What Do You Want to Be When YOU Grow Up?

We actually start thinking about this before we even enter elementary school. Some girls will have ideals of being a ballerina and some (as I did as a little one) want to be an airline stewardess. Boys might delight in seeing those bright lights on a fire truck, inducing thoughts of being that firefighter riding that big red shiny truck. We teach our little ones to find a policeman if they are in trouble, and this prompts little boys to want to wear that policeman hat when they grow up. Whatever it is we want to be when we grow up, it seems to be always changing. 

Oh the Places You’ll Go... If I only could have met Theodor Seuss Geisel. The first book I read to my darling daughter was “One Fish Two Fish, Red Fish Blue Fish." But my favorite Dr. Seuss book is “Oh, the Places You’ll Go!” Read over and over, I think it is one of the greatest literary works by Dr. Seuss. Do we ever know what we want to be when we grow up?

In high school my daughter thought it would be neat to be a marine biologist, hey that meant you can lay around on a boat in the ocean all day watching dolphins at play, right? Wrong. Mostly, marine biologists are in a lab, not out in the sun tanning or watching the dolphins. For many going into college it is very wise to go in “undeclared.” Colleges and universities do not force incoming freshman to make a decision upon acceptance (unless you are set on a specific program).

Fast forward five years and its graduation 2011—for me, an era comes to an END. It is bittersweet, as we will be out of the “district” and public school happenings after 14 years. I’m ready! I admit it!

After college visiting with my son, after all the applications were sent in, after the trips here and the trips there, after the interviews and after analyzing the drives to these schools and the cost and, most important, deciding on what path he wants to take (he was between anesthesiology and investment banking, or iBanking), he decided on iBanking. This decision eliminated the small private school which he received a huge scholarship to go to. I really envisioned my son at this college, but alas after due diligence on my son’s part, he uncovered that the private school didn’t have a strong recruitment pool of investment banks, though actually they might have been a #1 choice if he decided on a future in medicine.

I am very impressed that my son is looking into the future and investigated the route of recruitment at the end of his four years in college. When all those apps were being sent in I urged my son to please apply to one N.J. school and he chose Rutgers. He was accepted to all the schools he applied to, and he is going to Rutgers Business School. I will have 2 in Rutgers, I’m proud to say that my daughter was accepted into Rutgers' social work grad program this fall! I would have never imagined that my sunbathing marine biologist-wannabe girl would take this path, but then again my background is in the medical field and I could always sense in her the save-the-world attitude I had at her age. Umm, I really didn’t want my kids to go into any aspect of the medical field, since I had firsthand experience. But I am very proud, of both of my children.

So, what do you want to be when you grow up? I was educated in the medical field, I have been in private enterprise when I designed children’s apparel under my own label (and sold Discovery toys), I am an internet guru (self-taught beginning in 1993). Most recently I sold real estate and I am now toying with becoming a travel agent, but the most rewarding position is still being a mom.