Career change.

[RH33]

3 hours ago, 19QOS19 said:

Good stuff. That's what I went for. Hated it by the end if I'm being honest, just far too much paperwork and not enough patient contact which for me should be what the job is all about.

Not to put a downer on it for you and tbh I think the problem was old fashioned backward nurses rather than 'the system' so hopefully things are different now. It was 10 years a go I did it.

The course itself was great for me regardless. I was a lot more judgemental before it and had a real dislike for certain people in our society. It made me grow up sharply aged 18 as well as see things differently about people's choices in life. Having a good understanding of mental illness isn't a bad thing anyway so I'm happy I did the course. By January/February hopefully! Covid kind of delayed things. I never qualified as a nurse. I completed the 3 years but failed my final assessment by about 3% and didn't want to go back after 6 months to redo my last year. I wasn't enjoying it from Year 2 onwards and just stuck it out because I didn't know what else to do. Failing was gutting at the time but it was the best thing for me in the long term as I know had I qualified I'd be doing the job scared to leap elsewhere regardless if I liked it or not.

I stayed in a mental health job I hated for about 6 years as it was security before realising I needed to get a grip of my life. It wasn't fair on the service users either. I don't think you can work in mental health if you don't care and if I'm being truthful I really didn't by the end.

Again,not to put a downer on Rowan, it was the place/management rather than the working in MH that was the issue.

I think going in young to mhn would be tough. I applied ten year ago but decided pull application and have another kid (then another! 

Quiet prepared for the paperwork frustrations and no matter where you work there’s always management to deal with. 
 

my appointments with my psychiatrist often became discussions as how services for people with BPD could be improved! 

 

[olliethedug]

6 hours ago, Richey Edwards said:

I am planning on studying Nursing at university next year. I will be 34 by the time I qualify.

I started my first year in September. I’m 40. 

[19QOS19]

I think going in young to mhn would be tough. I applied ten year ago but decided pull application and have another kid (then another! 
Quiet prepared for the paperwork frustrations and no matter where you work there’s always management to deal with. 
 
my appointments with my psychiatrist often became discussions as how services for people with BPD could be improved! 

 

The practical side of things I dealt with really well and always got good reports on placements. It was the theory side I always struggled with and what ultimately let me down. I don't think age really mattered in that aspect, you can either do the essays etc. or you can't regardless of age. Another good thing that came from the course was a lecturer discovering I had dyslexia and sending me for tests to confirm it - a lecturer who I clashed with I might add. It was great to know as I always thought I was just a bit slow [emoji38]

It is a really interesting course though and I'm sure you'll enjoy it. My advice would be to use the help of the lecturers as much as you can. That was another thing I failed to do - young and dumb probably!

[RH33]

I’m hoping to do the relatively new MSc.

[Raidernation]

Do you think moving to America was a good choice? Or do you think things would have panned out much the same if you'd stayed in Scotland?

That’s a question I can’t really answer as the reason for moving was nothing todo with the job.

[carpetmonster]

1 hour ago, olliethedug said:

I started my first year in September. I’m 40. 

Aye but that’s only 6 in human years. 

[The_Kincardine]

15 hours ago, MONKMAN said:

1,  Has anyone ever done a complete career change and retrained in an entirely new profession? 

2.  How would employers look at new graduates in their mid-late 30's, compared to 21 year olds straight out off the uni conveyor belt?  

I've not yet read the rest of the thread but happy to chip in.

1. Has anyone ever done a complete career change:

I've had 4 phases to my career so far:

a. Training as a metallurgist and studying on day release at Bell College in Hamilton for an HND and the taking professional qualifications.
b. Doing a degree in theology in London then working as a graduate trainee for Xerox followed by various commercial roles in the software industry - which was easily the most profitable part of my career.
c. Setting up my own business as a sales consultant when we were living in Aberdeenshire - which was the most enjoyable part of my career as I could combine being hands-on with my 3 weans with earning a living.
d. Retraining as a sales analyst which, at the age of 50ish, meant learning about various CRM packages and also data analysis and presentation.  This has also allowed me to move from working FT to having a 20 hour a week job that keeps the lights on.

2.  How would employers look at new graduates in their mid-late 30's, compared to 21 year olds

You're immediately at a disadvantage.  No point in trying to put a gloss on it.  BUT there's an increasing recognition that age is not an issues when it comes to recruitment.  Obviously the public sector dominates here but a fair few private companies/firms are following this enlightened route.  I know, for example, a few City of London law firms who positively discriminate in favour of older applicants and I can see this trend continuing.

So aye.  Get yourself in to a role you feel comfortable with and you will find an opportunity that suits you.

[Sergeant Wilson]

9 hours ago, The_Kincardine said:

Doing a degree in theology in London then working as a graduate trainee for Xerox 

Did you photocopy the bible?

[staggy1929]

17 hours ago, Monkey Tennis said:

That was your experience, so it's clearly universal, yeah?

Never said it was universal to be fair, just going by my own experience and what others from my area have said to me. I assume you think what I said was wrong then?

[Monkey Tennis]

1 hour ago, staggy1929 said:

Never said it was universal to be fair, just going by my own experience and what others from my area have said to me. I assume you think what I said was wrong then?

Well when you said this:

 "in school your never told to go get work and life experience then go to uni when you're ready. They push the 'know what you want to do for the rest of your life at 17' rhetoric."

...it sure as Hell sounded like you were implying it's a universal truth.  

 

I think what you said was wrong and I doubt if it's even particularly representative of your own individual experience to be honest, although obviously, I can't know that.  How long it is since you left school, might play a part here.

It sounds a lot though like it's that lazy thing of blaming something external for decisions and directions taken.

A bigger issue is that too many kids now stay on through to S6 and too many then head into higher education.  I would think you'd struggle to find a school that wasn't aware of this.  Schools would generally be happier directing youngsters into employment when it's more suitable.

When kids do apply to UCAS at age 17, obviously they need to decide what courses they're going to aim for.  These decisions will indeed potentially impact on what people do for "the rest of their lives", but it's not school that pushes that.  Schools will however facilitate applications.

It just bugs me that everyone seems to think they know how schools operate, because once upon a time, they went to one.

[staggy1929]

4 minutes ago, Monkey Tennis said:

Well when you said this:

 "in school your never told to go get work and life experience then go to uni when you're ready. They push the 'know what you want to do for the rest of your life at 17' rhetoric."

...it sure as Hell sounded like you were implying it's a universal truth.  

 

I think what you said was wrong and I doubt if it's even particularly representative of your own individual experience to be honest, although obviously, I can't know that.  How long it is since you left school, might play a part here.

It sounds a lot though like it's that lazy thing of blaming something external for decisions and directions taken.

A bigger issue is that too many kids now stay on through to S6 and too many then head into higher education.  I would think you'd struggle to find a school that wasn't aware of this.  Schools would generally be happier directing youngsters into employment when it's more suitable.

When kids do apply to UCAS at age 17, obviously they need to decide what courses they're going to aim for.  These decisions will indeed potentially impact on what people do for "the rest of their lives", but it's not school that pushes that.  Schools will however facilitate applications.

It just bugs me that everyone seems to think they know how schools operate, because once upon a time, they went to one.

I was in 6th year in 2014 and the entire year was essentially people being told to go straight into further education, whether that's because the school needed to have improved figures of students going into further education I'm not sure. There was one time where someone came in to talk about apprenticeships to be fair but that was an external source and it was quite common in our schools for teachers to use university as a bargaining chip for students to put a bit more effort in class, usually from 4th year onwards mind you as my memories of 1-3rd year aren't as clear.

 

What I will say is that and I'll make it clear that this is MY opinion here, Schools should be telling kids that it's okay to not know what you want to do in life when your that age. believe it or not the uni course that I've started has the end goal for me of being a teacher. So my opinion may change once I'm on the other side of it. I never knew I wanted to do that at 16/17, there are loads of people who know exactly what they want to do at that age however and more power to them, I hated the feeling of being less than everyone else in school because I wasn't going to uni or college and I don't think teenagers should be made to feel that way. I may be totally wrong in my thought process here, but f**k it I'm a Ross County fan talking about teaching on a football forum I'm hardly going to be an expert on it 

[Monkey Tennis]

24 minutes ago, staggy1929 said:

 

What I will say is that and I'll make it clear that this is MY opinion here, Schools should be telling kids that it's okay to not know what you want to do in life when your that age. believe it or not the uni course that I've started has the end goal for me of being a teacher. So my opinion may change once I'm on the other side of it. I never knew I wanted to do that at 16/17, there are loads of people who know exactly what they want to do at that age however and more power to them, I hated the feeling of being less than everyone else in school because I wasn't going to uni or college and I don't think teenagers should be made to feel that way. I may be totally wrong in my thought process here, but f**k it I'm a Ross County fan talking about teaching on a football forum I'm hardly going to be an expert on it 

In my experience, schools absolutely and explicitly say "that it's okay to not know what you want to do in life when your that age."

I also "don't think teenagers should be made to feel that way" if not prolonging their education, but I think you'd be far better attacking societal, particularly parental expectations, as opposed to anything projected by schools.

[GallowayBlue]

On 20/10/2020 at 09:16, Jambomo said:

I did when I was in my late 20’s. I had worked on financial services (call centres mainly) and I was 26 when I went to Uni and did my undergrad. Moved into Librarianship from there. 
 

Now I am in a position where I potentially would be hiring employees I’d say that I’d look on it pretty favourably, certainly I wouldn’t consider the age you graduate to be a negative factor. I think that you’ve looked at things, realised you want to make a change and then taking action to make it, would all be positive points for me in looking for an employee.

 

Can you tell me more about librarianship?

After reading your post I started looking into it and had no idea that librarians were so well qualified.

[Boostin' Kev]

Is Monkman the only poster to go through a mid life crisis to be an accountant? 

[staggy1929]

40 minutes ago, Monkey Tennis said:

In my experience, schools absolutely and explicitly say "that it's okay to not know what you want to do in life when your that age."

I also "don't think teenagers should be made to feel that way" if not prolonging their education, but I think you'd be far better attacking societal, particularly parental expectations, as opposed to anything projected by schools.

I suppose everyone's experience is different in different schools, I do agree that it may be a big societal problem.

[Jambomo]

1 hour ago, GallowayBlue said:

Can you tell me more about librarianship?

After reading your post I started looking into it and had no idea that librarians were so well qualified.

Sure. There is quite a wide range of areas you can be involved it, public lending libraries are the kind most people think about but you have law librarians, NHS/healthcare, schools, there are loads.  I work as an academic librarian, mainly in supporting research (things like Open Access, bibliometrics etc). There is a lot more work done now around access to information in general, than just lending out books. A lot is done around electronic resources (i.e e-books, journals that are online only or mainly online), keeping data safe (i.e archiving and making as much publicly available as possible) loads of things.

Getting into it at entry level (so normally on a helpdesk or starting as a cataloguer or other metadata assistant) is fairly straightforward, you don't need a lot of qualifications but it is very competitive so usually people will have some relevant transferrable skills or previous volunteering experience. If you want to move up then people will generally look for Librarianship as a degree or the route I took which was a undergrad degree in any subject but then a postgrad degree in Librarianship or information management (the main thing is doing a course accredited by CILIP which is the professional body for librarians). The good thing is that the Postgrad courses are really set up for people to do them around work, its almost the expected route so that helps a lot. You do get professional Chartership from CILIP which is more of a nice to have than essential as it is in some other fields (i.e accounting).

Edited October 21, 2020 by Jambomo

[Shandon Par]

25 minutes ago, Boostin' Kev said:

Is Monkman the only poster to go through a mid life crisis to be an accountant? 

I keep fancying a change of scene. Really enjoying decorating and making previously grotty places look decent. But then I think "you must be mad, why pack up doing what you do in such tricky times?". 

[Granny Danger]

34 minutes ago, Boostin' Kev said:

Is Monkman the only poster to go through a mid life crisis to be an accountant? 

Accountant’s crises last their whole lives.

37 minutes ago, GallowayBlue said:

Can you tell me more about librarianship?

 

Worst chat up line ever.

 

Edited October 21, 2020 by Granny Danger

[Jambomo]

13 minutes ago, Granny Danger said:

Worst chat up line ever.

I've heard worse to be fair 

[coprolite]

53 minutes ago, Boostin' Kev said:

Is Monkman the only poster to go through a mid life crisis to be an accountant? 

John Major ran away from the circus to be an accountant. He might post on here.