Dream job?

Hello, firstly let me say I'm not sure if this is in the right section or if there even is a section for this, if it's in the wrong place though let me apologize in advance. Moving on though, I know I'm a very, very infrequent user on here. I do however greatly trust and appreciate the judgement of all you wonderful people so I'm turning to you to help me.

I'm about to start my second year of college (This is UK college for the American users which is the equivalent to seniors in high school I do believe. However this is not the life I want to live, I could go to university but I dread the idea of 4 more years of education because whilst I love learning new things I don't want it to be the focus of my life and it feels like I'll be wasting my time.

I want a job that challenges me physically and intellectually. I want one that's main focus is on helping people and saving them. I want something where I can be involved in technology too and work with it daily. The problem is I can't find one. This is the first time in my life I don't know how to proceed and I'm stuck. I've considered many options from intelligence officer to armed forces to aerospace engineer. They all have problems though. Firstly the armed forces is just not something that really appeals to me at all, they're trained to take orders without thinking for themselves and quite frankly I think a lot of the actions of our military over the last 50 years are very hard to justify. Secondly being an aerospace engineer sounds brilliant and ticks every box from an intellectual stand point... It just doesn't quite do it because of all the other things it misses out and it requires 4 years at university, minimum. Finally the main issue the intelligence officer presents is once again is it requires a degree for some reason, something else that would add years of education. Apart from that it is the most complete option for me I've come across.

Now I know not everyone can have their dream job. But let me get some things straight, I don't care in the slightest about making bundles of money, all I want is enough to live on and I'm very good at handling money efficiently. I am also prepared to work dam hard to get it and go wherever I need to. Plus if it helps my biggest mental strengths are my problem solving skills (helps for maths and computing hugely), my memory and ease of dealing with pressure.

So thanks very much for just taking the time to read this and to anyone that actually comes up with some suggestions I can't thank you enough

Hi Frost

In my opinion education is never a waste of time, but education in something which isn't directly interesting or relevant to you is certainly not a pleasant experience. There are few times in most people's adult lives where they can devote several solid years to education, as once out of education responsibilities (ie bills) begin to pile up and require a solid, steady job, even if it's in an undesirable non-dream job.

You've identified several careers which appeal to you, meet your long-term goals and your personal criteria for "dream jobs" at a stage of your life where you have the opportunity to make them happen (this won't always be the case). And they require a degree. As such, my advice is stick it out and get a degree in a relevant subject. I've been through (UK meaning) college and university, and have worked in both colleges and universities. Universities are nothing like college, at all. You say you're prepared to work damn hard to get where you want to go. So prove that, and go get the qualifications these careers require

Like you, at the point you're at now, I hesitated. I had a place in a decent university but at the last minute took a year out. I wondered if I could face another 3 years in education. That year out made the decision very easy, because despite AAC A-levels and multiple A*s at GCSE, I could only get a PT job on the checkouts at ASDA. Your experience may vary, of course... but I went on to complete my degree and it's one of the best decisions I ever made. I'm now in a job which changes people's lives for the better, involves working with technology and doesn't pay too badly either. One of the good things about "bundles of cash" is you can do a lot of extra good with the money you earn and don't need... there's a lot of worthy charities out there.

Whilst I understand you feel like you're wasting time, making decisions at the wrong time (ie before you have a better plan) is a risky business. Have you considered taking a year out after college, to see where it takes you? Try the kind of life you imagine you'll have without uni for a year, and if you like it, ditch uni... but until then keep the option open. You'd be very lucky to be able to afford 3-4 years out at any other stage and uni fees will only increase in the future. Getting into one of your dream industries which will employ you for the following 40+ years for just 4 years' work is a very sweet deal indeed.

The fact is, a degree on your CV is evidence of some of the claims you've made... someone prepared to work damn hard, someone with intellectual capacity in specific areas, and rightly or wrongly, without a degree you have to either have relevant experience which compensates for this, or face the fact you can't become an aerospace engineer or intelligence offer (or, in all likelihood, anything like them). They simply won't look at your application if you don't meet their minimum requirements. To put it another way, say you're in charge of hiring for a job. A stack of 200 CVs land on your desk, and 15% of them don't meet the minimum requirements. It's likely you'd ditch those 15% pretty quickly before actually sitting and reading the rest. Certain public sector industries would REQUIRE you to ditch those ones first.

All the very best and please remember, I only offer my opinion and experience. The decision is yours alone

So intel is your preferred, but you'd rather avoid military and do not want to do a degree straight out of school...
Police could be an entry point for getting a grounding in working with people in gathering intelligence (about criminal activities), and after a while you could do some part-time study in intelligence type of Uni degree's which would then give you a good angle to get a desk job in the departments intelligence areas. I'm not sure it is at all physical as an intel analyst, but perhaps a bit as an intel collector. There are also other departments within Policing which you might be attracted to once you've been on the beat for awhile. From there perhaps get a post graduate degree (employer paying for it is ideal, else part time online/distance are options these days) in international relations and try to angle into some secret squirrel government job or just switch to the public service more generally. Reality probably will be you will have to compete with degree qualified jobseekers for most jobs these days (and promotions once in), so while you don't need to get a degree straight out of school it is something to consider - after all, learning is a life long experience!!

G'day Frost,

You have more or less exactly described me at that point in my life. At the end of high school I was suffering serious academic burn out from doing all of the difficult and mostly irrelevant subjects. The thought of more study just turned my stomach.

The thing is at that point in life your supposed to decide what you want to do in life without actually experiencing it. Priorities change once you become fully independent, pay all the bills, experience a workplace, having bosses and a regular paycheck. Like you I was trying to find something that used brains and brawn but no one said to me things like my chosen career effects the type of environment I can create for raising a family or where I can live.

My suggestion is to have a gap year or two. Do seasonal work, mundane jobs, what ever it takes to get by, travel and experience life. This will totally realign your priorities and suddenly that four years of study will feel like a pittance. At that point you'll find picking a career much much easier.

I selected Surveying to keep me outdoors and using my brain but swapped to IT latter in life to create a better environment to raise a family.

Good luck with your choice.

Hi,

Why do you feel you have to pick a direction now?

Being ex military I can tell you that everything EVERYTHING the military does has a purpose, a reason for being...most of the time civvies will never know those reasons...now there are individuals within the military that do things that don't make sense, and these things are often against regulations...one of the reasons intelligence requires additional education is that you have to be able to crack codes, ciphers, etc and often have to speak multiple languages...as to following orders without question....that is not entirely true, we are to follow all "lawful"orders...if we feel an order is unlawful or immoral we may choose not to obey and will be given the chance to explain and defend our reason for doing so...I've witnessed e3's tell o1's to get bent ...

There are security companies you could look into working for that deal in intelligence, of course some will require/prefer military experience and/or additional education...

I would agree with the idea of taking a year or so off before deciding what to do....in the end though the choice is yours, do what you love...

One point is the urgency:

I opine that:

We all,specially young people (with full energy that need to be canalized)
we all need patience.

We have more chances of discover things around us if we are in armony and peace.

Challenges physically and intellectually are all around us in our society all the time

With much attention we can make a study of our place and how we can insert our
help to others.

Maybe you can't to start in adminstrative works, but you
can help to people that need help in one area.

An area that you know

(Some voluntary or less remunerated work can to add experience)

Be nice...and available...

When you are in a place in universe ... this place can to conduce to other doors...

We can plan some things. But we ignore the future in details...

One very important teaching is the teaching of the life

More that papers,(papers also have their importance)
but more than papers, we have the posibility to be nice persons

One great carpenter can to build a nice and expensive chair, but maybe also
can to build excelent and nice dog house

Challenges physically and intellectually are all around us in our society...
and many oportunities, maybe hidden...we can wait the singular chance in
middle of the apparently ordinary..

And time is time,(maybe dont need to think that time is a thing that you can
to lose...always (whatever you do)take time,so...


¿you maybe prefer in middle your preparation,and study

(take some time for fun) :woohoo:

Important is to be happy in present and not just wait future
(balance)

words of Ryujin :

", do what you love "

Is wisdom

or in other way:
do not make things without love

Ok, I'm going to do my best to reply to every one of you because you've all been really helpful and you've really helped to start me thinking in the right direction. However there's a lot for me to say so I'm going to do it a few posts at a time to stop my post being stupidly long and to stop me from overwhelming myself.

Brenna wrote: Hi,

Why do you feel you have to pick a direction now?

This is simply because if applying for a university I need to do so very soon, unless of course I take a gap year, something I am now considering thanks to all the advice here.

tzb wrote: Hi Frost

In my opinion education is never a waste of time, but education in something which isn't directly interesting or relevant to you is certainly not a pleasant experience. There are few times in most people's adult lives where they can devote several solid years to education, as once out of education responsibilities (ie bills) begin to pile up and require a solid, steady job, even if it's in an undesirable non-dream job.

You've identified several careers which appeal to you, meet your long-term goals and your personal criteria for "dream jobs" at a stage of your life where you have the opportunity to make them happen (this won't always be the case). And they require a degree. As such, my advice is stick it out and get a degree in a relevant subject. I've been through (UK meaning) college and university, and have worked in both colleges and universities. Universities are nothing like college, at all. You say you're prepared to work damn hard to get where you want to go. So prove that, and go get the qualifications these careers require

Like you, at the point you're at now, I hesitated. I had a place in a decent university but at the last minute took a year out. I wondered if I could face another 3 years in education. That year out made the decision very easy, because despite AAC A-levels and multiple A*s at GCSE, I could only get a PT job on the checkouts at ASDA. Your experience may vary, of course... but I went on to complete my degree and it's one of the best decisions I ever made. I'm now in a job which changes people's lives for the better, involves working with technology and doesn't pay too badly either. One of the good things about "bundles of cash" is you can do a lot of extra good with the money you earn and don't need... there's a lot of worthy charities out there.

Whilst I understand you feel like you're wasting time, making decisions at the wrong time (ie before you have a better plan) is a risky business. Have you considered taking a year out after college, to see where it takes you? Try the kind of life you imagine you'll have without uni for a year, and if you like it, ditch uni... but until then keep the option open. You'd be very lucky to be able to afford 3-4 years out at any other stage and uni fees will only increase in the future. Getting into one of your dream industries which will employ you for the following 40+ years for just 4 years' work is a very sweet deal indeed.

The fact is, a degree on your CV is evidence of some of the claims you've made... someone prepared to work damn hard, someone with intellectual capacity in specific areas, and rightly or wrongly, without a degree you have to either have relevant experience which compensates for this, or face the fact you can't become an aerospace engineer or intelligence offer (or, in all likelihood, anything like them). They simply won't look at your application if you don't meet their minimum requirements. To put it another way, say you're in charge of hiring for a job. A stack of 200 CVs land on your desk, and 15% of them don't meet the minimum requirements. It's likely you'd ditch those 15% pretty quickly before actually sitting and reading the rest. Certain public sector industries would REQUIRE you to ditch those ones first.

All the very best and please remember, I only offer my opinion and experience. The decision is yours alone

What you're saying makes a lot of sense and it is why I'm so unsure about all this. I don't want to go to university but I feel I need to and that ultimately is the dilemma. Though you also mention taking a year out which seems to be a very good option, something I will have consider and plan intensively if I decide to go ahead with it so I don't throw a year away.

Adder wrote: So intel is your preferred, but you'd rather avoid military and do not want to do a degree straight out of school...
Police could be an entry point for getting a grounding in working with people in gathering intelligence (about criminal activities), and after a while you could do some part-time study in intelligence type of Uni degree's which would then give you a good angle to get a desk job in the departments intelligence areas. I'm not sure it is at all physical as an intel analyst, but perhaps a bit as an intel collector. There are also other departments within Policing which you might be attracted to once you've been on the beat for awhile. From there perhaps get a post graduate degree (employer paying for it is ideal, else part time online/distance are options these days) in international relations and try to angle into some secret squirrel government job or just switch to the public service more generally. Reality probably will be you will have to compete with degree qualified jobseekers for most jobs these days (and promotions once in), so while you don't need to get a degree straight out of school it is something to consider - after all, learning is a life long experience!!

Thanks I definitely need to give more thought to the police force! This also seems like an interesting route, a risky one of course but one I do like the sound of so thank you very much for the suggestion!

I'll get around to answering more of the replies tomorrow, thanks everyone!

I won't pretend to understand everything everyone said...

But let me tell you Frost, the learning doesn't stop... Ever....

If it does, well, then you will find yourself sitting in a tavern, wondering where your life is...

I didn't try for college... Didn't pull the grades, enjoyed life's experiences more, lol...

I work for the Public Works Department of a very small village...

Ain't no shame in digging ditches...

I work hard, I'm outside, I use my brain to solve issues such as drainage, planning, our water system...

It takes time to learn these careers as well, on the job experience operating heavy equipment, (freaking right!!!) running a small crew...

I took a 1/3 paycut to leave my old job, and do this... Single income family atbthe time, 20K USD a year that first year, and I don't make much more now, lol... But, there are other things to consider... Job satisfaction, fun, interesting, blah-blah...

And helping people...

8 years ago, before I joined, a tornado ripped through the village, and trees needed moved, roads opened up, people needing help...

The pot holes need filled, public toilets need cleaned, drains need cleared, grass needs mowed, snow needs removed...

Did I mention: outside? Helping people? Heavy equipment? Physical labor?

I love my job, crappy pay and all....

Its all in what you get used too...

Could always go to london and work removing those ginormous fat glaciers clogging up the sewer systems... :sick: