Radha Ratnaparkhi ⋅ Yorktown Heights , NY IBM ⋅ 26 years experience

Hi Jennifer - I know you already have some great pointers above but just wanted to add one more :
Given that you are trilingual - how about a career in linguistics?

Thanks,
Radha

henry briggs ⋅ Saint Louis , MO U.S. Army, Private ⋅ 4 years served

You can never go wrong with checking out being a Solar Engineer. It is so exciting and working with Fiber Optics and Light is so easy and wild...check it out, I'm a Solar Engineer and loving it.

Ted Mittelstaedt ⋅ Portland , OR Portlandia IT LLC ⋅ 20 years experience

Hi Jennifer,

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say your a right-brained person who has spent her life doing left brain tasks and you know deep down that there's something wrong. That's why you can't settle down. There's a talent in something buried in there that wants to get out and hasn't been allowed to get out.

Makes me wonder if you were raised by parents who always said at the drop of a hat how important it was to get a good job, be responsible, etc. Particularly if you have kids - that tends to make a lot of people get responsible real fast.

Don't quit your job. Instead, I suggest you pick up a hobby that is 180 degrees opposite from what you do for a living. Like, play an instrument. Or paint., Or sculpt or make clay figures. If your interested in technical writing but you aren't good in math and didn't like IT then maybe what your really interested in is the writing part. Maybe down in your subconscious is a creative artist screaming to get out? Try exploring that part of you with a hobby. The great thing about hobbies is they can be changed if you find you don't like them, and if you find you do like them, you can work at them until you get good then you can quit your day job.

Yvonne Ibelli ⋅ Valhalla , NY ⋅ 7 years experience

Hi Jennifer,

I am a Career Counselor at a Community College and I'm just curious, have you taken any career assessments to help you in your career planning? Below is a link to a free online career assessment that you can take and I would be happy to discuss the results with you. I've also included a link to other career related websites that have a lot of useful information. If you want to discuss anything with me, please feel free to reach out to me at: yvonneib@hotmail.com

Career Assessment
http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/jtypes2.asp

Career Resources Websites
www.careeronestop.org
www.bls.gov

Best of luck,
Yvonne

Mike Helfert ⋅ Waco , TX NOAA and NASA ⋅ 40 years experience

I am intrigued by your Q.

I faced the same one a few decades ago, but there was no net like this avail at the time. I think you might be happier thinking outside the traditional business boxes. Go ahead, take some risks, do a number of different things, be NOT afraid...the heck with all this finding a nice warm cuddly spot in a business situation... Follow your intellect...you don't like math or whatever, then experiment around...you are young...you should be not afraid.

When I was your (assumed) age. I was married, 2 kids, and had just finished my second tour O/S...SE and SW Asia, then the Iron Curtain border. Bilingual, Rus/Eng, plus smatterings of Asian languages. I was MI, and I didn't like my future survival possibilities based on my doings, and our last NSA class photo having been published on the front page of Pravda with an Lage Black X across the face of one of my classmates who had made a mistake in the field. Made my spouse a bit uneasy too.
So I considered the "civil" agencies pathways, but not being a lover of Wash DC, I didn't go that route.

I got out as an E-5, took the GI Bill, and went up to U Tx. Decided on a Physical Geography major with an eye on professoring, so I went into climate and ocean studies for my PhD, took great risks, spent a summer studying ocean birds and El Niño at the American Museum of Nat'l Hist (NYC), and a yr doing deep ocean core analyses at Woods Hole (Cape Cod). Got my final degree, went professoring...found it not satisfying, as I was teaching young folks to do what I wanted to do myself...so in my non-linear fashion I started hunting DOING professional stuff myself...by that time I was Prof of Meteo and Oceangr at the USCG Academy. This had taken me 7 yrs.

So I called an Olde buddy or two. I ended up getting a Program Manager job down at the NASA-Johnson Space Ctr in satellite data analysi, which I had done in the black environ. I did that then in the civil environ for a decade, then switched to training Space Shuttle crews on what to photograph, where, and when for another 15-20 yrs. Retired after we ran out of Shuttles to crash.

Got bored. An Olde buddy called and asked if I would mind running a NOAA pgm building climate monitoring stations in the 50 States plus in a number of locations around the world...Siberia, Italy, Kilimanjaro, Quelccaya, NZ, etc. I did that for 8 or so yrs, then had grandchildren, and wanted to travel freely a bit till the cock crows twice.. SO I quit (3rd retirement). Now I'm bored as heck. getting ready to wander some more.

My POINT for you is to go do what you think what you want to do, let it morph on its own and your own development, and then have the myachki to sniff new opportunities as they come. Don't die inside by doing one thing from now until some gray day when that job is finished with you.

Go back to college...U TN has a very good Geography pgm...go study climate, aim for a job up at the NOAA National Climate Data Centr up in Asheville NC. They require MS's mostly, but they love PhDs
Too, and a job up there in the Smokies can lead you anywhere in the world you want to go.

Or go get a Biz degree, and make a lot of dough, and die inside.
Life is short, babe! Go take charge of it yourself.

Ciao,

Mike Helfert

Walter Young ⋅ Doylestown , PA Ortivus AB ⋅ 25 years experience

I am going to guess you are in your late 20s. Given that you have eliminated all the usual 'close to home' areas you might think about beginning a business career in Sales. Not automobile or retail but a serious sales job with an IBM, HP, Google or similar. Identifying, training and managing sales people is one of the most difficult (sometimes elusive) tasks a company struggles with. Accordingly their selection process is very difficult but if you can get past the gatekeeper then you have a broad range of career paths that open before you.

Your narrative is quite good. Presuming you are the one who penned it you show clear organized thinking, creativity and a sense of humor including that rare quality of not taking yourself to seriously.

All of the big companies maintain very detailed web sites with positions posted. I would build a list of 10 companies and review there positions. Look at yourself as a recent grad ( about 22-25 years old) and see what interests you. Also, see if there is an way to locate vets presently working for any of those companies... make a connection with him/her.

If your reaction to this counsel is to dismiss it out-of-hand read on here.

I counseled a college grad (class of 2008) to enter sales. He started with IBM and worked there very successfully for 4 years before moving to a smaller more dynamic firm. He told me recently he will W2 between $300 and 350K this year. He loves what he is doing but he wants to now go to grad school. When he was in college more than one classmate laughed when he said he wanted to start his business career in Sales. He was even dropped by a girlfriend who also laughed. They do not laugh now.

I wish you well whatever you elect to pursue.

walt

Tim Feemster ⋅ Dallas , TX Foremost Quality Logistics ⋅ 40 years experience

What about a Logistics/supply chain career. That happens to be mine and it is a new day every day. Some math required to do analysis but if you can manage Excel well, you are good to go. Many good schools exist for this at the 2, 4 year and post graduate levels.

Lee Ivy ⋅ Sunnyvale , CA Hewlett Packard ⋅ 37 years experience

If you are preetty technically capable but you just don't like the IT environment, and training is not satisfying, have you considered something like technical writing? You get to "create something" -- documentation -- and take on interesting technical challenges. I thought of this since it sounded like you are good at explaining things? Just a thought.

Jennifer P ⋅ Fort Campbell , KY U.S. Army, Staff Sergeant ⋅ 7 years served

Radha, I have considered being a linguist but the job prospects are limited to non-existent depending on location. I'm in the Ft. Campbell area, married to an active Soldier so I am limited in terms of relocation. If I was single, I'd go to the Maryland/Virginia/DC area in an instant!

Henry, I have been seeing alot of Vets to Solar promotions, I'll have to do some research to see how I can fit in :)

Ted, reading your post made me think "I'm a peacock, you gotta let me fly!" That's a movie reference btw (New Guy)... :) Yes, something is buried deep in there, I just don't know what it is yet- and I don't know how to get it out. I do enjoy drawing/painting/designing but not to the point of doing it everyday or making a living out of it. I did like report writing, but mostly because of the rapport I had to build with a person in order to obtain that info. I'll have to look into technical writing a little bit more. All I can compare it to is Army technical manuals and regulations! Boy were those boring!

Yvonne, I have taken many of those career assessment tools. An ACP advisor I had instructed me to take a personality/leadership test as well and it was pretty darn accurate. With that being said, it did not really help me in narrowing down what I wanted to do.

I guess I'll just have to keep trying new things and see if I like it! I have been volunteering for a non-profit and it is pretty rewarding; but I don't know if I'd want to do it as a career either.

Jennifer P ⋅ Fort Campbell , KY U.S. Army, Staff Sergeant ⋅ 7 years served

Lee, I never thought about technical writing- I'll look into that! I did do a lot of report writing which I loved- but I think I loved the human interaction and building of rapport prior to writing those reports.

Tim, I have absolutely 0 experience in logistics/supply... Must do research :)

Walter, you're correct- I'm edging on 30, but I feel like a senior in high school! I actually tried sales with Charter communications... followed 2 of their best producers in the state and quit right after (lasted 2 weeks). I hate having to establish a relationship, just to sell them something... which is what I basically did in the Army (but I was selling freeeeedoooom)!! I thought about pursuing an MBA since it's so broad and applicable to a variety of career fields... but everyone has one these days and I don't know if it will hinder me from standing out. I was looking into Competitive Intelligence as well, since the methodology is pretty similar to my MOS.

Mike, I love you and I don't even know you!! Thank you for your candor. Quite the impressive background you have; I bet you were a fun professor! My apprehension of just "letting it happen" is the waste of resources and time :( As adventurous as I am, I also like to organize and plan before going on that adventure.

****Thank you all so much for your input! I'm not concerned so much with money. I'm more concerned with loving the work that I do. Just need to figure out what I really love. I have some new ideas thanks to you gents!