Since leaving school, I've found very niche interests to dedicate my time to, from Neuroscience as an undergrad, to International Health Management as a postgrad, and now Forensic and Litigation Consulting as a career.
Finding a career path that ticks all the boxes for me has been quite a journey; I've always struggled to figure out which fields I wanted to go into as I was never interested in the standard pathways, and I have always had a variety of interests but never wanted to close any doors. When choosing which Bachelor's degree to undertake, I was actually quite set on Biology until I read a single book (Incognito by David Eagleman), which then inspired me to change my degree choice to Neuroscience. Similarly, I looked for Master's programmes globally across universities that I wanted to study at, debating between Criminology, Brain and Mind Sciences, post-grad Medicine, and Forensic Science (amongst others), and after searching high and low the only programmes that took my fancy globally were both in London (International Health Management at Imperial and International Health Policy at LSE).
Nonetheless, choosing a career path was what I struggled the most with. I looked into everything from a flight attendant, to a diplomat, to a secret agent, but nothing jumped out at me. This was actually one of the reasons I decided to do a Master's in the first place - a degree in Neuroscience only really allowed my to become an academic or a scientist, neither of which I was particularly interested in. I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life and decided that another degree might help me figure it out (which it actually did!). The main issue is that I knew exactly what I didn't want, but couldn't figure out what I did want and was genuinely passionate about. For example, I'd done a law internship in Year 9 and knew that I didn't want to be a lawyer as I didn't want to spend my life reading lever-arch folders; similarly, I had completed a medical internship during second year, and discovered that not only did I find surgery quite dull (whereas I'd assumed that I'd become a neurosurgeon if I studied medicine), but also that doctors actually know a lot less than I'd realised (they are only human after all). Moreover, studying medicine would prevent me from travelling extensively for several years, and I wouldn't be earning for at least 4 years, which were important factors for me. Regardless, Adam Kay's 'This is Going to Hurt' was enough to completely put me off becoming a doctor - it wasn't a lifestyle I envied at all.
One thing I did know was that I wanted to be well-paid. This isn't because I value money over happiness at all (in fact, I think this concept is absurd), but instead because I think very much in the long-term. I know that I want to buy a house in London, and given the extortionate prices and constant influx of people, I knew that to stand a chance of buying a house I'd need to start saving up very soon. Additionally, I knew that I wanted to be able to travel a lot before starting a family, as that's when I'd have the most time and energy, so needed to find a way to afford it if that were to become a reality. When I was 17, my driving instructor told me how he'd worked in a bank for 10 years, earned enough money to buy a house, and then became a driving instructor. This meant that he could choose his hours and so, he'd never missed a single recital or sports match of his kids. I loved the idea of working hard in my youth to be able to travel and buy a house and then be able to chill out as I get older, but I knew banking wasn't for me. Having grown up surrounded by friends who barely knew their (mostly) dads due to the insane working hours in finance, I never had the desire to work in banking (I also found it incredibly dull).
So given that I wanted a well-paid job, but wasn't interested in law, medicine, or finance, this left one option: Consulting. Luckily for me, Imperial's career service had a lot of resources for wannabe-consultants, which was a tremendous help. I also applied for some jobs in the Pharmaceutical sector, as although after reading 'Bad Science' by Ben Goldacre, I wasn't very enamoured of the industry, I had a biomedical background and fancied my chances. Consulting actually appealed to me more than anything else had up until that point; I loved the idea of working in the City during my twenties, especially in a corporation, as I was intrigued by the lifestyle, including the opportunities, the networking, and the business travel. I wanted to build a strong network to aid me through my career, and desired the structure provided by grad schemes (as opposed to entry level). Being in this industry would allow me to get my 'foot-in-the-door' whilst fully experiencing the corporate lifestyle and allowing for vast personal development.
I'd actually never heard of Forensic Consulting before, but some of my friends were applying to the company I am now working at, and I was intrigued by the grad scheme; crime and consulting were both things that I was interested in, so I applied on a whim. I won't pretend that I knew as soon as I went on their website that I would love the company - every company's website is favourable towards them and you never know whether you would actually be a good fit or you just think you would be. Nonetheless, I got invited to attend an assessment centre, and was very excited. There was only one problem: the assessment day was very soon and I didn't have time to prepare for the infamous maths test. I remember feeling stressed on the morning of the assessment centre as I thought I was wasting my time given that I hadn't prepared anything, but as I did one test after another I found myself actually enjoying it, and over lunch we met some of the team, which was the moment that I decided I would love to work there. I was invited for a final interview with two of the senior managing directors, and when I received a phone call on Christmas Eve offering me a job, I was ecstatic. Having worked at the company for a couple of months now, I can confirm that the HR department does an excellent job at recruitment - there's not one person that I've met that I dislike, and everyone has been incredibly welcoming and they are exactly my sort of people (in that they work hard but are also up for a laugh). I've already been part of two projects, and have been studying for the ACA Professional qualification alongside my work which has been great. Even when I joined, I wasn't completely sure whether I'd like the work (which is essentially investigating financial crimes, be that fraud, corruption, bribery, or money laundering, among others), but I actually find it extremely interesting. I'm hopeful to be able to travel for work once we are able to again, but right now I'm just very grateful to to have a job that I love.
One thing I will say is that although I am very much a go-getter and thrive on being productive and achieving goals, there is genuinely no rush to find the perfect job straight after graduating. For me, I know what I want so this journey has been ideal for me, but it's definitely not what everyone would want.. Some of the people who I look up to the most still don't know what they want to do and are significantly older than me. When I was at Imperial, I was in no way jealous of my friends who had corporate jobs, because I felt too young to start my life-long career, whereas for them it was the perfect time. Everyone has their own pace and someone who is a billionaire by 25 could end up lonely and sad by 50, the same way that someone who's had an 'unsuccessful' career until their 50s could suddenly release a bestseller, find a life-saving cure, or develop a new technology that turns their life completely upside down. This is why I'm adamant that you shouldn't compare your journey to others, just work on becoming the best version of yourself.
Similarly, you don't need to know exactly what you want to do already. A job doesn't have to last forever; if you are interested in being a banker now, that doesn't mean that you have to be a banker for your whole life, you could decide to study medicine at 40 if you wanted to and have a career in medicine. People are multi-faceted and thus, interested in many things, and there is no rush to be all of those things at once.
For example, I know that I'd love to travel for few consecutive months and life abroad at some point, but I never ended up taking a gap year because I didn't want to take out a whole year to only actually end up travelling for about 3 months. Instead, I travelled avidly throughout uni (especially in the 4-month-long Summers). Furthermore, I learnt throughout uni that I love travelling but not just for the sake of it - I like feeling that I've earned it. Nowadays, my plan is to take a few months off after working for a couple of years so that I can travel freely for an extended period of time, knowing that I have a secure job waiting for me on return. There are a lot of things I want to achieve in my life, from writing a book, to being a non-executive director, to working as a diplomat and in the World Health Organisation or with Doctors Without Borders. I want to do another Master's or an MBA, and also invest in property, but not everything has to happen right at this very moment. It's taken a long time for me to learn this, as I'm naturally very much a go-getter and thrive on getting things done, however one thing that actually changed my mindset significantly was the song 'Vienna' by Billy Joel. There is time for everything, and as you get older your ideas and ambitions will change - after all life isn't like in the movies, so planning ahead is only useful to some degree. A lot of the time you don't actually know what you will and won't enjoy - so just keep trying things out until you find what you're passionate about.
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