In a lot of respects, I feel better about my career situation than I have since graduation from NU. I’m no longer struggling with this big fork in the road between academia and public interest/administration/whatever else you want to call it work. I’m ready to confidently close the door on academia, because I know it doesn’t work for me in terms of my interest levels, my mental health, or my goals for my personal life.
I’m also in a pretty good situation since I now have a solid idea of what I want from a job in terms of the type of position and work-life balance. I know that I like working with a team and in a largely behind the scenes position. I know that I need a job that will allow me the time, mental and physical energy, and resources to take care of my health and pursue my creative hobbies.
But beyond this, it is sort of vague. I’ve been chatting with my boss about my return to Chicago and he just sent me a note asking what I’m thinking long-term career-wise and I don’t know. I can tell you the sort of type of place I would like to work (would prefer public interest), the sort of type of role I would want (again, something like project manager, a support/coordinating role), and I can tell you some of the things I would like to do (managing social media and communications, organizing events, etc.) In the long term, I would like to get back to work that in some way leverages my connections to history -- the stuff I’ve done at Queen’s around historical interpretation has been very interesting to me. But I don’t know what that looks like.
So I definitely don’t have an end goal in mind. And personally, I’m happy with that. But it is weird, especially as someone who was raised in an environment where ambition was so highly valued. Like pretty much all of my classmates who were in honors classes and whatnot with me in high school are in law/med school right now and I’m just here like “I want to work, I want to do work I do well, and want to be able to have a *healthy* life.” And I’m happy with that, but it’s weird and a bit tough to explain.
