[Sooga]

I hopped into a computer programming job for a big asset-management firm in Santa Monica right after I graduated. Worst. Job. Ever. Perhaps there are people who would like a job where you literally don't have to speak to anyone all day, where you're stuck in a cubicle with no windows, and you just punch away on your keyboard from morning til quitting time. But I'm not one of those people.

Eventually I just quit. Didn't have any job lined up, I just quit; I couldn't handle it anymore. Yea, this probably wasn't a bright move, but in retrospect, it was great because it was the impetus I needed to look for something different. I'd always felt I could be a good teacher back when I was in high school, so I sent out a resume and application to high schools all over the area, and I got hired a few months later, and now I'm pretty sure that's how I'm going to spend the rest of my career.

Yea, the teaching doesn't pay nearly as much as my programming job did. But I only work basically 1000 hours a year at a job I really enjoy, which gives me plenty of free time to do whatever else I want to do. Thinking back, I don't regret anything I did. If you're not sure what you want to do as a job, just try anything you think you'd like, while you still have your youth. You don't want to wake up one morning and be old and/or have commitments, and be stuck humping some job that pays ok, but doesn't make you happy.