For starters, I'm just beginning to come into my own at my job. I have sooo much respect from my supervisors, I'm taking on more responsibility, and I've gotten a lot of confidence. The company just moved to a beautiful new office, is taking on all these new initiatives to grow and help employees grow, and the commute is now a tolerable 30 minutes instead of a retched hour + commute.
But most of my doubt comes with my confusion and worry about a major or specialty. The original reason I decided to apply to this school, let alone an MBA program, was because it has a major called Organizational Behavior & Development. This field includes group dynamics and teamwork, leadership, conflict resolution...all the stuff I find really interesting.
At the visit day for this school, one of the professors did a presentation on leadership -- sort of a snippet of a class he teaches. Afterwards, I went up to him and said, "Wow, I really enjoyed your presentation...I applied to this school because of the OBD major...I'd love to sit and talk with you about it sometime...blah blah blah." This is what he said to me, and I quote: "Oh that's great, but I typically don't encourage students to major in OBD."
Gulp.
He assured me that there were definitely routes to take if I were really interested, but he planted the seed of doubt.
In the meantime, one of my part-time job co-workers is/was an OBD specialist/consultant for several years before he started the part-time gig....which actually just turned to a full-time gig because the work for OBD specialists is not so hot right now. I was talking to him last night and he said his friends and mentors, who have freakin' Ph.Ds, are charging the same rates as they did 10 years ago, and just all around having trouble finding work.
And it makes sense. OBD is the fluff of business. It's important, and I know I would have a blast with it, but with the economy in the crap hole right now, executive officers are not going to be hiring people to come in and do team building games. I could go the HR route, but really, that just makes my skin crawl.
Even if there was work available...do I really want to be the overly cheery person that all the negative grumpy people hate as I try to get them to do fun activities? oy...
And of course I'm extra nervous because....I already screwed up. I already started grad school for audiology and hated that and withdrew after a semester. I can't do that again. I don't think I will, but that's still pretty scary.
So I need to meet with the career folks. I'm good with people. I'm really good with people. According to the Gallup strengths finder test I took for my current job, my top two strengths are Positivity and Empathy. WHAT WHAT?! Okay, great, awesome, fine, thanks for telling me something I already know. But what the hell do I do with that?! I think I have strong management skills and intuition, but I don't know if I have the background or experience to be a marketable employee.
I need to meet with the career folks...
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