Back To School

Next Tuesday will be my last back to school day and I couldn't be happier. If you would've told me when I was 15 years old that my undergrad degree would be in economics and that I would go on to law school, I would've told you that you were crazy. Here's a list of possible careers that I have considered over the years (in no particular order):

1. Professional baseball player (Kind of hard to accomplish that when you stop playing in high school)

2. FBI Agent (My application is actually completed, but I never submitted it. Had I not decided to go to law school, I'm pretty sure that I would be working for the FBI in some capacity, assuming I could pass the color test.)

3. Police Officer (I considered this a long time ago, but knew it would never really be a possibility. Before we got married, my wife kindly informed me that I would never be a police officer. Oh well.)

4. American History Professor (This is still one of my dreams actually. I love American History. If I was ever offered a job teaching US History on the east coast or in the south, I would do it in a heartbeat. )

5. Commercial Real Estate Broker (I did an internship with a commercial real estate firm in northern California a few years ago to see if it might be something I was interested in. Well, after a couple of months I realized that selling real estate just wasn't for me. The guys I worked with were all very nice, and I appreciated them taking me to a great Vietnamese restaurant for lunch, but without going into too much detail, working there was kind of like being in high school again. That's not a good thing.)

6. Tomato Farmer (I told my wife that for graduation I want a clock that counts backwards starting at 20 years. As soon as the 20 years are up, I'm quitting law and we are moving to central California so I can live out my dream of being a tomato farmer. She actually seems ok with the idea. If I can't afford one in central California, I'll buy a farm in Guatemala and spend my summers there.)

7. Buffalo Rancher (We used to go up to Wyoming every summer, and there was a buffalo farm close to where stayed that I thought was incredible. I would just want to raise and sell them, not slaughter them for meat.)

I'm sure there are more jobs that I have considered over the years, but these were the only ones that stuck out in my mind. Not to get all patriotic or anything, but one of the really great things about living in the United States is that you really can do anything you want as long as you are willing to work for it. In other countries the opportunities just aren't available like they are here. I used to work with a bunch europeans in a plant pathology lab and none of them wanted to go back to their native countries because they said there just aren't jobs there like there are here. The PhD students would get all nervous towards the end of their educations because they knew that their student visas were about to run out and they would have to return to France or Germany or whatever. So, for all of the US's faults, it really is a land of opportunity, even for someone who was a terrible student through high school like I was.