<p>End of sophomore year. For me, I always knew I wanted a career in the visual arts and although I enjoyed the thought of being an illustrator most, I also knew I could not live that paycheck to paycheck lifestyle. I decided to become an interior designer (although that might change) and illustrate on the side.</p>
<p>I always knew since I was little (around five) that I wanted to work in the medical field. At first I wanted to be a doctor but in the past year (junior year), I wanted to pursue medical engineering but now I’m kinda torn on whether working for WHO (inspired by the movie Contagion) or just become a medical researcher specifically HIV (cuz I would love to win a Nobel Prize!).</p>
<p>But regardless of what I do exactly, I always knew that I want to make a change by bettering people’s lives with medicine. Its always been a life goal for me from a young age.</p>
<p>This year, when I finally understood that I had no reason to become a doctor other than to a) make money and b) make my parents happy. Even though my parents have jobs in the medical field with very high salaries, they are never content and are always stressed about their jobs.</p>
<p>I’ve always loved engineering–I’ve been building ever since I can remember, and have a tendency to fix everything (ok, that might be OCD, but I like to think of it as aptitude for engineering). In junior high, I always worked on mechanical projects and hated volunteering at the hospital until I saw the robotic arms and was finally able to work in the research lab. This year taking AP Bio, I realized just how much mechanical and biological engineering correlate and just how much they have improved the medical field. So I considered bioengineering, but then I realized that I was much more interested in mechanical engineering. Right now, I’m struggling between the two but I do love biology, and I need to do a bit more research before I can “decide” whether bioengineering really is biology + mechanical engineering.</p>
<p>I thought I wanted to be an architect for the longest time until I realized just how little creativity most architects get to express in their designs and how cutthroat the business is. The chance of getting to design any memorable buildings that I could be proud of is small and growing ever smaller, thus, that idea was nixed.</p>
<p>Now I plan on doing some form of Autism specialization(always something I’ve been passionate about as my brother has this), although I’m not sure whether I want to do the research side or actually help kids with autism one-on-one. Either way, the idea that I could make a career in helping people afflicted with autism have greater opportunity in life and provide support to their families. Not the best paying road in the world, but one that I hope will be very fulfilling.</p>
<p>Beginning of 9th grade I thought I might want to be a doctor, at the end of the year I’m still considering whether it’s for me or not, I might do Military History/battlefield archaeology instead.</p>
<p>I found my passion during the summer of 2010, before 8th grade, while watching the History Channel. I saw a Modern Marvels documentary on Nikola Tesla followed by a documentary on black holes and the research conducted by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Susskind on the subject. I had always been kind of interested in science and space, but it was while watching these two documentaries that this was something I wanted to do for a long time. In a very general sense, I fell in love with science as a whole field of study; however, I am and have always been more inclined toward physics, but that may change in the future as I also have a huge interest in pure math and biology. Regardless, I know I want to become a scientific researcher.</p>
<p>the second I walked into school I knew that I wanted to be a teacher!(:</p>
<p>I’ve known I wanted to work in science since 5th grade, but I never really knew what I wanted to do. Then, we had to do an essay Freshman year in my English class about something we think everyone should do. I decided to write about volunteering, with a focus on helping children. While I was looking for things to write about, I stumbled upon St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital (which I had heard of before, but didn’t know a lot about). I decided then that that was where I wanted to work :)</p>
<p>I discovered what I wanted to do about 2-3 years down the road from now…</p>
<p>Yea I still have no idea</p>
<p>wow glad my thread has seen lots of traffic… I noticed that many of you CCers are into the sciences, which makes me wonder, are there any humanities people out there? I really enjoy history and I love when my parents tell me stories of their childhoods, and I love reading bios about certain politicians and hear about the news, but politics is tricky and complicated and history has two careers: historian or a professor, neither of which I would enjoy.</p>
<p>I also love philosophies and religions, but then again, a philosophy degree won’t bring home the bacon…i’m pretty much clueless. Maybe international relations?</p>
<p>Pharmaceutical lawyer.
Because pharmacy has a pretty good job prospect once you graduate and law is what I’ve always wanted(but the whole low job after graduation is scary)
I’m guessing it’ll change again though Im only a raising sophomore.</p>
<p>I’d post this on the Parents Forum as well. Based on what I’ve seen firsthand in college, and read all over CC, you’ll all change your minds a bunch yet. 
It’d be more interesting to see when it was that people who are following their passion discovered that that was what they wanted to do.</p>
<p>And @ramenforlife, yup, humanities student here! Try a bunch of things when you get to college, and you’ll find something that’s up your alley! :)</p>
<p>I always loved art/writing and figured I’d do something like that or be a teacher … Got involved with newspaper and broadcast news in middle school and started thinking I would become a journalist, probably broadcast. I realized that I loved the writing aspect of it so much and thought that was where I wanted to go with it. As I continued developing my artistic and writing passions in high school, I shifted from saying I was interested in journalism to saying I was interested in graphic design and journalism. Now I’m looking at communication design programs, planning on minoring in journalism and sociology. Ideally I would want to work for a magazine, or a publishing company, or possibly an advertising agency. But honestly, a lot could change, as I am still a high school student and have many interests.</p>
<p>Aww, How cute is it that everyone wants to be a doctor. Lol reading threads like this makes me chuckle sometimes. I remember the days when I used to be this naive.</p>
<p>Hedge fund manager</p>
<p>At the age of 3 my parents bought me an educational video game about the human body. Later I realized that I wanted to study the human body, and biology in some way.</p>