http://careers.stateuniversity.com/pages/348/Interior-Designer.html

(Above is the link that I used to research interior design)

As one would probably expect, it doesn’t take a lot of research to learn about what an interior designer does for a living. Interior designers can work for themselves, or for more experienced designers, and are usually responsible for the structure, and/or décor of a room. Interior designers help clients decide on color palettes, paint, furniture, accessories, and arrangement of the components within a space so that the space can function to fit the needs of the person/people using it.

Often times, interior designers work with architects when designing a room. This collaborative work between the architect and interior designer is done to make sure that the layout of the room will be functional, and meet the needs of a client. I had never really thought about this, but interior designers working with architects makes a lot of sense, because together, they can both plan a room that will be functional, and will match the purpose the room or space needs to serve.

This article also mentioned how interior designers can be specialized in designing a certain type of space, interior designers may specialize in restaurant interiors, lobbies, bedrooms, living rooms, etc. I found this specialization of interior design interesting. I think that if I were to choose a specific type of interior design right now, I’d probably go with designing restaurants, living rooms or lobbies. I’d want to do this type of design because I think these spaces often require more formal and sophisticated designs, and that type of design is more of the type that I am interested in doing.

Though I am an artistic person, I don’t think that I would want to be an interior designer full time. If I was working for a client, I think that I would feel too pressured to create a room that they would absolutely love, and would feel terrible if they ended up disliking the final product. I also hate painting walls. I think that painting rooms is really boring, and I hate painting close to the ceiling, counter tops, cabinets, or close to any crown molding that may be around the room. I am also a very indecisive person, so I don’t think I’d consistently be able to help clients make decisions on color choices, furniture, and accessories for their rooms.

Overall, I think that being an interior designer would be an enjoyable job. I don’t think that this occupation is right for me though, for several reasons. For one thing, as I mentioned above, I am a very indecisive person, and I just wouldn’t want to deal with the stress of picking out a design scheme that is perfect for whomever I am designing for. Another reason I wouldn’t want to be an interior designer is that I want a job that is more reliable. The article said that the demand for interior designers would go up through the year 2014, but I have a hard time convincing myself that this job would provide sufficient security during occasions that present economic hardships. I’m not saying however, that I don’t want to do any interior design, on the contrary, I would really love the opportunity to design and decorate some rooms. I just think that I’ll have to stick with coming up with design plans for my own home, and not worry about helping others design theirs.

~S.M.

This weekend I finally got around to watching the season finale of the HGTV reality T.V. show, “Design Star.” This T.V. show follows a group of selected interior designers as they compete against each other to win an interior designer’s ultimate prize: to be the host of their own interior design T.V. show. “Design Star” airs once a week, and each week the designers compete in teams, or as individuals, on an assigned design project. Most often, the assignment is to redo a room in someone’s house. At the end of each episode, a panel of judges eliminates at least one designer from the competition based on their performance during the design challenge. This elimination process repeats itself until there are only two designers left standing, and in the season finale, the two designers go head-to-head against each other, competing to see who will be determined the winner of “Design Star.”

“Design Star” is one of my all time favorite T.V. shows! I was really into interior design a year or two ago, and would watch HGTV design shows a lot more than I do now, and I think that “Design Star” is one of the reasons I have considered becoming an interior designer. Though I have sort of put my ambitions to be an interior designer up on a shelf, in the spirit of this season’s “Design Star” I have decided to research the interior design profession as my next potential occupation.

~S.M.

http://careers.stateuniversity.com/pages/401/Forensic-Scientist.html#ixzz0S1jLm3T3

Today I read an article (use the link above to view) about being a forensic scientist. I found that this job is similar (as I expected it to be) to being a medical lab technician/technologist. Being a forensic scientist actually sounds pretty interesting. Forensic scientists may be required to test clothes of suspects for traces of drugs, or determine whether a bullet came from a certain gun, really, a forensic scientist deals with any evidence that could prove useful in identifying the underlying truth in a criminal case. As a forensic scientist, one would work at crime scenes and in labs, and occasionally, their work could take them into dangerous situations. I think that being a forensic scientist would be more interesting than being a medical lab technician/technologist because medical lab technicians/technologists seem to have a "list" or "group" of procedures that they do regularly, and I think that this could get repetitive, but for a forensic scientist, due to the variation in crimes that occur in the world, the sky really is the limit on what type of procedures a forensics scientist may be required to do.

Although being a forensic scientist sounds like it would be an interesting occupation, reading this article has also made me think that it would also be a very emotionally draining job. As a forensic scientist, one would be expected to do some pathology work. I have ruled out pathology and other medical positions as future occupations because I am a very squeamish person, and I don't think that I'd be able to deal with working with corpses at all. This could really be a depressing job to have as well, because if one works in an environment whose main focus is on crime, it could really be very depressing and make one forget about all the good there is in life.

Even though being a forensic scientist sounds interesting to me, I don’t think that it is the job path that I will end up taking. I guess I just feel that in this job, the factors that I consider unappealing outweigh the fact that I think that this is an interesting job.

~S.M.

http://www.citytowninfo.com/employment/medical-lab-technologists

This is the website that I used to research the occupation of a Medical lab technologist.

 

         While reading this article, I realized that being a medical lab technologist is what I think of as a stereotypical scientist.  Medical lab technologists wear lab coats and goggles, work and run tests on various biological samples, and must be able to work with computers and microscopes.  When I was younger, when I thought of the word “scientist” I would think of someone similar to what the article described the medical lab technologist to be. 

         I think that being a medical lab technologist kind of sounds like a neat job to have.  They do a lot of analysis on human body fluids, like the matching that needs to be done before a blood transfusion.  They work with identifying certain cells in a sample, and use microscopes in their work. Biology is one of my favorite subject, so maybe I would enjoy a job like this, but some aspects of this job have left me with some doubts.

         “Those in the profession should be able to perform well under pressure, pay close attention to details and have good analytical judgement.”  After reading this sentence from the article, I became uncertain as to whether this job was for me.  I do not deal well with pressure.  I never have; so depending on how much pressure this job has, I’m not sure I’d be able to deal with having this type of job, because I know that I would get really stressed out if I was always under the pressure to be both very accurate and precise. 

         Being a medical lab technologist seems like it would be an interesting job path to pursue, however, I do not think that being a medical lab technologist is what I’m meant to be doing.  This job does have a wide variety of responsibilities, but I’m not sure that the type of variety of procedures they are, would hold my interest for as long as I would like them too.

         Looking further into this occupation however, has made me think more about forensics.  I have thought about going into forensics prior to reading this article, but I am a little reluctant to even let myself consider forensics as a career choice, because I am worried that being an actual forensics scientist, wont be as interesting, or exciting as its made to look on shows like CSI Miami.  I think I will next at an article about forensics, because I do think it sounds interesting, and what’s the harm in just looking, right?

 

~S.M.  

http://www.allalliedhealthschools.com/faqs/medical_lab_tech

 

         Above is the link to the website I used to research information about being a medical lab technician. After reading this article, I feel  that this job is not what I expected it to be.

         When I think of about the occupation of a medical lab technician, I think of specialized scientists in white lab coats, working inside a lab, in front of a microscope. I guess that this ideology is partially true, but after reading this article, I realized that being a medical lab technician is not quite what I expected.

         I think that I have always planned on attending at least four years of college after I graduate from high school.  It has pretty much always been my plan. A medical lab technician however, is required only one-two years of college education after receiving a GED or high school diploma. I don’t want to pursue a job that doesn’t require at least four years of college education, because I feel that my years in college could be some of the best, most influential, and vital years of my life.  I want to enjoy them, and I want to enjoy more than two of them.  The years after high school, will be important because if I am still undecided in what career I want to pursue in, I will still have a couple of years to decide what I want to do before picking a major. If I only attend one-two years of college, I think I would already have to be pretty set on what I plan to major in.

         As I looked further at the article though, I read that medical lab technicians usually work under the supervision of medical lab technologists. In the article, I read that these technologists are more specialized and have a more extensive education than technicians, I am still interested in doing some sort of lab work for a living, so I have decided to research the occupation of medical lab technologist for my next posting.

 

~S.M.

         Last week, there was a meeting for any junior or senior at my high school, interested in participating in a job shadow program. I went to the meeting, and thought that the program sounded like it would be worth my while, and so I filled out a job shadow application, with the intention of turning it in yesterday, but I didn’t end up turning it in because I forgot that it was due until after I had already left the school.

         I suppose I could’ve found a way to get my application turned in, but I wasn’t really motivated to do that.  I’m not sure why, but I feel kind of relieved, and I don’t really feel that disappointed about not turning my application in, because when I was filling out the application, I wasn’t sure which jobs I wanted to choose to do a job shadow on.  The list offered so many choices, and I had a hard time just picking two. I ended up writing “medical technician- lab” and “interior designer” as my two career choices. Ever since I started watching HGTV’s “Design Star” I’ve felt inspired to look into a career of interior design. I really like to do hands-on art projects such as painting and decorating rooms, but after redoing a couple of rooms in our house, I am not sure if I have the patience or the decisiveness to be an interior designer.

         I wasn’t really sure what a medical lab technician was when I wrote it on my application. I was thinking that the work done as a medical technician might be kind of like the work done by the lab workers on shows like CSI. I think that analyzing various DNA and blood samples to answer the ever-present question, “who done-it?” would be an interesting job, but I think that that type of job is more forensics than a medical lab technician.

         So I’ve decided to research the medical lab technician occupation today, and see if it is really something that would interest me.

         So yesterday, Saturday, September 12, 2009, I took the ACT test for the first time!  I took the PLAN test last year, which is like the PSAT, or practice SAT, and I did pretty well on it, and after taking the ACT I feel alright about how I did, but now just really want to see my scores!

         In the last year or two, I have taken an interest in science, mainly biology, and have been thinking about pursuing a career in science.  Another reason I have started considering majoring in science, is that after starting high school, I have been scoring higher in science on standardized tests like the PLAN test, and on ITED.

         After taking the ACT test however, I was left with some doubt about whether or not I should pursue with science, because let’s just say that the science portion of the ACT was a little… rough!

         Before starting the ACT I felt that if I struggled with other parts of the exam, at least I would do well in science! but after actually taking the test, I feel a little doubtful.  I guess that this isn’t entirely unusual, I mean, last year when I took the PLAN test, I don’t think I felt particularly confident about how I did on the science portion of the exam, but when I got my results back, I think that my highest score was in science.  So because I have felt worried about my science scores before, but have still scored well in that subject area, I am hoping that I will score really well on the science section of the ACT test.

 

         I also recently started taking an online evaluation where a survey asks a ton of questions, and after evaluating your answers, gives you a list of job suggestions, I haven’t finished the survey yet, but am anxious to see what job is recommended for me!

 

S.M.

         A year or two ago, I had given some thought into choosing a computer-based career.  I’m not a real computer-savvy person by any means, but I just thought that working with computers could be a job that I would like, so for my first research article, I read about computer engineering.

 

         A computer engineer is responsible for determining the technological (in relation with computers) needs of people, and working to satisfy those needs. As a computer software engineer, one would create computer software with modifications to make computers work more efficiently and more effectively for their desired purpose.

 

But for more information, check out this site: http://www.bls.gov/k12/computers04.htm

 

         As I mentioned earlier, I have given some thought to choosing a computer-based career. I like computers, and I think that knowing how to make different software programs could be a very satisfying job. However, I wasn't sure if I would be able to take sitting in front of a harsh computer screen all day. I know that when I use the computer for extended periods of time now, I get this "mindless zombie" feeling that is very unpleasant! So when I was considering this type of job, I wasn’t sure if working in the computer field, or more specifically working as a computer engineer was right for me, and sure enough, this article states: "they are susceptible to eyestrain, back ache, and hand and wrist syndromes." This quote identifies two major problems I think I would have with this job: looking at a computer screen for extended periods of time, and I took the "back ache" from the quote to mean that this job would probably involve A LOT of sitting down!

 

         I also think that this job would require too much attention to detail. As an engineer, finding the smallest of mistakes could be critical to the success of the project as a whole. I think that finding mistakes such as these would require more attention and focus than I would care to give!

 

         After reading this article, and thinking more about the topic, I think that being a computer engineer requires the determination and work ethic that I am just not willing to give on a day-to-day basis.  I still haven’t ruled out every job that is associated with computer work, but I don’t think that I want to be a computer engineer, or have any job that would require a lot of work with computers.

 

~S.M.

         As of now, I have no idea what I want to do with the rest of my life.  Even as I typed that sentence, it sounded a bit over-dramatic, but even if it is, the statement is still true, I have no idea what I want to spend the rest of my life doing.  

         When I was younger I would go through phases where I would have a dream job in mind, and that would be the job I wanted to have when I got older.  Some such phases consisted of when I wanted to be a famous actress, a chef, a lawyer, an interior designer, a successful business woman, and I even went through a phase, (as I am sure most kids do) when I wanted to be an opera singer.  I look back at this list of jobs, and I hold little to no desire to pursue in some of these career paths, however, I still haven't given up on some of these potential jobs, I love art, so maybe I will pursue a career in interior design, but I also like math, so maybe I would enjoy being a business major.  My problem is that there are so many job opportunities these days, and I am by nature, a very indecisive person, so when I think of all the jobs there are to choose from, I can't help but feel overwhelmed, because after all, I am trying to find a job that I can be happy with for the rest of my life!  One reason I think I feel so indecisive about a career path is that it’s such a big decision, and I want to be sure that I make the right one.

         Now that I have reached the half-way point of my high school education, I can’t help but feel pressured to hurry and narrow down the long list of potential jobs I could have, after all, I’ll hopefully be in college in two years, and will need to decide on a major shortly after that.  Sometimes I when I talk to my friends about long-term goals, they tell me what their life’s ambitions are, and they sound so sure of it: “oh I’m going to be a doctor” or “I’m going to ISU because they have a good veterinarian program” or “I know that I want to be an interior designer” and I cant help but feel envious of them, because they are so sure of what they want to do with their lives.  

         So in the hopes of narrowing down my list of potential jobs, I plan on reading online articles about a wide variety of jobs, and using this blog to write about the different jobs I read about, and whether or not those particular jobs are something that interest me.

Tata for now,

 

S.M