What did you want to be?

[sqbr]

I have an idea for a poll (inspired by this one and it's comments), but first need some data. So: what career(s) did you seriously consider in your youth? Lets say school-age, 5-17, since before that you're too young to know much, and after that you've plausibly started actually training for it. Any extra interesting information you feel like adding is welcome :)

Myself? In order: Writer, teacher(from early childhood till I did work experience as a teacher in year 11 :)), actor/comedian, astronomer/theoretical physicist (which lasted until my first astronomy lecture in second year :/)

Plus lots of vague ponderings that didn't last long.

And of course I got to combine a lot of these working at Scitech, which was fun for a while but reaffirmed that I do not, in fact, want to be a teacher or actor. Doing My Phd, and my webcomic, have somewhat satisfied the writing bug too.

Comments

[callistra.livejournal.com]

- Writer
- English Teacher

That was it. I wrote novels when I was 15 onwards, but stopped once I hit uni. The teaching thing was so I'd have a job, and I liked school.

I got my BA English and Comparative Literature, discovered I can't stand teachers, and ended up in IT. Now I've started writing novels again, which has had a bit of baggage to sort out because I stopped for ten years (emotional baggage, nothing else.)

:-)

[alias_sqbr]

Heh, yeah, work experience was enough to put me off teaching, it's not as fun as it looks :) I was never good enough at writing essays to do humanities past highschool, though I still have a real soft spot for them.

I got a HUGE mental block about writing after highschool, unexpectedly the constant rewriting of my Phd helped break that. (Also realising that I'm better at comics than prose)

[callistra.livejournal.com]

Work experience at highschool was OK. Work experience during uni as part of the teaching 101 course sucked ass. I looked around at the people during lunch and morning recess and the thought of spending all my time with them made me cry. And then I realised I was on the same career path - straight out of highschool, straight into uni, and nothing in between.

I have friends who have done it, but they're rare breeds.