The Road Less Traveled - Deviating from Traditional Career Paths after College

If the thought of more school or twelve-hour stretches as a cubicle jockey makes you break out in a cold sweat, take a deep breath. There is another way. There are places where the day is not squeezed in between the hours of 9 and 5, and the view extends farther than your computer screen. It takes equal measures of independence, drive, and reckless abandon, but the unbeaten path can lead to great adventures after your undergraduate experience. So whether you are taking time to find yourself or are simply finding a detour from the status quo, teaching abroad could be the best first job for you. Megan Smith graduated from Harvard in 2004, having spent her undergraduate years studying English literature and rowing on the Radcliffe Varsity Crew Team. She has spent the past academic year teaching English in Perth, Australia - a job she began after spending the summer of 2004 research-writing for a travel guide on the big island of Hawaii. This job has certainly been a major departure from her small-town upbringing in Indiana. Megan describes her adventures from the past year and also gives some advice to undergraduates who are looking to do something unorthodox after graduation. *Talk a little bit about how you found your job. How and when did you decide what you wanted to do post-college? When did you start looking or applying?* Like most seniors, I was shocked into action when my highly motivated fellow students - the ones who did not scrape by and were perpetually balancing papers with hangovers - found jobs. And usually not just jobs, but high-powered, high-paying jobs. So, I started by thinking about what I did not want to do. Generally, I did not want to be in school or settled down. I wanted to travel, see some of the world, and hopefully come out with a few good stories to tell. A few of my friends that had graduated a year or two earlier had taken teaching jobs abroad. The short-term commitment, usually just a year or two, the fact that you had a job to base life abroad around, and an organization taking care of those pesky details like visas and accommodations, was pretty appealing. Luckily, the Harvard Office of Career Services has a terrific program that links undergraduates with International Schools. After submitting resumes and cover letters and going through a round of interviews, I had job offers from schools in Australia, Austria, Turkey, and Morocco. These were all new places to me, so I followed a whim and went with Australia. I think the notion of Crocodile Dundee, Steve Irwin, and maybe a faint recollection of Aborigine culture made me believe it was the sort of exotic experience that I was craving. Plus, I discovered if you take a globe and pick the point the farthest from Boston, you arrive at Perth, Australia. So, after a 2-month stint travel-writing for Let's Go on the Big Island of Hawaii, I packed my bags and crossed the international dateline. Before I reached Australia I had a two-day layover in Auckland, New Zealand. The first day was get-rid-of-jetlag day. Even though I was bloodshot and bleary eyed, I wandered around Auckland enough to know that I would rather get out of the city for my second day. So, the second day I rented a car and headed north. Essentially, driving on the other side of the road was a bit disorienting, and I was probably still ever so slightly jetlagged. When I turned off onto a dirt country road to see a kaori forest, I made the mistake of getting a little too close to the embankment. My tires caught the edge, and despite my frantic jerking to get the steering wheel back on the road, the car slid down the embankment. This all happened in incredibly slow motion, even my thoughts seemed to slow down. I remember acknowledging, the car is starting too roll, which then became, "the car is starting to roll!" which finally just became the scream in my head "Ahh, this car is rolling!" Before the car actually did roll, I managed to shift that thought to, "I hope this does not hurt," and closed my eyes. When I opened my eyes, I was suspended by my seatbelt and the car's front bumper was propped against a tree. Shattered glass was everywhere, the radio was still going, and I seemed unhurt. I scrambled out of the car and climbed the 10 or so meters up the embankment to the road. My next problem: I was in the middle of nowhere. So I started walking, which proved more difficult than normal because I was shaking from the shock of my first ever serious car crash. Eventually I found a house where a burly looking kiwi--the kind who probably owned a Harley somewhere out back--brought me in and made me a cup of Milo, then offered me a joint to calm me down. The next thing I know I was stoned and sitting shotgun in a cop car, wondering, "Is marijuana legal in New Zealand?" (note: it isn't). Eventually, the car was towed away, I managed to square away payments with the police, and my burly kiwi friend had his pot dealer give me a ride back to Auckland. There's nothing like having a serious accident and then riding with a driver who has been stoned since he was 16, by all appearances. Twenty-four hours later, I was in Perth. Two days later, I was facing my first class. *Describe your teaching job in Perth. What grade(s) and subject(s) did you teach? What was the school like?* To be honest, I think teaching is a profession where most first-timers have no idea what they are in for. I thought of my year after graduation as "being in Australia," and teaching would be an after-thought. The first class definitely changed that perspective. The first five minutes, I was facing a class of 10 kids ages 3-6. We were outside on the basketball court for "sport." At least half the class spoke very little or no English. Two kids cried uncontrollably. One kid insisted on hitting all the others. And my personal favorite: the kid who sat off by himself picking his nose contentedly. If I'd been less panicked and capable of forming a thought, I would have probably come up with "I'm never having children." However, I was too busy running damage control, paranoid that my principal would pop in to check up, and I'd be standing there cluelessly trying to pull one kid's finger from his nose while restraining another from running to the parking lot and chasing his mother's SUV. The principal never showed, and I got through the first class alright. And the second. And finally, the third. It was an exhausting first day, a blur of trying to remember names and to act natural when I was called "Miss Smith." Fortunately, it got easier after the first day. I got more comfortable in front of the class room, and while I doubt I'll ever take up teaching P.E. again, I enjoyed teaching 7th grade English. On the whole the international school taught me more than I could ever have expected. In a class of 10 kids I had Japanese, Indian, German, English, Australian, Canadian, and American. In the entire school, the students and faculty were just approaching 150 and we had some 45 countries represented. If I was looking to travel and learn more about the world, this was the right setting. In Aussie style, the school was laidback. Every Tuesday we'd have a faculty meeting, normally to discuss whether the kids should be receiving jelly beans for lining up correctly, or what to do about a particular boarding student's less than desirable hygienic habits. Then the first Tuesday after break I walked into a staff meeting (5 minutes late, which for some reason was simply how I worked on Tuesdays) to find a somber room. The school was being shut down because the board was pulling funding. The rest of the semester was an inspiring one, as I watched faculty, students, and parents rally to save their school. I must say it was a lesson in real world practicalities and the ideals of education. By the end of the year, that somber room I'd walked into where some people had lost their livelihoods and homes had become a lesson in the power of a committed group of people working for something they believed in. *Were your colleagues your age or were they older? Did you "feel American" being in an international setting?* In such an international setting, I did feel more American at first. To be completely honest, I was very conscious of being or appearing American because Aussies are pretty fond of taking the piss out of Americans. However, once someone realized I wasn't stereotypically American (sorry to say that means loud, obnoxious, puritanical, and a real lush when it comes to the booze), they were always quick to try to show me the Aussie culture. While I never shook the feeling of an outside observer or the urge to make comparisons, I would have these brief flashes where I would forget my nationality and just be Australian. When someone asks what the best thing about my year abroad was, I have a hard time articulating that answer, mostly because it comes back in those flashes--the halftime of my first footy game when I sat in the locker room and had a teammate set and tape my broken finger before going back into play, or when I'd come back from a night out and in the walk from my car to my apartment looked up to see the Southern Cross. *What did you do in your free time away from school? What were opportunities and experiences you had that would not have been possible had you stayed in the U.S.?* If I had a break from school, I was exploring. I drove the west coast, the south coast, the east coast, the outback. I toured New Zealand and the every state and territory in Australia (except Tasmania). I bungee jumped in Queensland, jumped into push pools in Darwin, played pool against a Kenny Rogers look-alike in a South Australian outback pub, hiked around that impenetrable red-hot center of Oz--Uluru (Ayer's Rock), and scuba dived in Cairns. I'd skydived, I'd drank, I'd had my heartbroken, I'd done a half-ironman, and I'd learned such classic phrases as "stands out like dog's balls." I'd tried to write it all in a journal or get it all on my digital camera. But when it comes down to it, the year goes beyond any list or picture, to what it felt like to stand 47 meters above a rushing river on a ledge as a deep kiwi accent counted down, 3-2-1, while I prayed the rope would hold. And then, I jumped, just to know what a freefall felt like. *Was it difficult to be so far away from your friends and family? What were the challenges that you faced being in a foreign country on your own?* Australia being so similar to the U.S. made being abroad fairly easy. By the time homesickness would have set in, Perth had already come to feel like home. Though I missed my friends and family, I made some good mates pretty much right off the bat. The biggest challenge for me was dealing with the pressure to absorb everything in such a short time and dealing with having a life split between home and abroad. *Did you feel pressure to get a traditional job when you saw your peers on the more orthodox medical, law, or business track? If so, how did you deal with that pressure?* Yeah, I felt a little pressure and still do. But what I learned in college was that you only get one shot at most things in life, and that I can live off ramen noodles and beer a lot longer than I think I can. I have always seen the traditional jobs as something that are there if ever my inclination changes. My ability to let go of the orthodox route comes in large part from a security that if I set my mind to it, I could get one of those jobs. For now, though, I have my mind set on seeing the world, getting out there, and experiencing as much as I can. There's no attachment, no strings pulling me back; as scary as the abyss is, I find the prospect of filling it and letting go of all the possibility a lot more frightening than just flying to some place I have never been on a one-way ticket. *What have you taken away from your experience in Australia? What were the highlights? Do you have any regrets?* Regrets, not really. It was a year I will never forget, and a place that will always seem like a home of sorts to me. For me, the highlights were discovering an approach to life that was so well suited to my own, and a culture that now feels more familiar to me than American culture, whether it's music or sports or just a willingness to let people live their lives without passing judgment. The Aussies I met and the almost otherworldly natural beauty I encountered were unlike any other part of the world. Like any truly good travel experience, there is not a single description that encapsulates it because the highlight is simply the feeling of being in a place. It was just that moment in the pub surrounded by Aussies when you first hear yourself say mate without meaning to, riding my first wave on yet another perfect summer day, or just downing one beer after another on a sunny Sunday sesh while the pub band covers "Run to Paradise" and the crowd drunkenly throws back their heads and sings along... and I'm right there with them. *Has your time abroad helped clarify your future career goals? What do you hope to do next and why?* I've had a lot of time to think about the future, that's for sure. Mostly it is a blank slate and rather than stress, I revel in thinking what it might feel like. I have a lot of fantasies about what I could do and what I want to do. The stress comes from having to narrow it down and choose just one path, just one life. I'm not sure what I will do next. I have a general year plan worked out, and a better idea of what makes me happy in life. But this year has been focused on letting go of my assumptions about where I was going, rather than clarifying that vision. *What advice would you give to a college student who is looking to take a non-traditional career path after they finish school? What are important things for them to consider/think about?* Well, anyone who is really considering the non-traditional already knows better than listen to anyone's advice. Basically, for me it was just about discovery of other places, other people, and other parts of myself. It sounds a bit daggy and perhaps it is, but I didn't give the future too much thought when I made my decisions. Rather than be rational or reasonable or even smart about it, I just took a big risk and jumped into something. I applied for some jobs mostly in the midst of senior year hangovers, heard back from some, and then wandered around Harvard Yard one night until I knew where I wanted to go. delicious | digg | technorati
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