<p>It would good to have some real life information on what people think about the career they are in. This can help students who are looking to choose career paths. </p>
<p>I will start with my example:</p>
<p>Career: Information technology (software analyst)</p>
<p>Pros: Jobs are available even in bad economy, many of which allows working from home, so this makes easier to balance between work and life.
Work is interesting if you like it (I do)
Pay is not bad (you cap out at 6 figures but that is not bad)
Most jobs are not stressful (except the finance companies)</p>
<p>Cons: Anyone, anywhere in the world with a computer can take my job away (this is biggest negative for this field)
I was lucky to keep my job but many of my friends had theirs outsourced and had to look for new jobs which might not pay same as the old one
Technology keeps changing so as you get older, it is harder to keep up with. If you lose your job when you are older, it is harder to find a new job.
Experience will have very little value if the person does not keep up with new technology.
Anyone can join this field any time i.e. no certification required.</p>
<p>CS and IT employment did not get hit too hard in the latest downturn, but bore the brunt of the previous downturn (tech bubble crash). Economic downturns do not affect all areas of industry and employment the same each time. Same with economic expansions.</p>
<p>I am also in CS as a programmer/analyst and I would not recommend it for all of the reasons stated above, but I would also include the long work hours. The pay is great, but there is the expectation of working weekends and evenings that goes along with it.</p>
<p>Not sure if I posted the question properly.</p>
<p>It would be great to hear about experiences of other parents on this forum. i.e if you could post what you do and pros and cons of your career. We have websites with lot of information, but real life example/experience is always more valuable.</p>
<p>Pros:
Always working on fascinating and relevant problems at the cutting edge of technology. </p>
<p>Well paid. Depending on the amount of risk you are willing to take, it can be as well paid as anything if you happen to get in on a great startup.</p>
<p>You are always learning and get to keep up and push forward with the latest technology (something the OP viewed as a con, LOL).</p>
<p>I look forward to going to work each day. This is really easy to undervalue, but I value greatly. </p>
<p>Cons:
To be as lucrative as finance or other professions, you really need to be an entrepreneur and start your own company or work in a successful startup. This involves the downside risk that you will make less than if you just took a salaried job with much less upside. </p>
<p>Requires lot’s of education during which time you will be poor.</p>
<p>Hours and pressure can vary. It’s often really hard to know how long something will take to complete. If it’s more than was budgeted for, you may have to work a lot of extra hours with no extra pay. Startups require really long hours but again, the upside can be tremendous. Those long hours can be a lot of fun though. </p>
<p>In very down economy, when new designs are postponed and investment dollars are limited, companies who are hiring are shopping for employees based on price rather than quality, it can be difficult to find a job for a very experienced engineer in this environment.</p>
<p>Pros: Helping profession, rewarding
Decent money
You can literally live anywhere in the U.S.
Very creative job, lots of fun, need to think outside the box
Don’t have to sit at a desk all day
Job not affected by recession, I get at least 2 recruitment calls or mailings/week
Easy flexible hours or part-time if you prefer
Many different areas to specialize in: pediatrics, orthopedics, geriatrics, hand therapy, mental health, school system, home health
My children are proud that I have chosen a profession in order to help others, which is priceless!</p>
<p>Cons: Nobody knows what an occupational therapist is!
You will never be rich unless you open your own business
Many jobs are in skilled nursing facilities, which can be difficult with new productivity guidelines due to medicare and PPS changes
Difficult to get into Occupational Therapy schools
Health care professional burn-out</p>
Jobs are available even in bad economy (its one of those reverse industries…when economy tanks, everyone goes back to school). Plus business schools continue to proliferate. There is still pretty much at least one or more tenure track jobs for every PhD student at the top 50 schools or so
Work is very interesting for those that do it (but you can ONLY do this job if you like it)
Pay is fantastic imho. Starts around 125k average, much higher at top privates. And no overhead like staff or malpractice insurance that you’d have to pay for in other well paying professions
You have tons of autonomy - to work the hours you want, often where you want, and to craft your own career in various ways
The nature of the role is such that you can strike a blance and focus more on the things you love to do or that make the biggest difference in the world to you, whether its designing courses or choose particular ones to teach, the research questions you seek to answer, the areas you try to become an ‘expert in’, and then there is consulting, book writing, talking to the media, serving as an administrator, serving on govt commission or tackling policy issues, and a host of other things one can do
You can go into it from all kinds of differnet undergrad majors (though which majors work for which areas of business vary quite a lot- so if on the behavioral end of things, social sciences and if on the math end of things, any of the quant undergrad degrees). Don’t do business school as your undergrad though!
Lifetime job security if you get tenure
You really don’t have a boss in the true sense of the word
You get cool stuff- like many places still have sabbatical (a paid leave for a year) every 4-5 years; tons of free travel around the world (built around conferences of your choice; all your computer, software, books can be covered by your university
It is so great to get a balance between theory and practice- you get to answer meaningful interesting theoretical questions, but also answer questions that can have a direct and immediate influence on the real world </p>
<p>Cons:
You have to go to school for quite a long time (4 years undergrad, 2 years masters, 4-6 years PhD), and really can’t start earning an income until you are done
It is probably impossible to enjoy this job and succeed at it if you aren’t truly and primarily intrinsically interested in the subject matter that you are studying. If you go into it for the salary or other externals, it will really suck. Trust me on this. Only a subset of people find this stuff remotely interesting and there is a reason for that
You have to be strong academically speaking and the grad school years of it can be brutal.
The ‘publish or perish’ stress can wear on you. Basically you seek to publish work and make a name for yourself in your first 7 or so yars as a professor. Then your school decides whether to give you life time job security in the form of tenure, or fire you. And the crazy, unpredictable, "unfair’ and capricious process of publishing can be tough. Not too many careers where you can work on something all year, and then 3 anonymous people get to write scathing reviews of your work which are mostly pages telling you how bad it is and summarily reject it. Though the publishing pressure largely disappears once you have tenure. Nevertheless, by that time most of us are so socialized to value publishing that the pressure continues (internally, upon ourselves).
True autonomy and low stress as noted under ‘pros’ only comes after tenure</p>
<p>Me: 4 engineering / comp sci degrees (2 undergrad, 2 grad), software engineer doing lots of fun stuff (mobile internet devices)</p>
<p>Pros:</p>
<p>LOTS of fun. Where else do they pay you to write software for Internet radio, location based services, and the like. Low stress, lots of resources, lots of ‘respect’ after a quarter century at the same company. Decent pay. Great hours :-). Great opportunity for patents. </p>
<p>Cons:</p>
<p>Can be outsourced in a hurry. If something goes wrong, easy to point blame. Software is usually more complex than we think. A stack of college degrees going to waste. Difficult to imagine writing software in your 50’s (I still do). Ageism. Slow pay growth in an established company if you’re not willing to play the ‘quit every year’ game. Need TALENT to do this. Pressure. </p>
<p>Neither of my children are remotely going into engineering or science, despite the seven college degrees in these by their parents… One is starting on Architecture in the fall, the other probably Econ/Law in a few years with eye set on Federal jobs.</p>
<p>Architect (mostly additions and renovations)</p>
<p>Pros
Uses lots of different skills - I’m doing different things every day
My branch will never be outsourced
I do better in a bad economy (up to a point)
You have actual physical things to point to that you helped make (very gratifying)
Flexible hours (though some time weekends and evenings are inevitable)
**
Cons**
Many clients think of you just as a roadblock they have to get over
Contractors think the same only more so
Least well paid of the professions
Schooling has almost nothing to do with what the actual job is like.</p>
<p>Career: software development (BA math & computer science)</p>
<p>Pros:
The work primarily involves concepts (as opposed to the real world)
You can work anywhere in the world including at the local coffee shop (when I started jobs were only in LA, Boston and Silicon Valley)
You work with people from all over the world and all cultures
Provides for a comfortable life
It is fun
You can work in a jeans and t-shirt
You can work with some pretty darn smart people
Some companies offer cool perks </p>
<p>Cons:
You can work all the time (a weekend is the opportunity to work at home)
Life-work balance is challenging (I recently heard of a new concept, life-work integration)
You can’t predict where the technology is going to end up (where are all those Cobol programmers?)
You work with so many TLAs that you lose the concept of what an actual word is.
Too little face-to-face contact with people and too much reliance on e-mail.</p>
<p>Pros: Job satisfaction. Interesting, get to problem solve and do hands on work. Sometimes challenging, don’t have to sit at a desk or have a regular work schedule. Can work as little or as much as you want. Pay and benefits are fantastic (at my airline, but at some airlines the pay is low and job security is nil). Some days I can’t believe how much I get paid for what I do (and some days they couldn’t pay me enough to do it again). Can get weeks or months off. Never see your boss (yay).</p>
<p>Cons: The job prospects are cyclical. Your quality of life completely depends upon whom you get hired by and when. You could be junior and get a terrible schedule for years. You could be away from home for long periods of time, particularly if you commute. You deal with huge egos constantly (so you’d better have one yourself). You live in and out of hotels, which some people detest, eating out at restaurants and working out in hotel gyms. Many people let their health slide. And you can make a little mistake and either be dead, or in the headlines of major newspapers.</p>
<p>Management Consultant (BA, Masters) - consulting division of large accountancy firm, not a Bain or McKinsey. Working on large change programs in investment banks, eg new IT systems, changes to processes, roll out of new business lines</p>
<p>Pros
Intellectually stimulating
Surrounded by smart peers
Project based so even if one role is awful, you know it will end!
Large firms offer excellent training, international experience, pro bono work, volunteering opportunities
Entered with large graduate trainee pool and made lots of friends
Worked on international projects so racked up lots of airline and hotel points = free vacations!
Learn not only about your industry of expertise but also how to run a consulting firm - everyone has to take an ‘internal’ role too, to help manage the business
Transferrable skills - many leave to go back into industry or other areas with the skills they have acquired</p>
<p>Cons
Competitive entry and getting more so
LONG hours are not unusual (remember, the client pays through the nose for you to be there so expects you to be super human)
Multiple sources of pressure: client, but also partners/senior managers demanding internal work to be done, bids and pitches too
Money is not as amazing as you would think, especially given the above
The travel is exhausting and can get old, quick. Especially when you are away from friends/other half for the week and only see people on weekends. With international travel, you come home even less frequently. It was fun when I was a bit younger, tired of it now!
Most firms are very informally structured, meaning that you have no obvious line manager (except on a client project, where you will have an obvious manager for that project, although not in every case) and have to network to create your own opportunities. The Partners create their own little cliques and it can sometimes feel a little like high school. Learning to navigate this environment suits some better than others</p>
<p>Currently: Executive Director for non-profit in healthcare</p>
<p>Pros:<br>
Very fulfilling, providing direct service to community & healthcare providers
Meet lots of fascinating people in our state as well as at national/international meetings
Very flexible – creating program & adapting it
Working with wonderful people
Am my own boss
Some travel, which I have control over
Constantly changing and evolving environment
Lots of networking & interactions
Flexible & scalable</p>
<p>Cons:
Funding highly variable & affected by economy and availability of grants and fundraising
Am my own boss
Endless number of things I COULD do
Complicated alliances that shift
Earn less than many other “comparable” private sector jobs</p>
<p>Career: Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrician</p>
<p>Pros:
It is a privilege to help children, adolescents and families
Great blend of science application in a social context
Constant learning- the science is changing and every patient is different; the issues cross professional boundaries and you have to learn a lot about a lot to do the job well!
Many possible environments to work in and different area to focus on
Great colleagues- people who do this kind of work tend to be nice people
Huge job stability- this is a ‘growth industry’ and there is more work to go around then anyone knows what to do with
The usual Physician perks- good living, community status, etc…</p>
<p>Cons:
Demand is so high that everyone is overworked to some degree
4 years college, 4 years med school, 3 years pediatrics, 3 years developmental and behavioral pediatrics training…lots of years before certification is possible and high cost of education, etc.
That’s about it…</p>
<p>Lots of us feel we have the most interesting job in the world. I feel lucky at least!</p>
<p>Pros: rewarding work
Flexible schedule, accommodates child rearing and other interests
Recession-proof if you are currently employed.
Opportunities to work in other areas, OT, different companies, travel
Pay is excellent, potential for high 6 figures.
Educational opportunities are excellent, usually with reimbursement
Good opportunities for advancement either in management or clinical</p>
<p>Cons: shift work, holidays, weekends, nights
Can’t always get that day off needed to attend your kids back-to-school night
Back breaking work, bending, Lifting, carrying equipment, moving dead weigh Patients around.
Emotionally draining.
Not as easy to get a job in this economy, hospitals are closing due to change in reimbursement practices. It was once easy to get a degree at a state school and starting salaries were same for all. Now hospitals are being more selective, choosing graduates from more prestigious programs. So where you go is becoming more of an issue.
Takes longer to go thru a program because, many career changers after 9/11 and younger People looking for a more stable job have bottle-necked colleges with applications and there are waiting lists the size of Mississippi. AND one thing I just learned, if you mess-up in one nursing program, due to grades, bad behavior, you will never be admitted to any other nursing program.</p>
<p>@milkandsugar<br>
is it hard to find a nursing job if you just graduated with a BS and never had a nursing job? do people still get the same beginning salary if they graduated from diff schools with diff prestige? also, how often do nurses see dead people/opened bodies? I’m interested in nursing but not sure about it yet because of the amount of dead/“deformed” people I might see daily.</p>
<p>In HI, they want “experienced” nurses. If you volunteer and/or intern while getting your nursing degree, you have a MUCH better chance of getting hired once you get your degree. If not, you may have to relocate to mainland US to get experience before applying & getting hired locally as they do not want to invest in training new nurses. Have heard this from recent students as well as currently working nurses.</p>
I used to be pretty good at keeping up but now age is catching up :)</p>