To ask what you do for work?

[Biscoffnutellatoast]

I’m early 20’s, and to be honest am a bit stuck on career choices. My dream is to become a forensic psychologist, however the current job market in this subject is terrible, and I’m paranoid about wasting time and money, over several years for a degree/s which I will end up not using!

AIBU to ask what your career is?

Can I ask why?

Paramedic. Love it but it is mentally tough, I’ve developed a lot of resilience over the years.

35 and been a Sales Rep for a portable building company coming up to 6 years. Never thought this would be my calling in life 🤣 but I have really caught the sales bug after 10 years in admin and I love it. Not the best pay, I'll never be rich. I did try going up the ladder in 2024 and hated it, back to doing what I love being with customers and selling. Who knows how I'll feel in the future but right now I'm really happy

Podiatrist. 20+ years in nhs and now my own private practice. Would still recommend NHS as a great learning and very challenging and still good opportunities .

Investment banking. It pays very well, but it’s dull, monotonous work and standard to be made redundant every 7-8 years. I’ve advised DC against - despite the very nice lifestyle it’s provided them with.

@Biscoffnutellatoast when I was in my early 20s I also wanted to be a forensic psychologist. I applied for a couple of trainee roles and was rejected on the basis that I had psychology degree but no experience of working with a relevant client group.

So started volunteering for the Probation Service then applied for a job there. That was 17 years ago and I’m now a Senior Probation Officer.

It’s not the highest paying job but there is never a dull day…….

I struggled my way through uni to get a BSc, hated it that much I didn’t stay on for my honours year so impossible to get a job in any science field without honours. I now work in a nursery, low paid but I love it! Uni was a waste of time for me, I always wonder whether it would’ve been different if I went for a totally different degree!

Solicitor. I hate it. The money isn’t as much as people expect (unless you’re selling your soul in the city) and the stress just means it feels like it’s not worth it. I desperately want to change careers but I feel like it’s so depressing that I’m struggling to be able to explain why I want a career change without totally slagging off what I already do. How do people explain this in interviews?!

You’ll always get work as a mental health nurse. you can work in forensics.

Not in my speciality, very niche in a tertiary centre.
Im also quite senior so changing would involve a pay cut and it’s also a case of better the devil you know.
Im more likely to change careers at some point when my kids are in school rather than change jobs.

Thank you! It’s pretty varied & for the most part great.

A new challenge? It’s not for you? Better work life balance? You could say loads depending on what you were going into!

Just off the top of my head, the bureaucratic wankery and box ticking, along with the masses of scrutiny multiple times a week from various layers of management. Was frequently given conflicting advice to improvement from various seniors, some with more experience than me so me with less, none of them subject matter experts.

Eventually left the profession in 2013. Mental health has been significantly better since.

I've got degrees in biochemistry and immunology, started out as a research scientist for a biotech company before becoming a medical writer. Was in-house for various medical communications agencies for 10 years (worked my way up to Scientific Director level) before going freelance.

I was planning to do an MSc in forensic science and was talked out of it by an acquaintance who'd graduated a few years previously with an MSc in forensic science - the course was too narrow and jobs few and far between. So my advice is to keep your options open at undergraduate level, if you're still set on forensic psychology then consider postgrad courses.

Occupational therapist in mental health- quite happy with my job

How do you get into this please? This is exact sort of thing I would like to be doing

Air traffic controller. Not as glamorous as it sounds; the shift work and strict alcohol levels (quite rightly well below the drink/drive limit) wouldn't suit everyone.

Kitchen designer for a large national company. Love the design work and the customers, hate the sales pressure.

I’m an actuary, I really enjoy it, it has changed in recent years and now partime working, flexible working is more common, it’s fab because it has attracted so many more women to the profession.

What is an actuary please? In my head I want to say something to do with valuation???

Nursery worker.
On the plus side, if you have a pulse you can get a job. So many vacancies mean that standards for staff have dropped through the floor.
On the minus side, you'll be working with useless fuckwits who can barely operate as human beings. Low pay. Huge responsibility. Little respect.

Yes, I may be feeling a bit negative at the moment.

We’re financial fortune tellers! Essentially we look at markets, previous performance etc to predict the risk of future (financial events). It could be in assisting insurance companies with setting their rates, so if I work for a car insurance company I need to make sure the formula created generally means a 25 year old with a corsa in the vast majority of cases pays more in premiums than they are likely to claim.

I’m an insurance actuary, so we work out the companies predicted liability to customers (so what we’ll have to pay them) and how to invest funds so we can pay out and grow our funds enough to have a healthy profit to secure the future of the business. We’re sometimes involved in big divorce cases too when splitting assets.

I am an engineer. I do safety analysis on complex system to ensure that we have identified and controlled any risks resulting from the systems we design.

It is a great job, and quite well-paid. Have a look at the York University MSc in Safety Critical Systems Engineering, or the Aberdeen University MSc in Safety and Reliability Engineering. Heriott Watt do one as well, but I don’t know anyone who has done that course.

if you are interested in psychology, then human-machine integration is part of what we look at. So maybe a career in Human Factors may be of interest.

I enjoyed reading those. Such a varied bunch!

Im an IT project manager. Love is too strong a word. But I feel like I’m a “square peg in a square hole” when doing it. I think that’s as good as it gets sometimes.

(Now that I know I have adhd that explains why I was so terrible at academic studies. I do wonder what life would have been like if I could use my sharp brain for actual study and one of the traditional professions)

Interesting. Not something I'd have a skill set to suit at all but I wouldn't mind being a fortune teller lol.