Parents, please post your major and jobs!

Parents Forum
21

Humanities, high tech, humanities grad school, high tech. Other things in between and since. Now work for a U. Passion? What’s that really mean? I’m still passionate about my undergrad fields and my career arena. And lots of other, meaningless things.
DH humanities, academia
D1: Humanities, tech, then tech/design
D2: Humanities, corporate

Use your college years to grow, become educated, polish skills and have fun.

22

Undergrad: Philosophy/Music
Grad: Elementary Education/Early Childhood Education
First Job: Team teaching a combination 1st-3rd grade class, continued classroom teaching for the next six years. Moved into educational publishing for seven years. “Retired” to stay home with my kids.
My passions change as I grow and change. Still.

23

Biochemistry/Molecular Biology => Pharmacy School => Hospital Pharmacist=> Retail Pharmacist => Longterm Care Pharmacist

Passions: my family, my dog, tennis, yoga, etc…

24

Undergrad: PreLaw (being a lawyer is hard, I wanted to do something hard) then Comp Sci (jobs! for sure!) then Communications (I would work in publishing! even though I hate cities!) and finally, English. I finally decided to go with my strengths – books, reading, organizing, kids — and my college advisor suggested a library degree.

Grad school : MLS,

First job : (not the waitressing during grad school?) Exactly what I trained for – children’s librarian in a public library. I was fired 18 months later when I was 8 months pregnant, because the director didn’t believe in maternity leaves. (He also fired a woman who asked for a leave when her husband entered hospice care)

After that: I happily parented and volunteered. Then I worked as a program director – unrelated to my degree — for a decade, then my son became seriously chronically ill and I “downsized” to teacher’s aide.

Passions? Yeech, what a word. What matters to me? Making a difference, not a bigger bank account. Beingg available for the people I love, and loving more of them. Reading, children, excellence, hard work, equity, justice.

25

Undergrad: History/Political Science
Grad: Library Science
Career: 2 years in a college library, 12 in public libraries, and the last 10 in school libraries. I was a half time stay at home dad until both our sons were on school all day; my wife and I shared one job.

26
  1. Undergrad - American Literature, Grad school - Drama and Theater
  2. Married right after grad school. He graduated at the same time. He was an English major. He got a job teaching English overseas, so I went along with him. Because of visa situation, I couldn’t work. I got pregnant, became a stay at home mom.
  3. Came back to US and got corporate administrative job. In charge of big annual party for the 100+ employees and their families. My experience of creating a “production” came in handy. Moved to a different big corporation and was in charge of big annual party for the 200+ clients. So basically, I became a party planner for the corporation.
  4. Voice jobs here and there on the side. Recorded poetry CD, did some TV commercial voices, some airports and hotel recorded announcement, etc.
27
  1. BS in Economics and BAS in Systems Engineering from Penn.
  2. Unlike almost everyone in my program, I had no desire to work for Drexel Burnham Lambert, Lazard Freres, or Shearson Lehman* nor did I have any desire to become an attorney. After some required reserve officer training, I ended up doing corporate system installs and deployments which allowed me to travel quite a bit and save some money.
  3. I wrote Unix software for a few years (I love this and still do it occasionally for fun) but I currently run several dev and test teams that build high-speed networking products.
  4. Most weeks, I can’t believe they pay me to do what I do.

*as a relevant aside, I’d recommend reading Ken Auletta’s “The Fall of the House of Lehman.” It’s a fascinating case study on the rise of trading as a profit center and how it ultimately caused the bank’s downfall. It’s also points out how someone who is well-loved by inside staff isn’t necessarily the person to be the “outside face” of the company. Put another way, while traders may like their cigar-chompers brash, the white-shoe customers on the banking side won’t.

28
  1. BS in “Specialized Journalism” – the “specialized” was a roll-your-own degree that folded in my first 1.5 years of college in geophysics, so a lot of first and 2nd year classes in geology, physics, chemistry, and math. I also took 4 classes in computer science shortly after undergrad. Basically, it was a science journalism degree.
  2. Technical writer. I did take a couple technical writing classes as an undergrad; there was no official degree.
  3. Technical writer. 8 years as an employee and a lot more after that as an independent consultant. Mostly I write stuff for programmers to read, including writing code. I probably should have been a CS major, but my college only had EECS and I’ve never been into the EE part. If I were in college now, I’d probably major in UX design.
  4. Lots of changes to my “passions” over the years. In college it was running science fiction conventions. I did run a regional technical writers’ convention using some of the same skills. Since having kids, I’ve gotten interested in instructional design and education, so now I’m on a school board.
29
  1. UG major: started as tech theater, changed a few times, ended up with biochemistry/physiology major.
  2. First job: lab tech at a research university. Applied to med school (only 1, I didn't want to move) and got waitlisted.
  3. Taught myself to program computers, LOVED it, tried to freelance (didn't like it), got a job as a programmer and systems analyst at a vet school for several years. Went to law school (after serving on a jury), worked in the NY state courts for 16 years. Moved to Hawaii and opened my own law practice doing estate planning and probate law.
  4. I didn't have a passion until I opened my practice 7 years ago. THIS is my passion! Better late than never... but all along I did what I liked at the time.

I still love computer programming, biology and chemistry, and theater.

30

BS in Secondary Education with an English Concentation

I taught English and Journalism for grades 7-12 for 3 years before having my first child and deciding to stay at home with her. Then, we chose to homeschool our kids to allow them freedom to follow their own interests and have an individualized education. Plus, I could see how crazy testing was becoming. My eldest chose to home school all the way through until she graduated this year. (She’s heading to college in the fall with huge scholarships, thankfully!) The others are following suit so far.

Along the way, I’ve taught childbirth classes, directed plays and musicals (which I still do), started a homeschool co-op (which I still help run), and signed state required assessments for other homeschoolers, among other things.

Passions? Reading, almost all things related to nature, childbirth and parenting issues, psychology (maybe should have gotten a psychology degree, too), singing, theatre, fine arts… I’ve been lucky enough to follow them all!

31

I got my Associate’s in Math, then both a Bachelor’s and Masters in Secondary Math Education.

I’ve been teaching high school math since I graduated college in 1980. I had a job offer signed at graduation.

I love what I do, and can’t imagine any other career path that would have made me as happy. (It helps that I also ended up in a wonderful school, where we’re treated as professionals.)

The past 15 years or so, I’ve done lots of freelance writing. It was a great source of extra money during the years I was home with the kids, and I’ve kept it up.

32

UG Major in EE (weird double major in English)
MS in Biomedical Engineering (back in the days when there were only a few programs in the country)
First job: firmware (embedded software) design for med device company
Transferred to marketing when I realized that was where things really got invented
Have been and still am a senior executive at small and large med device companies

Lucky to have had the opportunity to successfully pursue many passions. Read constantly, have traveled to every continent except Australia and Antarctica, danced in college and for years after, owned and ride horses, and raised wonderful, accomplished, kind and talented children.

33

I got my BA in psychology and my MS in journalism and work from home as a writer.

34

My BS is in Biology (my college didn’t have minors, but I had 23 or so hours inChemistry).
I am an Accountant.
Short story, I was able to return to college and take the accounting/business law classes to qualify to sit for the CPA exam, which I passed. This is no longer an option in my state (VA).

35

BA in English (with lots of addl courses in French lit and art history, my college didn’t offer minors)
worked for a couple of years in administrative jobs for an educational consultant and a University
MA in Art History
worked for an Art Museum for 2 years, then a popular culture museum for about 4 years (both in Education Departments), then for 5 years for an arts education non-profit doing educational programming. For the past 9-10 years have worked in marketing at an architectural/engineering firm (it’s basically a writing job). Have worked part-time since having kids 20 years ago, still work only 4 days a week and would like to keep it that way even as I am looking at an empty nest in a year. Have not made a ton of money but between my job and my husband’s we do just fine and I have no complaints. We have been able to do what we want/need and to pay for our kids college educations.
Passion: I find this word over-used. I have enjoyed all my jobs (and particularly the people I have worked with). I enjoy reading, quilting, spending time with family/friends, walking. Still looking for that “passion” or hobby that will keep me going for the next 20 years.

36

BS in Architectural Engineering (which means the engineering of buildings - it’s not architecture).

MS in Structural Engineering

First job: A large company that ended up going totally in the environmental direction and laid off most of the design division, including my husband and me, on the same day.

When our kids were young, I worked part-time as an AutoCAD detailer in the '90s. My husband and I started our own engineering consulting firm in 1999. I do the drafting, bookkeeping, and engineering when needed. It’s a blessing to work from home! Fortunately, my husband and I are very compatible and like spending time together.

37

BA International Affairs, Minor in Hinduism

MA South Asian Studies

JD (law school).

Worked as a lawyer (lawfirm and independent contractor.)

38

My father got his bachelor’s in Business(Finance) and has worked in the office end of trucking companies since graduation. He is currently the terminal manager of a small trucking company. So he could be working a job with normal hours in a nice office but he is not.

39

See the variety? Notice the changes years after college? Nothing is etched in stone (unless it is sandstone with constant winds). Choose your major based on what actively interests you, not what you “should” do. If everyone majored in engineering or whatever the current recommended field is there would be a surplus and not enough jobs. You will do best in something you like. Allow yourself to change and not get into a rut forever.

40

I love this thread! It should be required reading for highschoolers. #38 hit the nail on the head, and that’s why I posted, as another data point in that direction.

Now here’s one that’s different. My husband went to community college for a year and a half (studying engineering at his parents’ insistence, hated it), dropped out (with my support, mea culpa, I was only 19) to follow his passion - building musical instruments. He’s self-taught, has been building and repairing instruments for over 30 years. Always self-employed. Could never see himself doing anything else, still passionate about it. Makes very little money but is very happy. He also cooks awesomely and makes me very happy with lovely gourmet meals, and was a SAHD for our DS.