Saturday, October 6, 2012

Don't do it for anything but the love of movement and location,

What do you want to be when you grow up?

This question takes on different answers at different phases in life.  When we're kids, we want to be cowboys or astronauts, and maybe that switches to artists or musicians, then melds to doctors and lawyers.  But, somewhere in there, we pick a path that may or may not be within the scope of a dream we once had.  For some it's more random than others.

Even in our 30s, have we found it?  My dad had a friend who finally realized, in his 50s, that he wanted to be a teacher.  So he went back to school.  And, quite frankly, good for him.  Dream big, and don't let yourself get caught up in a job that feels menial.

My career choices went something like this:

  • Age 5:  I wanted to be an astronaut like Sally Ride.  I wanted to explore space and feel what it was like to float.  I wanted to look at the Earth from outside of the atmosphere, to take it all in.
  • Age 10:  I wanted to be a pediatrician.  Not only that, I wanted to work internationally and save all the kids in Africa who didn't have access to health care... the ones they showed dying of starvation or infectious disease on TV.  I wanted to make a difference.
  • Age 15:  I wanted to be a musician.  I wanted to spend my life composing songs that expressed emotions that others could feel understanding within.  I wanted to play at night clubs, alongside amazing drummers.  I wanted to be inspired with every note I played.
  • Age 18-22, the college years:  I had no idea what I wanted to do anymore.  I wanted to be a chemical engineer, a musician, a philosopher...  I think there were a few other majors I explored, too. But I decided to major in math.  Why?  Because I liked math just fine, and I had taken a lot of math classes.  I threw in an extra major in statistics because it seemed more likely to get me a job.
  • Age 22-26, the working years:  I still had no idea what I wanted to do, but I thought it might be something more like genetics or molecular biology.
  • Age 27:  I wanted to be an epidemiologist.  I could save the world and the world's children, similar to my dreams at age 10.  I could do math/stats.  I could incorporate molecular biology.  I could work on different projects, with different collaborators, so my life would always keep me interested.
So, here I am.  An epidemiologist.  I've got an M.P.H. and am breaths away from a Ph.D. from one of the top schools in the nation.  But, even that doesn't just give me a career.  My pathway isn't just outlined.  This is fantastic, but means making decisions.  Do I teach or research?  Academia, government, or industry?  Do I continue building myself a little niche within the epigenetics of aging and chronic disease, or do I widen my net to include cardiovascular, genetics, molecular, and/or environmental epidemiology?  Do I direct myself toward computational biology and statistical genetics, or not?

What is it that I want to do, exactly?  Because there are jobs in all sorts of positions for which I can make myself a great candidate.  I can postdoc in order to explore and learn a little more about something, or I can jump into a career.  It's always exciting to see what the next step will be.







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