When you were a kid what did you want to do as an adult?

[STINKY NINJA]

When I started year 8 at high school in 1990 we had to write a page on what we wanted to do with our lives.
Mine said that I wanted to own a kingswood station wagon with mag wheels and a v8 ,also wanted to be a carpenter.
I did a trade as a diesel mechanic and the only pos holden I ever owned was a dirty lx sunbird with 2 flies and a flea with a traumatic and bango diff...
My life in a nutshell!

[CJR09]

I always wanted to be a fighter pilot

Found out I was colour blind prior to enrolling to the airforce so had to change plans

Decided on Architecture - did Architectural Technology planning to follow through to Architecture proper - ended up working freelance before that happened - then downturn in 99 saw me move into the family business, did trade/adv trade certs in plumbing, gasfitting, drainlaying & roofing - carried on into sustainable/green plumbing which led to thermal solar which led to pv solar, wind, hydro - renewable energy - started my own consult/design/install co. - now work as QS/PM for large construction firm in NZ with a consult/cost/manage co. on the side.

Almost gone full circle! no regrets but!! Opportunities are evrywhere - dont pass them up!

[Bushbasher]

I still don't know what I'm going to do when I grow up.





I've been saying that since I left school in ............1980

[Spudz27]

I wanted to be a pilot, it was the only thing, then I was told at age 11, it would never happen as I have a heart condition. To this day I still got no ******* idea what I want to do.

[2011G6E]

Because I always had model train sets, a train driver like most kids did.
Nailed that one eventually...

Several different jobs appealed to me as time went on. Weirdest of all was working in a funeral home. Just seemed to be a peaceful sort of profession, but talking to people who actually worked in it in later years they said the dealing with dead bodies wasn't the bad part, it was the constant barrage of grieving family members that did their heads in.

[Mr Brooksy]

I always wanted to go fast, as a kid I was into bikes, motorbikes, slot cars, lego cars, racing computer games... So naturally I wanted to be an F1 world champion. By the time I was in year 9, I was already taller than most of the driver's but thankfully by then I'd realised you need loads of cash to get even close to F1 as a driver. So that turned into wanting to work on the cars, designing, building, and pit crew etc.

I had the best high school work experience a kid could want, as I got to be part of 2 lower class racing outfits for 2 weekends (Formula Ford and Porsche Cup) and got the chance to go to Tassie with Brad Jones racing (Audi days) and DJR for Bathurst but couldn't due to a) BJR were out of the state and b) the school wouldn't let me do DJR as exams were that week. I was an ace at tech drawing (I was so far ahead one week I decided to design the Ferrari F300 F1 car for the 98 season), which fed into my goals. Until one day my life totally changed.

I was working at a campsite in the southern highlands NSW where my folks managed the place and I was leading horse trail rides. One old guy on the back of a horse asked me the usual, what do you wanna do when you leave school, so I told him my grand plan. He then asked why. No one had ever asked me why before, it was always what do you want etc. I was rocked to the core. Cause I know that the most important thing in this world is people, yet what I wanted to do was egotistical and self-absorbed.

From that day I decided to make people my priority not myself. I've worked in the social support services, education and personal and team development industry since 2002.

Regrets, only when the budget is tight for a few months do I wish I had the money I could have made. Only to be quickly brought back to earth by a report of a kid who's turned his/her life around because of something me or my teams had done to help. Or helping people change the way they think so that they can achieve their own goals when EVERYONE said it was impossible as the kid in question would never make it (yeah right).


I love my job, love that I get to see the improbable to impossible every few weeks. See kids go from hopeless and kicked to the curb to confident and determined.

I've been labeled a do gooder, someone who should get a 'real job', idealist etc. But only by those who are usually too self centred they couldn't see a good thing even if they tripped over it.

I can't wait to come back home though, working in Asia for this long has been tough. Only 1 year to go till I come back home. But it seems work is keen to send me to other nations that need to get their teams sorted to do similar work. But I've said I want to stay living in Australia... So it looks like lots of air miles... Yuk.

[ebxr8240]

Juvenile delinquent .. But was too old when I succeeded !! So moved onto doing an elect trade, dabbled in real estate on the side.. now retired..

[malazn mafia]

Truck driver. Then I realised the existence of speed limits, logbooks and the highway patrol...

[Moby Vic]

The first thing I remember wanting to be was a paleontologist, when I was 5 and had just discovered dinosaurs. (My father taught me the word.)

Then I never really thought about it much, but in high school fighter pilot seemed like a cool thing. But then I found out I had bad eyesight.

About the time I entered high school, the original Cosmos aired and I wanted to be an astrophysicist.

When I started college I declared physics as a major. About 2 years into it I was really struggling, but I was taking English literature classes as electives and making good grades. My advisor suggested that I add a minor in English, but then found that they were offering a new major, English with a Writing and Editing option.

So instead of dropping physics, I added English. I still struggled, but I wound up with two bachelor's degrees. I also started working for the student newspaper.

My grades were much better in English than in physics. My first job after graduating was as an editorial assistant for a physics journal. But then I had an offer to work as an editor for a defense contractor, and that's what I've done mostly since then. I tend to edit technical volumes.

It turns out that my work for the student newspaper was the best training I got. I also realized that the most useful class I took in high school was typing.

[Adamz Ghia]

Always wanted to drive trains. I used to be babysat by a bloke who was a mechanic and ran his own workshop just up from a railway crossing. I'd be helping him (as a 4 to 5 year old can) until I heard the crossing bells go and I'd run and watch the trains go past.

I ended up spending 10 years in retail earning surprisingly good coin (which is what kept me there) before moving into where I am now in distribution.

Still want to drive a train though haha.

[Shaggzy]

Growing up always wanted to be a Mechanic. I dropped out of school in yr 11 to do an apprenticeship. After 6 months i chucked it in and worked hard to catch up at school and complete yr12. After a couple of crappy jobs , I have been a qualified Plumber for a while which I do enjoy. On the side i also own a boutique day spa which is something I wouldnt have dreamed a
Of 10 years ago

[BPXR6T]

Was always going to be a computer programmer. Family was too poor to afford a computer as a kid, but I took any chance I had to get near one. When I was about 13 a teacher asked me to test out a lab she was going to give her yr 11 students. I breezed through the lab and just kept on hacking code. They would let me in the old computer rooms to hack away on the ancient machines they had dating back to the 70s. A couple of years later someone gave me an old computer and I started hacking code in pc basic. Life then happened, I was forced to quit school at 15 and get a job. Inevitably I gravitated back to computers. As a high school drop out I somehow still managed to find myself with a uni degree and a sweet grad job at 20. From there I never looked back until about 35 when I crashed and burned. Retired early and now live in the middle of nowhere, but still get paid to hack code maybe on average a week a month. It's sadly only about the money now. If I won lotto I'd likely never write another line of code...

[XB GS 351 Coupe]

Wanted to be a pilot through High School, turned out I was not smart enough.

Now a jack of all trades and master of none

[flightstrike]

As a youngster, I wanted to be in the Police Rescue (I was obsessed with the series with Gary Sweet).

My family went on a trip to the USA and the flight attendant asked if I'd like to visit the flight deck. I decided then and there that I wanted to fly.

Completed an apprenticeship as an Aircraft Engineer to pay for it and get a back up trade/experience, and I've been a professional pilot for almost 8 years now.

[XB GS 351 Coupe]

Originally Posted by flightstrike

As a youngster, I wanted to be in the Police Rescue (I was obsessed with the series with Gary Sweet).

My family went on a trip to the USA and the flight attendant asked if I'd like to visit the flight deck. I decided then and there that I wanted to fly.

Completed an apprenticeship as an Aircraft Engineer to pay for it and get a back up trade/experience, and I've been a professional pilot for almost 8 years now.

Flying planes would have to beat dragging dead bodies out of crashed cars, especially from a mental health perspective.

Have a good friend who has done 15 years in fire rescue, his mind is not real well.

[xr8cam]

I left school with no idea what to do so I got a job in a printing paper supplier and hung around there for a few years. I went overseas for a while, my brother was living in UK and when got back I spent the next 15 years working & running pubs. That was one of the hardest industry's I have worked in and by the time I was 40 I was burnt out. These days I run my own garden matinence business and I don't drink or smoke anymore. One guess why...These days,we got a couple of rescue dogs, wife & I chose not to have kids so we have been able to buy a house and can have our cars. All of these things make me happy however I would have preferred to work for myself when I left school.I really don't have any regrets because my experiences are who I am, good & bad. The only thing I hate about being older is realising that the people in control of the world are just in it for themselves, and that is a sad reality. So I jump in my car, turn the key and listen to one of the sweetest sounds Iv'e ever heard and I know all is right again and we live in Australia, that is a massive bonus.

[buggerlugs]

A Storeman..............

[Mercury Bullet]

Drink beer.

[Olbucko]

After I left school I wanted to be my own boss, own a house, and get married. Got all that done by 26, then got divorced 8 years later, went bush, became a farmer, locksmith, and mail contractor, all at once.
I have now given that all away, retired, and become a pensioner, something I never gave much thought to 50 years ago.

[Lunch]

I wanted to be Spider-Man