So many of the things I want to do require me to be an expert in my field first. But see, the problem is, I’m not an expert in any field! Unfortunately, what I’m interested in (mostly administrative stuff and management) require little education. Instead, they require a certain way of thinking and behaving that nearly any intelligent person can be trained for and/or develop over the course of years of experience. I can’t say that I’m a scientist or engineer who later wants to go the management track. At least that way my skill sets are more tangible initially and the degree I earn, a bit more meaningful. Instead, I learned two useful majors that will be good for me in the business area, but I don’t want to pursue either of them the way they’re meant to be.
What I’m good at doesn’t really need technical skills that can only be learned from tertiary education and lots of people can pick it up or be trained for it. I also have broad enough interests and experience that there’s no “one thing” that I’ve concentrated on. That means that it’s much more difficult to focus one on aspect of what I enjoy and work to make myself an expert in that field. It also means I lose out on a lot of job opportunities to people who have had 3-5 years work experience already. I guess it’s a testament to how people are willing to work entry-level jobs for longer now because there’s nowhere up for them to go. The rest of my skills aren’t deep enough to make a career out of – like my passion for technology. I am a self-taught programmer, which means I can get by with HTML and some CSS. PHP still confuses me and forget about the rest. I know enough to be tech-savvy, but not enough to work for a highly technical company like many of the start-ups these days!
The good thing is that one of my interests is social media and there’s not yet a degree centered around that, so any experience is more personal than professional. My networks in the sites that I’m active on are respectably large and enough for people to see that I have put a lot of time and effort into them. Additionally, I got a chance to explore those interests while in Singapore as I worked on a social media plan for the company there. Much of it wasn’t ready to be implemented yet, but at least I had the thought process completed and a plan ready to implement. I’m now getting some social media managing experience at my current internship, so perhaps that’s the way to go. The problem with that field is that because there is a lower barrier of entry, competition is high! So many people want to go into this area because it’s something they can do without a college degree or certification or something.
So here I am with a dilemma… which interests do I focus on and develop into a noticeable strength? Which ones do I maintain as hobbies and leisurely pastimes instead? I suppose that will be partially determined by the job I can eventually land! I got a second wave of enthusiasm after looking at some more opportunities and there are a few jobs I’ll be applying for in the coming weeks that I’m really excited about. I just hope I can get one of them! I think things will probably slow down this month as people start to mentally check out for the holidays and stop working so hard in the time leading up to the break. I’m still hopeful to line up something for early next year though. Fingers crossed!
