Hey guys,
I need your opinion’s please. I am interested in Human Services, maybe becoming a social worker or a probation officer, if it’s possible. But everyone says I’ll want to quit after a while. That it’s not worth it. True or not true? Next Elementary Education, becoming a kindergarten teacher. I love kids, but I don’t know. Ultrasound tech, LPN, or Dental Hygiene? But math and science aren’t my strongest subjects. Does anyone have any advice?
Apparently social workers tend to have very large caseloads (http://www.monster.com/career-advice/article/fight-burnout-in-social-work), which I think can only be tolerably managed by dealing with the individual cases in a perfunctory manner. That makes me think (unexpectedly) it is an occupation best left to people who aren’t super caring about others (or who are, but can’t find any other way to be happy).
If a person wants to help other people in the largest degree possible, politics, activism and charities would seem to have more impact than one-to-one situations.
But if what a person most wants is to experience directly the sense of helping people, probably (s)he should work directly with individuals where (s)he can see visible improvement in those individuals’ lives but doesn’t have to see them left miserable because resources fall short of the individuals’ problems. Happily, a host of occupations fit that bill, e.g. teaching (in an undistressed school), the hotel and event industry, hairdressing, most of the medical field, interior design, personal financial advising, counseling, religious leadership, lawyering, athletic team leading, care of the young, care of the elderly, etc.
Aside from your attraction to serving people, what else are you interested in?
Impossible to tell? Some people work in social work or criminal justice for a few years and then leave; some people work in the field for many years and then leave; some people make the field a lifelong career. You can’t tell from the outset which camp you fall into.
More importantly, who cares? Let’s say you do go into social work, you do it for five years and you get burned out and do something else after. Would that be the worst thing in the world? No. You did something you liked and were passionate about for five years. That’s actually how most people’s careers function; few people pick one specific thing and stick with it forever.
These are really wide-ranging careers, and the only thing they have in common seems to be direct work with people. Being a nurse is really different from being a kindergarten teacher, and that’s really different from being a probation officer.
What I think you need to start doing is exploring those interests and starting to see what you like and don’t like. Volunteer in an elementary school or at a hospital or something, and chat with some people who are already in the field. (Schools love classroom and library aides! Especially magnet and charter schools. I did this in college.) Once you start hanging around a place enough as a volunteer you can talk to the workers and get the low-down. As you volunteer and learn more, you may also learn things about yourself - like actually you can’t handle vomit; or being in a prison all day depresses you too much to do the work; or listening to people’s tales of woe burns you out. Or positive things - like you get a rush when your parolees get good jobs and move on in life; or that you love helping people work out their personal demons; or seeing the light bulb go over a five-year-old’s head is the most rewarding thing in the world to you. You take these little bits and pieces of what you like and dislike and you use them to put together a puzzle of what your career might look like.
Now, there’s no guarantees you’ll be finished putting the pieces together by the time you graduate college or that your puzzle won’t change - maybe after 10 years of teaching 5-year-olds you get tired of answering the same questions, dealing with parents, and being sick every other week and want out. BUT. Again, there’s nothing wrong with that! That’s kind of how careers work - you can’t see the future, so you can only really choose what seems like a good idea now and work at it until you decide you need a change. Wouldn’t it be cool to, for example, spend 7 years as a kindergarten teacher and then use your experience with 5-year-olds to get a master’s in social work and do therapy for young children? Or maybe you become a probation officer for juvenile offenders and when that becomes too grueling/too whatever, you get a teaching license and teach at an alternative high school for students with behavioral issues. I mean, who knows what your story looks like but it doesn’t have to be a straight line.
My only additional notes: At many hospitals and clinics LPNs are being phased out, and it’s harder to find a job with an LPN. So if you are thinking about nursing I would really recommend doing an RN instead - at least a two-year ADN if not the full four-year BSN. Similarly, with dental hygiene, there are some associate’s degree programs but a BS seems to be quickly becoming the standard for hygienists, so I would look for a BS program in that field.