what would you have asked before you went into your career

I work in an office right next door to someone who has a career as a professor and also provides psychotherapy to patients (couseling is something I might like to do, not teaching).

I am wary of asking him about distance education. I suppose I could ask him what he thinks of it for this field.

Anyway, does anyone know what I should ask him before I make the decision to embark upon this career (or not)?


I have a basic idea of run-of-the-mill questions, but I want to go deeper...

...I suppose what I'm getting at is what would you have asked before you went into your career and spent money on graduate education?

 

If I had known the realities of the career I chose years ago when I decided to turn a hobby into a career in information technology, I would have begun preparing an exit strategy ealier. I enjoy the work but I find it is loosing its edge and working with ever increasing numbers of mediocre minds I sometimes feel I have stayed too long already. Do what you enjoy and it will not be work; once it starts to feel like work pl;an for a career change/transition.

Hopefully, with an MBA and eventually a BA in Intelligence Studies I can move into an area that will once again challenge me. They will probably have to pry a book from my cold hands when I die; studying and learning have always been part of my life for as long as I can remember.

 

I did the same thing you did; turned my hobby in computing into my career.

I still love programming, however. The problem is that I'm beginning to think I should plan for the fact that there is rampant age discrimination in IT.

The problem with turning my hobby into my career is that now I'm a little narrow.

 

I hear you. I still enjoy programming (PERL, tcl, and shell scripting these days) and do it as much as the projects I am assigned allow. I have moved into system analysis and project management related activities over the years. And yes age discrimination is an unfortune side-effect of having experience. I have one version of my c.v. that only shows 5 years of experience of those times I would otherwise be told "You are overqualified." Thank God I inherited my father's youthful appearance (at least until I turn 50). ;-)