Career Tips

Discerning Career Interests


I am currently a youth pastor but also teach at our school and I am struggling to discern if this suits my abilities and interests as I had originally thought it would.  I have always been interested in the graphic design/advertising field and it's ironic that since taking my current job I have done much of the graphic design for them (brochures, flyers, pamphlets...). 

My problem is I have an undergrad in Youth Ministry and Phys. Ed and a Masters in Educational Administration and I don't know how to get started in a field which has no relation to these fields.  I would rather not go back to school, but would if I could get a job that would help me through extra classes.  I am proficient in programs like Adobe Photoshop etc. but don't have the degrees to prove it.  Any input would be very helpful.

I'm not trying to burst your bubble here but instead hopefully am providing some reality check.  Frankly, LOTS of people are proficient in Photoshop and similar programs.  That and a $5 gets you a coffee at Starbucks.  Frankly, LOTS of people produce/design/whatever brochures, flyers, pamphlets, etc. as a side duty of their job (myself included).  Again, so what?  While it impresses my boss that I can and have done this, it wouldn't impress a professional graphic designer or marketing person or advertising person or even the head guy at Kinkos.  And let me tell you, I've got a brochure that's been distributed to over 1 million people that I'm quite proud of but I have no illusions that I'm the next art director for IBM.

If you think you want to be in some form of Marketing or Advertising, you would absolutely be swimming upstream without a degree in the same.  Even then, it is a hard field to get into.   Most people have to start as the Admin Assistant in the Marketing department or something along those lines. 

Graphic Designers, especially those without degrees in the same are also a dime a dozen.  It takes a lot more than just being able to put together a decent brochure to work as a graphic designer.  There are thousands of freelancers out there competing for the same small pot of projects.  In any corporate graphic designer job, first off again, you've got tremendous competition and secondly, many people get into those positions thinking it will unleash their creative side, only to find out that they spend their days measuring to ensure that the corporate logo landed .234 inches from the top of the brochure and that the printer used PMS 365 not PMS 265 for the print job.

Whatever aspect of this you're considering, no company is going to put you through school to learn it on the job.  There are tons of people out there who are already qualified to pick from.

You've gone a really long way down this Education road to totally throw it out the window now for an unrelated career.  Especially one that you really can't define and don't know anything about.  And again, frankly, you've got no reason to think that you'd be making a better choice with this new idea than you did with the last great idea.  Perhaps it makes more sense to stop, think, see a career counselor and find out what it is that makes you think that you don't like what you're currently doing.  I'm wondering if maybe you'd be able to merge what you are doing with this creative urge by teaching arts and crafts or something along those lines. 

 

Tess

I appreciate the reality check (although it felt slightly harsh) and that's exactly why I posted that question.  I'm only 25 and still trying to evaluate my direction in life and thought some people with more experience in this area may be able to give advice.  I have sought council on this from multiple people I respect already and they have pushed me to examine various possibilities and this was just one of them, so your comment has helped me begin to narrow some things down.  Thank you. 
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