Missed career choices

Many more!

Careers advice was rubbish at my school. All girls one way, all boys the other.

I loved animals with a passion. I was good at training them with a kind hand. I went with my friend who wanted to join the army as a chauffeur and saw posters of soldiers with dogs. I asked about that career and was told they didn’t have female dog handlers. Nor did the police at that time.

I ended up working for an animal charity as a kennel maid but I could have done soooo much better.

My parents had too much on personally and too little knowledge to guide me at that time.

It took until my mid 30s for me to study at university to follow a path I have really enjoyed and felt valued in.

There are so many jobs now that we never knew existed , maybe they didn’t exist. I would have loved to be a forensic scientist or, alternatively, an assassin. Am I too old to retrain for the latter?

I should have gone into painting and decorating. It's the one thing I really enjoy and get so much 'job satisfaction' from. I also find it very relaxing from the prep to the end result. I'm a bit of a perfectionist in this area. Failing that, my next love is dancing and I'm still a pretty good mover on the dance floor. However I got stuck in secretarial which I always hated and always felt I was a square peg in a round hole.

Humbertbear Im with you and if i could have a choice now i would opt for a job which involved working in the civil service. Ideally a job which allowed me to rise through the ranks in to the political world. Not as an MP but as a secretary or PA. I always wanted to work in a Library or be a teacher but did neither. I actually ended up working in social housing and became a manager in the area i worked in. I loved that job, lots of admin but dealing with the elderly tenants which i loved. I throughly enjoyed helping them sort out any issues they had, supporting them to claim benefits they were entitled to and acting as an advocate for them if they had no one else to fight their corner or were just to elderly to go through any red tape. On reflection i retired too early as i could quite easily have continued but i left in the summer of 2015 when i could claim state pension and LG pension. Still miss it and all the interaction and mental stimulation.

I always wanted to be an archaeologist but was told that I could never learn Ancient Greek so I didn’t pursue this. So I did a degree in film production and photography at the age of 30. Then I became a crofter in the outer Hebrides before returning to Yorkshire and becoming a probation officer for 15 years until I retired. Not at all sure how it all connects!

I worked as an office junior when I left school in 1956, for 2'years. If that was my permanent job I would have given up. I started trying to be an Infectious Diseases nurse in 1958. From the very first day I walked into a ward I knew that was the thing I wanted to do. I worked as a nurse for nearly 50 years and couldn't imagine myself doing anything else. I loved it.

Always being fascinated with History from a young age, I really wanted to be an Archaeologist and when we had a Careers meeting at my secondary school and I was asked what I wanted to do I told the woman.
She actually laughed! This was over 40 years ago. I've never forgotten her, or her silly laugh and I slunk out of the classroom feeling really stupid. I ended up in an office as a secretary, then in later years I worked in the NHS as a Medical Secretary until retirement. I have a permit to Mudlark along the river Thames and fulfil my ambition there instead. I'd tell my younger self to always follow your dreams and take no notice if anyone laughs at you!

My father pushed me int teaching as a safe option, dropped out and did odd jobs all over. Even in the late 60s the Environment was an issue, would have loved to do Ocean and environmental studies, no courses back then that I was aware of..

Like many on here, teaching, nursing, or ‘you could look at the Civil Service’ was all that was offered.
Now I’d probably make the same choice I made then or choose either forensic anthropology, because it fascinates me or a job involving translating because it’s a skill I have.

I had intended to become a lawyer, but went to a talk by a missionary teacher who had worked in Butan. So I became a teacher, and spent the best years of my life (so far) in Kenya. I'd have been a lot richer and probably less satisfied had I been a lawyer.

Like most of my generation it was nursing or teaching for girls and I spent 22 years in each. Like the writer of this post I look at some of the career options available nowadays and like her, I would have loved to work behind the scenes in the film industry.

MamaCaz

I wonder if careers advice has improved over the years, and actually takes a person's personality into account rather than academic record.

With hindsight, I think I would have enjoyed and been good at a career that involved some sort of research, as I am like a dog with a bone when digging for info to get to the bottom of something, and nearly always dig up what I wanted or needed in the end.

I'm exactly the same. I hate not knowing the far end of something and will research until I have the answer. My family and workmates think it's great. In fact, my boys have been known to drop, "I wonder why /if /when..." , type comments into a conversation and then sit smirking because they know I just can't leave it. So research, definitely, yes.

i wanted to stay at school and get my o levels then work with animals but my mother forced me to leave school and work in a shop which i hated ended up at 16 pregnant married 1st child before i was 17

I wish I'd been encouraged to go to art school and specialise in textiles. I loved working with textiles at school. I went to a huge secondary school and was encouraged by the careers teacher to take up shorthand typing as I was bright enough to work in an office! So yes I ended up working in offices. Typing up stuff for "clever" men. I often saved their bacon by spotting mistakes they'd made.

MissChateline

I always wanted to be an archaeologist but was told that I could never learn Ancient Greek so I didn’t pursue this. So I did a degree in film production and photography at the age of 30. Then I became a crofter in the outer Hebrides before returning to Yorkshire and becoming a probation officer for 15 years until I retired. Not at all sure how it all connects!

This sounds absolutely perfect. I'd love to be a crofter.

I would have liked to do something related to social history.I was a shop assistant till I retired.I became a volunteer for the National Trust,at the Workhouse,so perhaps it's never too late

I wanted to go to art school & do fashion design. My father was horrified at the idea and thought I'd Go To The Bad if I did that. He was very old-school. I had either to go to university or join the Civil Service, the latter option being something I'd have hated. The awful truth is that as he died when I was 18, this gave me far more options. I was 37 before I wrote my first book (having started several, even as a teenager) and I've been happy with that option ever since.

I was another who was told only teaching, nursing or secretarial for girls. The teachers gave us the impression that nursing was lowly as it was manual work and I never wanted to teach, so did a secretarial course.
I liked the idea of social work (which I am glad I didn't do as too much pressure) or being a librarian. I think I would have enjoyed working in a library.
Nowadays I know I would have enjoyed working as a museum curator but didn't know about that as a job when young. Legal is another area that would suit me.

Funny you mention this, Foxglove. I was thinking the same thing recently when I had opportunity to help out at the filming of the Antiques Roadshow at a castle near us. I would love to have worked behind the scenes, researching, planning and coordinating things on the day. I do feel grateful for having a good career which I enjoyed, though.

I went into nursing mostly because I could think of little else I was able to do with my limited qualifications after spending my later school years reading Mills & Boon and laughing!!!

I taught myself some basic computer programing when I bought my 5 year old DD a computer and its always a regret than I didn't go along these lines. I loved making wee arithmetic/spelling programs and would love to have taken it further.

The one thing I told my daughter repeatedly was that she could do anything she wanted. She mentioned it recently so I'm hoping she's telling her DD the same!

On the plus side, nursing gave me many many laughs, good times and friends.

Sadly all my aspirations were shattered. I was the dunce, it turned out that I was deaf but just thought I couldn't concentrate!! I wanted to do dress designing, but would have had to work in a factory, and dad wouldn't have a daughter of his work in a factory. He enrolled me in a Secretarial College which I hated, then found any job I wanted depended on age and I was invariably to old or too young for the job. I eventually got a job with the GPO in Kensington, and loved it. Have done all sorts since!!

I too was encouraged to be a secretary, though I loved learning. I realise now that I was bright enough to get a degree and finally went to college to do a diploma when I was 23. I should have continued studying, but married an academic instead. I should have done both.

I am a bloke so clearly had a wider choice, but the careers “master” at the tech school in Kent when I went for my careers interview just said “you will start in number 4 shop on Monday next” (it was automatically assumed that all the Tech boys would work in the Dockyard in Chatham). No I won’t replied I and promptly “ran away to sea”.

I had a great 2 careers - 30 years in the Navy and 20 teaching

I wanted to be a vet, but the career teacher considered that a stupid ambition and suggested nursing or the army. I wish that I had been informed properly, as in truth being a vet was overly ambitious but something more apt for my abilities would have been helpful. In hindsight, farming would have suited me perfectly.