QotD: Education, Occupation

What was your major or field of study in college? Did you wind up working in that field or using that degree? If not, what field have you wound up in? 
Submitted by sneuf. 

I have a BSED in Social Science Education. I'm qualified to be a high school social studies teacher. Well, I would be if my certification was up-to-date. I take that back, if I ever completed my certification I would be qualified. After my student teaching experience I did everything to finish my degree, but could no longer even consider completing my certification. I was shell shocked. I just had this overwhelming, panicky feeling that I could not do this. It wasn't the kids. I continued to work with kids at church, camp and in my husband's classroom, but I just couldn't work as an employee in a school environment. Institutionalized was the best word I could think to describe the work environment that I saw over and over again in high schools. It is bureaucracy and power trips gone mad. I just couldn't handle it. My husband, God bless him, manages it fine, but I don't have the sensibilities for it. I thought life is too short for me to go into this line of work hating it.

So, once I graduated I found a job as an office manager for a small graphic design studio / print shop and I ended up making more money than I would have as a first year teacher. That was a fun job. I learned all kinds of neat stuff. I learned a lot about exactly how the printing process works, how to properly setup a design file for printing and ways to do it more cost effectively. I got to see some beautiful design work that really changed my whole aesthetic. I also learned how to use this database program called FileMaker Pro. Now, that is an awesome program. It's kind of funny how it all started. My boss comes up to me one day and shows me this box and says, "I bought this program that's supposed to be great for keeping track of things. I need you to learn how to use it." And that was all I needed to hit the ground running. I built so many things with FMP, from a customer database to a print job tracker. I had it setup to print invoices and contracts at the click of a button. It's amazing all you can do with that program. I also built a print job estimator that did all the figuring for me. I hated estimating jobs before that.  I was always the go-to person to figure out how to do something if no one else new how.

I still use the skills I learned doing various volunteer projects and mostly helping my husband's students in his publication classes.  That's a lot of fun and really keeps me in practice. The trouble is that most of the projects his classes work on are one color (usually black and white), which in one respect is good because I've gotten really good at seeing design possibilities for one color projects, but my inspiration for full color projects has definitely waned. 

I guess if I ever really go back to work, I would like to find a small print shop and be their "Doris in the back on the Mac" (as my former employer used to derogatorily lable the layout person for most print shops).