Top Ten Career Paths I Never Pursued

The career I'm in right now (Pediatric Speech Pathologist) has a lot of good things about it. I can't really complain. I think it's in my nature though, to wonder if I'll want to do what I'm doing now up until I retire. Not because I'm unhappy with it, but because I know there are so many other things to do and other things that I'd like to do.

Here is a list of ten other careers that I at one time considered but never pursued. Some of them I may still pursue someday. For others, I think, the window of opportunity has passed. In no particular order:

1) Accent Reduction Specialist/Dialect Coach
I technically have all the qualifications for this one. Unlike what I do now, where the agencies I'm employed by find clients for me, this line of work would require me to go out and find my own clients. Probably my overall weakest job skill is networking, promoting, and selling myself. I don't naturally walk up to people I don't know with confidence, business card in hand, ready to tell them how awesome I am and why they should give me lots of their money to perform a service for them. Some people have that natural enterprising spirit but I sure don't.

Also, with a lot of this sort of stuff, I tend to like the theory more than the practice. I like learning about what different accents sound like and studying their individual phonologies, but that's a very different thing from sitting down and working with people one-on-one to make sure they're aspirating their initial /v/s the way a native Hindi speaker would. I've done a limited amount of this sort of work with people, and while it's been fun, I wouldn't want to have to rely on it as my sole means of income.

2) Travel Writer
Possibly my dream job. I'd love to go to different places and write about my experiences there, and combine it with talking about the history, geography, or culture of the place. Seems like a hard one to break into. I applied for an internship with Lonely Planet back around 1999 but obviously didn't get it. Though I do like to travel I don't know if I'd want to do it all the time. Like maybe two or three big trips a year would be my limit.

3) Meteorologist
I'm not even sure what a day in the life of a meteorologist is, but I imagine it involves reading charts and recording information. I like weather, but maybe my interest in experiencing different kinds would be better satisfied by #2.

4) Librarian
I've always been drawn to quiet, calming places, and so long as I wouldn't have had to work directly with the public, I think this could have been a pretty good gig. The downside- high potential for it being completely boring.

5) Museum Curator
My undergrad in anthropology prepared me either for doing this or for going on to teach anthropology, although both require advanced degrees to even get an entry-level position. Again, like libraries, I was always drawn to the quiet, calming quality of these places. I took a great museum class at CSUF my penultimate semester there but didn't want to pursue a Master's in Anthro, when it came right down to it. Also, my understanding is that there is a very small supply of these jobs relative to the number of people who want them.

6) Veterinary Technician
A lot less schooling than a DVM, but you still have a marketable skill, and who wouldn't love working with animals? My own time spent working in a vet clinic consisted of waking up very early to clean cages while being paid a low hourly wage. If I had stuck with it and moved up I would have gotten the AA required to be a VT, but at the time I already had a BA and I thought such a move would have been counter-productive.

7) Academic
At this point I think I'm done with being a student, and with school in general. Sometimes I think I wouldn't mind being a lecturer. But then I think, just because I'm enthusiastic about a subject, does that mean I can get a room full of sixty 18 to 22 year olds to share my enthusiasm as well? Probably not. I wouldn't mind writing articles or even text-books in my area of interest. Doing scholarly research would be fine, but I have no interest in doing lab-based experiments.

8) Musician
A career in music always sounded fun to me, but ultimately grew to look like a better avocation than anything. The problem I always had was that I couldn't figure out in what capacity I wanted to work with music. I was too shy to be a performer, not schooled enough or interested in theory to be a teacher. Maybe the best option for me would have been:

9) Instrument Repairman/Piano Tuner/Restorer
I don't know why, but for some reason this always seemed like a great job. Straightforward work, quiet environment, low stress. I don't know why I think I'd want to be a piano tuner because I don't even know how to play one. I guess it always just seemed like a really easy, no hassle kind of a job.

10) Professional Baseball Player
This was the plan when I was about seven, but don't laugh, it's not too late. Judging by their performance in the ALDS against the Red Sox, it looks like the Angels could use some help off the bench. Unfortunately a complete and utter lack of ability to play the game at a competitive level (even against other seven year-olds) prevented this dream from ever coming true.