What do you want to be when you grow up?

[spyells]

When I grow up I want to be Photojournalist. That's when you not only write articles for a newspaper or magazine but you also take the pictures as well. I also want to write books and short stories on the side. I already finished one short story that I wrote in my freshmen year of high school. Now I'm working on two more. I plan to travel the world. And one of my dreams that I'm not so sure will happen is to track my family history back to the times of slavery, and then to track it back to the African tribe that our family originates from. But I don't know if it will happen because my family has been trying for years. And the history always stops at my Great-Great Grandmother and after that it gets lost. Many slave records weren't well kept and many were. Plus some slaves would change their names once they were free, escaped, and in a womans case married. So we'll see if my family can do it. I also want to marry a good man and have a family. I want to go to Howard University to get my education. Right now I just need to graduate from High School. But everything I just stated are my long term goals. And I know that I will be able to accomplish most of them.

So what do you guys want to be when you grow up?

[Mel]

I actually want to do something with recitation. I got a taste of it in 7th grade when we had to memorize a story and recite it like a storyteller would. Mine was 20 minutes long, lol. I also just got 2nd place in a schoolwide poetry recitation contest. Very fun, very fun. I'm not sure how much you can do with that sort of thing except for audiobooks. I'm not sure, I'll have to look into it.

I'm also considering becoming a history teacher. That would be fun for me, I love history!!

[christmas]

I want to be a writer. I've always loved words and stories, ever since I was little. My teachers are constantly telling me to stop reading! (Which is something virtually unhead of in classrooms nowadays)

I'm in the middle of three different novels, and I'm also writing a one-act play that I wan to submit to the California Thespian Festival next year. I'm trying to decide where I want to go to school at the moment. I'm thinking probably either Pepperdine or UC Irvine. Both of them have really good English departments, and both are really good schools. In the future, I want to get at least one of my novels published, but that's a long way off.

[Emi]

Okay this is a long one:

Director/Producer/Screenwriter/and maybe Actress

I like writing screenplays and playing with my video camera. I like acting I think it's really fun. I want to go to North Carolina School of Arts. It has the exact major I want (screenwriting) but I can also learn how to direct, produce, and edit films as well. If I don't get in to that then I want to go to UNC for major in Communication/ Media studies and minor in Screenwriting. I really hope one day to own a production company. I want to win an Oscar, that's like a major goal.. but one day I think I will..

Yeah that's a pretty big dream.

[seabiscuit1009]

Well...this is purely speculation, of course. I'd really like to be an editor, or work for a publishing company; actually, I'd rather just do my aunt's former job. I don't know her exact title, but for awhile she just read books for a publishing company. I don't know...sounds like something I could really get into, considering the 200+ books I've read in 2007. Like a lot of people here, I'd also like to be an author, but I don't think that will happen anytime soon; right now, I just don't have the patience to put my words onto paper. I've also been kind of thinking about teaching, either very young kids, or high school kids. I wouldn't want to be a middle school teacher, in any case. I know that most middle schoolers I know are brats, and that most of the people I knew in middle school were also brats. It's not a very fun age group, in my opinion. Funny thing is, I was actually thinking about going into high school history teaching, like my dad. It could be fun. *shrugs* as for what I actually want to happen in my life..."I don't know; it's a mystery!" (anyone recognize the quote?)

[spyells]

I wish I could just read books for a publishing company. That job would be like one of my dream jobs since I read so much. I think it's cool that many of us share the same dreams and aspirations. I see that we all like the same things. I always have people put down my dream telling me that I can't be a journalist and that it's a stupid job. But they wont know what to say when I start making those big bucks and I know stars like Beyonce and Brad Pitt. I also can't to wait to see how many of those people will be working for me one day. I mean hey you never know.

[DairineRules!]

its not so much as what i want to be when i grow up as what i am now but sence you asked I think i would be either a witer, an inventor, a wizard or a dolphin.

OK OK i know kinda weird but i really want to be a dolphin

[Cassiar Memekio]

I want be a wizard. I have tried many times and have not succeeded yet, but I will be a wizard.
Hahahah I know that's not really a logical goal. (Who says logic is logical anyway?)
But really, I wanna publish the book I'm working on right now. I wanna do something humanitarian too, like helping the environment or the fight against AIDS. Something big. I want to do something that matters, like Dairine said in High Wizardry. I want to help fight the worsening condition of the Earth in a major way. Or I can just eat grilled cheese till I burst.

[wolf_wizard]

I want to be a wizard. but I already am one... hmmm. perhaps I ought to return to helping this distant planet make the right choice, instead of talking on these forums. Any way, DairineRules, I don't think it's that odd that you want to be a dolphin. I mean, the 'because it's an animal' part. I think it's odd that you would pick that animal... anyway, I guess I can't really be talking, as i am a wolf.

[EricG1793]

spyells: That sounds like a great, fun, solid career! You should do that, and you'd be good at it.

It seems as though most of us here want to have something to do with writing... makes sense, since we're all regulars at a place that's about book discussion.

I'd like to be....

Computer fixer. I love computers and know a lot about them.

Scenic photographer. Lately I've been practicing taking scenic pictures of sunsets, landscapes, etc. and some of pictures I've taken are pretty neat. I've also been taking a lot of pictures at special events lately, like the dance at school, family gatherings, etc.

[Garrett Fitzgerald]

Originally posted by spyells:
I wish I could just read books for a publishing company. That job would be like one of my dream jobs since I read so much.

Heh. You and me both. During one of my unemployed periods I wrote to a bunch of publishers, but without formal experience or classwork, they weren't interested. :-(

Too bad they don't have online tests where you evaluate short stories for grammar, style, and typos, and hire the people with the best scores. (Of course, the people who score best on style might score worst on typos, and vice versa...)

[Kathy Li]

Actually, I did get tested like that (but on paper) during a couple of job interviews when I was applying for a techwriter/editor position.

The thing is, I'm not sure I'd want the job of reading for a publishing house. Because chances are, I'd get my wish by being the assistant editor who gets stuck slogging through the slush pile. Or, like Helene Hanff, I'd end up as the script reader for a studio who had to summarize all the books I read on 3x5 index cards and then get assigned The Lord of the Rings....

[Garrett Fitzgerald]

Oh, of course, but you had already convinced them you were worth interviewing. I'd like to see the tests online to help convince people to interview me. Hmm, I should probably check out Brainbench, they might already have something like that.

I wouldn't mind going through the slush pile for a bit -- I'm fairly flexible in my standards, and could read brain-melting badness without actually melting down. (On the other hand, my memory has been steadily deteriorating since Diane posted "The Eye of Argon" on her site... is there a correlation here? (For anyone who doesn't know the reference, let's just say that "Argon" is the "Manos" of fantasy short stories. (And if you don't get that reference either, you're much better off, trust me.)))

[Kathy Li]

Originally posted by Garrett Fitzgerald:
Oh, of course, but you had already convinced them you were worth interviewing. ...

My degree in Electrical Engineering/Computer Science with an English Lit. minor convinced them I was worth interviewing. I still couldn't find a job for over a year after graduating. It was the early '90s and they weren't even hiring folks who had 20 years' experience. Which is why I went to London on a student exchange program for three months.

I at least hope that the serial meet-everyone-in-the-group style of interviewing has passed. It would take something like four to six hours to get through the interview that way, vs. the glare of the panel type interview, where it only took an hour, but it would be three against one and the like.

My only suggestion for snagging an interview is not to use the same resume/cover letter for every query. Tailor it for the job you're going after. I had two different resumes made up: one to emphasize the compugeek skills, one to emphasize the writing skills, and I'd do special variants for weirder jobs. I always lead the resume with a bulleted list of my job skills (the ones they want to see), and then only list the work experience I've got that proves I have those skills. Think about wading through 200 resumes in a day to find your perfect job applicant--or better yet do it for real. It will completely change how you write a resume.

They really don't need to know your hobbies and interests--that's what the interview's for: to judge how well your personality fits with the rest of the team they want you to work with/for.

And for gods' sakes, if you're going for a tech writing position, edit and spellcheck the sucker, and do a decent layout job! It's a half-second reject if someone can't edit their own text cleanly.

[Tuttle]

How about a professional student? I don't want to leave school, and I want to always be learning stuff. I suppose could go for professor, but am not sure about that. I like academia though. I'll probably go for a PhD right after a master's/instead of a masters program (Depending on BS/MS options).

I seem to be strange on here in that I don't really like writing. I like words, I like reading, I get annoyed at English's ambugity, but I'm not a writer. Though I do have the ability of writing even when rushed and getting something halfway decent for later editing.

I really am much more of a math person. I'm currently going for a Math/Computer Science double major. Am not sure quite what I want to go into. I am probably going to apply for an internship over the summer with fractal and working with them on linux machines for a company that designs and makes fractal antennas. My dad did export work with them and they seemed really interested in getting a math person to do an internship.

<topic=Eye of Argon>
Oh, and Garrett, the question is can you read an entire page of the Eye of Argon outloud, as it is written, without making a mistake (mostly fixing one) or laughing. I know a few people around here have managed that. There's a 'game' at one of the big things on campus the club I'm in does which is everyone sits around in a circle you read the Eye of Argon until you make a mistake/laugh (other people are looking for a mistake) and then at that point pass to the next person who starts at the beginning of the sentence you failed on. This has meant it goes through over 5 people before getting through some sentences. Also, if you manage a page you've mastered it and have to pass at that point.

While it was off topic I needed to mention about Eye of Argon after what I was originally saying, 'cause it really is that impressively bad.
</topic>