Not Sure What Career Path Is Right for You? Don’t Let Your Major Define You
By: Young Kim, Associate Consultant
Man, do we love labels. Just ask Bunny Fn Vicious.
And maybe not all of us love labels to the point of purchasing an actual label maker. But if someone gave you one as a gift, you’d probably think “Hmm, this is really neat.”
My first label
Even back as a mindless toddler, fitted from neck to toe in my blue, juice stained Bugs Bunny onesie, I’d feverishly insist to my parents that I was indeed a “Big Kid”. I yearned for that label. Much like the cartoon rabbit stitched all over my body, I knew such a label would give me an enhanced sense of identity. It meant more to me than just two words. It provided me with exclusive access to a new community, along with all of its associated attributes and perceptions. It meant I could stay up past 9:00 pm. It meant I could eat as many Kit Kat bars as I wanted. It meant I would be taken seriously. You may have heard of a concept labeled “Group” or “Collective” Identity. That’s what this is.
Fast forward to 2014, my last year in High School. After over a decade of annually upgrading my primary label (from “first-grader” to “second-grader” and so on), I decided my next label would be “Mechanical Engineer”. I loved the idea of using my creativity for real-world applications. Back then, I distinctly remember watching Tony Stark as Iron Man and thinking to myself:
“I bet someone’s going to actually create that suit one day.” So why not me?
Inspired by what most would call a pipe dream, I packed my bags for the University of Miami to seek out my new label. And eventually, it became WAY more than just a label. It became a way of life.
Oftentimes, as our labels continue to define us, they find a way of evolving into lifestyles.
For the next four years of my undergraduate career, I unwaveringly committed down the path of an engineer. I fully immersed myself in my studies, partly by choice but mostly out of necessity. Although mastering the concepts of fluid mechanics proved to be painstakingly labor-intensive and time-consuming, I understood these were necessary evils in the fight to earn the label of “engineer”. When questioned by strangers regarding my studies, I proudly responded that I was a “Mechanical Engineering major” and left that label to play up its value. But behind the scenes, I continued to slave away.
In fact, for four years I never even entertained the idea of doing something else. But why? You could argue it was due to my youth and bullishness. Perhaps I just didn’t have the time. But even considering the unhealthy lack of introspectiveness I exhibited during my days in college, I think I always knew the real reason, which only manifested itself following my first two semesters.
The real reason? I was in too deep.
There’s a concept in modern psychology often referred to as the Sunk Cost Fallacy, which describes our human tendency to continue the pursuit of a goal, no matter how damaging that pursuit (or goal) can be, just because we’ve already committed too much time and effort to it. Think of a car that keeps breaking down no matter how often you repair it. Can you really give up on it when you’ve already spent hundreds of dollars in repairs?
Much like that car, my path down engineering was becoming harder and harder to escape from. I didn’t find the curriculum to be particularly interesting. The research I conducted in Composite Materials gave me objective goals, which I relished, but I only felt compelled to execute my responsibilities from a sense of duty born from commitment. And as I trekked further down the path of an engineer, the trail I had left behind was becoming increasingly treacherous. There was no heading back. There was no shedding this label.
From the laws of thermodynamics to stress analyses of quasi-isotropic laminates, I had put in so much of my energy into learning extremely niche and specialized information. My tuition was always justified with the fact that the education I purchased wasn’t available via YouTube videos and self-help books. Diverging from this career would feel like such a waste.
I’m sure many college students, engineers or not, can attest to feeling similarly trapped. It can be difficult to believe your degree and educational background can be translatable to other fields. But trust me, it’s more than possible.
New label — consultant
Nowadays, I go by the label, consultant. But that’s not the only thing that’s different. For so long, I allowed a label to define me, which made it almost impossible to surrender. Now I’m empowered to define my label. Developing a great consultant is not a cookie-cutter process and my new label of “consultant” continues to change in meaning and interpretation as I develop as a person and professional.
More importantly, many of the attributes I associated with the label of an “engineer” are equally pertinent to my new label of “consultant”, but only because that’s how I choose to define it. As is the case with so many of my peers at Veeva, we take this role and make it our own. This is encouraged! It’s why we have such a diverse community of consultants from all sorts of educational and professional backgrounds. It’s also why we continue to grow and innovate at the rate that we do.
In my case, the preciseness I developed from analyzing free body diagrams translates directly to the way I validate computer systems and map out test scripts. The bi-weekly presentations I gave on composite materials provided me with the foundation I needed for administering workshops and training sessions. Even those long overnight stays at Richter Library that I spent attempting to understand the complexities of metal hydride fuel cells were not for nothing. Those study marathons built up my discipline and my ability to manage stress when I face tight deadlines or sudden changes to a project.
When I made the decision to join Veeva as a consultant, I was seeking a career that would satisfy my desire to be innovative. I wanted to solve real-world problems. And maybe I won’t be working on an Arc Reactor or Supersuit anytime soon, but the core objective that drove me to pursue engineering synced up perfectly with what a consultant is expected to do — figure out how to solve a problem even when the answer is never clear.
So no, I’m not an engineer. I don’t fit that label.
But consultant? This label fits me.
