Wednesday, October 26, 2016

Weekly Reflection #7: October 26, 2016

For the professional that I chose to interview, I decided that I wanted to choose someone who was in a career field that I was considering going into.  The field that I’m most currently considering is business, specifically marketing, so I thought the best person for me to interview would be my father, who is the head of marketing for Hanesbrands Inc.  I made sure to ask him about his college experience, as that is where I am in the process, and what factors led him to choose his major and eventual career path.  Essentially what he told me was that he had no idea what he wanted to do in college, or as a career.  When his junior year came around, he had to pick a major, so he just decided to pick business as his major because it’s a field with lots of open doors.  Hearing that he didn’t have a passion for business, but that he simply picked a career path when he was forced to and has had an ample amount of success, makes me feel better about not knowing what I want to do yet.  I talk to a lot of students who have everything for the next ten years of their life precisely planned out, and this makes me feel a little anxious about not knowing what I want to do.  But after talking to my father about his college experience, I felt a lot better about not having an exact plan from the very beginning.  Transitioning over more towards the responsibilities of his career, they don’t vary too much.  Most days he works from nine to five at an office in Winston-Salem, going in and out of meetings and doing most of his work from his desk.  Occasionally, he has to travel out of town to meet with people from major corporations like Target or Macy’s to discuss whether or not the companies will carry Hanes clothing.  Some days, he has to fly to a city early in the morning, and fly back home later that night.  This job type seems like one that interests me because on one hand, I want a career with some stability, which would be the meetings and desk job part of it.  But I also want a career that gives me time for me to pursue my leisure activities as well as present opportunities for me to travel.  After interviewing my father, I was able to take away a lot of valuable information regarding both the path he took and decisions he had to make in college, as well as the different aspects of his career and what someone going into the field of business needs to value.  In interviewing him, I was hoping to use the information he presented to me to help narrow down my choices for potential careers.  I’ve been back and forth between a career in the business family and a career in the biology family, and I’m trying to gain as much information as possible about each to help me come to a decision. 


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