The Saga Begins

Quite possibly, the question I most frequently ask myself is, "What do I want to do with my life?" For years, I've tried to figure it out myself. When I was in high school, I entered the school's pre-med program thinking that "I'm a smart person. Maybe I should be a doctor." Then I found out that I don't possess a lot of skills that doctors possess, such as people skills. And "looking at blood" skills. Eww. And knowing me, I'd be the doctor with a really twisted sense of humor who accidentally makes a joke about false teeth while roaming around in the geriatric department; needless to say, medicine was ruled out pretty quickly.

Since then I've explored everything from law to scientific research, then somehow landed in College Relations here at Vassar. While I enjoy many aspects of my job here, I've learned that I'm not exactly skilled when it comes to general office tasks. Even with 7 months of work experience, I still can't properly answer a phone and frequently get in fights with the copy machine. And as I frequently repeat at the expense of my fellow student workers, "I wasn't cut out for this life. Sigh."

After summer internships in journalism, television writing, and, finally, blogging, I'm starting to get a sense of what I like, but barely. You'd think that by being myself I'd know myself, but somehow other people tend to know me better than I do--if that makes any sense. By taking the advice of a few alum friends who recommended the Vassar Career Development Office (and also happen to have jobs), last week I finally admitted defeat and decided to give it a shot.

The nice lady who works at the Career Development Office (or CDO) desk set me up for an appointment that actually occurred this week. In order to prepare, I had to fill out a yellow form stating my problem, interests, thoughts about the future, and barriers in my future planning. I wasn't quite sure what the answers to these questions were so I had to ask for help, which kind of made me feel like I was cheating on a test. "Psst, [Inserts friend's name here], what's the answer to number four?" "Only you know that," said my boyfriend in an annoyed voice. Eventually, I came up with a few answers, a couple of my interests being ukulele, the food network, and kayaking-none of which seemed very career related, unless somehow I could make a living as a ukulele-playing kayaker with a cooking show, but I'm pretty sure there's no market for that yet.

As soon as I entered my career counselors office, it was as if I had suddenly developed amnesia. I had no idea why I was there (the same type of confusion I experienced before taking the SAT) or what my questions were, which is exactly what she wanted to know. I spat out a really general answer, something along the lines of, "I don't know where to start," to which she said, "How about with your major?"

To be honest, I don't know what I like about Sociology, which is exactly what I told her. It just seemed right to me, which is the way most things are. I can't define my interests on paper, but I can tell what feels natural.

Like classes, for instance. Trying a different approach to pinpoint my interests, she asks, "Can you name your favorite classes at Vassar?"

I knew this question wouldn't be the answer to my problem, mainly because my favorite classes have all been so different. As far as my top three go, I'd have to say my German Studies freshman course called "Vampires, Lunatics, and Cyborgs," Relativity (a physics course), and Drugs, Culture, and Society (compliments of the Sociology department-> highly recommended!). Liberal Arts school-1; CDO-0.

Now, I don't know if this is true or if she was just trying to make me feel better about myself, but she said my issue was common and most people don't know what they want to do with the rest of their lives when they're in college. (Which maybe explains why my three best friends know exactly what they want to pursue? For the sake of my nerves, I'll assume I have some really odd friends.)

My counselor directed me to a few websites provided by the CDO giving career advice and information. One of them is called "Vault," which is a really helpful website in terms of information about fields and matching careers with personality types. Unfortunately, every time I saw a career that seemed to fit my personality type, I also saw that these careers were not for people with traits such as "disorganized" or "procrastinator," which pretty much rules them out.

Another service offered by the CDO that I'm curious to try is called V-Net. V-Net is a networking tool (hence the name) that students can use to get in touch with Alums who have volunteered to act as career mentors. For example, you can search for someone in a specific place, field, or, who graduated with the same degree that you are pursuing, then find out what they do now and contact them. By contacting them, they will hopefully answer questions about their field and encourage networking with other people in the field that interests you. As my career counselor said, it's not uncommon for students to find a job through V-Net with mentors they find online-that is, if the career interests you.

I'm scheduled to take a personality test next week, which sounds really interesting (if they can give me any answers, I'll assume they use magic), as well as a follow up meeting with a careers counselor, who will be able to give me more information and guidance based on my answers from the personality test.

I haven't made too much progress in my career search yet, but maybe with some luck (and perhaps a bit of fairy dust) I'll be able to name some career relevant interests by the time I graduate.... then all I need to do is find a job.