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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Marketing: No matter how much you keep up with current trends, no matter how high-performing you are, it is a young person's game. Appearance and youthfulness matters.

Engineering: My husband would agree with earlier comments on how frustrating it is working with the long-timers, some of which continue to stay on in their 70's. They are rude, demanding and generally mess thing up all the time and don't say anything until it is too late. Then they call in my DH to fix things and blame him for the delays.

Agree on marketing.

Re engineering, despite drawbacks, I’d say it’s still a very solid field to go into.

-Former marketer married to an engineer

[Anonymous]

Teacher. The job has changed so much.

[Anonymous]

I think with marketing, as long as you go on a digital marketing, you should be OK. But again, you have to keep up your skills.

[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

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.

Well, you will need at least a master's to be an art teacher. Agree the interests are different. Can you be an engineer with a BS?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

NP. I graduated about 10 years after you, but the same field. Also female. I have to say I really haven't experienced the blatant, overt discrimination that some describe. Awkward to be a 20-something woman in an office full of men? Especially when I announce I'm pregnant, and it turns out the company has never had a pregnant employee before and has zero policies for it beyond FMLA? When I return from maternity leave and try to carve out time/space for pumping? Yeah, a bit awkward, but that's been the worst of it. My male bosses have all been encouraging, supportive, and great mentors.

There has been a shift toward more flexibility in recent years, and I think that's a great thing - for all employees, male and female. I appreciate that both my husband (also an engineer) and I can flex some hours to take care of family things, so it's not all on me to need a flexible career. Overall that's great for our family and both of our careers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hospitality industry. The hours are terrible and your coworkers are not the best representative of society. My brother is in a no where mid-management position. Glad I went to law school and love working as an attorney. It’s all relative.

This thread is for personal experience, not for you to crap in the choices of others, Mr. Big Shot

Before I went to law school, I waited tables in undergrad, then became a low-level manager. In my experience, the job and industry are terrible. I would stress over the job, which didn’t pay well and had no real opportunity for upward movement. Then stay out late drinking with the rest of the staff. Not a healthy life and can’t imagine it with a family. My brother has a family and it’s difficult to have such weird work times. He misses a lot.

Working as a government attorney pays decent, hours are stable, and I like the work. The government paid most of my student loans and I’ll get a decent pension. I would do it again if given the chance.

[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.

+1 to the idiot administrators. How long can the profession continue this way?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:litigation support

Aw, that makes me sad. Did lit supp for 15 years and loved the technology, problem-solving, and money. It’s not for everyone, but it beat being a paralegal by a long shot. Easy path to six figures without grad school because so few people do it well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Journalism.

Lasted 20 years before leaving; should have left after 10 years at most.

Well, I did that too and have my regrets. Did not last as long as you. Wish I were better at it, honestly. I had the opportunities and education and didnt excel or persevere. If you have the steel for it, it’s a thrilling and rewarding profession. I was never in it for the money, but was able to easily double mine by hoing into communications.

Well of course it can be a thrilling profession. So can law, medicine, teaching - the very careers in many triumphant movies. The point is that the REALITY of these jobs is often very different and complex, and even if they have good spells or good decades, they end up not being sustainable as one’s life priorities or needs change. Be glad you left on a positive or even wistful note.

[Anonymous]

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.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hospitality industry. The hours are terrible and your coworkers are not the best representative of society. My brother is in a no where mid-management position. Glad I went to law school and love working as an attorney. It’s all relative.

This thread is for personal experience, not for you to crap in the choices of others, Mr. Big Shot

Before I went to law school, I waited tables in undergrad, then became a low-level manager. In my experience, the job and industry are terrible. I would stress over the job, which didn’t pay well and had no real opportunity for upward movement. Then stay out late drinking with the rest of the staff. Not a healthy life and can’t imagine it with a family. My brother has a family and it’s difficult to have such weird work times. He misses a lot.

Working as a government attorney pays decent, hours are stable, and I like the work. The government paid most of my student loans and I’ll get a decent pension. I would do it again if given the chance.

So you are saying waiting tables or tending bar is a bad career choice? What about coal mining? Thanks for chiming in, Captain Obvious.

[Anonymous]

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

I hope yours wasn't English Composition. No need to capitalize every word in a sentence!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My mom's a retired nurse. She remembers a time when the medical system put the patient first. As she got older, she saw the situation move in ways that seemed unsafe to her. She also saw the nurses get squeezed to accomplish more with less. She repeatedly told me to avoid nursing.

HA! I was about to post. There is no respect given to nurses, patients can abuse you, administration can put you in unsafe situations, the money is not what people think it is

[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.

You must work for either inova or Hopkins. Leaning towards Inova..

[Anonymous]

I realize most people think lobbying is like this easy amazing job, but I’m so tired of it. If my daughter wanted to go into it I would say hell no, it’s an extremely old school boys club and I’m so tired of the sexual harassment (and no I’ve never done anything to invite it).