Why Did You Choose Your Profession?

[xSilverPhinx]

So many interesting people, choices and jobs here.

I agree.

[xSilverPhinx]

Ok, my turn I guess.

So many interesting professional lives! I really enjoyed reading all the stories, thanks all for sharing. 

Well, IMO our professional lives start in school, so here goes:

After I finished high school I took a year off before going to private university, from which I dropped out after one semester, due to exorbitant fees and the fact that my parents had just gotten divorced, so I was really hopelessly depressed at the time. Classes were easy and I was doing well, but I just didn't want to go anymore. I don't regret that decision.

Fast forward a few years, after an academic hiatus with no 'real' job to keep me busy, I got into a public (better) university, majoring in Letters (English and Portuguese). If I were to say that I hated it, it would be an understatement. I loathed it. Classes just sucked and I spoke better English than the non-native teachers did, so you get an idea of their quality. Massively disillusioned, I dropped out after one year. I don't regret that decision.   

When I turned 26 I got into the same public university again, this time hoping to get a bachelor's degree in Biological Sciences. It's a different experience when you're a more mature student, and I enjoyed most classes. I'm proud to say that I would be just one semester away from graduating, though to a variety of reasons I'm going to have to stretch that to two semesters. During the past three years almost I've been a paid neuroscience lab undergraduate intern, conducting my own research (under lots of supervision heh) and collaborating with others. Next year I intend to start my Master's in neuroscience, specifically dealing with memory. Since I receive a government funded grant I'm not allowed to hold a 'real' job, which has put me back a little financially.

So yeah, one on hand I can't wait to finish school, on the other I'm going to try and further my studies in an area of my choosing. 

I'm worried about the future though, and if people living in first world countries think they have it bad, it's become way worse for science around here. The government is cutting spending on all fronts when there wasn't much to begin with.

So, deep down, I don't know if I should continue or invest in a Plan B,C,D...

I can always continue to translate, speaking adequate English it is a marketable skill, and continue to pour all my disposable income into buying and selling books.

[Lark]

When I left school I had just recovered from Chicken pox which had put me in contact with a young nurse who told me stories about her training which took my interest. Several generations of my family had been nurses. There was not a lot of choice for women in those days. I discovered my parents were short of money and nursing training was free with food and accommodation. So, I became a nurse.

At the time (WWII) nursing was seen as a vocation rather than a job and carried many outside advantages like special rates in many shops, cinemas, theatres etc.; put in the front of any queue and the respect of the community. It was quite a hard life but very satisfying. Later I became a midwife which I enjoyed more than general nursing but had to give up after marriage and children of my own as it did not fit with domestic life. I saw many, many changes and am now retired but my daughter continued with the profession and has travelled the world with her qualifications.

[hermes2015]

Thank you xSilverPhinx for starting this excellent thread. It has been very interesting to read all the histories and I hope my story will not be too boring in comparison.

First of all, yes, I absolutely had a choice in my career path and cannot blame anyone else for the way my life has played out. In the matter of career choice nobody forced me to do anything, as will be clear from my story.

At school I was always equally at home in the "Two Cultures" and this was underpinned years later when several left-right brain tests revealed that I showed no dominance of one side over the other. That may explain my developing deep interests in art, architecture, and music from about the age of 10, but at the same time also reading all the science books I could lay my hands on. At this age I also discovered I liked boys more than girls, but that part of my story is for another time and thread. My parents never pushed me in any direction, and praised me equally when I proudly showed them my latest art project or science experiment. I must have been an insufferable little brat, because I always chipped into adult conversations with my opinions on art and science (think of me as a miniature, male Susan Sontag).

As a child, I liked to make lists of my "heroes" – this is a very interesting and telling exercise. I still like doing that - this may be a good topic for another new thread.
Anyway, a career advisor advised a career in the sciences rather than the arts: "You will always have a job as a scientist, but artists are the first to suffer when the economy is bad".  Of the sciences, physics appealed to me most. So at nineteen, after a horrible year's compulsory military service, I enrolled as a first-year science student. My plan was to eventually graduate with physics as my major, but I soon learned that the staff in the Chemistry Department were much more convivial than the physicists. During the day, I found myself spending a lot of time associating with the chemists, in particular the organic chemists. That I found organic chemistry very appealing is not surprising: think of it as architecture on a very small scale.

Most evenings and weekends, however, I could be found at the local art school hanging around with sculptors, painters, and ceramicists. That is when I started my lifelong hobby of creating ceramic sculptures (again, a topic for another time). My room at home was also my painting studio (the award I won as best painter at the university is equally important to me as my PhD in organic chemistry). At that time I bought my first decent camera (a Nikon Nikkormat Ftn), starting another lifelong interest.

I eventually spent 8 years working towards a PhD. Halfway through I was appointed to the staff as a lecturer in organic chemistry. Lecturing was a good way to learn the theory of my subject, so I gained as much as I hope my student did. I did a few years of postdoctoral research and lecturing (universities in South Africa, London, Beirut) before becoming an applications specialist on Agilent Technologies instrumentation. Now that I am retired, turning 71 this year, I still do consulting and training, mainly in the field of chromatography-mass spectrometry.

I now have more time to dabble in some art projects and of course my other major love, classical music. That alone will need another of my over-long rambles to discuss. In the meantime, I hope my story will be of some interest to the other members of our group.

[Dave]

XSP, if you continue your interest in memory and happen to find a good source of capacity I am in tbe market for some . . .

[xSilverPhinx]

XSP, if you continue your interest in memory and happen to find a good source of capacity I am in tbe market for some . . .

The adage "use it or lose it" certainly applies to memory. Possibly the best exercise is reading, it trains all types of memory - working memory, short and long term.

There are two aspects of memory that you can seek to improve or include in order to better remember things. One is attention and the other is emotional valence. Despite what some people believe, we are animals with limited brain resources, just like any other, and are not good at juggling too many items in our brains at once. An overloaded working memory will not adequately consolidate very short term memories into longer lasting ones. So avoid multitasking when you want to remmeber. Next, emotional memories tend to persist longer in "normal" brains so if you're able to assign positive or negative value to what you want to remember, it can help those memories be more resistant to decay.

The only place in which adult neurogenesis occurs that we know of is the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus, an essential stucture for the formation of long lasting memories. There are some drugs that have been shown to stimulate neurogenesis in animal models, but then again so does physical excercise, which is probably preferable. 

Too much stress and not enough stress negatively impact the formation  of some memories.

[Dave]

Thanks, xSP 

Too much stress and not enough stress negatively impact the formation  of some memories.

Hmm, something to think about there (if I remember to do so . . .)

[joeactor]

XSP, if you continue your interest in memory and happen to find a good source of capacity I am in tbe market for some . . .

I'll take whatever's left over ;-)

Hermes - would love to see some of your artwork!

[Davin]

I liked making video games when I was a kid. One of my brothers and I decided to specialize, so I started focusing on graphics and he on programming. Then it turned out that we weren't very motivated or disciplined. So I decided that I should learn how to program so that I could do the programming and graphics. Then during college, I figured that I better find a way to pay off that school debt as well as being able to feed myself, so I just went for a regular programming career while planning to make games on the side.

That didn't work out very well, until the last few years, when I finally started actually following my plan by actually working on developing games.

[hermes2015]

XSP, if you continue your interest in memory and happen to find a good source of capacity I am in tbe market for some . . .

I'll take whatever's left over ;-)

Hermes - would love to see some of your artwork!

Thank you, I will post some examples, but I need a few days to sort out some stuff.

[Dragonia]

I love threads like this, where I get to know you guys so much better. I love peoples' stories.
I think I had a choice, but my nature also led me a certain direction, which I was happy with for many years. I had moved to Colorado Springs as a newly married girl of barely 20. Only a year of college under my belt, and a lot of time spent working at a gas station (A job that I loved). So with no skills really to speak of, I started my job search, and just when I was feeling quite worthless to society, a wonderful dentist offered to train me as a dental assistant. I jumped at that chance, and it turns out, I was really, really good at that job. The small details, the need to be prepared, the desire to help, and my nurturing nature were all satisfied by this job. 
I did this until I started having babies, 10 years later.  Then I was a mom for about 10 years.  Now, I'm still a mom, but I own a cleaning business, focusing on senior-age peoples' homes and upscale apartments--a job that plays into my need for flexibility and my serious attention to small details (some would call it anal-retentive or OCD  )

[Bad Penny II]

It's fun to charter an accountant
And sail the wide accountancy,
To find, explore the funds offshore
And skirt the shoals of bankruptcy!

I hope you all realise it hurts every time you use the term "accountant's solution" derogatively.
I bet you'd all fawn if a scientist had said the very same sensible thing.

[xSilverPhinx]

It's fun to charter an accountant
And sail the wide accountancy,
To find, explore the funds offshore
And skirt the shoals of bankruptcy!

Very good, very good. 

[Biggus Dickus]

Just wanted to tip my hat to xSP and this thread, very interesting read so far.

[xSilverPhinx]

Just wanted to tip my hat to xSP and this thread, very interesting read so far.