I’ve always thought it makes no sense to get 16 and 17 year olds to decide what they want to do for the rest of their lives in order to choose what they want to study at University. Does it work for some people and some courses? Absolutely! I thought I was one of those students; convinced that I was going to become an architect, and ready to spend the next 7+ years of my life doing something I loved.
‘So what changed?’ I hear you ask. The blunt answer? Me. I changed. I grew older and I learnt more about what I wanted from a job.
My degrees
I spent my first year and a half of my Architecture degree enjoying what I was doing, thriving in a setting where I got to be creative (and not write too many essays) and was praised by my tutors for going above and beyond. But then, in my second year we were tasked with a live client brief to design what was essentially a shed… sorry, ‘garden office’.
I jumped right in, gave it 100%, did loads of research, felt it was some of my best work, both on the design and the presentation I pulled together, and was really proud to present to the client. The feedback I got from my tutor afterwards? ‘You were nearly there’. That was the first time I actually stopped and thought about why I wanted to be an architect. If my 100% is only nearly there, would I be pushing myself to the max each day for something that might not make me happy? The dream of being an architect started falling apart at the seams from then on and it was quite a struggle to tell people as I thought they’d be disappointed in me.
I visited my Careers service in third year (after some prompting by my parents mind you…) and they helped me understand that changing what you want in life when you’re 20 is definitely not the end of the world, even though it may seem it at that point. I ended up applying for a masters course in Egyptology, a real hobby interest of mine, to actually go and learn something I loved, not because I needed the course for a future career.
My first job
The funny thing is, people would always ask me ‘So what can you do with an Egyptology degree?’ and I defaulted back into thinking the degree must lead to a job. I had a choice of working in museums and conservation, teaching, or doing a PhD, apparently, according to 21 year old me anyway!
I’ll let you into a little spoiler – I’m not doing any of those, nor am I working as an architect. I’m currently the Data and Systems Manager for the University of Reading’s Careers Centre and I love what I do!
I got my masters degree, proved to myself that I could get a distinction, and then, like a lot of students, moved back in with my parents in my hometown. Right back where I started, with no clear career trajectory and with very little useful work experience to help me find a job. I was applying to pretty much anything and everything that didn’t require specific work experience. I got lots of rejections and only a few interviews during that period, but one of those interviews was for my first job out of university – in tourism.
Now, remember, at this point in my life I’ve studied architecture for 3 years and egyptology for 1 year – I had no clue about tourism, but the interview never explicitly asked me about anything to do with tourism, and instead asked me about my skills in different areas. Could I write an email to a customer? Could I do maths (they even gave me a calculator) to work out how many groups would be needed? How would I manage a difficult situation? They valued how my previous experience could help me, rather than whether I’d had specific experience in a tourism setting.
Finding the career for me
I spent 4 years in that role, working my way up to become Supervisor, and learning new skills throughout my time there. Without that role, predominantly in customer service, I wouldn’t be where I am now as I certainly wouldn’t have expected to pick up database implementation, spreadsheet management, SQL and Power BI skills otherwise. I’d been working there for a while when they implemented a new database, and because I used the old system daily, I was asked to be part of the team to help make sure it worked for what we needed.
Turns out, systems and data is something that just clicked for me! It made sense; I think it was the amount of logic that’s involved as I’ve always loved a good puzzle. Without that first role, and being in the right place at the right time, I never would have had the skills needed to apply for my current position. It wasn’t about how much experience I had, but what I had learnt from my experience.
My career so far has been far from a simple straight line – architecture to Egyptology to tourism to data. Yes, there are links between them, but actually it’s not the links that matter. I’ve learnt so many things as I’ve grown up, not just in my jobs but in my personal life too, and I am a very firm believer that your degree does not determine what jobs you can do.
I’m not the same person I was when I decided to study architecture. I’m not the same person I was when I decided to take the role in tourism 4 years later, or even the same person I was when I started this role 6 years ago. I’ve grown and my interests and skills have changed alongside me. That’s OK though, because by changing my mind and learning new things, I’m in a job I love, in a sector that provides challenges to keep it interesting.
So don’t be scared to change your mind – you’ll probably be much happier and content in the long run and who doesn’t want to be happy!
Louise Thomas-Burt, Employability Data and Systems Manager