, and hopefully find out more about myself along the way.

I went into this course hoping to learn what job I should look for or what kind of career I should try to get into when I begin looking for work again. But ultimately I was looking for guidance on what I should be doing now.

By letting go of perfectionism in my schoolwork and complete focus on grades making or breaking me I was able to just enjoy my time in school these past two years. I have the highest GPA I have ever had and I found what I was longing.

I think the most important take away from my journey thus far is to understand that you may be walking two seemingly adjacent paths but to see where you’re going you have to look ahead at both. One will always be a dead end.

Looking back, I always knew my jobs would lead me nowhere because my heart wasn’t in them. I could call them “careers” all I wanted but it wouldn’t change the fact that it wasn’t what I was meant to do.

Intuition is important in decision making.

Halting forward movement in my current career feels right.

Continuing with school feels right.

Now I know I’m on the right path.

…for now.