28 Choosing a New Path

Colby Jones

English-101-07B

May 2, 2024

Choosing a New Path

Throughout my early life, I was never quite sure what I wanted to pursue as a career. Of course, at a young age I had ambitions to be one of several typical careers that children aspire to be. Though as I got older, those ambitions faded. After high school I attended community college to pursue a photography degree, a hobby I thoroughly enjoyed. I ended up learning that I did not possess the social skills generally required for that kind of work. After working various jobs, I then shifted to working as an apprentice electrician. This work brought me joy and fulfillment in various ways, it eventually became clear to me that this career would leave me unfulfilled. I knew I had to explore a new path to find more intellectual variety, future possibilities, as well as more opportunities to expand my communication skills. Pouring through information on my newfound career aspirations, from reading information of degree pathways on college websites to details about careers as an engineer, this sparked a great interest for me.

While my work as an electrician was important for me, and it led me to where I am today, I knew it wasn’t all I wanted. It stimulated the analytical and problem-solving part of my brain, but the communication that was common left me wanting for more. The thought of returning to school was not in my mind, but as I researched possible career paths that changed. As I looked more into a career as an engineer, I discovered that it would fulfill my desire to be analytical and use problem-solving skills. As I discovered the vast potential variety of this path, it became clear to me that this career could meet my need for intellectual fulfillment. Reading through the math and science skills that are required reminded me of my love of those subjects that I had forgotten about. While working as an electrician I had used these skills to some, much smaller, degree. I knew that this was something I wanted to utilize every day.

Another aspect of my research into this career change and return to college, was making a whole world of possibilities seem more attainable to me. Reading about the colleges I could attend, places that I could work, the projects I could work on. While reading about all of the options, it made me realize how interested I was in expanding my knowledge.

This newfound path that I was becoming more and more interested in, also piqued my interest in difference in interpersonal communication between my career at the time and this new option. The communication that I was using while working as an electrician felt lacking in some ways.

The interpersonal communication I used in this work was primarily about tangible things. The more I learned about a career as an engineer, the more I became interested in how communication varied. It appeared that the communication, while also tangible in certain ways by necessity, at times also required more abstract, interpretative, and theoretical communication.

Before this discovery and transition to this new and exciting stage of my life, I didn’t picture the ability for me to utilize these more fulfilling skills, possibilities, and communication. I do not think that I would be pursuing this without my exposure to all the possibilities through my reading on the topic.