Serving as an RA is Helping Me Define My Career Path

Choosing a career is one of the hardest things most people ever have to do. With a wide variety of interests, goals, and ideas of what we'd like to do, it seems hard to narrow our choices down to one specific career. Yet in pursuing a career path, I submit that it is important to remember not to try and satisfy one and only one satisfying thing in your life. Instead, seeking a career path that allows you to experience and experiment with each of your interests, skills, and general loves may help you find the satisfying career you've longed for.

As an English major in college, I have a lot of job possibilities ahead of me. Of course, that's not always such a great thing, particularly for those-like myself-who find it very hard to define exactly what they want to do with their lives. For us, the general definition of a career goal goes something like this: "I want to do it all." In my case, I don't want to do absolutely everything. Yet so much in my field appeals to me: writing, editing, publishing, teaching, consulting, and so forth. The path laid before me, both fortunately and unfortunately, veers off in so many different directions it's hard to keep track of them all.

Fortunately, that's where my current job comes in to help me out.

I am currently serving as a Resident Assistant at my college. While I pursue my education, I also serve in a highly concentrated leadership role. Serving as an RA has so many different aspects that it seems easy to do a little bit of everything. I get to lead and serve others. I have opportunities to plan functions, counsel the students who live with me, serve as a mediator and a friend, be the leader and serve on a team. I even get to do quite a bit of writing, both for school-I also work for the school newspaper-as part of my job, and for pleasure in my free time. For me, this is in many ways the perfect job.

Yet outside of being one of the best experiences of my college experience, this position has also helped me define my career path.