what did you want to be when you grew up, and what are you now?

[rnottelovesowls]

the title says it all. and for a further question, are you happy where you are?

when i was young, i didn't know what i wanted to be in the future. pretty sure that, like most kids, i put down something generic like "astronaut" when asked the question in an assignment. well, in high school, after really getting into minecraft, i envisioned myself as a video game developer, and went to community college to get a computer science degree. then, haflway through my first semester, i changed it to a degree in the arts, and went into university for a bachelor's degree in studio arts. now, i work as a freelance animator specializing in music videos, lyric videos, visuals, and cover arts. i'm shooting for setting up an LLC this year to make my work more "legitimate"

to answer the question on if i'm happy? i would say, for the most part, kinda? navigating adult life is pointlessly frustrating at times, but i'm trying my best. in hindsight, i'm glad i gave up on the compsci degree plan, because whew, is it a fraught time to work in the tech industry if you're not a rich, greedy techbro. i feel bad for everyone there... except the techbros

now it's your turn 

[ValyceNegative]

I wanted to be a detective. This is the earliest dream job I can remember, something I said I would do since elementary school. I don't know what exactly sparked the obsession but sure enough I know that I was already immersed in media such as Great Mouse Detective, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and so many animations/movies depicting noir hardboiled private eye stereotypes, be them parody or not. I still couldn't understand that wasn't the reality even for actual private investigators, but I'm frankly still fascinated with that world and that profession, so I guess that'll stick to my character forever xD

Growing up this fused with my love for journalism, so it became "I want to be an investigative reporter". In short, I still wanted the thrill of the adventure and I was fascinared with the idea of testing my wit against others to solve crimes and enigmas. Again, very idealized and detatched from reality, I know. But hey, I was a daydreaming kid xP

Sometime in early high school I started drawing... and I never stopped. I learned how to take commissions and how to build a business for myself by myself. I'm glad I did it in an era in which art sites and art forums were still thriving and I managed to create my own niche audience in that era. I wouldn't even know where to start now.
I would have loved to take more appropriate lessons for an art career but I'm also glad to have chosen Foreign Languages as specialization. I also attended a Tattoo school that dipped in art lessons, so there's a bit of that.

I guess that kid me would find my current profession cool even if I didn't end up being a trench coat-wearing, adventure-seeking hardboiled detective. Personally, I'm happy with what I do. I like to draw, I like to earn my living with drawings, and this life has lead me to meet my husband and build long term career plans with him. A lot of the stories we create for our comics are murder mystery and thriller, so I never really left my childhood turf xP

[Dan Q]

My answer is so boring.

When I was somewhere between six and eight years old, in the mid-1980s, when all of my friends wanted to be race car drivers or astronauts or firefighters... I decided that I wanted to be a computer programmer.

And then I just set up all of the rest of my career plan from there. I taught myself BASIC, then Assembly, then Pascal. At secondary school I focussed on maths, science, and IT. At college I leaned further into computing and maths, and taught myself Delphi and HTML. My first undergraduate degree at university was computer science with software engineering, alongside which I picked up Perl, PHP, JavaScript, and SQL. And before I'd graduated, I was working in the industry for a little startup. Seven-year-old me would have considered me to have self-actualised by 21.

So. Boring.

For a while I considered a "managed", pre-planned career change as a mid-life crisis. My second degree was in counselling and psychotherapy. My third was a masters in digital forensics. (I keep collecting degrees. I haven't yet worked out what I'm going to do with them.) But at 45 now I've probably missed the boat on that one, and that's okay: I still love software!

Software has always been magical to me because it's a place where you can build your own world with your own rules. Any kind of physical engineering is limited by the constraints of physics. That's not true (well, not to the same extent, yet!) in software engineering: we get to invent our own rules, our own worlds, our own limitations, and our own solutions. We can prototype quickly because code can be thrown-away and re-cycled indefinitely. Software's just magical.

So yeah: I'm living the dream version of myself 35 years ago. I'll never be a "tech millionare" or anything because my motivation's always been to give things away for free (or as cheap as possible). But I'm happy with my choices. Six-year-old me knew that he wanted to be a programmer so that he could play about with technology. Me-today is more-interested in using that technology to make the world a better place.

These dreams are compatible, I think.

[AndGeo]

When I was little I wanted to be an archeologist. Of course my answer when asked wasn't always consistent. Occasionally I'd say pilot, soldier, video game developer, all kinds of stuff. But archeologist was definitely the one that stuck around the longest. I loved mythology and things like Indiana Jones, Lara Croft, Atlantis and those Egyptology books definitely had their effect on me. I dreamed of going to the Pyramids and finding all the hidden secrets of the world. Of course real archeology is a little more grounded than that, I'm not sure if child-me would actually be happy doing that job... but then again, being out on the field and discovering places... No, I'd say he'd like it.

Instead I moved around a bit, did a few different kinds of things, and am now studying again. Funnily, I do sometimes regret not doing things, but it's not precisely archeology. Although when my previous uni was offering Christian Archeology and I though "I don't want to only focus on churches"? That was kind of stupid. My biggest regret I think in terms of career is not being more focused and finishing my philosophy degree and trying to find some answers on base line epistemology questions. Alas, I'm pretty happy still. And my work irl is history related.

So... not too bad!

[cleanduck]

Very interesting to read all of the different dreams and journeys here. I could definitely relate to some.

For me, I've also wanted to become an archeologist, but also "someone who draws for a living" in kid's terms haha. Been drawing every since I was little so I naturally followed that path. I also wanted to become a mangaka/or make my own comic. Later on in my teens I wanted to become a kid's book author. You could say I achieved what I wanted. I'm an illustrator for kid's books, games, character design, and lots of other product designing. Alongside graphic design, which goes hand in hand with my projects. I have yet to publish my own actual children's story book yet though or make my own web comic hahah.

I feel lucky I could turn my hobby into my job. Since these days it's not easy to land a job in the the illustration industry (here at least). Unless you go freelance. Turning your hobby into your job has it's down sides though. Since I don't have much energy or time to draw for myself.

[fablefound]

woooof, what a time for me to find this thread and answer it...

when i was a kid, i wanted to write. sometimes i also wanted to be an astronaut or lawyer, but writing was always top of the list. i spent my teens writing, mostly novels nd short stories, and the occasional poem. when the time came for me to go to university, i decided journalism was my true calling--writing for work, right? perfect!

journalism was not, in fact, my true calling.

i ended up getting a BA in communication and publishing, which is only marginally less nebulous than it sounds. it's also a very competitive field, so i did a few work-study type internships to get ahead of my peers. i also built up a bit of a freelance practice during my undergrad, writing and making music on the side. i've had some really exciting stuff happen there, actually, including becoming a produced playwright? that was AWESOME.

and last year, i got the job offer of my dreams: a position in programming at a literary arts org! it was AMAZING! i was making half-decent money, i was doing what i loved, and i was in an environment where my values and passions were shared. my coworkers were some of my biggest supporters, and i loved our clients, too.

... and last week, i got told i'm being laid off, because the organization's struggling financially. 

technically speaking, i am still precisely where i want to be: working in arts, and as an artist. but once my two weeks at this gig run out, i will be... sigh... back on the job hunt. wish me luck lol. if i don't find a good fit, maybe i'll just say to heck with it and go to grad school...

[MrsMoe]

When I was growing up, I mainly wanted to be an animal rescuer.  I had a huge obsession with animals and I use to watch hundreds of animal abuse videos (when I probably shouldn't have), so I'd often have ridiculously grandiose fantasies of saving them from abusive zoos, circuses, testing labs, etc. I know now as an adult that being an animal rescuer isn't really like that at all, but I guess I just really wanted to be this animal protecting superhuman that could bypass any laws and open any cages I wanted to.

Right now, I'm an aspiring writer who's unemployed 

[segacds]

i had like one childish phase where i really, really wanted to be a princess-- i loved Disney princess movies a lot and my parents got me toys and dolls of them, and i even had a few little disney princess dresses i'd wear around the house lol.

after i grew up a little more and got into drawing and cartoons, then i decided i wanted to become an artist. initially, i wanted to be an animator for cartoons, but as of now i'm in school for comic art and i'm pretty comfortable where i am. i've pretty much wanted to do some kind of art since i was a kid and never budged on it!

[littlelum]

When I was a kid, I didn't know what I wanted to be. I just wanted to want something. Then I went to college and got a CS degree because that was the only option that was appealing to me. I got burnt out and dropped out of grad school, and now I work at a truck stop Subway waiting for the next phase of life. Not very interesting.

[arz]

hey, lots of people here wanting to be artists and actually being in that field after they've grown, that's beautiful.

i was going to say that i used to want to become a fireman as a child, since that was an okay placeholder for something i didn't give much thought for a while. but tracing back, the earliest memory i have is saying i wanted to become an artist. it's funny because the term artist is more commonly used to refer to celebrities where i grow up, so i didn't understand why the people around me laughed until it clicked to me.

i loved to sketch my notebooks in school, it was fun being an underdog in the corner of the class honing his artistic skills while everyone's going out to the canteen. and it did paid off, thanks young me, who never felt like he was ever progressing. besides that, i learned how to program games in roblox for a bit during my last three years at elementary school. i had many ideas and made some cool stuff, though none of it went to completion - but i thought that this was definitely my thing, no turning back from the path of becoming a game developer now!

then i realized that i've hit a wall, my coding wasn't getting any better, and i keep switching to other projects as soon as what i've worked on has bored me out. i did get back to it at some point during lockdown, but i felt that i'll never get anything out of it. my time in high school was mainly spent on focusing on my grades and wanting to become a scientist/researcher. i did still love to doodle, my drawings were getting grander than ever, i also learned some anatomy! but at that point, i don't think that doing it for a living is a realistic vision to have.

i'm a digital artist now, a graphic designer, and a cs student. i still want to become a researcher so bad, and i want to finish this concept that has been in my head for a while now into a proper story (or experience?) and a game. it's just a matter of time now until i get something done and show it to the world.

tldr: an artist and a videogame developer, now an artist and an aspiring videogame developer + aspiring researcher.