Pathways

When I work with undergrads, there is one underlying theme that always comes across. Almost all of their questions are centered around the fact that they are trying to figure out what it is they want to do. It’s interesting that we spend so much of our early years trying to find direction. It seems like from the time we can first speak, someone is asking us, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Unfortunately for my students, they’re on a pretty strict timeline to decide on a major and a field of study.

I have a pretty straightforward philosophy on this. Do what you love and if you don’t know what that is yet, do the best job you can wherever you are and your strengths will come through. Once you figure out what those are, go from there. My students will typically look at me like I’m a complete dolt, but I don’t mind…they’ll understand what I mean eventually and even if they don’t, at least they still have a job. To get them thinking about the whole what they love thing, I have my students do an exercise on the first day of class. I ask them to write down what their dream job would be if money were no object. In a perfect world, that is what they should be striving for.

As far as my own path, I’m not sure whether teaching was a conscious decision on my part or not, but it seems like I always ended up there. Even at my teenage jobs of Blockbuster and the coffee shop, I somehow always ended up training people. I think that the reason for this was twofold (1) I was good at explaining things and (2) if I’m being honest, I liked telling people what to do. At every job I’ve had since then, it’s either been explicitly a teaching position or I’d unofficially taken on training (even in units other than my own).

Even my fun jobs involve teaching. I teach spinning classes at a local gym (getting paid to workout was a no brainer for me, plus my gym membership is free) and I’m currently working on the curriculum to teach two classes at a nearby prison (yes, teaching inmates definitely falls under the fun category for me).

So, my question for you guys is this, do you think that there’s such a thing as a calling or do you think that we just gravitate to what we know? Are you where you wanted to be or do you wish you were doing something else?