Missed career choices

Careers advice when I was at school was so minimalistic as to be almost non-exsistent. Civil service or teaching was all I got. Blimey. I really fancied seeing the wide world out there but hadn't a clue how to go about it. Started off pen pushing. Okay but....... Then joined WRNS and life opened out considerably for me. So glad I took the plunge which was considered insanity by my family and friends at the time. Life/eye/ experience opener. Never regret it.

I wish that I'd gone down a more vocational rather than academic route.
I would have liked to have done something similar to what op describes.
Up until recently I thought that I should have done my MA in Museum Studies, but now it's become apparent that I should have focused on something I could do from home.
So it's got to be illustration.

While I loved my career in nursing, I always wanted to be a writer. I realize I could still do that mentally, but physical disability limits that as a viable option now. I settle by writing short stories for my GS.

I think as a teenager I was more idealistic than practical. I loved animals so looked into veterinary field. Of course my interest in any science classes were minimal, so I wouldn't have gotten into that university program even if my family could afford it.

I also really liked geography, and wish my counselors would have made some suggestions. I didn't even know about urban planners until much later.

Inadvertently I ended up in transportation, which uses my organizational skills, and interest in people and places.

I was head hunted for a pretty super-duper but equally demanding job abroad just when my marriage was going a bit sour. I eventually turned it down and I am glad I did so. My father was head hunted in the same way – also in the USA – and turned it down, although I never knew that until I read his letters after my mother died decades later.

And me too! We’ve just watched all the series of The Bridge (late to the party as usual). There’s a guy on there whose job is to ferret out all the information Saga needs, and he revels in it. I’d love that job. If not that, crossword compiler.

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.

Yes, me too MamaCaz

I used to think I would have enjoyed being a 'continuity person' in film or TV.

When I was at school, I yearned to go to the Sorbonne or else to study Classics but, alas that was out of the question,

I would have loved to make a career in music. I was funnelled down a fast-track exam route which concentrated on "academic" subjects, and music was left aside.

However I have used my musical skills all my life: running singing workshops and organising arts and choral projects etc. All aside from my main career; although at the age of 50 I jumped off the wheel and concentrated on these lovely things full time.

But if I had my time over again, I would stand my ground, reject the academic tunnel and insist on following my real love.

It was my ambition to be a professional dancer, that's a ballroom dancer, like the professionals on Strictly. But I learned that no matter how much effort, training and rehearsing that I put into it, I just didn't have the same talent as those at the very top.

Dancing became a life long hobby. To put bread on the table I climbed the greasy pole of management, quite enjoyed it too.

I followed in my Mother's footsteps after growing up regularly visiting her place of work at the local Children's Hospital, where she worked on regular night duty for over 30years. I became a Cadet Nurse at 17, but married and had a family before completing my Nurse training ten years later. I then joined a large National Nursing agency, and enjoyed the more flexible hours it offered to fit in with my family comitments. It was the best thing that I ever did, I enjoyed the wide variety and diversity of the patients and locations I worked in, met some lovely people, who welcomed me into their homes with open arms, as I cared for their loved ones often in beautiful suroundings that I would never have had access to had I chosen a different path to further my career.

I went to grammar school in the 50s and the only options for girls then who stayed on for sixth form was nursing or teaching. Even then I quite liked young children and when I was about9/10 the little ones living nearby used to come knocking on our door asking would I go out and tell them stories! I knew I could not be a nurse so chose the teaching option.
When I took early retirement I did some temporary admin jobs and then went back to supply teaching and realised that I had in fact chosen the right career!

I was fortunate to go to a grammar school in a working class area that really encouraged us to think we were as good as anybody, and neither our sex nor our class mattered.
However, whatever career was suggested, none looked as good as nursing ( I really wasn't quite good enough at science to do medicine). I have never regretted it, but I am sorry that some ended up in nursing who would have been happier elsewhere.
I love sewing and I love music, but am not good enough to have made a decent living at either, so am happy being an amateur.

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 'settled' because I had no confidence.

Food writer.

I would have loved to have been a hairdresser but my dad was having none of it,no money to be made he said ??? He asked my aunt to get me started as a telephonist at the local exchange,enough said I hated it.

Journalist/editor, which I was trained up to be in my early years and greatly encouraged by the headmistress of the school at the time.

Not quite on your thread topic but this shows how some families have changed.
My daughter has encouraged my granddaughter to make her own choices by giving her the opportunity to look at a wide range of career decisions.

She has the capability to do a degree (she is just 16 and just taken her mocks). My granddaughter's decision is to go to a local college in September 2021 to take a B.Tech and then onto an apprenticeship.

Back to the thread: I have a love of buildings/history and would love to have been an architect. However, this love only came after doing a B.Ed.Hons degree at the age of 36. Minor subject was local history. However, I went onto love teaching after being a secretary for 16 years.

Any career advice I had was useless. I mentioned a couple of things - teaching and nursing - and the advisor didn't even suggest any other possibilities.

I had absolutely no idea of all the wide variety of careers that I might have chosen from. Despite enjoying geography and history and reading a heavy archaeology tome when in junior school, I had no idea that archaeology could be a job - got there in the end though, just in time to retire!

We try to make sure that DGD hears of all sorts of career possibilities.

Should have done interpreting, “languages “ being my only skill !