primitives discuss careers

[franksolich]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=105x9452200

Oh my.

Mr. Ected  (1000+ posts) Tue Aug-03-10 11:12 AM
Original message

Did you ever change your career path...and do you regret it now?
   
I worked for an optometrist in Kansas City for 3 years while I was in high school. He was a 60-ish fellow with patient list that never ended. He told me that if I wanted to pursue optometry, that he would sell his thriving practice to me upon graduation. Unfortunately, calculus and I didn't get along, and I had to abandon optometry as a profession.

I sometimes wish I had hired a tutor to get me through calculus. My life would have been so different. I would have been a DOCTOR, gotten to wear a white lab coat (no bloodstains), and spent my day saying: "Does this look better...or that? One...or two? Two...or three?". I could have advised people on the most fashionable frames, or helped fit them in the newest wettest contact lens. I could have referred all the gory stuff to an opthalmologist, and left my practice at 5:30 every night in my big new Mercedes.

How about you? Career change? Regrets? One...or two?

femmocrat  Donating Member  (1000+ posts)  Tue Aug-03-10 11:20 AM
Response to Original message

1. I wanted to be a veterinarian until I ran into chemistry.
   
I had a couple of other ambitions, but ended up becoming a teacher like many women did in my generation. It was either teaching, nursing, or secretary for college grads then.

I don't regret my decision, but wonder what I could have become if I had gone to college post-women's lib.

uncommon  (767 posts) Tue Aug-03-10 11:23 AM
Response to Original message

2. Hindsight is 20/20 as they say.
   
If I knew then what I know now, I would have pursued something more practical. Instead I was an English Literature major in college and learned for the sake of learning, and though I am lucky to have a good job now, it is one that did not require that particular adventure and I could certainly be making more money doing something else.

eyepaddle  Donating Member  (1000+ posts)  Tue Aug-03-10 11:23 AM
Response to Original message

3. Yes I have and the results have been interesting.
   
I started as a cook, which made me realize I should go to college, where I got a geology degree--which lead me down to the Gulf of Mexico to drill oil wells, which sucked horribly and lead me to environmental geology (that job was pretty much like "Office Space" with less job security). That lead me to switch to Hazardous Waste Management. I actually liked that the most and stayed with that job for more than a decade. I eventually got tired of all the hand stacking of 55 gallon drums in the backs of semi trailers, so I fine tuned my credentials and got an MPH in Industrial Hygiene. The Master's plus my haz waste skills have lead me to be the safety offcer at a community college.

So yeah, I've changed a bunch, soem have been forced, others I have jumped, and I'd say they were all worth trying, but many were worth leaving. For the most part I am content where I am, but I wuold like a bit more responsibility and a bit more money than my current gig offers in light of all the dues I have paid...And so it goes.

CaliforniaPeggy  Donating Member  (1000+ posts)  Tue Aug-03-10 11:24 AM
THE CALPIG PRIMITIVE, #10 TOP PRIMITIVE OF 2009
Response to Original message

4. My dear Mr. Ected...   
   
I have changed career (or maybe life) paths several times; I'm in the beginning of yet another one.

NO regrets, ever. When I was a child, I wanted to be a nurse, but when I got to college and saw the math and physics needed for a BSN, I changed my mind and studied foreign languages. I wasn't good enough to go to graduate school, so.....

I then married and had my family, and my old dream of being a nurse came back. This time I pursued it and succeeded.

I worked at that for over 20 years, and then took an early retirement.

Now, I'm going back to school to get a MFA in poetry, which I took up several years ago...

Through it all, I've had some great times, and some not so great. I think you're never too old to learn new stuff.

mike_c  Donating Member  (1000+ posts)  Tue Aug-03-10 11:45 AM
THE mike_c PRIMITIVE
Response to Original message

8. I was in the graphics and printing industry until my early thirties...
   
...before going to college and grad school. Now I'm an academic scientist-- a biologist-- and educator.

No regrets whatsoever. My life has been SO much more interesting and fulfilling doing challenging work with greater purpose than making someone else a buck. I would do it all over again without any hesitation.

on edit-- now I'm doing it again, beginning to transition to a late life art career. Maybe "hobby" is a better term, but come retirement from the university, it's what I'm gonna do full time.

There's a whole slew of other comments, but made by primitives of no prominence.

[JohnnyReb]

Smartest people in the world and they can't do algebra, calculus, chemistry, physics.....

Most probably have jobs as "Social Amenities Research Coordinators"....which means they seek out and share information on how to scam the government and charities for all the freebies they can get.

[NHSparky]

C_Piggy is getting a Master's in POETRY?  Really?  So now she can tell us WHY it sucks?  Not that she'll stop doing it, mind you.

So eyepaddle is a janitor at a JuCo?  Hey, that's how I read it.  Last time I checked, people with Master's degrees don't load 55-gallon drums into semi trucks.

Femmo--newsflash--nursing requires a great deal of chemistry as well.  It wasn't the "Women's Liberation Movement" that held you back--it was YOU.  YOU, get it?  Little self-accountability here, m'kay?

uncommon--Good job in what regard?  Very vague answer there, m'boy.

And mike.  Mike, mike, mike...really?  "Educator?"  One would have thought that given the pay of even associate professors, one would be able to make a hell of a living at that particular profession, especially when tenure was obtained--but then again, if you blew it and got shitcanned...just sayin...

And Ected--our OP.  Hate to break it to ya, bud--but the average optometrist barely cracks six figures.  Couple that with the fact they have to pay for office space, receptionists or office assistants, deal with insurance companies, etc., etc...unless you work at a chain shop such as found in WalMart, LensCrafters, etc., and there you'll probably make less.  Yes, the most successful optometrists can make $150K a year, but consider the cost of living in those areas, and you'll realize that $150K/year really ain't all that much.

Oh, and then you would have become one of those greedy capitalists you ****ers all hate so much.

[Mike220]

C_Piggy is getting a Master's in POETRY?  Really?  So now she can tell us WHY it sucks?  Not that she'll stop doing it, mind you.

Yeah, I remember when she posted that. She got into one of the UC schools. Wouldn't surprise me if it's Berzerkly.

Obviously you don't have to submit writing samples there. I guess just posting at the DUmp is good enough for those moonbats.

[BlueStateSaint]

Yeah, I remember when she posted that. She got into one of the UC schools. Wouldn't surprise me if it's Berzerkly.

Obviously you don't have to submit writing samples there. I guess just posting at the DUmp is good enough for those moonbats.

Writing sample, stool sample . . . from CalSwine it's all the same. 

[JohnnyReb]

change your career path: always take a different path to the illegal pot for profit patch. That makes it harder for others to find.

[DefiantSix]

primitives discuss careers

 

Another DUmp bonfire about a topic for which the DUmbshits are universally, patently unqualified to discuss.

I never realized that keeping that broken-down sofa in mom's basement from defying gravity, or keeping the available global supply of pot and Cheetos from outpacing demand was considered a career.

Unless I were to develop a sudden desire to become a male prostitute, a professional couch potato, recreational pharmaseuticals tester, or a scary-crazy homeless bum, DUmbasses are rather low on the list of opinions to seek regarding cogent career advice.

[Freeper]

Smartest people in the world and they can't do algebra, calculus, chemistry, physics.....

Most probably have jobs as "Social Amenities Research Coordinators"....which means they seek out and share information on how to scam the government and charities for all the freebies they can get.

You are right it is funny the smartest people in our galaxy cant do math. 

[Ballygrl]

Why the heck would someone want to get a degree in Poetry for? what the heck do you do with it? and no way does it add credibility to dopey poems. BTW my anti-poetry rants aren't just directed at CalPeg, I think it's a silly genre and the few people I've met who engage in it were narcissists, on the other hand I find people who use poetry to mock it very amusing.

[soleil]

You are right it is funny the smartest people in our galaxy cant do math.  

Hey now... Math and I don't get along all that well. I won the math award in 1st grade. After that it was pretty much downhill for me. I did well in my statistics class in college, but that must have been a fluke. It is a shame because my grandfather was a math wizard. One of those kinds that can add and subtract large numbers before you even got the chance to enter them in a calculator. He taught college calculus and algebra and didn't even have a degree in it. He later was a CPA for the IRS, but he was genius. Unfortunately, that mathematical genius gene didn't pass down to me. I excelled in grammar, literature, and spelling. Actually won the awards for those in high school every year. Math always was hard for me. I did get A's and B's, but that was because of some hardcore studying and talking with the teacher LOTS. Everyone has their specialties.

[Freeper]

Hey now... Math and I don't get along all that well. I won the math award in 1st grade. After that it was pretty much downhill for me. I did well in my statistics class in college, but that must have been a fluke. It is a shame because my grandfather was a math wizard. One of those kinds that can add and subtract large numbers before you even got the chance to enter them in a calculator. He taught college calculus and algebra and didn't even have a degree in it. He later was a CPA for the IRS, but he was genius. Unfortunately, that mathematical genius gene didn't pass down to me. I excelled in grammar, literature, and spelling. Actually won the awards for those in high school every year. Math always was hard for me. I did get A's and B's, but that was because of some hardcore studying and talking with the teacher LOTS. Everyone has their specialties.

Yeah but when certain people claim to be so much smarter and so much more educated than schmucks like us I find it amusing that so many have math problems.

[kenth]

1. I wanted to be a veterinarian until I ran into chemistry.
   
I had a couple of other ambitions, but ended up becoming a teacher

Isn't that just classic?

As for Peg, she didn't state specifically that she was pursuing a Master's. Maybe she meant she wanted to try to get an M-eFfin-A after all those M-eFfin-Fs.

[DefiantSix]

1. I wanted to be a veterinarian until I ran into chemistry.
   
I had a couple of other ambitions, but ended up becoming a teacher

Isn't that just classic?

As for Peg, she didn't state specifically that she was pursuing a Master's. Maybe she meant she wanted to try to get an M-eFfin-A after all those M-eFfin-Fs.

As usual, of course, the DUmbshit is only telling half a truth.  The CHEMISTRY that put the kibosh on it's veterinary aspirations most likely was a drug habit that ate up an entire semester's book budget from mommy and daddy.

[soleil]

Yeah but when certain people claim to be so much smarter and so much more educated than schmucks like us I find it amusing that so many have math problems.

I gotcha. But I consider myself smart. At least smarter than average, but math is a no go for me. It doesn't make the perfect sense to me that it does to a mathematician or anyone halfway decent in math. I had to study my butt off to get my grades, but even then it didn't make sense. I got it, but I didn't "get" it, if that makes any sense. lol. Probably doesn't. I always wanted to be one of those science and math types, but it just isn't in me. I am one of those grammar types. And these days with the internet and typing in forums like this, and texting, I've even let that slip. I try to type as I would talk, but that makes a grammatical mess, if you catch my drift. Oy vey.

[PatriotGame]

Mr. Ected  (1000+ posts) Tue Aug-03-10 11:12 AM
Original message

Did you ever change your career path...and do you regret it now?
   
I worked for an optometrist in Kansas City for 3 years while I was in high school. He was a 60-ish fellow with patient list that never ended. He told me that if I wanted to pursue optometry, that he would sell his thriving practice to me upon graduation. Unfortunately, after spending the morning sucking on a bong, calculus and I didn't get along, and I had to abandon optometry as a profession.

f1x0r3d

[PatriotGame]

Smartest people in the world and they can't do algebra, calculus, chemistry, physics.....

Most probably have jobs as "Social Amenities Research Coordinators"....which means they seek out and share information on how to scam the government and charities for all the freebies they can get.

Don't forget these are the very people that will spend 12 years in 'college' and rack up $200 grand in student loans to obtain a degree in the study of the sociological (NOT medical) impact of a man's ego on a womYn's vagina. They wrap it in the "WomYn's Studies" moniker to save face in public.