How To Choose Your Career Path With Confidence
Alexa Uy, Content Writer Intern
For some, career choices are a breeze. There are the lucky few who know what they want to do at a young age, and there are those like me.
It started with choosing my subject combination in secondary school. At the time, it seemed like it would be the sole determinant of my entire life path–I’d heard horror stories of people who couldn’t enter certain science courses at university because they had taken Combined Sciences earlier on!
All my friends seemed to know where they wanted to go. Many were set on a specific career, and I was surrounded by soon-to-be doctors, psychologists, lawyers…
In comparison, my hopes had never extended beyond what I wanted to eat for lunch. This was the first major crossroad in my life.
What I knew was, I’d always loved Literature and History. I was inclined towards reading about the past and appreciating the beauty of language. But did that mean I should pursue these as a career?
The pressing matter, then, was deciding between taking the Triple Science combination—the so-called “safest” choice—or two of the sciences along with Full Literature. My mind was plagued with an imagined future self, suddenly crystal-clear about wanting to become a doctor and cursing my past self for not taking Biology.
Eventually, I picked Literature as I found that my inclination towards it felt like a resounding “yes!”, while the sciences felt more like a “maybe”. This was followed by History and Literature in JC, which I don’t regret. My innate love for the subjects helped me excel at these subjects in the end!
After much deliberation, I applied for Communications as my course of study in university, where my artsy personality can shine through hands-on projects. It is a creative way of applying the writing and storytelling skills that I’ve always loved about Lit and History!
Even though application deadlines have passed, I still question whether I made the right choice. What if I ended up on a path that wasn’t right for me? Would I be able to start anew later on?
It was hence a relief to me that a 2019 YouGov survey found that 1 in 2 working Singaporean adults held positions unrelated to their degrees. The reassuring takeaway: whatever I choose to study may not matter that much after all!
Alexa’s first week interning at Bold At Work
Starting my journey as an intern at Bold At Work, I’ve found that being a content writer is completely different from writing Lit and History essays. Yet, I get the same sense of fulfilment, because these things all share one commonality—they satisfy my urge to read and share stories. Whether from the past, present, or fiction, stories are what drive my curiosity most.
I’m still writing my own story, and here is what I’ve learnt in my first 3 weeks at Bold!
Activate: Dive deep and explore the self
Bold believes that to do good work, we need the 3As: Activate, Align, Act. Finding your way starts with knowing who you are. But this can be daunting. It’s hard to define our values, strengths and passions without putting ourselves under a magnifying glass.
My reporting officer introduced me to the AEIOU framework as a detailed way to practise empathy for myself. It stands for:
Activities: What were you doing?
Environment: What were your surroundings like?
Interactions: Did it involve interacting with anyone? What was it like?
Objects: What objects did you engage with?
User: How did this scenario make you feel? What did you learn from it?
Here’s what I got when I tried it myself:
From this, I deciphered that I would enjoy a role involving writing and design.
These insights might not be the most direct—reading books as a hobby does not always translate into becoming a writer, but it might suggest an appetite for delving into long texts.
From these, you can form a library of clues, to help you get to know yourself better!
Align: Find out what the world needs…And be flexible about how you do it
Having done some fact-finding on yourself, you’ll have a picture of what you value and care about. But this is just the beginning. The next step is finding out what this might mean for what you can do for the world.
SSG’s Skills Report forecasts which skills will be most in demand in the future. As someone interested in making an impact in sustainability, I could look at acquiring skills for the green economy. Already, universities are offering minors such as Environmental Humanities, which melds my two interests together.
Other times, one’s passions and interests may find expression outside of paid work.
A case study in Psy-paw-logy: Pursuing psychology and vet science
For example, the story of my friend, Thivya (they/them), 19, who is an aspiring psychology student with a passion for animal welfare.
Their hopes of becoming a veterinarian were dashed when they found that there were no vet science degrees offered in Singapore. Despite this, their devotion to animals remains unwavering. They volunteer at the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) “very religiously”, and take care of the stray cats that live on their campus—you can find updates on them at @asr.cats on Instagram!
Thivya’s story is an example of how seeking the magical intersection of ikigai may not always be the only solution! Sometimes, it is a matter of pursuing what we love and believe in, whether we can make a career out of it, or not.
Act: Learn by doing
Most importantly, I’ve found that the best way to discover yourself is to venture out there and gain experience!
My younger self thought that my only option was to be a novelist. Over the years, I became unsure that it was the path for me. Luckily, being a content writer intern at Bold has crystallised my passion for writing—but of a different kind.
Aside from internships, Bold designed job tasters as a way to try out new roles without the same level of commitment. There, you’ll gain hands-on experience with some tasks a job might involve or speak to industry professionals about what it’s like.
Hearing from participants of the taster with interactive media design company Digital Dream, I gathered that a lot of them were also unsure of where they were headed. Nonetheless, they took the time to come down for a learning experience. My takeaway from what they shared was that we’ll never truly know what something is like until we actually try it. This provided an inkling of what being Bold At Work means to me: to not shy away from the unfamiliar.
An age of exploration
There’s one thing youths like me should remember: adolescence is a time of exploration. Keeping an open mind and staying adaptable are the keys to navigating yourself and the world. So go out there and explore!
Get onto your exploration journey just like me! A series of micro-job Taster lined up just for you. Explore different job roles alongside professionals today! You can find out more and sign up here.