Career Filter: Two paths diverged...

July 10, 2008 5:03 AM

Career Filter: I'm mid 20s, consider myself pretty lucky with a wonderful life. I'm blessed (or damned) with the ability, finances, and interests to make choices with my life. Unfortunately, I make large decisions in my life with too little thought. Based on some deliberation and discussion, I've made up two paths I want to go with, for now. I'd like some help on choosing one or the other.

Path 1: Apply to urban planning (completely fascinated by the topics of school, but not sure about related careers) and Law School (keeping options open) while temping in Chicago. January-August travel/live abroad. Start school (maybe dual) in Fall '09. Decide on specific career during Urban Planning school, which would include consulting, academia and law.

Path 2: Return to the IT consulting world, specifically at the company I worked (pretty happily) before I went off into another career option 6 months ago (physical therapy) that I didn't ponder enough. Enjoy life, the camaraderie and the travel but knowing that there's a good chance that it won't last forever. Would still research other careers (like above), possibly leaving after two years and doing parts of Path 1.

How I've thought of it:
Path 1
Pros:Why waste time in a job in an unrelated field? Most flexibility to travel for longer periods of time. Gut feeling tells you this is "road less taken"
Cons: Need more research into career before jumping into picking (burned once), less time situated in Chicago (recent new home, don't want to go to school here). More unknown (I'm extremely risk averse on jobs). Money spent (but won't go into debt in school).

Path 2:
Pros: Spend longer period in once place (Chicago). Flexibility in traveling and learning about new cities. Fun people to work with. Accolades (and money) from others that gives satisfaction. Feeling of some direction. Lower risk (known quality). Some 'transferable-soft' skills. Career decisions need time.
Cons: (At least) one more year not doing something you'll really enjoy, getting too used to working in a field possibly not the end. Less flexibility to "live" abroad. Job may take away from career research.

Thoughts, tips, personal anecdotes welcome.

posted by sandmanwv to work & money (7 comments total)

If you're interested in Urban Planning and have good computer knowledge (especially database), geographical information systems could be a good fit for you. It typically falls under the geography department at most universities, but it has applications in urban planning, civil engineering and pretty much any other field. Seriously, everyone uses it and those that don't, should. A grad degree in urban planning and GIS would be a pretty formidable resume.
posted by electroboy at 5:58 AM on July 10, 2008

To go along with electroboy, my wife is in the urban planning world at a pretty high level and the skill that she is most impressed by, envious of and in need of employees with is GIS. If you had exactly what electroboy stated, a planning degree and strong GIS training, you could coast into some really great projects and get some fantastic experience under your belt that would get you to project manager in no time. You might throw in some management and public policy coursework into the mix as well, as that is going to get you up the ladder. With a law degree to boot you could be a mucky-muck very quickly.
posted by Pollomacho at 7:01 AM on July 10, 2008

Awesome.. I worked/would work in Data warehousing (though my skills are more in the 'soft', business analyst/pm/client interaction). Thematic maps have always interested me. I'll do some research into GIS.
posted by sandmanwv at 7:13 AM on July 10, 2008

The issue with GIS, is unless you find a good entry employer, you've got to be well versed and experienced with something like ArcSoft in order to get a foot in the door. I've tried before, since it's also an industry that interests me. Another issue with GIS though, is that the smaller companies have gone under, or been bought-out, so there's really only two, maybe three, companies left, and their large, so, maybe for entry level that might be fine.

Please avoid the lawyer route. Really. My personal opinion, others may disagree, is that the lawyer sharks are a major cause of issues, in North America anyway.

With IT, it's hard to go wrong. Most people at work have no clue about their computers, and when things go wrong, you get a call. It would keep you busy at least, and usually there's things like the network routers, cabling, and general network maintenance.

Just my thoughts...

/software developer
posted by hungrysquirrels at 8:37 AM on July 10, 2008

I highly recommend talking with lots of lawyers before you decide to go to law school. Learn about what they do, get a sense of their personalities and lifestyles, and see if these are people who you really admire and would like to have as role models.

I am going into my third year of law school now. Even though I spent several years considering whether to go (and even working in a law office), I still don't think I realized what I was getting myself into. And I kind of regret going. But part of it is that I am deep in debt now, which it sounds like you will not have to deal with, so that might make a big difference.

Law school is intellectually stimulating, but extremely stifling at the same time. It's a weird combo.
posted by Tren at 10:08 AM on July 10, 2008

sandmanwv

Getting to Know ArcGIS is a good introductory book. I have the previous version, Getting to Know ArcView. It'll show you how to do some basic tasks and give you a good handle on what some of the capabilities are. I know I'm gushing a little bit, but it's really a fabulous tool, even if you're not going to do it professionally.
posted by electroboy at 11:22 AM on July 10, 2008

Don't spend the money on law school unless you: (1) love the idea of being a lawyer more than anything else or (2) get into a top 14 school and don't care what you end up doing so long as you pull a good salary.

Seriously. There is nothing sadder than dropping $100k on student loans for law school and then landing a job you don't love that works you 80 hours a week and pays $45k. Of course that's not always true, but it's a pretty sobering reality for most people who don't end up at a top school and don't have a graduate degree in a hard science.
posted by elvedon at 8:08 AM on July 12, 2008