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Was this your first career option? What are some challenges of your job?

My career is an automotive engineer and this is for a assignment. It would be great if you would answer thanks.

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David’s Answer

My career is in Information Technology as a programmer. I did not major in this in college, as I have an Industrial Engineering (IE) degree. I graduated high school thinking I wanted to be a Mechanical Engineer (ME). I enrolled in college as an ME but quickly had difficulty with the coursework and switched to IE. I had many elective courses as part of the IE program of study, one of which was Databases and Database Programming. I realized I enjoyed working with data and was lucky to get a job at a data software company. I did have a bigger learning curve to overcome since I did not focus my studies on programming (as an Computer Science or similar major would). However, it's certainly possible to work in a field that you did not major in while in college, and be successful in that field. There are many paths to success.
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Melanie’s Answer

My career is in digital accessibility and I love it, but it was not my first career choice out of college. Straight out of college my ideal career was in graphic design and web development. At the time I was not even aware of accessibility as something outside of public and private infrastructure. Through my first fulltime job as a web designer I started researching accessibility as a solution to a code issue. The more I understood, the more invested and hooked I was. Accessibility from then on became my career goal. That goal has since taken me from graphic design, to web development, to user experience, and to the growing number of roles that float in-between design and development.

My role today is part designer, part developer as an accessibility consultant. I help companies and teams understand how to fix existing issues and work with them to avoid future ones.

Some of the challenges getting started was imposter syndrome. Accessibility had been a side-job for most of my career, but to leap fully into it being my 9-to-5 I had doubts about both my skill level and my ability to get people to listen. That's a big part of consulting. You are the expert, but you still have to do some heavy lifting to convince teams to treat your knowledge as more than just a personal opinion.
Another challenge, regarding technology fields in general and not just accessibility, is that there is always something to learn. You must always be in an active state of improving your current skillset or adding to it. There are constantly new tools, new development languages, and updated accessibility guidelines.

Try not to be overwhelmed in whatever role or career you pursue. Take it slow and focus on deep diving into a new skill instead of attempting to know everything all at once.
Thank you comment icon Thank you! Esteban
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Ben’s Answer

I am an auditor which was definitely not my first career choice/option growing up. I went into college "undecided" on a major, but had gathered an idea of my strengths/weaknesses based on my experiences and classes in middle and high school. I would recommend identifying your strengths, what you are good at and what you like to do, and keeping your options open. There isn't necessarily a huge rush on deciding your major/career before college starts, but having an idea is a helpful base. As far as my job, the main challenge is the peak times during our "busy" season where auditors work a lot of hours. Balancing my time during those months can get difficult, but we get through it!
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