

Ask HN: How can I choose a fulfilling career? - gschiller

I&#x27;m currently a high school senior about to apply to colleges, but how can I even know what will make me happy? It feels like I have to make a huge decision without knowing anything.
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kirse
_how can I even know what will make me happy_

Do you have any ideas in mind? Even the slightest vague inkling like "this
topic or activity has me curious"? Or are you applying to college because it's
the next-thing-to-do and that's what everyone else expects of a high-school
senior?

If you don't know what to do, make a basic plan to 1) list out a few things
that you're curious about and 2) try them. It's really that simple. Don't get
into analysis paralysis. Pick something and try it. If you stick with it and
it sucks, try something else. This is real life now, and you're completely
free to try whatever you want. The key is to _try something_ though, don't
bury your talents in the ground (so to speak) and get stuck in fear. Once you
get older, you'll realize anyway that fulfillment is often correlated with
your attitude... some activities make it _easier_ to have a good attitude, so
it's your mission to find them.

A short aside on College:

When I chose to go to college and bury myself under a crushing mountain of
school-loan debt, I went because I had clarity about what I really enjoyed and
where I wanted to end up... in my 5th grade yearbook other kids were writing
down "singer" and "astronaut", but I wrote down that I wanted to be a
"Computer Programmer / Hacker". I had zero self-awareness about it back then,
but it authentically came from a heart that loved to build/engineer things.

Don't apply to college with NO PLAN and pray you'll end up somewhere, unless
of course you have parents who are paying for all that ;) At the end of the
day, this is your life now, and if your plan involves taking a year to figure
yourself out, that's a completely valid life course to take, too.

~~~
shire
How much student loan are you in debt in? I'm thinking of taking out student
loans myself.

~~~
kirse
I said "crushing mountain" mostly for shock value, only because when I was 17
and applying for college I really didn't grasp the burden of "future me"
having to wheelbarrow $700+ a month away from the School-Loans quarry for 7+
years. It wasn't six-figs like some unfortunate souls, though... those are the
brave warriors trying to summit Mt. Debtverest.

It's not all bad either, I learned a few good lessons about the
time/energy/freedom value of money and have also been rewarded with a strong
aversion towards impulsively taking on debt.

------
PencilAndPaper
1\. Dont rush into anything that costs you a ton of money

2\. Spend as much time learning about yourself as you do about different
career fields

3\. Dont take advice from career counsellors or program advisors. In my
experience most of the time they are sales people in disguise.

4\. Talk to seasoned adults who have been doing what they are doing for a
while (lets say at least 5 years). In most professions it is not weird to ask
for an informational interview, and they are super useful. A lot of the time
people you interview with will try and find you jobs or other leads.

5\. Remember it is your life, not your parents. Making them happy wont
necessarily make you happy and _you_ have to live your life.

6\. Volunteer (if you can afford to)

7\. Travel (if you can afford to). check out youth/student working visas in
foreign places.

8\. consider if your personality and lifestyle is compatible with career
fields you are considering. For example, if you like stability and routine,
Film might not be your thing. If you like to move about and use your body as
well as your mind, computer stuff might drive you batty. If you want a life
outside of work, and dont want to be working all of the time, dont become a
nurse, etc

9\. Check out trades apprenticeships. Trades are high in demand, you get paid
while you are in school (in Canada at least), you have a job most of the time,
and at the end of it you make way more money than most people. If you decide
the trade you have chosen isnt for you, you will at least be making enough
money to put yourself through school again.

10\. Meetup.com. Find a group that meets about something you are interested in
and join it.

------
csa
This is a great essay from pg ("What you'll wish you'd known"):

[http://paulgraham.com/hs.html](http://paulgraham.com/hs.html)

I recommend this to anyone in high school or college who is looking for good
heuristics for life direction.

My "elevator pitch" answer (much included in pg essays) is:

a) Find interesting people you like to be around.

b) Find interesting and hard problems to work on.

c) Find a place you want to live.

Looking at these heuristics often makes choices a lot easier.

------
cl42
There's a really good book on the topic of career planning (among other
things), written by Cal Newport -- "So Good They Can't Ignore You"
([http://www.amazon.ca/books/dp/1455509124](http://www.amazon.ca/books/dp/1455509124)).

Most people give the advice of "Do what you love and get most excited about"
and this is, to some extent, the advice I would have given as well. However,
when I think back to the work I've done and that has made me most proud in
life, a bit chunk of it is simply doing new things, and pushing myself further
than ever before. Cal Newport's advice is more along the lines of "Do what
you're really good at, rather than only what you love."

Of course, this assumes you don't _hate_ what you're doing. Food for thought.

~~~
rdouble
_Cal Newport 's advice is more along the lines of "Do what you're really good
at, rather than only what you love."_

That's interesting, as other career gurus argue the opposite view. For example
Barbara Sher, author of _" I Could Do Anything If I Only Knew What It Was"_
gives the example of herself as an unhappy stay-at-home mom. She is an expert
at cooking, changing diapers, and other aspects of child rearing. If she
pursued what she was really good at, she'd be limiting her options to work as
a nanny, or perhaps open a day-care center.

------
mrlyc
Do what you love, what you are good at and what people are willing to pay for.

Look for a job with interesting work, nice people to work with and a
financially stable company. Sometimes you have to settle for two out of three.

------
shire
most important thing is find something you love to do and major in it, don't
contemplate while in college because picking the right major ahead of time
means you know what classes you will need to take and it will make your time
there easier and more efficient otherwise you will end up taking classes that
aren't for your major if you decide to change majors half way.

~~~
caw
I switched majors 2 times (3 if you count a Bursar mistake). I signed up for
CS, changed my major before I started, then changed back to CS 1 year in.

It's really not a big deal. I thought I wanted to do engineering, and after my
first internship I realized it wasn't for me. I got to try out new things,
made a couple of non-CS friends, and only lost a few credit hours (almost
everything transferred as "electives").

For freshman year, you're going to be be taking mostly your generic core
classes, like sciences, English, and math. Maybe you'll take one or two major
related classes.

If you're stuck between majors, try taking the intro class of both majors.
They're generally not major restricted like the higher level classes, and you
can decide while taking them. Maybe you'll even decide dual majoring is for
you. There's also sometimes "certificates", that's a smaller requirement than
a minor.

Remember that even Steve Jobs took classes outside of his core major, and
those "unimportant" design classes influenced what he built. College is an
experience to open you to new ideas, so might as well take advantage of that.

Still, don't stick around too long, since you're paying for those experiences.
It'll get mighty expensive if you choose professional student as your major.

