How did you choose your career?

In college I wanted to be something very different i came to this website initially thinking I wanted to do IB. I quickly realized that was an uphill battle and contemplated transferring to a semi target. But that tuition would cause me/ my parents to go into six figure debt (my little sister attended a niche private school and my parents paid for her tuition). There wasn’t as many underdog stories on this site also, it was mostly target school or GTFO.

Anyway, thinking I’d earn enough money to get a nice grad degree, I started selling houses. Did that in Southern California and actually contemplated dropping out of college to do it more full time. I realized the money I was making was largely restricted by my classes. Glad I didn’t and stuck it out. But I became very interested in real estate. Was mentored by several developers. Found the job interesting.

So I got a role as a project engineer to learn the construction business. It was interesting for about three months. Then through a mix of things, I resented it. I would actually mark personal days on my calendar to just decompress. I would count down until those days came. I was actually very miserable and questioned what I was doing with life. So I left after a year there.

Switching careers to something I find a lot more interesting. It’s extremely stressful but even in the stress, I find I enjoy it. I wake up early and stay up late to learn more. It’s more suited to my personality.

TLDR: Life isn’t always a straight ad beaten path. You’re not getting married to the niche career right out of college. Maybe it’ll take a lot of effort and risk to switch around, but if you don’t stop looking you’ll eventually find your own path.

my career took a bunch of twists and turns over the years before I got to my current role. I would generally agree there's a lot of pressure put on young people to know what they want to do (and why) despite having minimal to zero context to make that decision. Feel free to slide into my DMs to discuss more.

nvm

Started off in S&T and did a grad program for 18 months. Was advised by my mentor to jump ship and got first hand experience with how much it sucks working on a sales desk when shit hits the fan. Made the lateral to IB with a M&A group a little over two years ago and never looked back - gonna go banking for the long-term.

I was pre-law all through college - took the LSAT and everything. I shadowed some attorneys and realized I would hate the work though and I needed a job. A fraternity brother of mine worked for a real estate brokerage firm and helped me network my way in. I realized quickly that I hated brokerage, but I met a number of owners and developers in the role and immediately knew that's what I wanted to do.

Ended up as a data analyst - right now it's in the defense sector.

Always loved pats of finance, but not enough to make a full career of it. I think it's ok to test the waters and see if you enjoy it, but man, working with something you love is so much more enjoyable and fulfilling, even if you need to take a pay-cut.

I've been coding since I was a teen, and I've always loved making my own data sets, or exploring others - so the turn to data science was only natural for me. I was already familiar with the more advanced technologies and methodology through my education, so the transition went pretty smoothly.

My transition was

oil & gas engineer -> MBA -> financial analyst in energy sector -> data analyst in tech startup -> data analyst in defense sector.

Pay is pretty good, though not GREAT - but low COL also mitigates that a great deal. Work is interesting - very routine, but interesting. You actually get a sense of ownership, and know that someones will read your work, instead of it going into a black hole, never to be seen again. Awesome work / life balance, with highly flexible schedule.

Only pain is that you travel A LOT, on par with management consultants.

Background is in physics, so I looked at jobs in physics and found that even as a 50 year old I'd be making less than someone right out of college going into finance.

So why IB specifically then? Ego and a sense of superiority I still feel is justified if I'm completely honest. I could have gotten a nice back office job, but then the fact that a bunch of dimwits, whose only real skill they have over me is they know how to run their mouths (a skill that can be learned) would be earning fuckloads more than me really annoyed me. I wasn't going to sit around in the back office and feel like some cuck.

And here we are.

I sorta wandered in to AM after majoring in engineering. It's the industry where most people are paid well (compared to the type of engineering that I was majoring in), and figured I'd do finance as well. So, I picked up the finance stuff by taking CFA exam and polished the quantitative part along the way. I am happy with what I am doing right now :D

It was a hot summer. I was one of those small town kids who managed to get into the best high school in Beijing thanks to outstanding academic achievement. English was my strength subject. In this normal morning, I was doing what every 16 year old should be doing - study for exams. Then opportunity came knocking on my door.

Three crew-cut guys were at the door of my dorm, and one of them asked me: "would you like to have a cup of tea with us?". "No I have to study", I answered instinctually. "We weren't asking".......

There I was in this room with a guy in eyeglasses, smoking a cigarette. He was looking at a batch of papers which seemed like my personal info and English exam results. "As you know, our country is in critical situation right now", he was still looking at those papers, "the Western media, lead by America, has started a propaganda campaign against our dear country and leaders, trying to paint us as the evil power". He looked up, "we need the Westerners to know that we are a friendly and harmless nation, and UK and US are the real evils. The best way to do that is to feed them this info via the internet". "But why are you telling me?", I was confused. The guy stubbed out the cigarette, "we need you to spread our 'truth' through foreign social media, in English. For every post you write, we will pay you $5. You know the 'market price' is really 5 cents, but because you know English well, you make 100 times that". That seemed like a great offer, but I was hesitating because I wanted to focus on study. It turned out I did't have much choice.

"Of course, you don't have to do it, but I'm not sure if all your study will yield any result if our dear country is not your first priority".........So here I am, with multiple accounts for reddit, twitter, instagram, facebook, etc.

So to answer OP's question, sometime a career chooses you.

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I took my first trip to New York in 2008 when I was in 8th grade. This was October 2008, right when all the shit hit the fan, but as a 13 year old I didn't notice, realize, or care.

We walked all around Midtown the first day, and that was when my obsession with architecture began. I literally told myself that first day that I would make a life out in New York doing something with buildings. Fast forward 5 years and I'm majoring in marketing. My fam takes another trip to NYC freshman year and the obsession with buildings hits me again. We return home and the following Monday I go to our career services center and change my major to real estate finance.

Now, 6 years later, I'm doing exactly what I said I would be in 2008, at 13 years old. Working in real estate in NYC and loving every minute of it.

It's been a rollercoaster for sure. Graduated from a decent school in 2015 with an Econ degree, and then worked in a back office role for about a year after graduation. Hated every second of it and quit with nothing lined up. I was always interested in real estate, so I tried to get a job as an analyst, and gave up about 6 months in (which I'm starting to regret). Then I figured I'd give software sales a shot and interviewed for entry level roles for about 3 months before I finally got something. Figured I could hack it and make 100k+ after a year or 2 (not uncommon at all).

Unfortenly it hasn't worked out just yet, as I stayed in that first sales role for about 2.5yrs with no real career growth. I got a couple raises and was making decent money, but I was still cold calling all day pounding the phones. During that time I was always trying to get a better job, but it was difficult to take time off of work and I was gunning for a role in a tier above what I was currently doing (not too qualified). I ended up taking the same entry level position at another company in October in hopes of getting promoted around this time, but I haven't been hitting my quota and Covid 19 isn't helping either.

It's been tough so far and more often than not I feel like most of my career has been a failure. I'm 27 in an entry level job doing the same thing I was doing 2.5 years ago wich is increasingly frustrating. I'm doing my best to grind it out at this point and my company has proven to be very lucrative to a lot of people that work there.

I guess I never really answered the question "how" I picked my career. I was never particularly passionate about anything from an academic standpoint. One of the reasons I bailed on RE finance was that I don't think I could stare at excel all day, and one of the reasons I chose SaaS is that I can work in a variety of different verticles throughout my career. I guess I see what happens.

Also we sell into all of the large banks/any sort of finance/stats/data capacity. It's a company similar to Alteryx/qilk/tablue, so hmu if you want some licenses :)