Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[GarandMarine]

And where did you end up instead?

I knew exactly what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wanted to be a Marine fighter pilot, preferably flying these gorgeous beasts:


With a master's degree in aerospace engineering earned at whatever Embry Riddle campus had an NROTC program. I wanted to be a military lifer, with the goal of getting my PhD and eventually applying for the U.S. Astronaut program. Sure every kid says they want to be an astronaut when they grow up, but I had a plan and a hell of a mentor when I was little.



Lieutenant Colonel Carlos Noriega, USMC my next door neighbor until his first mission aboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis, after which he and his family permanently relocated to Florida. I even got to go see a launch.

Sadly reality's a bit of a bitch when she wants to be, and my particular dream got cold clocked pretty hard.

1. My vision was, until surgical correction last year, 20/440. So I was fucked for ANY form of military aviation as a pilot, much less the Astronaut Corps.
2. I have a SERIOUS learning disability with theoretical mathematics. I can do applied algebra, even calculus. I can prove it because I'm still alive. Doing advanced math is just part of the day job for a crew chief, one fucked up formula on a weight and balance means I and the rest of the crew are dead. Theoretical math? The kind you need to get into say... aerospace engineering courses? Good luck.

So where did I end up?

Well so far I still joined the Marines. 1/3 ain't all awful when you shoot high. I've worked in all kinds of places all over the U.S. and I'm getting back to school to go in for a trade I enjoy.

[Metope]

I wanted to be a vet, because I love animals. Of course, it was the sort of foolish wish that wasn't really thought through, when I realised that I would have to actually be in charge of living things surviving or not, and sometimes the 'not' is a thing, hell no. I just wanted to have a job that was basically being a visitor in a petting zoo. ... I was very little when I thought being a vet was a good idea for me.

After that, I knew I wanted to be something that dealt with creativity on a visual level. I've always loved drawing, painting and being creative in general, heavily influenced by my mother who is now an art teacher, and was then an illustrator. Mostly though she is just incredibly crafty and creative, and can make anything out of anything. Like, I wouldn't be exaggerating if I said she's like the MacGyver of art. I'm not half as creative as her and I usually stick to very traditional materials (oil on canvas, yawn), but at least I'm doing something artistic! I am currently in the process of finishing up a BA in fine art, and I have a BA in art history already. While I often joke about having two useless degrees, I actually think it's really good to have one practical and one theoretical degree on the same subject.

As of an actual job with a reasonable income, I don't know. Hopefully I'll get a job at a museum or gallery and I can sell stuff I make on the side, but who knows. Fingers crossed though! But yeah, at the moment I'm doing what I wanted to do as a kid, and hopefully I'll be able to continue. Having a pretty vague idea to begin with (anything within art), is a good way to start, I think.

[Aimless]

In (more or less) chronological order: Doctor, pilot, teacher, doorman, writer, astrophysicist, anything but doctor, cognitive neuroscientist, taller, biomedical scientist, doctor, father.

I now work as a doctor, I reckon my future is in neurology, I do a tiny bit of clinical teaching and will likely do more teaching over the coming years esp. once the PhD work starts up, I have a compulsive urge to open doors for people, I'm a little afraid of heights, I'm short, and I have imaginary children. It's weird how these things work out. Looks like I was right the first time

[jwhouk]

I wanted to be a race car driver.

Scared my parents silly, especially when I finally got my license - and got into three accidents within my first year of driving. (One totaled the first car I ever "owned" - my mom's old Hornet Sportabout.)

[snalin]

I wanted to make video games when I was a kid and now I program video games.

But I'm only 22, so I might still end up doing something soul crushing when I get older, who knows.

[94ssd]

I wanted to be a lawyer. Ended up going less practical with the theatre route.

[cesium133]

I wanted to be a meteorologist. Or an astronaut. Either was fine.

Ended up becoming a physicist instead. Close enough. 

[Aimless]

Close enough. 

You would've made a fine meteorologist

[Lines]

I wanted to be a unicorn, obviously that didn't happen. Then an artist, then a vet but I watched a cat get neutered when I was in high school and was all NOPENOPENOPE (that's when I discovered I really did not like internal organs), and then music teacher, and then went with artist. And then art teacher and right now I'm a teacher who gets to do arty things, so I'm pretty ok with that for now. I think when I grow up for reals, we'll move out to the country and I can start a mini fiber farm with an alpaca and some angora rabbits and some pygmy goats just for fun because they're so cuuuuuute.

But I am not raising sheep because damn are they annoying.

[GarandMarine]

I suppose that is one point. I am theoretically not anything I wanted to be when I grow up, as I have steadfastly refused to grow up.

Also I still want the pony I wanted as a kid. I just want her to be around 15 hands and ready for trail riding now.

[Blue Kitty]

When I was young I wanted to be a fire truck

[Schmee]

I remember back in preschool everyone was saying what they wanted to be when they grew up, and one kid said he wanted to be a duck. Sometimes I wonder where that kid is now...

[jwhouk]

I remember back in preschool everyone was saying what they wanted to be when they grew up, and one kid said he wanted to be a duck. Sometimes I wonder where that kid is now...

Playing for Anaheim in the Stanley Cup playoffs?

[GarandMarine]

That would be EPIC.

[Loki]

I read a lot of Agatha Christie and Conan Doyle. So private detective it was.
Eventually I realized this is really emotionally messy and/or boring work. So programmer it was.
After school, I went on to study IT. I realized IT was not what I expected when I was thinking of "programmer".

It is way awesomer than that. I consider specializing into something more theoretically oriented.

But I still have a puzzle game on my phone which has the story of being a detective x)

[pwhodges]

Picture a pharmacist as a kindly old man with half-moon glasses, leaning over the counter of his shop...

Pharmacist: What do you want to be when you grow up, little boy?
Little Boy: A doctor!
Pharmacist: What kind of doctor would you like to be, little boy?
Little Boy: A witch doctor!

Career ideas that actually affected choices I made:  Medicine; Pipe organ building; Sound recording; Computing.   All of these have in fact been part of my life ever since I was a student, and I've earned money from three of them, directly or indirectly (and some not mentioned, such as Music editing).

[Nikolai]

Boba Fett. Mercenary. Soldier.

1/3 so far, and the other two aren't entirely out of the realm of possibility either.

[Patrick]

I wanted to be a fighter pilot too, and coincidentally enough, I also wanted to fly Hornets. A whole host of issues including less-than-stellar eyesight prevented that, but I'm happy as a musician whose day job is 'retail wage slave.'

[Mlle Germain]

My serious career wishes (i.e. those that I can remember having seriously considered) are, in chronological order:
chemist, novelist, journalist (<-- these two constitute my literary phase), chemist, mathematician, physicist (at this point I started studying physics), mathematician --> mathematical physicist.
This is the current one and since I am still studying, I wouldn't say that I have achieved that yet. I'm starting my PhD in string theory in October. Long-term goal: University professor in mathematical physics. I know that the chances of achieving this are not terribly good and you have to be both very good and extremely lucky to get there, but that's the only thing I really want to do, so I have to try.

Also I still want the pony I wanted as a kid. I just want her to be around 15 hands and ready for trail riding now.

Gosh, yes. I want a pony. However, I do realise that with my current career path, that's not likely to happen - ponies need lots of time and attention.

[Thrillho]

I apparently wanted to be a sea lion.

I'm uh... I'm not one of those.

[GarandMarine]

Also I still want the pony I wanted as a kid. I just want her to be around 15 hands and ready for trail riding now.

Gosh, yes. I want a pony. However, I do realise that with my current career path, that's not likely to happen - ponies need lots of time and attention.

Once you start an actual career, a boarding program can help you out with that without changing your lifestyle completely like I intend to. My "end goal" for life is building a house I've designed on a couple acres with barn space for two or three mustang mares for me, and a boarder or two if needed, some big dogs and a good sized set of hutches for a pair of red foxes and a red tailed hawk. (Red isn't my favorite color still but I can see why people might suspect it is)

And cheer up Gareth I totally see the resemblance.

[The Seldom Killer]

I think my earliest, most serious career choice was to be a forensic scientist. I've always found science fundamentally more interesting and beautiful than anything else and an inherent sense of law and order combined to wanting to that. I think I was inspired by TV in this. Not by watching NCIS, CSI type programmes but by watching real life crime programmes and thinking that the forensics people were really awesome.

Alas, with just about any other career idea that I had, I'm let down by a lack of academic capability. I'll never get the kind of degree needed to do any of the things that I might truly enjoy and starting at the bottom and working your way up isn't really an option in these fields. It's really annoying to me because I have a great capacity to understand scientific theories and principles. I've helped numerous engineers, programmers etc by talking through their problems and asking questions/making suggestions about what they've told me. These days I trawl around different office environments, usually in the public sector, doing admin work and in very small ways trying to make the world a little bit better. It's an acceptable consolation prize and it allows me to indulge my external passions.

[94ssd]

On this topic, I have a cousin who's a couple years older than me who wanted to be a firefighter ever since he was a little kid. He's a firefighter now.

[Redball]

More or less in order: doctor, aeronautical engineer, physicist, journalist. I was the son and stepson of aviation writers, and one of them used to deliver Piper Cubs from Lock Haven PA to dealers for the fun of it. I ditched physics after a flunked out of university, but I was pretty good at reporting science stories.

I remember back in preschool everyone was saying what they wanted to be when they grew up, and one kid said he wanted to be a duck. Sometimes I wonder where that kid is now...

Playing for Anaheim in the Stanley Cup playoffs?

My daughter's best friend in childhood is an operations manager at the arena there, and sometimes drives the Zamboni for the hell of it.

[Sorflakne]

Saw Top Gun when I was four years old, and knew that I wanted to be a fighter pilot.

Fast-forward a couple decades, and I did get a private-pilot's license, and I did join the Air Force for a few years, but never did make it to military pilot.  So 2 of the 3 isn't so bad.  I blame my discontinued flight training on the likely fact that I was not ready for college at 18 -.-

[Masterpiece]

I wanted to be a father growing up. My granddad and dad left a huge impression on me.

[Thrillho]

Kiss-ass.

[Jimmy the Squid]

I wanted to be a psychologist.

Yep.

[GarandMarine]

So.... on track then as I recall right Jimmy?

[lepetitfromage]

Singer, fashion designer, interior designer, painter, art teacher. I said the one thing I could never do is push paper around in a cubicle.

I currently push paper around, but I have my own office! 




Although, I'm doing some "interior design"-ish stuff at the moment, I have a degree in art education and I sing in my kitchen a lot. 

[LeeC]

soldier, fighter pilot, first man on mars, K-9 cop, boxer, bull fighter, animator, literary author.

edit: oh, also a muppet voice/operator.

[Zebediah]

I wanted to be an astronaut. The moon landings had a big effect on me as a kid. Neil Armstrong was my hero. I was going to be the first man on Mars.

The first problem I ran into is that I'm too tall. Maximum height for the US astronaut program is 6'3". I passed that when I was 15, so, no go. Then I figured, well, if I can't fly spaceships, at least I can build them, and decided to major in aerospace engineering. The problem there was that I wasn't very good at my engineering courses. However, I easily passed the one computer programming course that was required for engineering majors at my university - a class that everyone else said was the hardest class they ever took. I got the hint, changed to computer science, and went on to a career as a software developer. Wound up in the telecommunications industry because they were hiring, but that was a good place to be.

Best job I've ever had, though, is dad. The pay sucks, but the rest of it is fantastic.  And I get great performance reviews. 

[Thrillho]

soldier, fighter pilot, first man on mars, K-9 cop, boxer, bull fighter, animator, literary author.

edit: oh, also a muppet voice/operator.

Actually yeah I wanted to be a voice on Simpsons. I can still do a decent Professor Frink.

[Neko_Ali]

Helicopter pilot, police officer, physical effects artist for hollywood specializing in robotics, computer engineer... I don't suppose Jedi counts, does it?

[LeeC]

if it did it would be at the top of my list! 

[Akima]

I wanted to be a doctor. Obviously, that didn't work out, but I at the moment I work in health-care anyway...

[Thrillho]

Helicopter pilot, police officer, physical effects artist for hollywood specializing in robotics, computer engineer... I don't suppose Jedi counts, does it?

If I can have sea lion you can have Jedi.

[Pilchard123]

I know/know of a guy who wanted to be "a rock star, or a forensic scientist as backup". So far, the music seems to be working out for him.

[GarandMarine]

Does he do the Forensic Science thing as his day job? Cause that would be awesome. Shredding guitars at night, shredded bodies by day

[Thrillho]

Those two career paths are about equally plausible frankly. Certainly a similar number of jobs available.

[doombilly]

songwriter, halfway competent guitar player. Almost made it.

[Patrick]

I'm still working on those too, man. I don't suppose I'll ever stop.

I do recall being 5 years old, trying to play my sister's acoustic guitar, and being mesmerized by the fact that there was so much more going on in all my favorite songs than just the one instrument. So I suppose that even then, I knew I ultimately wanted to make those glorious sounds happen with my own hands, feet, and voice. 20 years later, I'm fluent in 3 instruments and I can sing while playing any of them (although less so for bass; still haven't reached that level of fluency yet). I'll absolutely call that a win, and a fulfillment of a lifelong dream.

Now I just want to make a modest but comfortable (and fairly private) life with it. Tough luck, since if you do wind up getting a break (gonna double-stress this: IF), you can't control the intensity of the aftermath. On a scale of The Kramers (a local band that never gave a shit) to the Beatles, I'd probably prefer something along the lines of RX Bandits; enough to live well, love well, and be loved well, but not enough to be stopped for autographs during every milk run, nor have pictures of you picking your nose on the covers of National Enquirer or whatever other celebrity gossip circlejerk rag you choose.

[Thrillho]

Pretty much exactly what I would want too, Pat. Famous among your own circles, respected by your peers, but able to live a normal life.

[Grognard]

My life goals as I grew up:

Professional baseball player.  I played pitcher in HS, and while I had a wicked knuckle ball and a competitive fast ball,  I never had quite the ZING to catch the scout's attention.

Fighter pilot and Astronaut: maybe every kid has this dream for a while; my dad was career USAF.  I applied for the US Air Force Academy and missed out by a Tenth of a point.  Math has always been my weakness.
I also applied to but wasn't selected for: West Point and Annapolis.
Finally, my Senator sponsor told me: "I don't think God wants you in the military, son..."

Police Officer: Accomplished. 7 years of service.  I've actually appeared on the TV show 'COPS'.  But low pay and shitty medical care left me in pain and in massive debt.  So I went looking for another career.

Since my 20s, I've wanted to have my own Gaming and Hobby store.  I think that would be cool.

Now I'm in IT.  What is my motivation?  $$Benjamin$$.

now days: I'd like to be 190# when I grow up.

BTW: 1,000th post Dudes!!!

[Thrillho]

Pfft, cut me open and count the rings

[Neko_Ali]

No no... Doctor wasn't one of the jobs I ever wanted Gareth. Nor tree surgeon. Now... comedian maybe...

I've also wanted to run my own gaming store, but really that's more of an adult dream. I guess it still counts though, since I never intend to grow up.

[94ssd]

I NEVER wanted to be a doctor. The idea of being around blood and sick people grossed me out when I was a kid.

[lepetitfromage]

Ugh, ditto. Still does, actually.