From Not-Having-A-Clue to a Definite Career Path
About mistakes you might want to look after during studies and things you should do instead
What can you do with interests in Entrepreneurship, Management and Information Technology? — Yes, everything and yet nothing.
If you have interests in such broad areas without any concrete combination of the three, you are pretty much just floating around in an ocean of not-having-a-clue waiting for land to appear in sight. But how might you reach said land? What can you do from this point onward?
If you don’t know your path, you waste a lot of precious time not gaining knowledge.
I began my studies about three years ago and during my time as a student at a university, I never really could think of any specific occupation or job I definitely would want to proceed with in a latter period in my life. Whether this is normal, I don’t know. Maybe.
What I do know are fellow students, who know since day one, how and where they want to work later. But I know others as well, who are struggling until the last semester of their studies to find and commit on their path.
If you know your path upfront, you can prepare yourself profoundly for what is about to come. You can dig into something and become an expert. If you don’t know your path, you waste a lot of precious time not gaining knowledge.
What I know since day one is, that I want to be an Entrepreneur — a Starter, as I prefer to call it. And I want to be the head of a team. Why? I can get back to that with another story.
Until my sixth semester of my Bachelor’s degree, I was struggling with the question on what I could focus on. But yet there were two semesters to go. Two pretty eventful semesters.
I am now in my seventh semester doing an internship in Singapore at a global enterprise and love my job! I know, this sounds ironic since I want to be a Starter, so let me elaborate that. — I dislike the fact, that I am working at a big enterprise, but I love the work itself. I am working in the fields of User Experience and IT Project Management. How did I end up with that, you might ask yourself, because I said I wouldn’t have a clue.
I was asking myself the question “Do you might want to dig into that a bit more?”
In my final exam period, which was in the sixth semester, I was facing content about Human-Centred Design, Design Thinking and User Experience. And again, like in any other of the last five exam periods, I was asking myself the question “Do you might want to dig into that a bit more?”. This is a quite difficult question as you got not much time during exam periods anyway. If you proceed with more digging, you might waste time. If you won’t proceed, you might waste even more time at a latter stage.
Normally, I would want to be productive and just skip this question by continuing to study. Only, this time it was somehow different. User Experience really got me! I started to read into UX and I knew pretty fast, that this could be it.
Unfortunately, at this time, I already had my internship position in Singapore, which was not UX related at all. Arriving in Singapore, it took about 3 weeks before I met this guy, who was the UX person for our branches all over Asia. We started talking and he said, he might need some help with current UX projects. I talked to my supervisor right away and he was okay with it, as long as I can work in parallel. From this day onward, my journey began and I did find my path.
You might find your path somewhere you could never imagine.
Anyway, let me give you some advise…
- START READING. If you’re struggling with what you could focus on, start reading something random. A book, an article (maybe something on Medium), a newspaper. When you read, your brain might come up with things, you would never think of. You might find your path somewhere you could never imagine.
- DIG INTO IT. If you feel like some topic or field of study could be interesting, dig into it! You don’t need much time to figure out whether it is really interesting to you or not.
- TALK ABOUT IT. Share your thoughts about your development process with a close friend or your loved ones. They might provide some helpful feedback! But remember, nobody can give you the answer you are seeking for in the first place.
- KEEP YOUR PATH SAFE. Don’t let somebody tell you this or that is a stupid idea or you cannot make a fortune from it. If you love something and you are passionate about it, the money will come.
- GAIN KNOWLEDGE. And finally, if you have found your path for good, do anything to gain knowledge! Work, learn, practice, read. Read everything you can find.
Become the best you can be and reach out to something big.
Thank you very much for reading my story! Feel free to ask any questions, leave a comment or a clap or two.
