As a young boy, seeing my grandfather thrive while building elaborate baseball complexes and awe-inspiring playgrounds intrigued me. Still obvious to this day is the impact of the architectural background on my future decision of whether my future holds constructing buildings, building great sales pitches to impress customers, or designing plays to help my team win an important game.
Analyzing these careers based on salary, aptitude or talents required, benefits, drawbacks, and other personal reasons, I would choose civil engineer because, based on the job statistics, I would be a good fit for designing buildings and other structures that communities use to make their city a better place.
The comparison chart below provided me with statistics about the criteria I use to
make my career choice: Civil Engineer Sales Manager Coach
Salary | Median wage per year- $79,340.90, Median wage per hour- $38.14 | Median per year- $105,260,median per hour- $50.60 | Median per year- $28,360 |
Aptitude; Talents Required | Advanced coursework in math, science, and engineering mechanics and fluid dynamics | Experience as a sales representative, business law, management, economics, accounting and finances will help advancement. | Ability to encourage and motivate kids or young adults. More than likely experience playing the sport would help me get a coaching position. |
Benefits | Good pay, there is an increased need as cities build more buildings and bridges. | Get to travel to new places, work with people to make sales, great pay | Working with and changing young people’s lives, being involved with something I’ve always done and enjoyed. |
Drawbacks | Long work hours and limited flexibility. | Traveling can sometimes be bad, being away from family on a long trip | Irregular work hours depending on the season and usually little pay. |
Personal Reasons | My grandpa’s business employs civil engineers, and working for him would be great. | I’ve always loved presenting ideas, so pitching sales would be a fun job for me. | I love playing and watching sports, and I will get to be a role model for my players. |
Sourc: The U.S. Bureau of Educationhttp://www.bls.gov/k12/content/students/careers/career-exploration.htm
According to the data, sales manager has the highest median income, at $105,260 per year. The aptitude required for career includes experience as a sales manger, which I personally like because of the gain of valuable experience of the beginning of making sales, and being able to communicate clearly and effectively, and I already think I can do both, given my history in both debate and Pre-AP English. While traveling to new places can be a great benefit of this career, it can sometimes be the greatest drawback, besides being away from family. Also, I’ve always loved presenting projects and other school assignments, so I know I would love pitching my products to another company. Overall, sales manager is not only the most lucrative career choice, the aptitude also suits my skill set perfectly.
Coaching, a career that does not pay even close to as well as sales manager, is also one of my career choices. At a median salary of $28,360 per year, it is obvious that I chose this career for personal reasons. Similar to being a sales manager, communication is the most important asset I must possess. The benefits of this job are that I would get to change young people’s lives, and I’ve always loved sports, playing basketball, football, and baseball before I said my first word. However, the irregular work hours and little pay make coaching a tough career.
Although sales manager and coach are both great and appealing careers, I have to choose civil engineer because I possess the multiple math and science skills that are needed, and I have seen examples of civil engineers in my own family. While watching my grandpa’s business build great structures, I always wondered who came up with the designs to make such an awesome assembly. I believe experiences like this growing up have motivated me to become a civil engineer. The salary is good at a median of $79,340 per year, but I feel I can reach over that if I excel and stay in the business a while. The aptitude needed are math skills and coursework in engineering mechanics will help my advancement as well. However, civil engineers have long and sometimes unpredictable work hours, because projects might require after hours work. By also getting help from my Grandfather, who works with civil engineers, I will have a small advantage of more knowledge than others my age about this career.
These careers all include designing, whether its done in an office, a conference room, or a court and field as I try to create opportunities through my designs to help create a path or blueprints to another’s success. Every career also requires communicating and working with others and relying on them to get the job done. However, the one career out of these three that I choose is civil engineer, where I get to design buildings, work on projects, and watch people use the structures I create. Surprisingly, the real life legos I witnessed my grandpa play with would help shape my decision to fulfil my dream of becoming a civil engineer.
