Career change tips : Full of regrets

Hello everyone,

I hope someone can help me out with their opinion and suggestions. Here is my current situation.

I am 25 years old, and have a bachelors in Sociology from UC Riverside. At the time I was in undergraduate I did not put much effort into academics which I fully regret at this point. I had no idea what I wanted to do in life after I graduated, I only picked sociology because it was the "easiest" route.

So I currently work as a freight forwarder, job consists of typical tasks in an office such as faxing,copying, customer service. My salary is around 35k a year and after working for almost one year, I do not think I can do this for the next 30 years. The job is simple and not giving me any job satisfaction or happiness. Not to mention the low salary, which causes me to think about the future on daily basis at this point.

I thought of going back to school and getting another bachelors degree that specializes in something specific and could get me a job in the field fairly easy with competitive starting salary such as engineering or accounting. Some of my friends have suggested getting a MBA but I do not think that will benefit me in anyway possible except making me "overqualified" and getting me in a big debt. Beside my grades are not that great to even be considered into a decent graduate school.

After a lot of thinking I have come down to two choices, either pursue a 2nd bachelors in accounting or engineer, or grind it out by continuing to work. I hope some of you can provide some other suggestions as I am lost and been thinking about this way too much. I do know one thing though, I feel like my time getting that bachelors degree was a waste of time. Thank you for reading, I hope to hear some suggestions.

You are asking some big questions. And that is good. You are 25 years old. Still young and you are gaining work experience. I absolutely understand the fear, apprehension about thinking of a straight line into the future in your current role.

However, there is no reason why you should do that.

I am not even going to address the extra education at this point, other than too say, I would be careful about 2 bachelors. Do it, if you find something you would love to do + a very straight line into a working career, with hiring companies / places available to graduates. Think about applied educational programs.

However, let's back up. I find that stuck folks tend to default to more or different education as a solution, and it isn't necessarily so. You MUST spend some time and energy in cataloguing, describing

What you are good at. Natural abilities.
Your skills and level of competence. Think broad functions (project management, customer service, etc.) - these can be easily transferable into something else
What is of interest to you
What can you say about the kind of job pace that fits with you....fast, chaotic, or slow and steady, or. ...?
What kind of organization feels right....small, big
What do you know? One's experience in a specific area can be a ticket to a career change in a similar area. For example, if you understand something about transportation, then an organization that is a transportation business, or a function that uses transportation (logistics, supply chain, etc.) would be a fit. Or if you understand physical products and moving them around, then again, an environment that manufactures or deals in physical products would get your background. There are different ways to slice it and you need to get creative
Do some free association job searches on Monster and see what kinds of things jump out at you as seeming fun + interesting + likely that you are at least a possible candidate.
Also think 2 steps away. Not what you can first move to now, but where would you like to go, and then work backwards. What is the gap between now and then? What kind of experience and skills do you need to be a credible candidate first.

I hope these ideas help. Do Not be Full of Regrets. This is simply the time for the next chapter. Embrace it. Own your background rather than rejecting it.

Go!

Ian Christie
Career Changers Coach

I am a bit concerned that a 25 year old college grad can only see two options here. Stay somewhere for 30 years or go back to school. It is a huge mistake to go back to school for either another Bachelors or a Masters at this point. You do not know how such a degree would benefit you career-wise, therefore, you'd find yourself deeper in debt and 2-4 years older and in exactly the same boat. Unless you feel passionately about some new field, you should not consider getting more degrees! Even then, it may still not pay off for you since it is going to put you somewhat behind the curve. A course or two in something, maybe. A new degree, no.

Likewise, there is no reason to stay in a job you hate for 30 years. I'd caution you against quitting without another job in hand, as it is much easier to find a job when you have a job, but you are not an indentured servant, you can change jobs whenever someone else will have you.

Take yourself to the career center at your school. They can do testing on your skills, interests and abilities and help you to determine what sort of career would suit you based on what you already have. They can also tell you about related jobs you may not have considered.

And this may seem like a stretch to you, but have a look at www.peacecorps.org. Peace Corps could really expand your view of life (which seems to be very binary, right or wrong, a or b right now), give you time to expand your thinking on your future and at the same time get a lot of satisfaction out of helping people that really could use what you have to offer (and making you more aware of what it is that you DO offer).

Tess

My problem is with the fear of uncertainty and having no sense of direction. I am not sure what I enjoy doing but I do know what i hate. I hate tasks that are not challenging, repetitive, and mundane. My daily routine right now at work is sorting out the mail filled with invoices and checks, inputting the check amount into the system (accounts receivable), copying/faxing documents to brokers, arranging delivery of the cargo and occasionaly deal with an angry customer because the cargo is delayed. The fact that I could have handled these tasks at the age of 13 really makes me want to desire more which is why I was considering a degree with more specializiation such as accounting/engineering.

I lose motivation when there is no room for advancement or growth which I believe is common with a lot of people. I mean how much can you grow/advance when I believe the things I am doing could be done by a high school student? I currently work for a small company (15 employees) with minimal benefits (only health) and yes we know each others name and I guess it is like a "family" but in the end it is still a workplace environment and I have no desire to spend time with them after work. Which leads to me wanting to work for a big organization since it tends to have bigger benefits/perks and have more room to grow for advancement. Not to mention the idea of meeting someone new everyday makes it exciting.

Thanks for reading and giving me things to think about,

Keep in mind too that any first jobs are going to be boring, mundane and repetitious. That's why we call them "entry-level". Chances are that won't bother you so much when you can see where this job leads you (to the job you want down the road), but I want you to have reasonable expectations at the same time. Entry-level jobs are rarely exciting, invigorating and challenging. You do have to pay some dues to get where you want to be.

Career Tips

Full of regrets