Remember when you had your career orientation just before you graduated from college? They advised all of us to have a "plan". The only thing that stuck to me from that class was to chose your place of work that's close to your home and to gather skills as you go along.
I graduated with two degrees, AB- Political Science and BS-Legal Management. A lot of people asked me how come I didn't pursue law. I didn't because I already found it hard to finish my LM degree. I wasn't into it and at that time I realized I should have taken up marketing instead. And that's the reason why I got a Masters in Business Administration. It gave me additional skills to understand better what else I needed to learn.
So that's what I did with my career. I went through the 7Ps of marketing in the different jobs I had. Much as I didn't really have an "end goal" I was happy in the roles I had because I continued to learn. What probably helped me was being part of the market development team in my first job. Our role was to break in new products in the market and that's why I enjoyed doing. I never really cared much for titles and funnily used different titles on my business cards depending on the market I was serving.
My career was cut short because of my illness. My doctors advised me it was time to slow down and rest. It was too late when I stopped. I should have probably stopped after my first PE four years ago. I was fired up though because I liked what I was doing. My only regret is not leaving some energy for myself. On the brightside, at least I'm not a financial burden to my family.
This would be my advise to my fresh grad self -
- You can reach anything you want as long as you put your mind and hardwork to it
- Don't be a slave, leave something for yourself
- Focus on roles that would help others
- Just keep learning
- Don't be picky on what you need to do, but draw the line if it goes against your values
- Budget your money wisely
- Plan your retirement from the beginning
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