What Career Path Did You Choose That You Strongly Advise Against?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Educated cop

I have a master degree, went into “law enforcement “ to make a difference.

Did child abuse/homicide most my career.

Started with a training officer who taught how to legally beat people if you are in a bad mood.

Spent evenings with extreme racists, short men with Napoleon complex, people with little understanding of the law or constitution.

Best part was making friends with 7-11 workers, Dunkin’ Donuts workers, gas station workers, etc.

Spent most my life with people going through the worst days of their life and thankful I had a masters in psychology.

Frustrated that I had a better understanding of law than most prosecutors, judges are the most ego driven group I have ever dealt with ... most lawyers and judges I dealt with had seriously unhealthy relationship with alcohol.

Watched “tiger teams” be formed ever time a white woman was killed, while I alone worked on the rest of the cases. Journalists would demonize my POC victims and paint white victims as heroes and white perps as “mentality ill” when they were just down right evil or selfish.


You get the idea.

You sound like the youngest cop on Blue Bloods. You should watch it. He went to Harvard Law and became a beat cop for the NYPD. But he comes from a family of cops so...at least he has his brothers?

I tend to avoid cop shows (except Homicide and the Wire and Training Day ) since they are so far from the truth. I will check it out.

Be careful, you're revealing your bias.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Physician
The work is intellectually interesting and I feel like I am doing something worthwhile. Additionally, most of the patients are delightful (or at least interesting) and they teach me so much.

BUT as time has gone on the system has evolved so that the administrators have proliferated, and they have consolidated and expanded their power. So basically I work for idiot administrators who have a business degree with no understanding of medicine (if they compare us to “highly trained technicians - like a plumber or mechanic” one more time I am going to freak out), make slightly MORE money than us (one admin said she “would not get out of bed for what they pay doctors here”), work 9-5 (and g-d forbid they work a holiday! But they’d be delighted to report me if it takes me >15 minutes to reply to a page on a holiday), and just view us as numbers (RVU generators). They also won’t come in during covid (apparently every single admin is immunosupressed?), but are happy to send us 6000 useless emails a day, I guess to prove they are actually “working” from home. But then I have to yank off all my PPE and reply to their dumb emails “in a timely fashion” so they don’t report me. The higher level admins have also begun “encouraging” the older/middle aged docs to leave, and replacing them with MDs straight out of training and PA/NPs because the old guys cost too much money. Apparently competence and experience are of no value anymore. Because $$$. And if we make more money then we can hire more administrators!

Also I have 9 years of training after college and about 15 years experience, and I make less than my friends who are govt lawyers. So, stop with your complaining lawyers!

Well, that turned into a rant. But if things continue this way then being a physician won’t make sense anymore, which is sad, because medicine can be rewarding and fun - and on a great day you can even save someone’s life. Which is pretty cool.

. ACA related? Consolidation was for sure.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It seems obvious, but I still think women don’t think about making the most money possible the way women do.

This. Women go to Columbia and graduate and aspire to get a low level admin job at a NYC nonprofit, while their male peers target jobs with money and develop skill sets.

Seven years later, the women are making $75k and married, hate their going no-where admin job that rarely has a meaningful difference on the world, and surprise.... when the discussion of babies comes along "it really just made sense for me to stay home because it just happened that DH made four times my salary".

Women: Aim higher. Jobs are jobs and, to the extent you derive pleasure from your job, that pleasure is almost surely rooted 99% in what you do day-to-day and not some larger feeling of doing good. Same thing for those who hate their jobs - they hate it because of the day to day. You can day-to-day at a shitty art collective nonprofit making peanuts, or you can do the same kind of day-to-day at McKinsey. Or a defense contractor. Even better: develop a skill set so you don't just do admin and organize office birthday parties.

This is so true. I’m a woman who went to Columbia and took a $36k/yr job (in NYC!!!) when most of the men went to Wall Street. Luckily came to my senses and went corporate two years later, but didn’t know how to negotiate a salary and found out I was offered/accepted 35% less than my colleagues with the exact same background and role.

I’ve corrected and make good money now. But I am totally teaching my daughters to value making money.

I didn't do this. I went to a liberal arts college, got a generic degree but as soon as I graduated (mid-Recession) - I immediately started job-hopping for more and more lucrative roles.

I watched my fellow class stick with the same companies for 10 to 15 years, get passed over time and again, get fired, get let go during 'downsizing', and many just checked out to SAHM life. All of them, except 2 who managed to marry a high 6-figure guy, are struggling financially.

I find it the stupidest thing because these aren't stupid women. Many of them actually pursued more competitive degrees than I did. They just didn't seem to know how to translate that to actual life and work their way up in the corporate field.

I rely on job hopping to get salary increase too,
Eternally getting passed up for promotion, even the fake associate to senior associate kind 😢

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Educated cop

I have a master degree, went into “law enforcement “ to make a difference.

Did child abuse/homicide most my career.

Started with a training officer who taught how to legally beat people if you are in a bad mood.

Spent evenings with extreme racists, short men with Napoleon complex, people with little understanding of the law or constitution.

Best part was making friends with 7-11 workers, Dunkin’ Donuts workers, gas station workers, etc.

Spent most my life with people going through the worst days of their life and thankful I had a masters in psychology.

Frustrated that I had a better understanding of law than most prosecutors, judges are the most ego driven group I have ever dealt with ... most lawyers and judges I dealt with had seriously unhealthy relationship with alcohol.

Watched “tiger teams” be formed ever time a white woman was killed, while I alone worked on the rest of the cases. Journalists would demonize my POC victims and paint white victims as heroes and white perps as “mentality ill” when they were just down right evil or selfish.


You get the idea.

You sound like the youngest cop on Blue Bloods. You should watch it. He went to Harvard Law and became a beat cop for the NYPD. But he comes from a family of cops so...at least he has his brothers?

I tend to avoid cop shows (except Homicide and the Wire and Training Day ) since they are so far from the truth. I will check it out.

You should consider doing an AMA thread. Your experiences sounds interesting

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How many will say engineering. Rough road for a woman in the oversaturated male dominated industry. If it's not management diminishing your work, it would be the clients. Many days I ask myself why did I not peruse medical school. Ugh...

Same for women in IT
male dominated, ageism, unstable, non family friendly

This applies to both men and women in competitive careers.

I am in business analytics, my make peers have been a great support /advocate for my self esteem while my spouse thinks I am an idiot.

[Anonymous]

Librarianship. Simply terrible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Women should ask themselves what the traditional male equivalent is of whatever they’re traditionally considering, and consider that instead, because it’s usually more lucrative.

Example, teacher versus tenured college professor.
Nurse versus doctor
Cosmetologist versus dermatologist
Art teacher versus engineer
Admin assistant vs program manager

Obviously these are all very different jobs, but I hope you get what I mean.

Also, women should not shy away from things or jobs with numbers in them. Data science, business analysis, finance, corporate real estate, etc. I wish as many women were interested in business school as they are law school.

Lastly, I wish more women would run for office

Teaching and nursing are stable, in-demand jobs with a lot of location flexibility; nursing can also provide a good lifestyle if you specialize (eg, anesthesia or certain types of NP). Also, you can't count on being a tenured professor.

There are many school districts where teachers make more than college professors. Many tenured professors don't make that much.

[Anonymous]

professional/trade associations. most of them are where progress goes to die.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:professional/trade associations. most of them are where progress goes to die.

I thought that was in a government agency?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Women should ask themselves what the traditional male equivalent is of whatever they’re traditionally considering, and consider that instead, because it’s usually more lucrative.

Example, teacher versus tenured college professor.
Nurse versus doctor
Cosmetologist versus dermatologist
Art teacher versus engineer
Admin assistant vs program manager

Obviously these are all very different jobs, but I hope you get what I mean.

Also, women should not shy away from things or jobs with numbers in them. Data science, business analysis, finance, corporate real estate, etc. I wish as many women were interested in business school as they are law school.

Lastly, I wish more women would run for office

Teaching and nursing are stable, in-demand jobs with a lot of location flexibility; nursing can also provide a good lifestyle if you specialize (eg, anesthesia or certain types of NP). Also, you can't count on being a tenured professor.

There are many school districts where teachers make more than college professors. Many tenured professors don't make that much.

my sister works in HR at a liberal arts college (that is not particularly "prestigious" nor in a large metro area) and told me they got 80 applications last fall for an tt English professor job. they start their first year assistant profs off at $58k. wild

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I started as a PhD scientist with a specialty in organic chemistry. It was miserable. So many huge egos. No HR for students or post docs. It was legit abusive. I had to vacuum and dust my advisor's office, pick up his dry cleaning and work as a coat check when he held a party at his home. I was essentially his slave for $15k/year. The lab working conditions were also far from safe. Another student in a next door lab died of chemical burns for lack of safety equipment. (This was at UCLA.) I'd never push my kid to go into a lab science.

Now I'm a lawyer. Law school was cake. My clerkship was amazing, literally the best job ever. Biglaw wasn't perfect, but was millions of times better than an academic research lab. Fewer hours. Less pressure. More HR rules. Less psycho behavior. I eventually moved in house and love my job. I think most employed lawyers who complain are whiners. (Those with big loans and no jobs have a point.)

Wow, this is interesting to read. I'm sorry you had that experience, PP. As a counterpoint, I have a friend who is a tenured organic chemistry professor at an Ivy, and he (and his family) all describe his life as charmed. He gets job security, amazing colleagues, intellectual stimulation, and lots of flexibility and work-life balance. He has told me many times that he was driven into the profession by love of chemistry and love of teaching, but he has been so impressed by the unexpectedly excellent quality of life that comes from academia (at least the tenured kind...I suspect it was more stressful up until then). He would recommend the career to everyone, but he does acknowledge it's incredibly hard to even get offered a position, let alone obtain tenure.

A tenured professor job can be very good quality of life, especially in STEM. Lots of autonomy, and intellectually stimulating and challenging. Great benefits and flexibility. You can travel if you want (conferences etc), or you can pass and send a grad student. But the path to get there is fraught, so I couldn’t advise it, unless a phd is marketable outside of academia. (And most profs don’t have students do dry cleaning/ coat check / unsafe lab work)

[Anonymous]

Disagree with the negative reviews of engineering for women. I started as an engineer at a government contractor, and now I am an engineer at a research lab. Really great work life balance, interesting work, mostly great colleagues. Good money. Could be even better money in other roles, but work life balance would probably suffer.

I tried businesses consulting for a year and found it awful. I did not even have to travel. I found the sexism there much worse, aside from the job being less rewarding. Do not recommend.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Special ed teacher

I can’t believe how miserable this job is now. You have to do the same amount of teaching as other teachers yet you have to do hours and hours of paperwork for IEP’s and attend an endless amount of IEP meetings. While most parents are great to work with there are about 10-20% of parents that are extremely difficult to work with either because they never respond and you have to track them down or because they expect you to spend 25% of your working hours dedicated just to their child, or their child is barely behind yet want a massive amount of services, or expect the whole system to shift. In theory it shouldn’t be the special Ed teachers problem it should be the districts. But the district throws special Ed teachers under the bus and expect them to meet unrealistic expectations on IEP’s that they agreed to based on how they staff positions.
Then you also have to deal with aggressive students who intentionally or unintentionally assault you and paras who are MIA.

This x 1000. I’m hesitant to recommend teaching as a profession to anyone but would never recommend someone to teach in SpEd. That 10%-20% of parents truly have the ability to demoralize even the most optimistic of teachers. I am sympathetic to the parents that are unable to participate in the process but the entitlement of the super demanding parents, along with the non stop assessments, IEP meetings, dealing with admin, etc. has killed my joy. I am starting to tutor on the side and am regaining my LOVE for teaching reading again. I am also looking at going back to school to be an SLP.

I am looking to go back to school too. I thought of going back to be an SLP but I now want nothing to do with special ed. I am looking into becoming a math teacher or physician's assistant. I am 40 so not sure if it is too late to be a physician's assistant.

[Anonymous]

This thread makes me so worried for my kids and how they’ll make their career choices. It’s so hard to know what you’re getting into.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This thread makes me so worried for my kids and how they’ll make their career choices. It’s so hard to know what you’re getting into.

+1
It seems all professions are mentioned.
The exception might be finance.