When going into college your going attempt to plan out your future right from the start. This includes your future job. About half way through college you may change it, and later you may even change it again, it happens to all of us, twice to myself. Most of the reasons why we change is because of a change of interest, or realizing that were not willing to do what is required to get/keep that job. That's ok, because if we are all going to be doing something for the rest of our lives, we have to be happy doing it. My current business management professor, Andrew Grinbaum M.S. wrote a book "Cha-Ching!" which in its introduction describes how you should go on to planning your future career.
One of the first things Grinbaum mentions is how when considering his options, he saw what other people that chose those options had to accomplish to get where they are. One of the reasons why I changed career decisions twice is because of the work that it was required to get there. I currently am a Computer Science major, and anything with computers seems to come to me with minimal effort. If I stayed with my first choice in pharmacy, I would be spending countless nights looking at different shaped molecules that make no sense to me. Also after taking 3 chemistry classes I realized I sucked in chemistry. If I were follow that path for the next four years, plus until I retire, I would be pretty miserable both on and off the job. No one likes to work with someone that is miserable. Obviously we all have our bad days and weeks, but if you hate your job, you will have a bad life. Loving your job on the other hand will make you a lot happier, and an interesting point Grinbaum makes in his book, harder to fire. Its something everyone has somewhere in their head in these tough economic times that they may get fired. Plenty of managers are told that have to cut at least one person from their staff. When its decision time, a lot of factors are taken into consideration. When its down to you or someone else, your boss will look on, who does the better job, and even who is better to be around. Some people are just a staple at the office despite screwing up every now and then. Depending on how close the office staff is, its sometimes better to be a better person than productive person. The reason for this is that its easy to change a persons work ethic as well as their on the job knowledge, however a hard to work with person, will always be hard to work with. Another interesting point is the more you like something, the better you will be at something. There are always those few exceptions of people who just have a natural gift, but for the most of us, our hobbies and interests tend to be our greatest skills. This is because you are more motivated.
Grinbaum mentions several way to help you get the idea about what you want as a career, such as Myers-Briggs Personality typing, self assessment, and even asking others. I myself went with not only a self assessment, but asking others for their ideas as well. I personally didn't take any test because every time I changed, I felt that I knew that that is what I wanted to do until I began to realize certain things about each field. When giving yourself a self assessment, you should make list for things you are good at. In the list write down things you are good at as well things you would like to be good at in the future. On the right hand side of this list have 3 columns with a section for your level in this skill, as well as your willingness to learn it, then total it up with number 1-10. You should add to this list over a few days, so it can become rock solid. Then you can search for jobs that require the highest of these skills. When asking for the opinion form others that know and respect you well and have them write down what they see your strengths are. Sometimes we tend to lie to ourselves saying we are good or bad in something. Having an outside perspective is always good. From my personal experience asking someone if you'd be a good fit for a field, doesn't always work so well. Most people tend to in a way almost want to recruit for their field and may say you are even if you probably are not.
The Myers-Briggs Personality test is a psychological profile that looks at 4 aspects of your personality: 1. How one intersects with others (extraverted vs introverted). 2. What sort of information one notices (sensing vs intuition). 3. How one makes decision (thinking vs feeling). 4. Preferring structure or spontaneity. Certain jobs require you to fit one of these qualities. A good example is being a salesmen, you must be extraverted and prefer spontaneity.
You can try and use some of these techniques to help you decide before you end up wasting a year of college like I did, or 4 years like some people I know. It will save you a lot of debt and time. Good luck and I hope some of this helps you somewhere down the line!
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