As a post baccalaureate student, we hold an interesting dichotomy in the professional and academic world. Many times, you will hear someone say we are transitioning from one career to another. But that is not exactly accurate, how can one leave something behind that was once a part of them and move on to something else. Every event inside of life leaves a mark whether that be good or bad.
One of the unique things about us as post baccalaureate students is the journey it has taken for us to get where we are. Just as a doctor who once was a concert violinist may now have better manual dexterity than others and thus stitch with an elegance born of hours spent playing Vivaldi, a post baccalaureate student amplifies their next path in life with skill from previous occupations and experiences.
It has been interesting moving into a vastly different sector. Where I once with deft movements and quick fingers slid a cannula into a vein, caressed a tiny new born hands, or held a dying one, these same fingers now dance over a keyboard. It’s a peculiar feeling to want to move on and yet want to stay.
Do I miss what once was? After eleven years it is hard to say. I still live in the in-between occasionally picking up shifts at ERs unable to fully let go of the adrenaline rush, to fully free myself from the feeling of immense pride and sense of worth as I know I made a difference in someone’s battle of life versus death. And yet I long to let go and move into a different pace and place in life. There is pride to be found in both types of work, skill to be found in both and a sense of belonging to be carved and that has been carved, and still, that needs carving in both.
To separate from what I once was and still am to become something else is entirely not possible. Am I switching careers or am I simply combining the skills from my prior one into a new whole. The personableness I have learned born at the heels of many recalcitrant cantankerous patients now serves me well dealing with engineers who can be at least half as grumpy and stubborn. The teamwork I learned moving quickly and easily in a code all working toward the common goal of life for another person now serves me as I mesh into team dynamics with an ease created from countless codes and short staffed nights. The ability to maintain focus for hours on a problem, harkens back to hours standing at bedside , carefully titrating drips, monitoring vitals, carefully measuring out critical meds with no one but myself to double check my work.
So when we I hear the word career transition, I question and refute the accuracy in that phrase. We, post baccalaureate students .are not transitioning , we are combining all our experiences for our next journey wherever that may take us.
We are synergy, for together all that we are is greater than our individual pieces.
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