A
female
age
26-29,
anonymous
writes:I'm 19 and have currently finished my final year in college. I applied to go to University however over the summer I have been thinking a lot about my career and I'm not 100% sure Journalism is what I want to do with my life. After thinking about this, I have no idea what I want to do with my life. Everyone says 'Do what you love' but I don't know what I love. I enjoy making myself look pretty, so being a make up artist was something I considered, but after thinking about it - I would have to start college all over again to study it.I like the idea of my work being beneficial. My boyfriend is a joiner, and it runs in the family, I like the fact his job is helpful to himself and others. I'd like a job that would help others (not caring or a nurse) Any help or stories of your own that would help me decide what I want to do would really help.I just need advice, thank you
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male
reader, Mark1978 +, writes (29 August 2014):
 Celtic Tiger answered your question the way I wanted to but didn't LOL great answer CT. Being lumbered with student debts well into your 30s for the sake of doing "something" at Uni is a situation so many people find them selves in. By the time many graduates of paid there student debts they are practically middle aged and with the high house prices now its a double whammy.
When I left school in 1994 only the elite few went to uni. I had an older cousin who was doing a degree in the early 90s and everyone was so proud of him and it was almost a given he would walk into a decent job. He had the respect of the family simply by being at university. Now however something like half of all school leavers go to Uni. As Celtic Tiger said, in a way its a con. A way of keeping younger people off the unemployment statistics by allowing so many to go to further education. Im in no means trying to put down the achievements of others who gain degrees or go to university BUT when you have half the unemployed people with degrees and people doing degrees in David Beckham, it does rather undervalue the process somewhat.
If you are really sure and keen on doing something specific then by all means go to University, but if you are going just because its "the thing to do" or you wants the student lifestyle it is worth bearing in mind the debts and lack of work experience that comes with it. I started work at 17 and by the time I got to 23 has saved a tidy sum of money and had a level of maturity and experience behind me, my friends who went to Uni left their studies at 22/23 with naivity, huge debts and a lack of experience of work.
You need to decide what it is you really want to do potentially for several decades. Doing something on a whim now could badly effect you later on financially.
Mark
A
female
reader, celtic_tiger +, writes (29 August 2014):
 Hi OP
I work in academia, at a University, and I can honestly say that there are a lot of half-truths peddled about the usefulness of a degree. With the new tuition fees in place (£9k) and living costs on top it is a very expensive thing, and if you are not 100% sure about it I do urge caution. So many graduates leave uni thinking they will walk into a high paid job. They wont. It is a big con, and now there are too many graduates for the graduate jobs available. Something has got to give. Now in order to gain work in academic jobs you need an Masters and/or a PhD to set you above the millions with an undergraduate qualification.
Are you academic? Or did you want to go to Uni for the social/life experience? The vast majority see it as a rite of passage, and are not there for the learning, rather for the partying. I ask this because beauty therapy is a very different career choice to that of a journalist, in both future career prospects and training requirements.
Do you have aspirations? Or would you be happy to live out your life with very little in the way of job progression?
I guess what I am asking is how do you see your life in 10 years time. Where would you like to be, doing what, living what kind of life? Your are only 19 - are you likely to still be with this boy in 10 years time?
Now is the time to start asking what do YOU want?
You say you like to make yourself pretty, but if you had to do that 7 hours a day, five days a week, would you get bored of it? Would you be able to deal with random people telling you about their own boring lives, day in day out. Putting up with clients you really didn't like just to pay the bills?
If you are sure that journalism isn't for you, then don't waste your time and money going to University. BUT it could be an outlet to help people - how much reporting is done to aid good causes, charity research, human rights etc. Journalists don't just write for newspapers and magazines. Their research skills can be employed in many different areas of the media.
That journalism course could be a stepping stone to a much bigger and more varied career path.
Don't restrict yourself. You are SO young and have your whole life ahead of you. Think Big.
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A
male
reader, Mark1978 +, writes (28 August 2014):
Hi
To be fair these days its sadly more a case of being grateful of having a job rather than doing something you love. Its hard to get into any career now and sticking with that chosen path is even tougher.
Sorry if that sounds negative but we are living in a very tough climate right now job wise and the economy and job market is well and truly buggered. Many, many young people leave Uni with great expectations, aspirations and plans only to quickly realize that a job of any kind, especially ones that they are qualified for, are hard to find and harder to keep. Those who DO get a decent crack of the whip often soon decided that learning theory with a group of equally likeminded youngsters is one thing, working with hard nosed, long since given up types is quite another.
With so few jobs and so many at Uni the opportunities don't add up.
To be fair I have never met anyone who truly loves their job. Maybe the odd enthusiastic person who loves volunteering or helping vulnerable people and so forth, but ironically its usually unpaid or low paid jobs that those people love. I have never heard anyone say "Mark I hate weekends as I cant wait to sit in heavy traffic on Monday morning fighting to get to work and then spending eight hours being stressed out, blamed for everything that's gone wrong and treated like shit all for minimum wage and being told im loosing my pension ive work hard for for twenty years...."
For most of us the daily grind of 9-5, the crowded buses in the morning, heavy rush hour traffic and working with people we don't always get on with or like in a stressful, overworked situation is something that really gets frustrating when you realize you are going to be doing it for many years.
Another issue is that something we love doing for fun is not the same as doing it for a living. I LOVE photography. Love it! Trains, cars, wildlife, close ups...! Yet when I did a bit of photography work a few years back I realized the big difference between working at my own pace and photographing what I like, and working to a tight deadline, to a strict brief while taking pictures of gardening gloves, wheelie bins or truck tyres.
And yet with age and maturity comes experience and knowledge. Im 36 and recently started a job as a office manager at a charity organisation. Whether I will succeed and love it, or be a scapegoat and hate it is currently in the balance but I am grateful for work and plan to make the most of it. I fought hard to get the job and I am old enough and wise enough to know that to keep it past my 3 month probation is going to be even tougher. But I hope I can make a go of it and maybe it will lead to other management jobs outside of the charity sector where I could be paid more than £6.50 an hour!
By all means study what you want and aim for success but also be prepared to end up doing something very different as job opportunities shape you into a career choice that may or may not be the one for you.
Mark
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A
male
reader, Sageoldguy1465  +, writes (28 August 2014):
 You're in luck!!!! .... because you can try any number of "careers" before you have to feel that you are "stuck" doing something that doesn't interest you... and, which you don't find rewarding.... THAT is one of the benefits of being young.....
If'n someone had told me - when I was your age - what my career path was going to be, I would have told them that they were out of their mind. As it happened, my career took me to products, places, circumstances and situations which I simply couldn't have imagined until they were what I faced in life...
Sooooo, go on "out there"... start doing whatever you wish... IF you love it, and find it rewarding, stay at it. IF you find you don't like it..... GO, DO SOMETHING ELSE...
Good luck..
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A
male
reader, olderthandirt  +, writes (28 August 2014):
 Nothing wrong with being a journalist, try it out to see if you love it, if not find other work. No one that I know ever knew what they really wanted to do until after their second or even third job. It's a big world try it all. You'll love some of it and hate a lot of it. join the rest of us out here in the lsnd of perpetual confusion.
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