Here's a piece from Yahoo that gives eight thoughts on how to find your career passion. Here's the one that benefited me most in my career:
Try it on for size. Internships and apprenticeships are great ways to try on careers. Use vacation time to "shadow" someone whose job interests you. Volunteer or get temporary jobs in the fields that interest you.
When I was in college, an internship saved my career. I was all set on being a lawyer, so in my junior year I took an internship with a local attorney. I hated it. Lots of looking up old cases on assorted issues that I cared nothing about -- little time in court actually doing much at all (most of the court time seemed to be wasted, though I'm sure something was happening.) Anyway, the internship showed me that being a lawyer wasn't for me (this was confirmed later as I got into corporate life and saw what the lawyers had to do -- lots of reading over boring contracts.) So I moved into business and haven't looked back.
Taking that internship was one of the best career moves I've ever made and I would certainly recommend those of you with the opportunity to take one. Use it to try out a job/industry to see if you really want to spend your life (or at least a major portion of it) that way. It could save you from making a very bad mistake.
Don't pass up an internship because you think you can't "afford" to take it. I didn't think I could afford an internship and ended up unemployable.
As for finding your career passion, what good is that if you don't have the money and can't pay for the training?
Posted by: Minimum Wage | July 03, 2007 at 01:43 AM