Allen Week 8: A History of Careers

    Our lives and the decisions we make throughout them are constantly changing. The decisions that we make are sometimes things to act on such as “should I eat the sandwich?” or “I wonder if my tongue will stick to this flagpole in the middle of winter.” On the other side of the decision making process are what I think are the more character building, the answers to the question, “Who am I going to be.” These decisions reflect the themes of our lives and our maturity at the time. From a very young age, we put our full trust in the world, and even when we are knocked down, we have not yet tasted the bitterness that life has in store for us, and our optimism is still young and bright. A perfect example of this is the ever-changing “dream career” of our childhood.

    We have all at one point or another had an unrealistic (though still attainable) dream career, whether it be a professional athlete, an actor, or a pop star. But once we got past the stage of wanting (and expecting) glamour and fame, we started to really explore our more reasonable options. The first of my careers in this phase was animal rescuer. I had all the toys and I even read some of my mom’s old animal behavior college textbooks, though I’m not sure that I retained any of the information contained in said textbooks because although I could boast an above-average reading level, I was still only in second grade, so although my hopes were high, my vocabulary was limited. During the part of my life after toddlerhood and before my teenage years, I wanted to be a geologist or a paleontologist. I visited countless fossil sites, even in other countries, and I still have a very large collection of my best finds. Any career that I strongly considered, I made sure that I knew as much as a kid could find out and understand about it. Geology and paleontology was my first major career that stuck around for a major period of time, about 3 years. One thing that I knew for sure was that I wanted to go into a STEM field, and when I came to a lull in enthusiasm for any of my “careers,” I would research as much as I could on any topics related to that field.

    After geology and paleontology, my main focus was mathematics, and especially after going to Chicago to compete in the MathCon competition, the career of mathematician was brought to the forefront of my list of careers. This was the first career that I was inspired to pursue by someone other than myself. While I was at MathCon, I got to listen to a lecture by Professor Arthur T. Benjamin, who was a mathematician and mathematics professor at Harvey Mudd College. After sitting in an auditorium captivated by the brilliance that was the lecture that he provided, I had made up my mind that I wanted to be a mathematician. I studied the most famous mathematicians and their works, and this was the first time that I was able to understand most of the things that I studied. I even came up with my own math tricks, my bet being the 9 rule (anyone who knew me during this time has probably had me bore you with it multiple times).

    As I turned to middle school, I began more and more fascinated with the field of engineering. The engineering field had always been on my list of careers, but a career from it had never made the top of my list. In 7th grade, I switched from wanting to be a mathematician to wanting to be a naval engineer. This phase lasted for about 2 years and consisted of me making technical drawings of anything from skiffs to oil tankers. I even built a skiff out of some old plywood and fiberglass (it wasn’t very good, but it floated, so I count that as a win). Finally, as I went around the corner into college, I became fascinated with my current “career,” aerospace engineering. I had always considered this specific type of engineering, but had always considered it too complicated, but my optimism began to heal and I realized that if I don’t go for it, I’ll never know if it's for me. What careers have you considered throughout your life? Which career are you set on now?

Young Liam at a Fossil Museum