When it comes to your career, you may feel like everything in set in stone. When you’re on your way to college or just about to graduate, you usually have some kind of idea in your mind for what you’re working towards. Whether you’re a journalism major or pre-med, you often feel as if your fate is set. You’ll go on to graduate school in your chosen field, then work in that job for the rest of your life. But, things don’t have to be that black and white. In fact, there are many different options you can consider for your future when you’re thinking about planning your career? So instead of seeing only one door open, here are a couple more to consider.
Getting An Internship
When you graduate, the very first thing you could think about doing is getting an internship. Now, this is often the step many graduates take after college. However, if you want to think about getting ahead of the game, you could also look at a series of summer internships that you could do throughout college and graduate school. This may mean that you could bag yourself a job upon leaving college, or step up that little bit higher when you first start in a job, because you’ll have a lot more experience than someone that’s just about to do their internship.
Climbing The Ladder
Then, as part of your career planning, you could also think about how you’re going to move on up. When you enter into a business, there is often a kind of structure in place. No matter the industry, there will be a loosely defined promotional path for you to follow. Whether you want to be CEO or of a corporation or a partner at a law firm, you’re going to want to work out what path you need to take, so that you can then work on climbing that ladder in the right time frame.
Going Freelance
However, staying on that corporate career ladder isn’t the only option you have. In fact, you may decide that stepping onto it in the first place isn’t right for you. Instead, you could think about becoming a freelancer. Whether you’re a writer, designer, or consultant, this is something that you could do after getting a few years experience, or even straight from college. It’s a great option to keep in mind should you want a little more control over your own work.
Going It Alone
Or maybe you’ve always thought about becoming an entrepreneur? Then why not hop to it and start setting the wheels in motion now? Just look at King Kong’s Sabri Suby as an example. Not every entrepreneur comes from a funded background or waits years and years to start something for themselves. So why couldn’t entrepreneurship feature early on in your career?
Getting Into Academia
And don’t forget, there’s always an academic path to consider. If you love your studies and the topic that you’re studying, a career as a professor, either right after grad school or at some point in the future, could be a great career option for you to consider too.
