Career confusion

I've always prided myself in knowing where I'm headed - knowing what I want, and how to achieve it. I've always been self-assured when it came to figuring out what it is when I want to leave school. But lately... I just don't really know.

It's obvious even in my first post on here that my aim was to get into medicine. But, after I began my psychology sessions I've begun to wonder if doing medicine is what I really want to do. Throughout my life I've been petted and praised for my ability to use my brain, to the extent that that was basically all I felt I amounted to. A brain. Intelligence. And I feel like, maybe I've taken all that and chosen a career that I felt would please those who see me as a brain. I guess I've internalised all the compliments about my grades and my intellectual ability and have done my best to choose the most prestigious pathway my subject selection has allowed me. And for a long time I insisted I was dong it for myself, to make me happy. But I've wondered recently if I wasn't just hiding behind that phrase because I was afraid to admit that I wasn't doing any of it for myself - I was doing it to please others. That being said, it isn't as though I dislike medicine or wouldn't enjoy it if I ever did do it. But I've wondered if maybe I chose it because I thought it was what everyone else wanted.

Lately I've been feeling more and more an inclination towards literature. As much as it is a hobby for me, I truly don't think I would mind if I could make a career out of it. I certainly would like to study it at university. But I'm a little at a loss for what I could do with it. At the moment, I've done my university application, and I've put a secondary English teacher down as one of my preferences. Many people said when they heard I did that that I don't really seem the type to teach, that it wouldn't be as rewarding as I think it would be, that I don't have the right skill set or temperament... And normally, I'd take all this to heart. But I'm reminded of a conversation I once had with my Chemistry teacher. She told me she was once a shy, mousy girl just like me. She was socially awkward, not confident, and many people told her too that she wouldn't be a good teacher. Everyone now knows what a brilliant teacher she is, even if my grades in Chem aren't all that impressive. She's proved to me that you don't have to listen to what other people think. Besides, I haven't finished becoming the person I was meant to be - I feel like I'm supposed to be more confident, assertive, proud of who I am and more secure in myself. Just because I haven't got to that stage doesn't mean I won't. Just because I'm shy and therefore not quite suited to dealing with classrooms full of naughty children doesn't mean I'll always be.

 

So I'm wondering if I'd end up liking that kind of environment. I mean, they probably do teach you some skills to dealing with children on a daily basis. And I do have a fairly long temper - I rarely lose my shit at people, so that's a character trait that I have in my favour. I see the English department quite often at my high school, and each time I'm struck with how much I'd like to be a part of that environment. The world of literature just feels like home to me, and I want more than ever to be able to find something in that pathway that I could use to make a career out of. If anyone has any recommendations for careers in literature, help a girl out?

So yeah, that's me. I haven't heard from the medical department at the university I've applied to (one of the only ones in my state that is equipped for students to study medicine), but if I get in, I'll definitely give it a go. Who knows - I might just discover that it is what I wanted to do all along. I might decide I want to be a geneticist, or work with diseases or cancer. I might be a literature teacher, or an academic, or a lawyer, or maybe even a history teacher. I don't know. But I have time to figure everything out.

Thanks for reading!