what's your career aspiration?

[spectastic]

right now, I'm kind of conflicted between two opposite sides of a spectrum. on one hand, I want to work hard, put in my hours, develop my skills, and get ready for a competitive job market in a competitive industry, and work my way into an impactful position in my field of study. on the other hand, the rat race and corporate ladder isn't actually that appealing, and I want to have more free time for hobbies, friends, relationships, bucklist items like riding a motorcycle across south america, and be able to afford this through passive income streams like real estate and investing, living a minimalist lifestyle, and having a position that pays good $/hr. I realize that these two perspectives largely conflict each other, and it's a balancing act. However, I've yet to meet many people who have this balance all figured out.

So just out of curiosity, what kind of careers are people here looking for? And what role does grad school play to help you get there?

[TakeruK]

I don't know if I will ever get the balance figured out. My perspective is that I do not want my career to define who I am as a person. I see my career as a means to allow me to have the life I want, instead of defining the life I want as my career. So, in that sense, I lean more towards the second thing you mention (although my bucket list may not involve motorcycles lol). Or, the other way I look at it is to think about how I want to spend my life and my top priorities are my family, my hobbies/friends, and making an impact on my community (locally and globally). In that order.

My career provides the money for me to do the first two things the way I'd like to. In an ideal world, my career would also allow me to achieve my 3rd priority. It would be awesome if I could work as a planetary astronomer forever and get to teach new generations of students, produce research valuable to my field and inspire people to think about science. However, this is my 3rd priority because I wouldn't pick a career that allows me to do this at the cost of my relationships with my family, hobbies and friends. If I can't have the 3rd thing in my career without losing the first two things, then my plan is to find a way to "make a difference" outside of my work.

So, to answer your question, the things that I feel are absolutely necessary in a career are (all equally important):

1. Reasonable work expectations (no more than 40 hours per week on regular basis)
2. Reasonable working hours (not places that expect 12 hour days or startup-culture where you have code-a-thons etc.)
3. Not a ton of required travel that requires me to be away from home (I love travel, but some positions have you travelling multiple times per month!)
4. Policies that allow for good work-life balance  (e.g lots of vacation time, sick leave time, time off to care for family, etc.). Also, actual vacation time (some places I've seen will expect you to make up time taken off!)
5. A salary to support the lifestyle I want and commensurate with the work I do
6. Benefits such as pensions

The things that I would like to have, in an ideal world, are:
1. Training/mentoring of junior colleagues (e.g. students, but not only that)
2. Teaching/outreach/interaction with external groups (e.g. general public, school groups etc.)
3. Some occasional travel for work (2 or 3 times a year)
4. Feeling like I am making a difference in other people's lives

Overall, I think a position as a researcher of some sort fits these goals the best. And graduate school is an excellent way to qualify for research positions. I'm interested in research position within and outside of academia. So far, things are going well. I graduated earlier this year and just started a postdoctoral research position that meets all of the above (both the necessary and the ideal). It's a 2 (or 3) year contract position, so it's not forever, but I hope to continue to be lucky enough to find more positions like it.

Just want to also point out that grad school helped me figure out what career paths I don't want to pursue. I am pretty sure now that I do not want to be a tenure-track professor at a super intense research-driven school. Although I do know a few people that seem to have a good work-life balance, the majority of these professors work way more and devote way more of their time to their careers than I am willing to. I have also attended a ton of career fairs and recruitment sessions to know what types of positions I don't want to work in outside of academia. I had originally thought that a consultant type position would be very interesting and rewarding, but one particular company (that does failure testing, i.e. figure out why some product failed and what the root cause was) that came to my campus discussed their day-in-a-life and it's not for me! The main red flag (for me) was that this company sold how much travel you would do (every week, it seems, to go to clients all over the USA) as a positive, while that would be extremely negative for me. Of course, I know that there are other companies with different working models, but these experiences help me figure out what to look out for. So that's another "indirect" way grad school helped me find the balance!

[Adelaide9216]

I would like to become a postsecondary teacher in social work (at college or university). I've also been considering politics, a lot of people around me believe I will end up in politics because of the different projects I've been involved in, but it's a bit early for me to say now since I want a family eventually. The only thing I know for sure is that I definetly want to advocate for marginalized communities for the rest of my life, in one form or the other. I want to keep on doing speeches/talk, talk in the media and be involved in my community, because that's what I am already doing and I am really passionate about it. 

Edited August 3, 2017 by Adelaide9216

[spectastic]

thanks for your responses rakeruk and adelaide. I think my ideal situation is similar to yours, in that I don't want to work for a living. my adviser on the other hand, works for a living.. we're talking 60-80 hour weeks. He's here on the weekends, for like 11 hours/day, etc. I feel like that's the case with a lot of these companies, especially in downstream manufacturing. You either edge out your competitor, or you get out competed. Right now, it's in my best interest to work my ass off, because in order to qualify for these interesting research jobs, and not be a glorified technician at some big semiconductor manufacturer. Right now, I can envision two scenarios. I work hard, in order to qualify for a chill job that I actually like, and allow me to have the balanced lifestyle that we all want as human beings, and I get to take 2 months off to ride my motorcycle to buenos aires (ideal scenario). OR. I work hard right now, and a few years down the road, I'm a workaholic with no life, because either I focus all my effort on the mission, or give my position up to the next guy who's more ambitious and motivated than I am, and I end up working as a glorified technician, because that's how competitive the job market is. Realistically, the outcome is probably somewhere in between, and I know a couple of references who are actually in my field that I should be able to reach out to. But I also want to get a reading on what it might be like for others

[juilletmercredi]

I'm sort of in a different place because I'm already two years into my career. I'm a non-academic social science researcher at a large tech company.

I think people have this odd conception of the work/corporate world that's probably based largely on movies, television, and literary portrayals of work. The truth is, it's entirely possible to find deep meaning in the work that you do, even at a for-profit company. I work a position at a large corporation that generally requires about 40-50 hours a week of work. I have a lot of free time - more than I know what to do with, actually, definitely way more than I had as a graduate student. I have plenty of time to pursue hobbies, make lots of friends, and develop my relationships. And if I wanted to do things like take two weeks off to ride a motorcycle through South America or backpack through Europe or whatever...I could (and I have a reliable source of income to provide for that).

Of course I can't spend my days doing exactly what I like while I let my money make money for me, but that would never be appealing to me as an option anyway. I do define myself and my identity largely through my career and the work that I do. It's important to me to have work that I like at a place where I can advance and grow professionally. I just did not want to sacrifice my personal life and free time at this stage in my life for that.

[BenLinus6]

As for me, the only lifelong dream that really matters for me is to move from the country where I was born to the place where I want to live. In this way, graduate school allows me to adapt in a new environment, to get some new skills and acquaintances, to have a stable funded work for several years and a good start for the following life. Later I would like to work in industry at least on a simple-level position, or stay in academia if it’s possible, but the thing I really care about is getting a new citizenship and being assimilated completely – that’s how I see my happiness.