Career Choices Evolution

Since coming to college my career choices have changed almost by semester. I first intended to work in the publishing industry as someone who eventually gets to decide what gets published and what doesn’t. I refined that after my first semester to becoming a copy editor of novels in a publishing house, in the hopes of working my way up the commercial hierarchy.

But that year I had to copy edit Falling for the Story at my job with the Northern Virginia Writing Project. I had copy edited before with my high school’s literary art magazine, Eddas, but Falling for the Story is a larger publication and we were editing it on a more in-depth level. After eight hours a day editing writing from students aged Elementary school to High school, I found that editing made me a very critical person outside of work. I started paying attention to small details all around me and while I enjoyed the actually editing, the critical behavior I had to adopt was stressful. I couldn’t enjoy things quite as much after a long day of editing.

That summer, I attended a talk by an author of a teen book about vampires. Hearing her talk about the publishing process made me wonder what it would be like to be on the marketing side of the publishing industry. I then was about to make the switch from an English major to a Marketing major. But after closer examination, I realized I am not cut out for the marketing world.

I returned to my copy editing idea, even after experiencing the same behavior change once I began work as a copy editor with the Office of Student Media. I continued to work at the Northern Virginia Writing Project where I have felt some form of happiness from helping create programs that help children learn how to write creatively and to help teachers become better teachers of writing by doing behind the scenes office work.

I started job hunting for a job that I could start working at now and would transfer into a solid job upon graduation in two years. I discovered that the Department of State and CIA were hiring. I was immediately interested. As my dad has said, “You should serve your country. I served in the military so you wouldn’t have to, but you should still serve your country.” I realized that in the current economy with copy editors being laid off and print media a dying industry; I could find stability with a government job. I would be paid well with all the benefits that come from a government job. I would be doing work that would matter on a grand scale which would give me satisfaction.

I want to ideally be doing something like an analyst’s job. I would like to be the person finding the common factor in a group of information given to me from other specialists. I would like to turn my skills at finding anomalies within writing and in the outside world to a job where such skills could be helpful on a larger scale. I would like to study other cultures and assist my country in the best way I can.