to ask you what you were doing at 24?

[jewelledpineapples1]

I've just turned 24 and my future seems so uncertain. I thought by this age I would have more of a career plan.

If you don't mind sharing, what were you at 24 and how different is that to where you are now?

24- I was working for the Halifax Bank and had just bought my first apartment by myself which I was chuffed to bits about. I was single and almost scared to be in a relationship.
A year later I took voluntary redundancy when Lloyds bought out the Halifax and joined the Ambulance service.
Now I'm 34, still at the ambulance service, with a husband, dog and DD who is 2 and a sassy pants, I'm due out DS in 4 weeks time. We bought our bigger home last year and I don't see myself moving again.
I have regrets from my younger years, I wish I'd been more confident, I realise now I didn't surround myself with people who were positive influences. I regret not dating more and I wish in some ways I'd been brave enough to pursue a nursing career although the unconfident me that still sneaks out occasionally isn't convinced I would have succeeded with the academic side of it but I wish I had tried.
Sometimes I think I'd like to career change but I know now is not the right time. However once the kids are at school it will be something I look in to.

Graduated, full time job, renting a shared flat, car, single, couple of holidays a year. Good times.

I was a researcher for a political party working in their HQ with the No. 10 policy unit, having a great time, low pay plus endless parties and invites to No 10 Christmas party, met the Queen. Had just bought my first flat and had rented a room out to help pay mortgage. Left to start working for an accountants, on more money but so dull.

Now live rurally in thatched cottage with husband, cat, indoor rabbit and 3 silkie chickens, 2 kids, atm I'm just teaching them whilst school is out but will go back to research later. Love it here.

plus = but

Just started a job as a trainee TV researcher after working abroad for a year and completing my degree.

Sorry missed off the second bit. Living in the countryside now with husband and kids. Working as university lecturer.

Loved my life then. Love it now, though I wish I was part time rather than full time, especially right now.

At 24 I left my job and moved abroad to a holiday resort- had the best few years before settling down and having dc. I don't own a home or have much savings but I have the best memories and life long friends. I don't regret anything.

At 24 I was lost and confused. Like you, I put pressure on myself that I should already know where I was going. My mum was married at 23 so I felt useless not having a clue where to start in life.

I saved a bit of money by working in a factory and went travelling to Australia and New zealand where I worked in fruit picking jobs, cleaning jobs, pot washing. Then I got a job in Japan teaching English!

I didn't really know what I wanted to do but somehow found my way and by mid 30s I was fairly sorted with a nice job, dh and two children.

41 now and DC are 8 and 6, and my job going well. I picked up a PhD in early 30s, and my job now reflects my qualifications.

Life has a funny way of working itself out.

At 24 you feel older than you are.

At 41 you look back and think how young that is!

My advice is to go travelling once this pandemic is over, take your time, don't rush life. Have confidence in yourself, try and work out what you enjoy and follow your heart.

I was a year into a six year relationship and just about to start my first year of TA training. After 2 years I went into do teacher training at uni but dropped the QTS when I fell pregnant. I can go back to it via PGCE when my son is old enough but for now I'm enjoying being a TA.

IMO you're lucky if you've decided what career you want to have by 25. It's a massive decision and a lot of people make the wrong one. You can always retrain if you discover what you want to do later

At 24 I was a shop manager and not really wanting to be that for the rest of my life.

I decided to go to University (didn't feel up to going at 18 like all of my friends). I went, had a great time (I was still young enough to fit in with the other 18/19 year old freshers. The other mature students were in their 30's/40's). The best piece of advice I was given was to move in to halls to properly get the experience which I did.

Left Uni at 27. Got a job in customer services with a large company and got to know the guys in the IT dept from socialising after work. Within a year I'd moved to the IT team and that's how I stumbled on a career I love. I've since changed career again in my late 30's to fit in with having young children. Now moving back into IT.

At 24 you are still very much at the beginning of life. You might feel old but honestly, you're still young enough to start again.

Working in customer services for an IT company, clubbing every weekend, festivals, passed my driving test that year, in a relationship with someone unsuitable and still living at home with my mum.

Now, at 43, I'm divorced (not from Mr Unsuitable, I married someone else), I have 2 DS aged 8 and 3, I work as a Learning & Development Manager for a national company and I'm happily single for the time being.

At 24 I was doing my second year of a PhD in Genetics. I finished it and worked as a scientist in 3 countries. After that I changed professions and mecame a midwife :)

I was working an admin job for a few months to save money to travel and volunteer abroad. Absolutely loved that time. Came back to the UK and started teacher training at 25. It might not be forever, but I’m happy now. Like a PP said, use this time to read, talk to lots of different people, watch films and work out what you like.

Just about to meet my husband. Great days clubbing every weekend. Dancing to house music. No responsibilities.
Now happily married for 20 years with two children, nice house and good friends.

Getting twatted 24/7. Having lots of sex and self loathing.
Little did I realise that most of my more conventional friends were building careers, relationships, savings and heading towards families and domesticity.

Meant to add, I also went travelling, had lots of fun and holidays, jobs that Ioved in my twenties. I'm now divorced, have a beautiful home, two kids and I'm pretty much on a par with most of my old friends who were settling down then.

I left school with crap qualifications because I couldn’t be arsed and I fell into a career as a university admin because my mum told me it came with decent money and job security. At 24 I’d moved to a new city to live with my now-DH a year earlier and got a job at a different university. We were going on as many holidays as we could afford; we got engaged in NYC that November. I also took the advice of my then boss and I started a college course two evenings a week to boost my CV.

I’m now (to the the day!) a month off 30, happily married and we own a house. I’m still a uni admin but in that time I’ve finished an undergrad degree, almost finished a Masters and I’ve been offered a funded PhD, starting in the summer. I finally feel like I’m starting a chapter of my life that I worked bloody hard for and chased with all my might, rather than pootling along wondering how I got here.

My 20s were, for the most part, just blundering along and finding out who I am and what I want.

Spent my 24th in New Zealand at the end of a 15 month trip with my boyfriend where we worked in South Korea for a year. It was hard settling back into normal life when we got home a few months later but I loved being 24!!!

Doing my master's and clinging on to the student life. About to take a year out to travel.

I’d just finished university and landed my dream job (junior level, but in the industry I wanted and for the organisation I’d dreamed of working for).

To be fair, I’d fucked around a lot in my teens and early twenties, so didn’t start university until 21 (after dropping out of A levels, then starting them again, then dropping out of one uni course spectacularly failing the first year and working minimum wage temp jobs to survive).

I think I’d finally started to grow up at 24. I wasn’t as responsible as some of the young people on MN with families and mortgages. I was living in a flat stare, pissing away money on having a good time and basically being young and wild. But I’d started to have more of a sense of myself as a woman.

I met my now DH that year, too 😊

I’m 43 now and I can tell you - 24 is a mere babe! Dream big and be flexible when things don’t work out how you imagined. I’ve had so many unexpected twists and turns in the last 20 years, including a complete career change.

Don’t be too sensible. You’re only young once.

I was 24 -- 40 years ago. I had just married an American musician so we could stay a couple, after an absurdly short time, and I moved to New York where I had a great life working in magazine publishing and organising music events.

When I returned to London after a divorce and five years, I thought it was desperately dull --- all about dinner with people showing off their property. How can a city manage without proper 24 hour public transport? Fortunately by then, we had fax machines and the Internet arrived a little later. So four years later, I moved back to the county I grew up in and WFH from 1990 to be with my DH. Who was a holiday romance I met overseas. Now loooking towards retirement.

Moved to the UK and started my PhD.
Started dating future husband.

Forgot the 2nd part.
Now, divorced, teenage DS. Proper job at University.

In the year I became 24, I qualified as a midwife, returned to General nursing and became a Surgical Ward Sister.

I was in my first ‘proper’ job after uni and still living in the city in which I had gone to said uni. I was single and had a great group of friends at work as well as my best friend from uni living a couple of streets away, so had a great social life. I also rented a room in a lovely house. I was in the best shape of my life too and felt happy and confident. It was probably one of my happiest ages! Four years later I had moved back to my home town, met DH and have now been with him for 12 years with one DD aged four.