A Beautiful School
I’ve been strongly considering the idea of starting a second career. It’s a recent idea, and not totally fleshed out yet, but it’s been on my mind constantly. It’s exciting, horrifying, insane to think about at this stage of my life.
It would involve going back to college, which is a little worrisome since I’ve got 2 kids and am definitely not a kid anymore. Of course, going back to school is also exciting in its own way.
Beyond that, it’s just not normal for me to think in this direction. I’ve worked for myself my entire adult life. I think that people should do the things that best fulfill their dreams regardless of consequence, and for the last 10 years my dream has been entreprenurial.
Despite my success at running my own business, I realize I have hit a few milestones that are encouraging me to move on. I’ve learned that I have a huge love of public service, and enjoy teaching people things, assisting the growth of knowledge, and helping people along a path toward that also. In that capacity, I have done a couple of things that most people will never achieve in their lifetime, and I’ve done them before turning 30. One example is being part of less than 10 people in the entire world who helped create, implement, and teach new standards that are now used by hundreds of thousands of technology professionals for millions of clients across the globe (and that number will only continue to grow). The sense of achievement and pride I feel when I look at the people who are benefiting from our hard work is close to the feeling of having a child and watching them grow.
The same sense of accomplishment I feel watching my ‘baby’ take wings and fly is the also prompting me to consider a career as a different kind of scientist. I have been functioning as a computer scientist for 10 years, and I am feeling very strongly drawn back toward the natural sciences I loved as a youth. That old love is being coupled with my adult love of public service, and my natural talent toward problem solving. I’m highly considering becoming a forensic scientist as my second career.
The changes to my life would be enormous. Not only would I have to work for someone else, I’d have to go back to school, I’d have to rearrange how I handle my kids homeschooling (perhaps by supplementing with private tutors), I’d have to transition my business to be more self-sufficient and handled by contract staff, my personal technology projects would be relegated to a hobby again, and I’d have to learn to get dressed in the morning!
The adjustments to my life would be countless, but I’ve never been one to think that people should only follow one path in a lifetime. At this point, I’m not certain if I’d want to be more in the field as a crime scene investigator, or more in the laboratory as a scientist, but I find both appealing. The idea of taking my gifts as a problem solver, my highly analytical nature, and being able to speak for the dead and those who have been victims of crime appeals to my strong need to follow a public service path.
The path is there, it’s presented itself. I’m still thinking. It’s a battle between logical fears and my intuition.
