What would you have chosen as a different path for your life?
 

So I'm at work, bored out of my mind, and just thinking about what I would have done if I would have a "do-over". Go to a different college? Have a different major? Try to get different jobs in a different city?

I always thought about going to med school before college, and while my grades were good enough, I'll admit that I'm too damn lazy. I like DC enough, but my job (ahem, excuse me, my career path) is KILLIN' ME. Money is decent but things sure are boring and I don't feel like what I do makes much of a difference. But, it's not like my liberal arts degree and MA are worth much anymore (at least here), and I obviously can't get into a specialized field unless I simply quit, re-enroll in college, and spend money that I don't have.

I think I would have made a great archaeologist. No joke. Or a vet. I could see myself getting into those fields if I had a do-over.

What about yourselves? What do you WANT to be doing? You may be doing one job now, but looking back with 20/20 hindsight, what would you have done?

Not that I don't love my live, because really I do....

But I think I perhaps could have ended up an actor.

I just want to get an actual job in what I studied to do. That'd be freaking sweet.

you've got the celebrity for it. and there's still time.



i wouldve attempted to lose weight - i mean, make lifestyle changes - a long time ago, so i could be all svelte and what not.

I don't know if id want to be an actor, but being a child prodigy wouldve been awesome. this all feeds into my ultimate goal in being an expert in something.

I wish I had stuck to my guns and dropped that first semester due to medical issues. My life would have been so different, I think.

I also wish I had tried to persue what's-his-name a lot sooner (shut up, Sen!). :(

I dunno, I can't think of anything. I'm very happy with my life, as of now, I guess. If anything, maybe a career change in planetary physics--but for the most part, I am very happy with my choices in life.

cheerfulgreek, I'm super jealous. I wish I had actually worked hard (instead of slacking off a bit) and done what I know NOW I could have done, but I guess that's where I am right now and why I'm doing what I'm doing. I know I'm lucky to have a well-paying job and a house and husband I love, but it sure would be nice if I didn't wake up every morning and as soon as I think about going to work, I think... UURRRRGGGGHHHHH...... dammit.......

:-)

If I had really stuck with it, I would have been commissioned in the Army right now.

Kind of funny how a little bit of messed up paperwork on their part that could have easily been fixed has changed where I am right now.

But like CG said, I am pretty happy where I am in life.

Things happen for a reason and very rarely do I dwell on things such as that.

"...I knew I should have taken that left turn at Albuquerque"

i knew this would be your answer. but im really happy for you, being content with your life and all.

lol
Thanks.:)

If I had a complete fo over I would not have two degrees in management or nursing and would go the history/archaeology route, in particularly biblical archaeology. I would like the teach at the university level.

Ditto. We could've been married by now (not that I want to be married at this age, but I'm sayin'! ;)).


I wanted to be a singer when I was little, but I painfully shy about it. I wish I had taken voice lessons to boost my confidence. I would've loved to be on broadway or something (I also had secret actress ambitions). I still plan to take voice lessons one day, for fun, but it would've been neat to pursue that life.

Honestly, I wish I had tried a lot of things that I didn't pursue because I thought I wouldn't be good at them. I play 3 instruments and played 3 sports. I could've excelled at any of them, but gave up because I was afraid I wouldn't be good enough to really go anywhere with them. I wish I'd tried harder instead of just going with what naturally came easy. I love the path I'm on, but it stinks that there were so many other options that I just walked past. Even if I ended up exactly where I am, at least I would have the satisfaction of knowing I tried my best.

I actually wish I was where christiangirl and KSUViolelt are right now.
I would have had the Master's, been halfway through my PHd, and living in NC.

I am happy with the scenic route I'm currently on though. . and I would not have my own, on-call Computer Tech WonderMan, DS!! lol *smoooches* lol :p

I'm very happy with the educational opportunities I took - I'm looking at this as a frustrated job seeker - because I want to break in, I'm trying to break in, but I'm working the day job right now instead of the dream job. I like my job a lot - but I have to work very hard at making sure it's a "right now" thing instead of a future career path thing.

Although I'd be happy if I worked in a different department at my current company... one that was more in line with my passions instead of just my talents.

I would have gone to the school that I truly wanted to attend instead of where my parents forced me to attend. I truly think that I would been happier during those years, done better academically and had a more positive experience as I moved into adult life. (I started college at 17 and was EXTREMELY sheltered by my parents. College was truly a culture shock to me!)

I would have changed majors after my first year, instead of sticking with a major that clearly was not a fit because "it was expected of me". Luckily I figured it out and eventually earned my degree in a field of study that I love. Took 16 years to earn said degree, but I've got it!

Post-college though I have few regrets. Maybe working harder to really learn and retain Spanish? I've been able to stay home with our kids and work mostly part-time, been married to the same guy since meeting him in college (one of the few positives thanks to my alma mater, along with a few cherished friends and AOII, of course!) and have a pretty good life. Makes all of the earlier things pale in comparison!

knowing what i know now, i would have majored in classics or religion, pursued a phd. and been a college professor, preferably at a small college.

Me too! As I've said in another thread, I worked as an ER then OR nurse, met my husband...had children...who are going to med school...
I wish I had been a Kindergarten teacher, which was my first choice..way back when.
Although, I wouldn't have changed the hubby and kids part of the above.

i would spend more time with my cousins. we still keep in touch, but there was a time when we were much closer.

i could have done much more with our philanthropies in college. resources were much easier to organize in the fraternity and it was something i enjoyed. the annual trip to bring supplies and money down to Ronald McDonald House in Memphis and St. Jude's should've been more like once-a-semester.

For the most part I'm happy with my choices. I'm pretty sure I picked the right major for me, but I suppose time will tell, ha!

Before coming to college I thought I wanted to major in psychology in hopes of one day becoming a clinical psychologist, so I think that would be my answer.

I also would have not bothered with boys in high school, lol

And I would be a little bit more of a risk taker/outgoing. Sometimes I think I can be a little timid, and I worry that it may hold me back from some great experience one day.

But, like many others have said, these things aren't regrets. I'm still very happy with the way things turned out!!

There is still that little part of me (it won't go away!) that always wonders what would have happened if I had the guts to apply to art school ...

BTDT. Truer words have never been spoken.

what is planetary physics? The planetary part sounds interesting....not so much the physics part.


I have really been thinking about this lately seeing as how it's been almost 2 years since I graduated college and still have found nothing.

I wish I could back and apply to EVERY school I was interested. Some of them i decided not to b/c I didn't want to waste the app fee. Maybe if I had, i could have found a school that would have given me some kind of scholarship/financial aid. Shoot...i had the grades (graduated w/ a 4.0) but i still couldn't get any merit type aid from any school.

I'd also stick to what I really liked. My 2 "loves" have been international relations and Criminology....my university didn't have a major (or anything) for either. Now i'm thinking of grad school, but I don't think i could get into one of those fields w/ my degree.

Yeah my biggest thing would have been to study something I love like History instead of trying to go for a major that makes good money. all well too late now.

Yeesh! I'd like a do-over for most of my life!

One tiny thing would have been taking that trip to New Orleans. Maybe nothing would have happened but I wonder about it.

I would have gone with English as my second concentration from the get-go and not worried that it was "too close" to journalism, which was my major. (In the J-school we were required to have a second concentration. I picked French because I had tested into 300 level classes so I figured I could get it done quickly. WRONG. I hated every French class I took at IU and loved every English class - you'd think I'd have gotten the clue sooner and avoided a lot of heartache and horrific grades.)

I'm also happy where I'm at now, but every once in a while I do wonder how my life would've been different if I'd gotten accepted at the one school I applied to that I didn't get into.

I majored in international studies relating to one particular country, and practically speaking, it would've helped if I'd studied abroad there after graduation instead of staying here and working to save for my wedding. I'd speak the language much better than I do (I'm so pathetic now), and maybe I'd even have gotten a job in the field.

Well, it's not too late to make a career change. I know the older we get, sometimes it gets harder to do that. But, I think it's important to do something you really enjoy, so that way it doesn't really feel like you're going to work. Ya know what I mean? Do you have any hobbies? That's always a start. Just think about some of the things you enjoy and expand on that. I wish you the best of luck, I know things will work out for you.

Physics can be boring sometimes (I actually hated it in highschool and undergrad), but it's impossible to understand how planets work without understanding physics. I guess I can use Earth as an example, like let's say you live in an underground house below the surface of the Earth, there actually would be more gravity on the Earth's surface than below it and that's because some of the Earth's mass is above your head when you are in the house and that mass pulls up on you and pretty much cancels the effect of some of the mass below your feet which pulls down on you. Or let's say you lived at the very center of the Earth. I mean, not that it's possible to live there :p but if you did, in that case, there would be no gravity at all. It would be just like floating in zero g in a spaceship or something. And that's because there would be equal amounts of Earth above and below you. Things on the surface of the Earth where we actually live (thank God) experience the most gravity. So, long story short, the longer our distance is from Earth into space, the weaker the gravity, the closer to the center of the Earth we get it also gets weaker. I could get into the size of the planets/atmospheres/escape velocity/black holes finite/infinite/speed of light etc. because there's so much more to it than just the planets themselves.

Here's a very interesting youtube to give a more interesting definition. We live life daily on Earth and we take a lot of things for granted. The forces of gravity (not just our own gravity) around us keeps us alive.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PMNj3We4v4

I could have just told you to google it, but I love chatting about it so..:p

Didn't mean to bore anyone.:o

I wish I had at least applied to more schools. I only applied to TWO colleges! There are a lot of reasons I didn't like my school but I know I wouldn't have had the same Greek experience elsewhere.

No, I wouldn't change a thing. I've been wanting to design cars since I was knee high to a duck. I'm now living my dream, though I'm not done pursuing other things. I've been drawing cars since I was 12, but have been into cars since I was 2 (according to my parents). When I was a kid, I used to play with my little hot wheels cars so much that it put holes in the knees of my pajamas.:D I'm also interested in pursuing a masters in sculpting or pottery, and eventually I would like to get an MBA too. I love art and it has nothing to do with money, it's all about what I love and what I'm passionate about. We only live once, so I'm taking advantage of my God given talent. I also remember all through highschool, I wanted to have a car company to bare my name like Enzo Ferrari, Ferruccio Lamborghini, Ettore Bugatti, Henry Ford, Dr. Ferdinand Porsche, the Maserati brothers, Alejandro De Tomaso, etc. Now, I realize that's a little too much, but it's still in the back of my mind. Who knows? Maybe.

Here's where I went to school after I graduated with my undergrad degree.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7zQDmz2SII

And what I do to put food on the table.:D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qg7LEQfwrCY

ETA: I never had a plan B, but I wouldn't mind test driving Ferraris for a living.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tU-EPRHuwg4

If it makes you feel any better, I have a Summa Cum Laude BA in IR and also a Masters in IR, plus three foreign languages. I live in DC. And I STILL am not in that field! It is ROUGH out here. :o

I know that being in a job that I don't like "destroys my psyche", and I am always looking for something else. But I guess a paycheck is what keeps me here. I just put a smile on my face and deal with it, waiting until I get home to enjoy my time there.

I feel the same way about that issue - if I decided to go to a SUNY school I would have never been Greek. Its...different up there.

On a whole, there are definitely a few things I would have changed academically within my institution (major, etc) but I would still want to attend this university. Even with a few changes I think I still would have ended up where I am right now (or rather, where I'm planning to be in the near future/after graduation). But I think its still a little bit early for me to assess. ;)

As much as I enjoy teaching, I would have liked to have majored in English and then a master's in journalism. I would have loved to work for a magazine. But, the way the internet is effecting magazines now, things probably worked out for the best.

The other choice: I actually had a very good singing voice. I won a couple of awards in high school for singing. My freshmen year of college, I joined a campus vocal group. The professor who directed us told me that I should study voice. She said that I had the chance to have a career as a back-up singer/commercial vocalist. The sad thing was that I was very shy in high school and the beginning of college. I didn't take what the teachers said seriously because I thought they were just being nice.

That's my problem - Magna Cum Laude BA in International Government/Foreign Languages and a MPIA (Master's in Public and International Affairs). IR is a hard field to break into, for sure.

ETA: (Damn I'm locquatious today) - epchick my grad school took many many people who didn't have IR backgrounds but had a strong interest in it. PM me if you're really thinking about grad school for IR.

I re-read more carefully and just saw this. Don't be discouraged... I have a BA in Russian Studies and I'm starting my grad studies in Criminology this fall. You just may be able to make it work! :)

Sorry for the double post - I had a full ride to SUNY Albany coming out of high school but chose my undergrad because I liked the feeling I got when I went there. Also, at Albany I would have had to double major. I never would have gone greek at SUNY Albany.

Ah - the days where I thought I had money and could just choose to go to a small private school instead of going to a big state school for free. :o

I wouldn't change it though, now, even though my student loan debt is astronomical, because had I not gone to my undergrad, I wouldn't have gone to my grad school, wouldn't have made the friends I have now who come out to Chicago to visit me, and wouldn't have met live-in. Actually - I wouldn't even be in Chicago. Weird.

So I guess, like I said before, educationally I wouldn't change a thing.

I also wouldn't change not moving to DC. I'm not moving there unless I have a job there, tyvm, and I'm always sure to mark "will travel" on any job applications. This past two years were much more fun in Chicago than they would have been in DC.

So "Journey to the Center of the Earth" was wrong? lol. Is there really a world in the center aside from the extremely hot solid rock? lol

I actually think that sounds really interesting! Planets/space/etc all that interests me soo much, but i'm not a fan of a lot of the science i'd need to know beforehand (physics especially lol)


ETA:
lol, ok that makes me feel a little better. I REEEEALLY enjoy learning languages, and I wish i had realized that sooner. My alma mater had several language classes but nothing major. You could only really have good languaged classes for Spanish and French (i'm bilingual already in Spanish and French is just boring to me lol). If i had found my love for languages earlier maybe I could have found a university that actually had good language classes.

Really? Awesome!! What school are you going to for Criminology? I soo need to look into that! The only school I was told (by my advisor) that had that for grad school was Michigan State but you had to have your degree in Chem.

My visit to Albany was the last straw, you couldn't get me out of that state fast enough!

I'm majoring in Russian Studies! I don't really want to work in the field anymore, but it's good to know there's life after Russian that doesn't involve a cardboard box!

Well, I was trying to be nice about it. :p

lol
omg, I love that movie.:p

Really? I didn't know you had an interest in astronomy. If you want to do it as a hobby you don't need to know any physics at all. It's just fun looking at the stars and planets and reading about them so you know what you're looking at. I guess for me, I just like knowing or having an idea of how things work and why things are the way they are, that's why I get into the physical science part of it, plus I love physics, and astronomy. I hated it in highschool and undergrad because it was boring what we were doing. I hope it remains an interest of yours, even if you don't like physics. To be quite honest with you, I think you'd be good at it if you give it a try.:)