Making a big decision when you are relatively young about how you are going to spend the majority of your working life can seem quite daunting. However, apart from the simple fact that you can actually change your mind, there is a whole world of jobs out there, so why not look beyond the usual?
Don’t follow the crowd
Many students – or people attempting to decide which area of work they want to get into – automatically look toward high-profile careers in medicine or law when they are setting out. If you have a real passion for these kinds of careers, then you should do everything that you can to pursue your dreams. However, if you are choosing them as a default, fallback option, then you should be broadening your horizons.
There are plenty of lesser-known jobs to look into, so it pays to take the time to investigate all of the options available and see how you can go about getting the job that suits you. Law school or medical school is going to be very expensive, so unless you really want to end up in one of those professions, it is a good idea to take a look around.
A foundation in communication
If you can speak another language apart from English, or just find communication fascinating, then a career as a translator could be for you. There are so many different areas of translation to work in – from a court interpreter to translating foreign language books – that an aptitude for language or even just your family’s background could be all you need. You may not need a degree, but there are various certifications that you could qualify for to get more work.
A taste for the good life
Drinking for a living may seem like a strange choice of career, but wine connoisseurs might like to explore the possibility of becoming a wine librarian. Being paid to document vineyards and manage resources for all things connected to the wine industry sounds too good to be true, but with the right qualification, this could become your vocation. USC offers a library science degree online that would set you up nicely for a career in this area.
Just like Ben Stiller
It might not be a career in the movies, but you could take inspiration from one of the star’s most popular roles of recent times and work in a museum. You can take specific museum studies degrees to get into this field, but the scope of jobs and careers open to you in a museum means that you could take a variety of study routes before ending up in one of the top educational attractions in the country. Depending on your specialism, you could work in curation, digital arts, or fundraising – among many other fields – so you don’t have to narrow your options to discover your perfect job.
Money, money, money
Even if you do decide to follow one of the more conventional career paths such as finance, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to end up being a high-flying trader on Wall Street or – more importantly – want to. Financial degrees are amazingly popular for undergraduates, which means that there are not enough of the top jobs to go around. This also means that you may not be able to get to the top anyway. However, don’t worry if you start to feel like the world of finance is not for you. Using the skills that you will learn on your degree, you could set up your very own start-up business doing just about anything. The financial and entrepreneurial skills that you will have learned will be ideal to make your idea a bestselling brand. You can still study for that financial degree, but the end goal may not be reached by treading the usual path.
Think big
Whatever you end up doing as a job, you should make sure that you don’t just fall into it because you didn’t know what you wanted to do. There are so many different careers to choose from – or those that choose you – that you should not go down the conventional route if you know it really isn’t for you. You should realize that not all high-paying jobs require degrees and that enthusiasm and experience can count just as much in some professions. Most of all, use your time well to explore everything that is out there and hopefully you will end up in your dream job.