Career Choice Crisis

<p>I've been accepted to several schools of library science for this fall, and have more or less decided which to attend and mapped out the finances and my classes and whatnot. I don't know if it's the April 15th pressure, or the exciting/threatening prospect of graduation or what, but I'm suddenly having doubts that I've chosen the right career path.</p>

<p>I chose to become an academic science librarian because it makes decent money, places me in a more or less low stress environment, allows me to stay involved in the sciences and aid in research without being in a laboratory (I worked in one for a while, and really didn't like it), and I'm very good with categorization and like helping people find things. But there is a central difficulty that's really bothering me: there are few jobs, and I'll have to move to whatever institution gives me one. And if I can't find an open position related to my field (biology), I'll be stuck cataloging or working the reference desk at a public library part-time. This would make things very difficult for my significant other, plus give me very little liberty to decide where I go and what I'll do.</p>

<p>I'm probably just panicking suddenly for no reason, and asking this to the wrong crowd anyhoo (y'all tenure-bound doctoral students will have it much harder than me), but do you think this is a significant enough hiccup to consider changing tracks to something safer, like secondary science teaching?</p>

<p>tkm, I remember back to when you choose the Library Science path in the first place. It seems to me, you’d probably be happiest doing that if you could, am I right?</p>

<p>I guess what I’m saying is this: Aim as high as you think you might want. If you have to fall back, let it be for falling, not for not trying. If you find it really is prohibitively hard for you to find a job as a biology librarian, <em>then</em> look into being a high school teacher. You might even be offered a higher pay scale for having the masters in library science.</p>