While I was in University studying, I had every intention of achieving a Teacher's degree, with a focus on Literature, since reading was my first love. That was the plan anyway - and then the Internet happened.
I wasn't planning to drop-out, I'd previously finished a 2 year college degree in Sign Language Communicator, met my future partner online and decided that I would move Stateside. At that point my grades were already suffering, because I was trying to do Uni courses while working a day job as a Teaching Assistant. The courses were delivered via teleconferencing, and I'm hard of hearing. I tried tape-recording the sessions so I could play them back later while revising. That was tough, and eventually the mental strain of interpreting all day long and studying at night caught up with me. My brain was exhausted. So I decided to move Stateside and chart my path within Deaf education that way. I did continue for a time as an assistant again, first within the public system, and later on with the ill-conceived idea of working within a Roman Catholic school - I am not a good fit in a religious context, let's just leave it at that, so I resigned the position.
Thankfully, I never stopped reading - and the Internet has helped with life-long learning. When I first on-boarded, it was the most democratic place for information I'd ever seen - a huge virtual library! Sure, there were dodgy websites and content out there, but I knew how to be careful since I was a bit technically inclined - I was already upgrading and repairing my own PCs by that point that's another career track I attempted - IT support. I was JR system administrator for a time until the first big dot com bubble happened, then I was let go due to downsizing. A lot of people experienced that I think, the World Wide Web was still new back then and everybody was still figuring out what to do with this shiny thing. The current AI trend is going to pop soon, I'm sure of it - I've seen this before after all.
I still haven't decided what I want to do, but hopefully I'll never stop learning.
