Recent Highschool Grad Wants Your Opinion

[KeeganTaberner]

Hey guys, I will try to keep this quick. I've browsed this forum without an account for over a year now, and I've finally decided to make one. This is my first post. Enjoy.

I graduated highschool this past June in B.C. with a 4.0GPA, I spent the summer circumnavigating Vancouver Island by sailboat as a fundraiser for Juvenile Diabetes (I am a type 1 diabetic) and now I am trying figure out what to do with my life.

I am in a position where I need to figure out what I would like to do as a career, so I can plan my education. I know I am young and what I decide to do now will likely be far different from what I do in 10 or 15 years. However, I have some guidelines that I would like to stick to.

- I know I want a rewarding career, I want to be able to see what impact my work has had on something or someone.
- I quite obviously want a well paying career
- I want a career where I can be home every, or nearly every night.
- Long hours are okay, provided I enjoy the work and find it rewarding.

I've been thinking about careers such as a construction manager... large development firms pay well. But I've also toyed with the notion of management consultant and many other options. But is it rewarding? Is it enjoyable?

If you could do 'life' again; be in the shoes of a young, smart and driven individual, what would you do? Would you do it exactly the same?

I want to hear what you have to say, I want to hear your experiences and opinions.

 

[FLMountainMan]

What is it that appeals to you about management consulting?

 

[KeeganTaberner]

What is it that appeals to you about management consulting?

I've got relatives in the business, it is just something I have looked at briefly but not too seriously. They seem to enjoy it though.

What do you do? Do you enjoy it?

 

[Gibonius]

Hard to say without knowing what you're in to. What subjects have you enjoyed, what are you good at? Did you apply for college or are you taking a year off? Do you want to continue on with school?


I chose to go into science, majored in chemistry, got a PhD, and now my current path is scientific instrumentation development. That could change tomorrow with the right opportunity, I'm still a youngin' in this field. It cost me five years in grad school, not making much money but learning a lot. I can't really imagine doing anything else, really a great thing for who I am. I'm not going to make bank doing this, but I get to solve problems, work with awesome technology and smart as hell people, low stress, and enough money that it's not really a problem.

Engineering would have been better money and likely easier to find jobs, but I don't know that it would have worked for me.

If I could change things, I'd have focused more on targeted career development. Only relatively recently have I had the perspective to really plot out a course for my career and it's been paying off. It would have been hard for me on the path I took, it's not really obvious what a career in my field actually looks like when you're in school. Probably easier for people with more obviously applicable majors.


Also shout out to another Type 1 diabetic.

 

[suited]

At this point in your life, if a profession exists that is financially rewarding as well as enjoyable for you to the extent that you don't mind long hours, you would already know what that profession is...I hope that makes sense. When I was 18 I didn't know what my passions were in life - I hadn't discovered them yet. Well, not exactly, I had discovered one of them, but at the time I had no idea that I would eventually want to pursue it as my own hobby, and hopefully one day as a career.

Your best bet is that sometime between now and your 2nd year of college you will discover what your passions are in life, and then you'll realize that the chances of you earning decent money right out of college pursuing these passions is very slim, albeit there are exceptions. You'll then realize that you need to find a job that's tolerable, somewhat enjoyable (you might even call it 'fun' every now and then), financially rewarding while at the same time leaving enough free time to partake in your passions as a hobby all while figuring out how you're going to earn money doing what you really love.

 

[dfagdfsh]

it's hard to really give you advice because you're not providing a lot of information and you're also 18 - I can recommend to you the path I'm following, which is university administration. lots of money and easy hours!