need direction

[Unregistered]

I stumbled across this website and wow, now I realize that I am not alone. So many other people my age are wondering what the heck their calling in life is. So, I guess I will add to this forum and hope for some good advice.

I graduated in 2000 with a Communications and Spanish degree. I had originally intended on being a reporter, but right around the middle of senior year, I realized that I really hated journalism. I don't like barraging people with questions. Anyway, I realized how much I loved history and I managed to get accepted into a History grad program. It was the toughest year of my life (it was a one year program). I learned so much and I thought, well hey, I could be a history teacher. What a great way to practice something that I really like.

Well, I have not yet achieved what I set out to do. There were no history jobs to be found in my area so now I am teaching Spanish. I think I am good at it, and my supervisors like me. But, now I am wondering if teaching is really for me. I don't foresee myself teaching kids for the rest of my life. Especially the age level I work with......middle school. I get tired and frustrated and frankly, sometimes I don't want to go to work in the morning. Yet other times I get really inspired by my students. I just don't know what to do. I need someone to say, "Hey, this job would be great for you!" There, I admit it, I need guidance. My whole life I have done the right thing, played by the rules. Now I feel like failure, like I missed the boat or something. Where did I go wrong and what should I do? :(

[Antonina]

I am sort of in a similar quandary. At the moment I feel like I have done way too much study that I am not 100% into. I went from high school straight into university, where I completed a 5 year undergraduate course in vet, and then plunged straight into 3.5 years of a PhD, the thesis for which I am supposed to be writing as we speak (instead I am procrastinating and cruising on the net, reading about qlc's). Luckily I have managed to travel a little in the last few years (did 8 weeks of backpacking in Europe, and got away to lovely sunny Queensland last year for a couple of weeks) but now and again I feel like I have spent too long on the wrong course and that vet is not what I would like to do. How tragic is that- 8.5 years down a drain?! At the moment, all I am doing is concentrating on finishing up my thesis and then I am looking to work overseas and extend my horizons beyond my own country. I am lucky in that vets can often get jobs easily in the UK as locums, and that will allow me opportunities to travel more and think and grow more in between jobs (things I do not have the time, money nor the geographical proximity to do right now). Maybe that is what you need to do- do something unstructured for a while- travel, grow, think. You need to work out what you want yourself, what a future job needs to give you to keep you happy and motivated. Once you have decided what those things are, finding the 'right' job will (hopefully) be much easier (at least, this is what I am banking on for now!).

[Antonina]

thanks for the sympathy... I can't wait till it's done and I'm outa here! Then I can get on with the rest of my life.... fun things, good things... I have been told by an ex-student that once I'm done, "everything smells better, tastes better, looks better, feels better and sounds better". That's good enough incentive for me!