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

[Anonymous]

Briefly went down the path of being a commercial pilot. While it can be a sweet job and quite lucrative if you hit the timing right, it's an industry of extremes - "pilot shortage" to massive layoffs - and you are 100% a victim of circumstance rather than having any control over your destiny.

I wouldn't discourage someone from going down this road, but I would encourage them to have a backup plan. I was lucky to have another degree to fall back on in late 2001.

[Anonymous]

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

What? Most of these are absurd and not comparable.

Cosmetologist: 6 wks. Dermatologist: More than 10 years.

Art teacher vs engineer? That's not even worth addressing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What Career Path Did You Choose That You Strongly Advise Against?

Trailing spouse.

Kind of joking, but it's been a meandering career path.

I was a lawyer before and I won't say law wholesale, but I will say that you should really understand what you are getting yourself into with it. It's a great education and degree to have, but becoming a cog in the law firm wheel is really, really not for everyone.

We could probably have a separate thread addressing legal careers and how to make a law degree work for you, but people need to be honest with themselves about what they will be doing, what they are comfortable doing in terms of their personal abilities and skill set, and whether what they want to do aligns with the cost of their education.

+1 - unless you land a BigLaw or comparable job the student loan payments can be rough and make it hard to be financially successful/stable.

That said - this also rings true on some level. I may hang up my own shingle in a few years, but I won't need to be making 6 figures then.

"I used to dissuade people from going into law in the early years but now I've changed my tune. I think it's a very flexible field particularly for women. This, however, only applies if you have your own practice or work in a small firm. Law is really one of the few fields where if all else fails, you can hang up your own shingle and work totally for yourself. It's very liberating. Being an attorney has allowed me to work at home rearing 3 kids. That said, I don't make BigLaw bucks so that's the trade off. But it is flexible."

[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...

I have mixed feelings about this. I definitely had a rough start in a male dominated engineering career, and once I had kids the lack of flexibility was killing me. But my old boss retired and my new younger boss is definitely more flexible and doesn’t belittle my work. I make decent money and my job is stable. Maybe once all the old guys retire it won’t be so bad!

How old are the two of you? Genuinely curious.

I graduated with an engineering degree in 1989, in aeronautical engineering and have worked in defense most of my career. Rarely any women. Sometimes it's easier to be the token than it is when there are a handful of tokens who feel like they are vying for the same one slot. There's a lot of research out there on that, btw. But I suppose I digress a bit.

[Anonymous]

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

This is an offensive post on so many fronts. As soon as I saw the title of this post, I knew there would be traditional, female dominated professions listed here. Just didn't think it would be the first response.

Maybe we should stop society from marginalizing the great work women do in these professions. Because they are female dominated - specifically nurses and teachers - they are looked down upon. Maybe other women should stop turning their nose up at other women

[Anonymous]

I’m assuming OP posted this because they were thinking about, if they were 10 years old again, what type of career would they want, and what would they not want.

Most of us, by the time we’re in our 20s, somehow we’ve made our career choices without really thinking about exactly why they’re good or bad.

Obviously cosmetology and dermatology are extremely different, but if you’re a 10 year old, both are theoretically still attainable to you.

[Anonymous]

I left college to be a street performer, and then thought that I had "made it" when I get into clown college in the mid 90's. While the path brought a lot of learning and joy, it also made me feel flat and exposed me to a lot of sad people and bad situations I wish I had never encountered. I returned to "real" college in 2002, and appreciate my more normal life now. I love talking to kids who want to be performers, but I've pushed quite a few away from pursing it the way that I did.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I left college to be a street performer, and then thought that I had "made it" when I get into clown college in the mid 90's. While the path brought a lot of learning and joy, it also made me feel flat and exposed me to a lot of sad people and bad situations I wish I had never encountered. I returned to "real" college in 2002, and appreciate my more normal life now. I love talking to kids who want to be performers, but I've pushed quite a few away from pursing it the way that I did.

PP, you get my vote for the most interesting person in DCUM today. I want to know so much more about your life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I left college to be a street performer, and then thought that I had "made it" when I get into clown college in the mid 90's. While the path brought a lot of learning and joy, it also made me feel flat and exposed me to a lot of sad people and bad situations I wish I had never encountered. I returned to "real" college in 2002, and appreciate my more normal life now. I love talking to kids who want to be performers, but I've pushed quite a few away from pursing it the way that I did.

PP, you get my vote for the most interesting person in DCUM today. I want to know so much more about your life.

+1 Please start a new thread. Life of a performer.

[Anonymous]

litigation support

[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

I’m a doctor and wish I had been a nurse. Nursing was really what I wanted to do looking back on it. I spend a lot more time with charts than I do with patients. And really, the pay isn’t that much better considering the commitment I put in up front and the amount of responsibility I have when I am there.

The nurses I work with in the ED get paid ~ $90k for 36 hours/wk. I work 30 hours/wk, which means that I am 0.6 FTE, and make ~$120k/yr.

I think some of the most fulfilled people I know in the med profession are the highly specialized nurses because they get to do a lot of the most rewarding specialized patient care--nurse midwives, for example.

+1 My sister is an advanced practice nurse and loves her job (mostly research and training). She got so much pressure in HS and college to be a doctor but she was really clear on the difference in the professions and and nursing was the right fit with her interests and strengths. Makes a good living and doesn't have the debt that comes with medical school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'll bite. Teaching. And sadly after this year there will be many others that feel that way. I encourage women to find a different path if they are interested - physical therapist, occupational therapist, speech therapist, etc. You can still work with kids but get more respect, more career opportunities and be able to go part time with more ease if you want to.

Question for you about something I've been wondering. I'm an attorney and at one point in my career, I was job sharing with my partner working half the week and me working the other half. Do you think this is something that could be done in teaching to provide more flexibility?

They do that in other cities but not here. I think it would have its advantages and disadvantages.

[Anonymous]

Mcps teacher

[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.

Government lawyer here. I have a lot of physician friends and they all make more than me and have less experience than you do. You are getting screwed.

[Anonymous]

Stay at home mom.