Something to Fall Back On

From a pretty young age, I wanted to be a writer. Once I became relatively good as a French horn player, I decided I wanted to be a musician, as well. My brothers and I were always told that we needed something to fall back on rather than pursue a career in art, music or writing. Go ahead and take the art classes, the music classes and write stories. But, more importantly, learn a trade, a skill, or pick a profession where you had something to fall back on. This has been the same advice given to countless teenagers starting out in life.

In college, I took classes for both music and English with a focus on education. I would become a teacher. That was my fall back career. During my senior year in college, I realized that I would not be able to graduate with my class and still receive the teaching certification because I hadn't completed enough credits to take a full quarter off to do the required student teaching. I also hadn't planned where my student teaching would even be or where I would live if it wasn't there in Greeley, Colorado where I attended school. I also realized that it was more important to me to graduate at the designated time, meaning in exactly four years, than to get the degree and the credentials to teach.

Of course, ever since I had made a girl cry during my teacher aiding experience I was shaken over not having either the rapport or the authority over the students I thought I would have. In the end, I easily sacrificed the teaching credential for a straight Bachelor of Art degree and graduated in June four years after starting college. I figured I would pick up the certification requirements later and even thought seriously about getting an advanced degree in order to teach college level students.

On the one hand, I disagree with the advice given to every young adult that they need a college degree regardless of the career they choose. Paying for a college education today is certainly not a small thing. Unless you have a career that requires a college education, the burden of the debt from student loans simply does not make sense. Having a college education also does not mean that you will instantly be qualified for any job you choose. I have seen far too many times where people have earned degrees and have no experience and become over-qualified for the job they are doing and yet still under-qualified for the job they want. On the other hand, I know that in the career I ended up pursuing not having a degree would have greatly reduced my salary potential.

I often think of career choices as each being ladders. For some career choices, a higher education is required in order to ascend the ladder. But the lower rungs on that ladder usually require related work experience. If you want to switch ladders, there are some careers that are similar enough that the experience you get from the one ladder can help you branch off into a different one. Many others, though, require both the experience and associated degree from the same ladder. Getting experience without the degree won't help you ascend the ladder and getting the degree without the experience also won't help.

Recently, I wondered what would have happened if I had just started writing and not worried about the career part of that equation. While I don't regret not becoming a teacher, I do wonder if all the while I pursued the degrees, certifications and work experience, I was simply avoiding the hard work of sitting down to write rather than establishing that "something" to fall back on. Of course, I will never know the answer and any advice I might have to give others is far too dependent on the individual and personal life circumstances to be of any use to someone else. I do know that, now at the age of 53, I have that "something" to fall back on pretty well established and have just started to do the things that bring me the most joy in life. My only advice to others is to not postpone doing the thing you love in pursuit of the thing you simply need to do.