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[quote=Anonymous]New poster here. I’m an English (and political science) major who was diagnosed with ADHD in my early 30s (about 15 years ago) and find a lot of what you write relatable. I hopped around potential majors in college (started out thinking I wanted to do chemistry) and felt fairly lost upon graduation from a very good liberal arts college that sends a lot of its graduates onto things I didn’t want to do - like investment banking.

If I had things to do over, I would do more to figure out my strength areas and interests (Clifton Strenghs Finder, the book “What Color is my Parachute” etc) and careers that were a good fit for those. For instance, I considered medicine and was worried about sleep deprivation but those assessments and others often point toward fields like emergency medicine.

During college one summer I worked in a shoe store. Another summer I interned with a state representative. I think I nannied the other summers. During the school year I worked in the school publicity office writing press releases.

Post college I stumbled around - I lived with my sister for the first summer and worked in a coffee shop. Then I lived with my parents while working as a nanny for about a year. Then my dad’s accountant needed an admin assistant so I did that for a year. My friends in DC knew I hated my job, and they needed a roommate and I’d saved money for two years living with my parents so I quit my job and took a 3 month (very barley paid) internship in international relations. I did that 4 days a week while spending one day sending out applications and going on interviews. I probably sent 150 applications and landed in a new nonprofit doing all sorts of jobs - I was hired to design their website and do press releases but ended up moving to support their fundraising and budgeting efforts.

After that, I applied to grad school (public policy) and ended up with full academic scholarship offers at all three schools I applied to - I didn’t even know that was a possibility. I would not recommend paying full tuition for a MPP but it’s been a great degree for the low cost. I worked for a professor doing research while there.

That research connected me with an organization that does project based work. I have an entirely new topic and set of colleagues every year or so and it’s like being paid to go to grad school. I’ve done that for over 15 years now! It has its ups and downs, but I get to write a ton, wear many hats, and jump around different tasks and projects all of which works well. Also, because of the ADHD, I’ve gotten really good at needing to project plan and use tools. My managers repeatedly comment on my planning abilities and ask me to train / mentor others which I enjoy but find somewhat ironic because it’s just about the need to have these tools and use them! (I think others don’t need as many tools but then their plan is in their head and not as well communicated to the team.)

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