I had 3 things I wanted to be: A nurse, a scientist, and a special education teacher. I cannot remember a time in my life where I wanted to be something different.
I'm kind of all 3 :) I did a lot of work with special needs people as a nurse. The scientist part comes through with using your nursing judgement and trying to put the pieces together with the Dr. to make a clear diagnosis :) Also, I am attaining my degrees in Psychology and Sociology... social sciences...
A lot of nurses I speak with have wanted to be a nurse, teacher, or vet... So, I'm interested: What did you want to be (who knows, maybe I'll do a research paper on it... LOL)?
I always wanted to be an Equine Vet, almost since birth I think! When I got to college I started out pre-vet, but I had no idea how to study (because I didn't have to in high school and still got good grades), and I lacked self confidence, so I ended up switching majors and got a very generic business degree.
Fast forward a few years I am working as a customer service supervisor in a department that dealt with legal issues, so I decided to go to law school. Aced the LSAT, got accepted with a scholarship, then just before I was to start hubby gets sick. I had to defer enrollment because he was in and out of the hospital and ended up having surgery.
It was during one of his hospitalizations that nursing first "caught me eye", and I started looking into it and realized there were 2nd degree accelerated programs near my home. I turned down law school and started my pre-reqs. The rest is history
Sometimes I still regret not going through with Vet School, but then I think about the life of an Equine Vet (we are close friends with ours and see what kind of life he lives!) Work-life balance is important to me, and as a School Nurse I think I have achieved it, so it all worked out the way it was meant to, I believe :)
I wanted to be a ranger. How fun would that be to play with nature. Hike and count animals all the time. I gave it up as a kid for being unattainable. Now as an adult, I lead junior ranger camps as a volunteer for a national park. It's a good compromise.
You must have wanted to be an interpretive ranger. Protection is where it's at. All the interpreters had pistol envy.
I wanted to be the guy who operated the "leaf vacuum" machine that would drive down the street and pick up the leaves people raked to the curb. Yeah I was young and stupid back then. Now I'm no longer young, but still stupid.
Specializes in drug seekers and the incurably insane..
Parapsychologist....wanted to explore the "paranormal"!!! I wanted to investigate haunted places and possessed people. Heck, sounds kinda like my job description now!!
Specializes in vascular, med surg, home health , rehab,.
A cop; at the time policewomen in the UK had to be 5ft 6in. Despite no-one in my family being less than 5 6, I topped out at 5 ft even.....probably for the best, I'd have been a nightmare and it would have totally been ruined by the job; next dream nurse after taking care of my mum who was dying from breast cancer; one day I washed her up, put some lipstick on her and she felt so much better, I thought, damn, I want to make a difference, so nursing it was; shame im too busy juggling nonsense at work to do that any more.
When I was younger, like before 10, I talked about wanting to become a doctor. Then I stumbled into anime (yes I'm one of those people who watches those silly Japanese cartoons; it's part of the reason I'd like to work with kids because I still play Pokemon with my husband, and I know all about Naruto because I watch it every Thursday) and wanted to be one of those Japanese translators for Japanese businessmen. It hit me in high school that translating may not be so great (3 years of Japanese and my vocabulary is terrible) and toyed between medicine (I really wanted to do autopsies), nursing and every so often, law. Had I known about some of the things that happened to my parents, I probably would've pursued law rather than nursing.
I never,ever planned to be a RN...just the job market in 1980 swayed me this way...even now when someone says "hey Nurse" I do not think of that as myself..and in the field 30 yrs!
anotherone, BSN, RN
1,735 Posts
A pop star or backup dancer/singer for one.