Rediscovering the Mid-Semester Crisis

The beauty of the college life crisis is that it is nondiscriminatory. From the freshmen chemistry majors lying on the floor of a dorm room in Broward clicking through the undergraduate catalog of majors, to the senior marketing students who leave Career Showcase and head straight to Midtown without bothering to shed their brand-new blazer from the professional wear section of H&M, we are all equally acquainted with this mixture of self-doubt and panic.

If you’re anything like me, this comes around about once a week. Many degree programs have a way of conditioning students to believe there is a firm line between the right and the wrong way to approach embarking on our careers. We can quickly start feeling as though the second that diploma lands in our hands, we magically lose that divine human privilege of changing our minds.

For those of us who undergo an internal battle simply choosing between fruity and chocolaty in the froyo line, committing to a career path that seems so rigid is crippling to say the least. However, speak to a few professionals with the real-life “cool jobs” and the illusion is shattered: Very few people outside of certain industries like law and medicine truly follow the typical track laid out for them in those Intro to The Rest of Your Life courses.

Before you find yourself seriously contemplating how good you would be at making little flowers on the top of a latte in lieu of plunging into the world of professionalism, check out a few examples of locals in the Gainesville area who followed decidedly non-linear paths and turned out pretty okay – because you can’t major in Craft Beer Brewing.

 Meg The Losen, president at First Magnitude Brewing, Gainesville

College major: International Politics and French

With a background in consulting and business planning for large organizations, Meg The Losen “never in a million years” thought she would be in the beer business or work at a start-up company. A graduate of Georgetown and University of California Berkeley, The Losen was working in marketing and strategic planning for Gainesville software company Info Tech when First Magnitude Brewing Company was born.

The idea came out of a shared passion for craft beer between The Losen, her husband Wells and friends John and Christine Denny. As the buzz around the craft beer industry in Florida began to grow, the two couples saw business potential.

 “It was almost a joke at first of ‘Hey, maybe we should start our own brewery!’” The Losen said. “We just kept thinking about it, testing it through research and gradually worked along a curve where we felt strongly that, no, we actually could really do this.”

First Magnitude opened its doors to customers in August 2014 after more than two years of research, fundraising and careful planning. As the first of the four to quit her office job to launch the brewery, The Losen said there were occasional moments of uncertainty before the business got off the ground.

“You feel sometimes like ‘Oh my gosh, what if this doesn’t come through? Then everything could be messed up,’” The Losen said. “But everybody has, no matter what career they’re in.”

The Losen said that while she was growing up and in college, large companies were all that she knew.

“When I came out of undergrad, I felt like there were all sorts of traditional interviewing and hiring going on – mainly for jobs in fields like accounting and finance – and there are great opportunities within that,” The Losen said. “But there’s this whole spectrum of other stuff out there, and I think that students now have the chance to explore more.”

 The Losen said she would tell her college-aged self to have more confidence in pursuing new opportunities and being open to leaving her comfort zone.

“It was a lot of just chance that I ended up where I am today,” The Losen said. “I feel like the biggest advice is be open to anything because you never know when or how that next opportunity will come to you.”

Mike Farmer, captain at Salt Addiction Fishing Charters, Steinhatchee

College major: Industrial Technology

Mike Farmer was a general manager for a large industrial maintenance company in Georgia, working up to 16 hours a day, seven days a week when he quit his job to become a full-time charter captain. After his divorce and an all-time high level of stress at work, Farmer said he felt he had to make the change sooner rather than later.

 “Most everybody around me told me I was crazy to walk away from such a good-paying job and everything to go to the complete unknown without knowing what direction it would go in,” Farmer said.

During a long career in industrial maintenance and information technology, Farmer said he had always wanted to be spending his life outdoors, sharing experiences and knowledge with other people. Though it took him years to make that a reality, Farmer raised his daughter to choose passion first.

“She told me she was very proud of me because I was pursuing what I wanted to do and I was following the directions that I had given her at a young age, to always pursue something she enjoyed and not something that necessarily paid the bills,” Farmer said. “I was finally following the same advice that I had given her.”

Farmer now spends his days taking marina guests scalloping and fishing on the Steinhatchee River, along with regularly contributing to Woods and Water Magazine and Southern Outdoors Magazine.

“I like to share things with other people. That’s what I enjoy,” Farmer said. “And if you enjoy it, that’s what matters. What is your life worth if you’ve made a lot of money and die unhappy?”

 Payal Khurana, co-founder at Launchpad and creator of Find Mindfulness

College major: Computer engineering

Growing up, Payal Khurana was given three career options by her parents: doctor, lawyer or engineer. Not being able to stand the sight of blood quickly ruled out a profession in medicine, and Khurana did not want to spend the extra years in school to become a lawyer. It was by this process of elimination that she chose to major in computer engineering at the University of Florida.

“I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do,” Khurana said. “I feel like as a 17 year old, you can be so overwhelmed and you look to your parents for guidance. It was a really big struggle for me because I think it was something that was told to me rather than something that was found exploring.”

When Khurana attended Career Showcase, her criteria for the right job was one where she would not have to code and could be on a plane, traveling the country. A small electronic medical record company promised her just that, so she took the job.

“I took the traditional route. That meant me taking a job, working with a corporation, and don’t get me wrong, it allowed me to financially sustain myself and learn what it meant to become a professional,” Khurana said. “But I think at a certain point my mindset started to shift a bit.”

After 8 years in the corporate world, Khurana felt the need to quit her job and explore her options. After six months of traveling, moving in with her parents and waking up with a new career idea every day, Khurana took another job with a healthcare IT company to return to a steady income.

“I had moved to New York,” Khurana said. “but on my very first day back, they showed me my cubicle and I was like, I’ve got to get out of here.”

A couple of months later, Khurana quit her job again and made plans to move to Gainesville to start a business with a friend she met in her college engineering classes. With business partner Quang Tran, Khurana launched the co-working space Starter Space, which would become Launch Pad at Infinity Hall.

“I had absolutely no idea what it was going to look like and no idea what it meant to be an entrepreneur at that moment,” Khurana said. ”I knew the only way to learn is to actually experience things. I don’t think you can really teach entrepreneurship or going out on a limb, I think you have to be willing to experiment and experience.”

The co-working space, which provides a place and resources for local entrepreneurs to launch their businesses, was created with the intention of inspiring talented people to take those same leaps of faith to create something they’re passionate about. Khurana said she wanted to provide something that she wished existed in Gainesville when she was in college.

“The biggest question a lot of college students come and ask me is, ‘How do I know what I’m going to do for the rest of my life?’” Khurana said. “If I could go back, I would tell myself, it’s okay, it’s not about the rest of your life. It’s about just getting curious and experimenting.”

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Our formal education system tends to set us up for achievement by showing us tried-and-true career landmarks: easy to spot from a distance and proven to get us where we want to go if we can cross them off our lists, one by one. But just as it would be crazy to believe that there’s only one road to every destination, it’s a myth that there’s only one way to find “success” (a word that is ambiguous at best). When we let go of the idea that there’s just one right way to score that ultimate dream job, we give ourselves the freedom to figure out how we define success for ourselves – and have a hell of a lot more fun along the way.

 Feature Photo Courtesy of: UnSplash

 

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