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My senior year of college I knew that I wanted to do work that made a difference, but I didn't know what kind of work that would be. I was a sociology major, but wasn't attracted to social work. I'd worked at a DC nonprofit the summer after my junior year that focused on policy work, but that wasn't a fit for me either. I also knew that a 9-5 work schedule wasn't the best fit for me.
A couple months before graduation I went to my religion professor's office hours to ask for advice. I can't remember the details of our conversation, except that he used a lot of words beginning with "C": courage, commitment, calling, creativity. For the first time, I didn't feel like a crazy person for wanting to have an alternative vision for my career.
If you are a college student, or someone in career transition, who wants to find work that fulfills your big vision for a better world, I have a few words of advice, and some books to recommend.
My advice:
1. Follow your curiosity. What are the things that excite you the most? What are the issues you follow in the media, or wish you could be involved with? What is the skill you say to yourself, " I would love to know how to _____________." Are there people whose work you envy? These are all good inklings of what you might want to do.
2. Do it, don't think about it. You'll never know if you enjoy doing something by thinking about it. You have to take action either by taking a class, doing an informational interview, volunteering, interning, going to an event, or taking a job in the field that interests you.
For example, at one point, I thought I wanted to be a massage therapist, but then I took a massage class, and realized I had to massage naked people I didn't know. Yuck. I never made the connection until I did it.
3. Take small steps. It can be overwhelming to have, "Find work I love that makes a difference in a the world," as a to-do. Once you've made a list of some of the fields and skills that interest you, make another list of small steps you can take to explore them such as:
* Send an email to my friends to see if they have connections in the fields that interest me.
* Look for a volunteer position on Volunteer Match.
* Find an event on Craigslist, Idealist or Upcoming about an issue that interests me. Go to it.
* Research classes/workshops in a skill I want to learn. Sign up for it.
4. Find support. Looking for a job can be a lonely, frustrating experience. Creating work you love that doesn't go automatically from A-Z (i.e. I get a degree in X, I get a job in X), can be extra challenging. Career counselors and coaches can be great support, but so can peers.
Find another person, or a group of people, who are also trying to find work that helps to create their big vision for the world. Get together. Talk about your big visions. Commit to taking three small actions towards your big visions by a certain date when you will meet/talk on the phone/connect by email again. Do your actions. Meet with your support system. Pick three more actions. Pick a date to meet. Repeat until you create your big vision!
A Few Book Suggestions:
Be Bold: Create a Career with Impact, a publication of Echoing Green. Boy, do I wish this book had been around when I was in college. This fantastic book is filled with profiles of social change visionaries like Priya Haji, CEO and Co-Founder of World of Good; Katie Redford Co-Founder and US Office Director of Earth Rights International; and Wendy Kopp, Founder of Teach for America. They were all Echoing Green Fellows who received up to $90,000 in seed funding and technical support to turn their ideas into sustainable organizations.
In addition to inspiring profiles, the back of the book has a series of questions to help you create your big vision like:
- * If your career (in its entirety--think long term) allowed you
