Friday open thread: forking paths, sliding doors

[dolorosa_12]

The Friday open thread is back for another week. This week's prompt is all about points in your life where your choices diverged, and you chose (or fell onto) one path as opposed to another. But it's also about where you might have ended up if you'd chosen otherwise.

For me, there was one very clear moment in which my life branched off in a specific direction, and if things hadn't happened as that did in that specific moment, my life would have been very different.


After I graduated from my undergrad degree, I kind of panicked, and wound up back in my home town, working as a subeditor for the broadsheet newspaper there (I had been writing book reviews for that paper for the past four years while I was a student). I was miserable — especially since (as both my parents were journalists and almost all the adults I knew growing up worked in journalism) I had always assumed I'd end up working with the written word in a journalistic context, and had no clear idea of what I'd do if this didn't work out. (What I really wanted to do was keep working the weekend/holiday job I'd done while I was a student — shop assistant in a family-run patisserie and chocolate shop — while continuing to write book reviews but not relying on my writing as the sole source of income and figure out what to do next in a leisurely way.)

In any case, after a few months of this, I wanted to get out, and made a decision based almost solely on the metric of 'what can I do that isn't this, but which my mum will approve of?' and somehow landed on the idea of applying to do postgraduate study. The subject in which I had majored, and written my honours thesis, was not taught in Australia at postgraduate level, and my old undergraduate supervisor advised me to apply at Cambridge, Oxford, Edinburgh, and Harvard. I ruled out Harvard almost immediately due to the need to undertake a standardised test, with maths questions, which I'd have to pay for, as part of the application, and the potential supervisor at Oxford never replied to my email, so that left Cambridge and Edinburgh. I got accepted at both, but Cambridge was going to fund my studies with a scholarship and Edinburgh wasn't, so that made the decision easy — I moved to the UK, and my life unfolded in the way that it did.

There's obviously another version of my life where I got accepted with funding at Edinburgh and moved there, but the more extreme divergence would have been if I didn't get accepted for postgraduate studies at any of these places, or never applied. I don't know how much longer I would have grimly persisted in the subediting job (I was calling up my mum daily in tears every lunch break, my social life was exclusively chatting online in the IRC chatroom with the Philip Pullman forum people, and I used to fantasise on my walk into work each day that a car might hit me when I was crossing the street and I'd be taken into hospital and not have to go to work, so...), but if I'd stayed in journalism in some capacity, I assume I would have been made redundant at some point during the decades-long cuts that swept through the Australian (and indeed global) media landscape.

However, what I suspect would have happened if I'd not emigrated is that at some point between 2008-2010 I would have undertaken a librarianship MA in Australia and ended up working as an academic librarian, since one of my good friends from undergrad did exactly that, and it would have occurred to me that this was a suitable career for me in terms of my interests, abilities and temperament. As I would have lacked the teaching experience (gained while I was a PhD student) that landed me the specific kind of academic library work I do now, I probably would have ended up doing something more collections-related rather than teaching or research support, but essentially I would have been an academic librarian in Australia. So, if the path that led me to where I am now was blocked, I would have ended up in a different country, definitely not married to the person I am now, definitely not with the British citizenship I have now (to my mind the three most important things in my life), but probably with a very similar job.

What about you? Can you identify specific points where you were faced with two (or more) diverging paths with profound effect on your life? And if you had taken another path at those points, what would your life look like now?

Comments

[yarnofariadne]

I've actually been kind of exploring this in a just-for-fun writing side project I have going - if, instead of sacrificing my big dream of pursuing acting in order to care for my brothers, I'd left them and gone to the performing arts high school all my friends went to. I don't know if there was a career for me in acting - my last director told me there wasn't, because I wasn't pretty enough to be a lead or funny-looking enough to be a character actress - but on a personal level, if I'd lived a life in which the biggest trauma of my life didn't happen, if I'd been less isolated and lonely, if I'd had the opportunity to develop my own confidence and self-reliance before people took advantage of my vulnerabilities, I think a lot of things would have turned out very, very differently. It's hard to say where I'd be; possibly I'd have emigrated earlier, or possibly I'd still be trying to. Possibly I'd have a stable career, possibly I'd be just as precarious in another field of work. I really think I'd just be a completely different person, and it's hard for me to even imagine where that person's life would've led them.

[dolorosa_12]

That's similar to how I feel about these moments of divergence, especially if they result in completely different careers, countries of residence, relationships and so on.

For what it's worth, I know several people who studied at a performing arts high school, and literally none of them ended up working in the performing arts, so even if your life had taken that path, you may still not have ended up with that career. It does sound that the decision not to do so was a wrenching choice, made in very difficult circumstances, and led to some hard consequences, and I'm sorry to hear that.

[yarnofariadne]

None of my friends who went to that school have ended up in the performing arts either, so it's a sound hypothesis. I try not to wonder - it's not likely in any case, really - but it's hard to resist the daydream sometimes.

[used_songs]

I had always planned to go straight through and get a PhD and teach at a university, but after I got the MA I was so burned out and disenchanted with that life that I instead did my teacher certification. If I had stayed in academia, based on experiences of friends who did I would've had to move if I could've even found a position. I wouldn't be as close as I am to my parents and I wouldn't have met E. My whole life would be different.

I actually started the application process for the FBI (to be an analyst, not a cop) when I had a year or two of teaching under my belt, but I desisted pretty quickly, knowing that my political history and complete aversion to guns would disqualify me. I don't think they would've taken me, but in that case again I would've moved and had very different relationships.

The only positive for me in both cases would be (probably) getting the hell out of Texas. But I wouldn't have met E, I would've only seen my parents on holidays, I wouldn't have this house, I wouldn't have Ella, etc.

[dolorosa_12]

Wow, both those things are so different to the job you ended up doing — you're absolutely right that it would probably have led to a very different life, in very different places, with very different relationships. I had no idea you'd considered working for the FBI!

The only positive for me in both cases would be (probably) getting the hell out of Texas. But I wouldn't have met E, I would've only seen my parents on holidays, I wouldn't have this house, I wouldn't have Ella, etc.

Understandable. These are all obviously very good things, and I'm only sorry that you've had to live in Texas in order to have them happen.

[raven]

I was supposed to be a doctor. My dreadful mother badgered me relentlessly about it my last two years of school (and tried to change my A-level choices at one point) and finally, to get her off my back, I said I'd apply for two things at once: PPE at Oxford, which is what I did in the end, and a bunch of medical schools as well. In retrospect I hate her for this, but also myself for going along with it. I got into both, of course, and turned down King's for medicine. I have no idea what would have happened if I'd gone for it - maybe I'd have just dropped out after a year or two? But if I had gone for it, I'd never have met any of the people I met at Ox, including my partner, I'd have done my professional training probably somewhere else other than Cambridge and London, and given up on the writing because there would be no way to do it at the same time as being a junior doctor. (Me giving up on the writing - something else my mother was very keen on!)

The other thing doesn't really count because it wasn't my choice, but my parents came within a hair of going back to India when I was about eight or nine. That's the one that blows my mind because it's really clear - I know which school in Delhi I'd have gone to, and what house I'd have lived in, and even what my post-secondary education would have looked like. The funny thing about that one is that it might actually have reconverged - I might still have done PPE at Ox and met the same people. But I guess I'll never know.

[dolorosa_12]

Oh wow, that would certainly have been a very different life — and I'm really glad you were able to find the strength to put your foot down and apply for (and choose) the degree you really wanted. It certainly sounds as if doing so led to a lot of good things, both personally and professionally. (And I work with junior doctors and people training to be junior doctors — you're 100 per cent correct that there just isn't any time or energy left for anything else.)

It's really interesting that the path your life would have taken if your parents went back to India with you is so clear, but that you would have likely ended up in a similar place!

[sophia_sol]

This is something that's come to my mind repeatedly over the years, with respect to two major turning points in my life, but I don't actually have very good answers for the specifics of how my life would have looked if those things hadn't happened!

The first is that when I was a child, my parents (who moved our family around a lot when we were younger) decided it was time to move back to Canada and settle in one place. There were several different places in Canada that were under consideration, and I could just as easily ended up growing up in an entirely different province or even just a different city in the province we did end up in, with different schools and different friends and different nearby extended family and different important adults in my life. Or if we'd stayed living in white rural conservative united states instead....who would I have been, growing up under those social influences? But because my family moved where and when we did, I met the defining person in my life, my best friend since middle school who is my partner in adulthood. E and I shaped each other so much as we grew up together that I literally cannot imagine what kind of person I would have been without E's influence!

The second is that in the final month of my undergraduate degree I was hit by a car and had a severe concussion with side effects lasting more than a year. This entirely derailed what paths were open to me as I made the transition away from being a student. My career path would likely look entirely different, since the job I eventually ended up with after I'd sufficiently recovered from the concussion was one I only got via happenstance, and that job kind of shaped my career path since then. What would I have ended up doing instead? What jobs would I have found opportunities for if I had been able to graduate on time and start job searching immediately post-degree? I'm really not sure! As well, I think that the concussion did permanently change some things in my brain; I developed insomnia and increased anxiety after that, which have also been fairly life-shaping. I'm happy with where I've ended up after all this, but I do wonder if and how much my life might have been easier if the concussion hadn't happened.

[dolorosa_12]

The split between the lives we might have lived in different countries is so stark, isn't it? I was actually born in the US, but my parents decided to move back to Australia when I was a toddler, but there is another version of my life where they stayed, or went back to the US when I was a primary school-aged child, and things would have turned out so differently for me. It's really obvious in your case that your parents' decision to return to Canada caused your life to unfold in such a wonderful direction, and I'm happy for you that that was the case.

The car accident, on the other hand, is obviously a much more difficult rupture — your description of that event as a derailment seems entirely correct. What a scary thing to be dealing with at a time of your life when your future path seemed clear and full of options. And with insomia and anxiety too — life-shaping, as you say, but very difficult to live with.

[nerakrose]

I have more than one of these! but I think the one most identifiable happened when I was a teenager in boarding school. in Denmark one finishes school after 9th grade, but it's very common to take an optional 10th grade before moving on to any of the secondary programmes (STX for getting into university, HHX, HTX, HF which are more trade and business based, any of the trade programmes like bookseller, carpenter, mechanic, hairdresser, etc.) or starting work without any training or schooling at all. it's also very common to do that 10th grade at a boarding school, and slightly less common but very possible to do 9th grade at boarding school as well. the boarding school I went to did both 9th and 10th grade and in fact taught us all together so we had the same curriculum.

what happened while I was there, doing my 10th grade optional year and improving my grades in German amongst other things, was that the government finally announced a start date for the STX reform. STX used to be 2 distinct lines, the mathematical line and the language line. if you were going into STEM you'd take the mathematical line and if you were going into anything else, you'd take the language line. these lines had been criticised for not being specific enough - the mathematical line forced you to take "too many" humanities subjects including languages so in reality the two lines were the same except the mathematical line had higher level STEM subjects, so was harder to complete. so there was going to be a reform and now STX would be offering 7 different lines with different specialisations. I didn't care because I was going to go to STX and do the mathematical line because that would keep the doors open for me to decide *later* whether to go to into STEM or the humanities or something else - I couldn't decide if I wanted to be an astrophysicist or a linguist, see. (or an archaeologist, or a microbiologist, or study literature, etc. etc.) the reform would remove doors for me because the more specialised lines meant you wouldn't be able to take enough of all the subjects at high enough levels that you could potentially get into ALL the university subjects, but would be locking yourself into narrower paths. the reform didn't concern me because I would finish boarding school and go to STX as the last generation to do the Old Lines Before The Reform because the reform wasn't starting until the following school year.

except. one of the reasons I went to boarding school is because I desperately needed to improve my social skills and gain confidence in who I was as a person and learn independence and a wealth of other 'soft' skills that I didn't possess, having gone to weirdly specialised schools and been put into specialised classes for 'children with disabilities' (which meant that I'd been in the same classes as children with learning disabilities and lesser mental capacity and other issues that were not compatible with me and my needs - I just had a hearing loss, I wasn't stupid or too paralysed to communicate or whatever - and so didn't learn any social skills at all. this wasn't unique to me btw, the system was Bad so all disabled children were put together as if we were all cut from the same cloth) and when it came time to apply for STX I realised that I was Not Ready. I needed another year to work on myself before re-entering the real world (not that boarding school isn't the real world, but because it's not mandatory schooling they are kind of like experimental bubbles focused more on personal development than academic results. my school specialised in democracy, philosophy, arts, and athletics, essentially educating compassionate future citizens from a holistic starting point of physical health and mind leading to enlightened critical thinkers). so I had to decide: do I want to prioritise my personal wellbeing and development or do I want to prioritise my future career? I was 16. I chose myself. instead of taking the 10th grade exam (which can only be taken once) I re-took the 9th grade test (which is only a test and can be re-taken as many times as one wants).

so I spent another year at boarding school and then went to STX and had to pick a specialised Line and then the Line I chose wasn't even offered because too few students chose it (5 students, it was the modern languages line) so I wound up getting put into another Line focused on social sciences. I wasn't able to take Chemistry as a side subject at all, it simply wasn't offered, so the only STEM subject I was able to take was Physics C or B, Maths C or B, Natural Geography C and Biology C. After I did my C level STEM subjects I had to upgrade two of them to B level but I found a loophole, I upgraded Physics to B and instead of upgrading Maths to B I instead upgraded German from B to A and Social Sciences from B to A. (it was more complicated than that, but basically that's how that worked out.) by keeping Maths at C level I was closing more doors for myself to ever get into any STEM courses at uni because they all required at least Maths B. and the reason why I didn't want to upgrade Maths after how much frustrated I'd been by not being able to choose STEM subjects? I was spending 4 hours every week doing Maths problems and then another 3 hours copying them out cleanly onto fresh sheets of paper to hand in, because nobody had taught me how to set this up in excel so I wouldn't have to copy them out afterwards, and my STX school refused to take the time to teach us (all my classmates had been taught at their primary schools). and if I didn't copy them over cleanly I would be marked down simply for 'poor presentation' even though the problems themselves were all correctly solved. I didn't want to go through another year of that absolute bullshit, I didn't have the TIME to spend 7 hours every week just on fucking maths problems and an outdated view when I also had 4 essays to write on weekly basis for other subjects + all my daily reading. I didn't have a social life because all I did was study. I didn't even watch any TV the three years I was in STX. I was marked down for poor presentation ANYWAY so towards the end of the year I simply stopped copying them over and submitted my working sheets because it made absolutely no difference to my marks but it did gain me 3 more hours every week to just breathe. a whole year of not having a single error in any maths problems and I never got a top mark because my teacher didn't like my handwriting and didn't like me, and refused to teach me excel to save me the time and effort and improve my presentation. fuck that shit. I am, as you can tell, still angry about it. it's been almost twenty years but seriously FUCK that shit.

so yeah I wound up in the humanities because I had to make hard choices at a very young age that could not be corrected for later. (one can as an adult take single subjects through HF to get into specific university courses, unfortunately this is one of the few areas of Danish education that is not free, so it was never an option for me to upgrade Maths to B or A after I finished STX, for any of the other STEM subjects for the matter.)

In another life I might have become an astro or nuclear physicist. I might also have become an archaeologist or palaeontologist (I decided against that very early because all my research led to having to go the USA for some portion of postgrad or PHD for it and I simply refused to entertain the thought of living in the USA, ever, for any reason. I still do). I can't really imagine what that would've been like, because I would've become a completely different person than I am now and not only because I would've missed out on a year of boarding school and personal development when I needed it most. I'm not sure if I did meet the alternative universe me who made those other choices, that I would recognise them as myself.

as for my somewhat flaky humanities career: I probably would've ended up in publishing anyway. editor/publisher is one of the many careers I've always wanted to do, in Denmark it requires a BA and MA in Literature and I ended up studying Finnish instead, but I was involved with school papers and the like as an editor and proofreader, and for much of my time in fandom I was running fests (very similar to project managing books tbh) and betaing for other people, and so on and so forth, I've always involved myself with writing and stories somehow. had I been accepted at any of the publishing jobs I tried for in Denmark over the years, my publishing career would've looked very different and I probably would never have come to the UK. I certainly wouldn't have done the publishing MA. I would probably have met many of the same people because publishing as an industry is very international and we translate and publish each others books, and meet each other at book fairs, but it wouldn't have been exactly the same.

[dolorosa_12]

Oh wow, I'm so angry on your behalf about that maths teacher! What an awful person, and in particular how vile that their awfulness closed off so many paths to you at such a young age. I have to say I really dislike school systems that force students to specialise at a comparably young age — I did the International Baccalaureate, and the one thing I particularly appreciate about that is that it was basically forbidden to specialise, because a broad range of subjects were mandatory (you had to do maths, at least one science subject, at least one foreign language, at least one humanities subject, world literature, and one final elective which could be another language, another science, or another humanities subject, plus a minor in philosophy, and community service/volunteering, sport/exercise, and some form of art or music). So essentially you had the prerequisites to study almost any degree at any university, and it's an internationally recognised programme so almost all universities around the world recognise its grading and can translate it into their own national system. The drawback is that it's mostly only offered at private schools, although in my case it was taught at a state/public school. It sounds as if the Danish system at the time was set up to accommodate lots of different potential career paths and interests — except for people who didn't know what they wanted to do at the time when they were being forced to make these decisions!

It sounds as if, once a career in STEM was closed off to you, you probably would have ended up in publishing anyway, although as you say a very different career in a very different country. I guess this is similar to how I probably would have become a librarian, just in Australia instead of in the UK — a different kind of librarian, with a very different social circle.

[nerakrose]

I considered the IB instead of STX actually! the only reason why I didn't do it at all is because it wasn't offered in my area. my family moved to another part of the country just before I went to boarding school so where I would've been able to do an IB before we moved, after we moved it wasn't possible because there wasn't one within a commutable distance. in Denmark the IB is considered the same as an STX though iirc it's 2 years instead of 3? It's taught at the same type of schools and it doesn't cost anything as far as I know. my STX school also taught HF for example. other schools also offer HHX, HTX and IB, in various constellations. (HF is also 2 years instead of 3 but you can get into university with it provided you had the right subjects at the right level.) I'm not really upset about missing out on the IB, it wasn't anywhere near as important as whatever was going on with STX was. although. the IB student cap is the second coolest student cap because it has flags on it. (the actual coolest student cap is the black STX cap which is reserved for those who on the Old system specialised in Classical Languages (Greek and Latin) OR those who did 5 A level subjects, and since I did 5 A level subjects I earned that cap.) My school didn't offer a Classical specialisation since there wasn't a Greek teacher and only one ancient Latin teacher who actually quit halfway through the first semester due to old age/dementia so I never even finished the introduction to Latin course we were all subjected to in lieu of the option of Latin as an optional language. anyway...

STX is technically a broad education as there are a lot of mandatory subjects that are the same for everyone. everyone has mandatory Danish A, English B, History A, Maths C, Religion C, Classical Studies C, and PE C (although PE last all three years despite being a C level subject). it's mandatory for everyone to have an additional 3 STEM subjects at C level but which ones you get depends on which specialisation you choose and what the school offers. Mine only had the standard subjects, not any of the fancier ones. I's also mandatory for everyone to have another language in addition to English B but whether it's Continuing German B/French B or a Beginner Language A is optional (Beginner Language depends on the school. all schools offer French and German, most offer Spanish, anything beyond that depends. My school used to offer Russian but they shut it down the year I started. other schools offer Russian, or Chinese, or Italian, or something else. Chinese especially is on the rise as China gains more power and we do more business with China). It's also mandatory to have one Arts Subject C.

the modern languages line I applied for which was cancelled because only 5 people applied had Continuing Language B, English A and *two* Beginner Languages A which for my school meant Beginner French A and Beginner Spanish A as they were the only other languages they offered in addition to German. (the Music specialisation in my year had only 9 students so I wonder what the minimum threshold was since 5 didn't cut it but 9 did.)

somebody doing a Music specialisation might have all of the above but then do Music A, Drama B and Art C. and then upgrade Drama to A and Art to B or A to avoid upgrading Maths or English or whatever. my specialisation subjects were English A, Social Sciences B and Psychology C. One is required to have four A level subjects and that's what's standard to do as well, however I wound up with five in order to avoid Maths B (Danish and History as the two mandatory A levels and then English, Social Sciences, German as the optional As).

where it gets hairy is that entry requirements for university require different levels of each subject to get in. so just checking the current admission requirements for Physics at University of Copenhagen:
Danish A
English B
Maths A with at least 7,0 average mark
one of following combinations:
Physics B with at least 7,0 average mark* and Chemistry B
Physics B with at least 7,0 average mark* and Biotechnology A
Geoscience A and Chemistry B
*If you've passed Physics A there is no minimum average mark required

so there are the two mandatory humanities subjects that everyone has to have (Danish A and English B) and then a specific set of STEM combinations. My STX school didn't have Geoscience and Biotechnology, but they did offer Physics and Chemistry so I could've gotten in with those subjects at the right level.

If I'd taken a Maths specialisation at STX I would've been able to get in no problem as I'd have been able to take Physics at a minimum B level and Chemistry at minimum B level, but I wouldn't have been able to take Social Sciences at a level higher than C, probably wouldn't have been able to take Psychology at all, and I wouldn't have been able to upgrade German to A (probably would've been able to upgrade English to A though). I didn't have Chemistry at all and my Biology C and Geography C wouldn't have made a difference. I would've had to pay for a year or two of upgrading Maths, taking Chemistry C and B and probably throwing in an upgrade to Physics from B to A (I can't remember what my Physics B average mark was - I think it was at least a 7 but say it wasn't, getting a passing average in Physics A would've taken care of that problem), in order to get into Physics at uni and I never had the money to do that. better to just apply for a humanities or social sciences course that I *could* get into.

(as a sidenote, an average mark of 7 is the equivalent to a C on the international scale. If I remember the UK scale correctly, A starts at 70% and then B is the bracket 60-69% and C is the 50-59% bracket? so this course doesn't even require top marks to get in, so even if I'd had the same awful maths teacher throughout STX for Maths A and never got a top mark, I still had a fairly high average. infuriatingly I would score equivalent to B on *all* my weekly maths problems and assignments, I never got a C on those, but my two semester marks were C and the final exam was also a C so my average mark was, in fact, 7, even though my weekly assignments never dipped below a B. the two semester marks should've been Bs. infuriating. I hope that teacher rots in hell. (I did confront him about it and he said he'd calculated my semester marks from an average of all my homework marks and therefore that was the correct mark. because god forbid he made a calculation error or possibly input a different student's mark in the system or whatever other possible explanation. I was literally holding a stack of paper all marked B. fuck him with a thousand rusty spoons. on a positive tangent, my German teacher artificially inflated my average mark because even though I was making a lot of mistakes she recognised I was making progress and she wanted to reward that more than she wanted to punish mistakes. she also recommended I upgrade from B to A because the A level exam was oral whereas the B level exam was written, and I performed better orally than in writing. she really made a huge difference.)

I applied for a handful of courses in the UK, Finland, Sweden, Iceland, and Denmark when I was looking for things to study that wasn't nuclear physics. I got accepted into a few different programs including a Social Sciences and Russian course in Glasgow that I ended up declining, which I wouldn't have gotten into if not for Social Sciences A. (imagining how different my life had been if I'd gone to Scotland for that BA! I may never have come back to Denmark at all. I probably wouldn't have gone back to Finland as much as I did.)

Idk if this sounds like a defence of STX or not, that's not really the point. I have complicated feelings about it. I think I was unlucky in many ways and I think my generation especially struggled because we were the first generation to go to STX with the reform so we were technically lab rats. one of the things the reform introduced was interdisciplinary projects (unheard of before) where we were required to do research projects combining two subjects, e.g. English and Social Sciences or History and Arts or Psychology and English or History and German - all real interdisciplinary projects I've done. our teachers often didn't know how even to guide or mark the projects because guidelines from the ministry of education were often half-formed! so they were making up as they went and we just had to roll with it.

I do appreciate a lot about the interdisciplinary part of STX because it taught us to think outside the box and while we weren't allowed to do any independent NEW research "wait until university for that" and could only rely on already published research and material to put together our essays, we were encouraged to cross-pollinate. use theories from social science to do literary analysis or look at German propaganda posters for an Arts & history project and whatnot. I really do think that if not for that, and especially considering this directly followed from two years at boarding school that also encouraged out of the box thinking, I would've felt a lot more boxed in than I did. there was a level of freedom there as well.

[dolorosa_12]

Oh, now that you've set things out in detail, everything makes a lot more sense — STX sounds like a very broad, interdisciplinary programme, and the issues you encounter seem more the consequence of bad teaching and chaotic implementation/organisation rather than a bad programme.

we were encouraged to cross-pollinate. use theories from social science to do literary analysis or look at German propaganda posters for an Arts & history project and whatnot. I really do think that if not for that, and especially considering this directly followed from two years at boarding school that also encouraged out of the box thinking, I would've felt a lot more boxed in than I did. there was a level of freedom there as well.

This in particular sounds excellent, and is often missing from secondary school education programmes.

[nerakrose]

it is very broad and very general-education oriented. if you're familiar with the American college structure where the first two years are a broad general education programme and the next two are specialised - STX is equivalent to the first two years in an American college. (another reason I decided not to go to the US for archeology, I didn't want to spend two years repeating what I'd already learned.)

[isis]

I can think of two very big turning points in my life, which actually happened within six months of each other: dropping out of graduate school with a master's instead of pursuing the doctorate, and breaking up with the long-term boyfriend I was living with in order to move in with another man. (Reader, I married him.) As far as I can tell, in terms of net happiness for me and a future interesting life path, I made the right decision in both cases!

[dolorosa_12]

Oooh yes, those are definitely two big turning points! It definitely sounds as if, in both instances, you made the correct choice, and I'm glad you're happy with how your life turned out as a result.

[lirazel]

(What I really wanted to do was keep working the weekend/holiday job I'd done while I was a student — shop assistant in a family-run patisserie and chocolate shop — while continuing to write book reviews but not relying on my writing as the sole source of income and figure out what to do next in a leisurely way.)


Was there a reason you couldn't do this? Because honestly that sounds like a lovely life!

I feel like my life is nothing but a series of these things. But I would say the biggest one that comes to mind is when I decided to leave my mind-numbing data entry job and move across the country to live with a fandom friend. Jamie was like, "Come live with me!" and...I did! I was only there for not quite three years, but I got my first library job there (which lead to more library jobs, which lead to grad school, which lead to archives, which lead me here), which I definitely would not have been able to get in my hometown.

I think it also taught me I could move on my own, which is something I've done at least four more times since then. I definitely like my life a ton more now than I liked it in my mid-20s before I moved!

I have absolutely no clue what my life would have looked life if I'd stayed in my hometown. No clue at all!

[dolorosa_12]

Was there a reason you couldn't do this? Because honestly that sounds like a lovely life!

The money earned doing this wasn't enough to live on, unless I stayed living at home with my mum (which is what I'd been doing throughout the four years of my undergrad degree), and basically as soon as I'd graduated, she'd started sending me links to job applications and pressuring me to contact people she knew in the media to ask about work, and I couldn't bear the thought of having to endlessly apply for these things until I got a job (because she wouldn't have stopped with this stuff until I did), and didn't have the capacity to argue with her about this state of affairs (to be honest, I still find it impossible to argue with her when she thinks I should be doing something, and living on the other side of the world has made things a lot easier in this regard). Hence the panicked decision to move to Canberra and be a subeditor — it was the only thing I could think of at the time that would make the endless pressure and job applications stop.

What you've described about your own life certainly sounds like a series of forking paths — it doesn't sound as if it's always been easy, but it sounds as if they've led you to some interesting places, and ultimately to the place you find yourself now. I'm glad you're happier with your life now than when you were in your mid-20s — it would be really sad if it were the other way around!

[lirazel]

Ah, yes, that all makes sense. Parents are so intense, aren't they? Sometimes way more than they know. I definitely relate to feeling that some geographic distance helps.

[lyr]

I've had a lot of those forks in the road, really. If I hadn't had such a brutal breakup with my rhythm guitarist (she tried to get me to commit suicide), I probably wouldn't have given up music as a career. And if, following that, I hadn't taken a job tutoring while I was working toward becoming a research biologist and realized how much I love teaching, I wouldn't have moved into academia. And even if I had decided to become a professor, it would have been as a biologist if I hadn't had some awful experiences in the field and slid sideways into rhetoric and writing instead.

[dolorosa_12]

If I hadn't had such a brutal breakup with my rhythm guitarist (she tried to get me to commit suicide), I probably wouldn't have given up music as a career.

Oh my goodness, what a terrible thing to have happened — I'm so sorry you had to go through that. It sounds as if things ultimately worked out for the best in the end, but what a difficult way to get there.

[lyr]

Thanks. I am not sorry about where I am now, so I am ultimately not sorry for the things that got me here.

[thawrecka]

I often think about forks in the road, but usually not about choices I made so much as wondering what it would have been like if I got support at a certain point, or suchlike.

One of the big ones is that I was best at maths and chemistry in school, and my father was a chemist, but teachers encouraged me into the humanities instead (though I ended up in office admin), and I wonder what life would be like had someone put two and two together and encouraged me to become a chemist like my father.

The other is wondering what it might be like had anyone helped me learn healthy coping mechanisms before I had a nervous breakdown at 19 (at which point my family finally had the internet, so I looked them up on google 😂). I probably would have graduated uni the same time as my peers instead of finally gaining my bachelor degree at the age of 35, and ended up in completely different career, earning different things, maybe living in a different place. But this is honestly something that would lead to such a wildly divergent outcome that I can't truly imagine it anymore.

The big change I made in my own life was moving to Melbourne in my mid 20s, and it didn't feel like taking another path was an option if I wanted a long, healthy life, so I can't say I want to imagine a different path.

[dolorosa_12]

What you're describing is still forks in the roads, it's just that the choices were made by other people, not by you (which is awful, especially the lack of support for your abilities in STEM). People are so bad at recognising when undergraduate university students are struggling, and it has such terrible consequences. I'm so sorry you also experienced this, but well done on getting the bachelor degree nonetheless.

The big change I made in my own life was moving to Melbourne in my mid 20s, and it didn't feel like taking another path was an option if I wanted a long, healthy life, so I can't say I want to imagine a different path.

Totally understandable, and I'm glad you made that choice.

[gingicat]

My biggest regret is my first marriage, but it did get me into convention fandom where I met a lot of people who became friends. That person also introduced me to Spider Robinson's books, which led me to investigate alt.callahans and alt.music.filk (later rec.music.filk) where I met a lot more people who became friends. The convergence of convention-fandom and Usenet-fandom caused me to meet my second husband, which I definitely don't regret.

There are interesting professional turns as well - had my interest in a professional blue-collar certificate and apprenticeship been taken seriously after I got my BA (which was definitely important and also led to the above), I'd likely have become an electrician and would be living in a house I own. I do love being an office manager in a place that appreciates my intelligence and eclectic skills and accommodates my ADHD, though.

[dolorosa_12]

I'm sorry to hear that about your first marriage, although it is nice to hear that at least it brought you to various important social circles, and your second husband as well.

And being an electrician rather than an office manager would definitely have led to a very different life, that's for sure!

[gingicat]

Honestly, knowing what accommodations I needed for ADHD might well have caused me to advocate for working in the trades even more.

[corvidology]

Oddly enough, my first instance of this was when I was a young child and it was beyond my control. I say 'oddly' in that my parents were planning to emigrate to Australia (*g*) when my mother finally found out about one of my father's many affairs and divorced him.

Besides that, there are too many to count, include being offered places to read Chemistry, Biochemistry, Zoology, Literature and Film at uni. My mother has never forgiven me for turning down the Cambridge offer for Chemistry.

Too many to count but I can honestly say I don't think about them at all unless someone asks a question like this. *g* I've spent my life bobbing along with the waves and currents, dealing with shipwrecks as they've happened and enjoying the successful voyages. I can't say I've made many deliberate decisions about diverging paths.

[dolorosa_12]

Oh wow, lots of forking paths for you there!

I don't think about my own specific forks in the road very often, and honestly I don't really know what prompted me to use it in this week's open thread. I'm glad I did, though, as it sparked lots of interesting comments.

[chestnut_pod]

I made all my own educational decisions from the time I went to middle school (7th-8th grade, so around ages 11-13), and I'm sure any other decision would have sent me down a pretty profoundly different path. But I think the actual turning point was winning a scholarship to go on an international trip with my language class in my sophomore year of high school, actually the month I turned 15, to a particular city. I loved that city so much that I decided I had to study abroad there in my third year of university, which led me to the one and only program which had any offerings there, which was extremely academically intense and allowed me to do a researched thesis-type paper with interviews -- which became my MA thesis, which got me into my PhD, which got me to where I am right now!

[dolorosa_12]

From the sound of things, a series of your own decisions got you to where you are now, and any one of those decisions being different might have resulted in you being in a very different place. It's interesting to have such a clear path of branching choices to look back on, and know how it led you to where you are now.

[falena]

I have a master's in technical translation and while I quickly found out that I wasn't cut out to be a freelance translator for a while I wanted to try to be an in-house translator, only in-house positions are hard to come by in Italy and of course the largest employer of translators is the EU so while I was working in an office job I applied for several translation positions with the EU and went through the rigourous application process and was actually successful for one of the temporary supply translator posts. That meant my name was in a pool for a available translators for my working language combinations (English and French into Italian), ready to move to Brussels if one of the permanent translators fell sick or pregnant or something. That particular list was valid for three years. Alas I was never called during those three years (I suspect because my language combination was very 'boring/common' and there were are there people with higher ranking) and I didn't bother re-applying after that (it was a lengthy and costly process with translation tests that could be done only in Milan or Rome) but I often wonder what my life would have been like if I had been called...

[dolorosa_12]

I knew you had academic qualifications in translation, but I didn't know you had got so close to working in the field in such a prestigious position (I have several other friends who also considered applying to work for the EU as translators, for whom it didn't work out, so I have a vague idea of how competitive it is to apply). Living and working in Brussels as a translator would definitely have been a very different path for your life to take, that's for sure.

[nerakrose]

I applied once for the EU translator thing (didn't get very far, it is SUCH a rigorous application process and I didn't pay for a prep course) but I was pretty sure that if I did get through all the tests I would be offered something - my language combinations are so niche (Finnish, Icelandic, and English, into Danish). I had worked in the translation department in the nordic council of ministers when I applied, but there currently weren't any openings there. in-house translators for technical translation seem to be paid pretty well so I was looking into that seriously, and I know for a fact that the freelance translators and interpreters the nordic council & nordic council of ministers use are paid very handsomely.

funny I had forgotten entirely about that potential career path for myself until I saw your comment!