Should I pursue teaching? (Anxious and shy)

[louise12]

Hi,

ive just completed my business degree and completed an internship in HR Unpaid. The internship turned me off pursuing the business world as 9 to 5 desk job isn’t for her. I love to have the flexibility of working whilst standing up aswell. However I’m not sure if it was my anxiety or the actual company that made me dislike the corporate world. My intern company were supportive in some ways and very unsupportive in other ways for eg. Always seem too busy to sit down and go through stuff I wasn’t too sure about. And whenever I seeked feedback from my supervisor with the work I competed she would always brush it off and never give it. I’m wondering now if I should try with HR again or should I pursue secondary teaching instead? I’m just scared my anxiety will get in the way and sometimes I can be quite awkward in unfamiliar/uncomfortable environments. Any advice would be appreciated.

Thankyou 🙂

[geoff]

Hello Louise12, also a warm welcome to you.

From what you have told us I would pursue secondary teaching, this will give you some flexible hours as a 9 to 5 desk job doesn't seem to be ideal for you.

With your teaching, you can then talk with a psychologist who can build up your confidence but you need to see your doctor, first of all, ask them about the 'mental health plan', this entitles you to 10 free sessions per year.

Have a look under 'The Facts' at the top of this page or click on 'Get Support' and scroll down until you see'Publicans to download or order' and this can be done by ringing BB.

Hope this is a start for you.

Geoff.

[White_Rose]

Dear Louise

Hello and welcome to the forum. You have highlighted a fairly common situation when students graduate or are about to graduate. Did I do the right thing?

As someone who has worked shifts and worked in HR for about 15 years I hope I have some comments that you will find helpful.

Do you intend to finish your degree? I think it is important to complete activities that have a completion date no matter what you intend to do afterwards. It means you have a degree, even if not in your preferred field, and that is an acknowledgement of your skills.

The pros and cons of any situations do not always show the best way to go. If you don't mind, let me give you some of my experiences. I started work in the disability area and then became part of the staff training group. I loved that job and have often wondered if I should become a teacher though in reality to the two jobs are very different. From there I went into HR where a major part of my job was again staff training. I loved it.

Mostly people think of HR as the people who pay their wages with no other function. This has changed incredibly over time. I was a project officer with briefs for both long and short term projects. I felt I played a useful role in areas such as writing policy policy and the associated staff training. The years when new legislation on Anti discrimination, sexual harassment and later bullying came into being I felt were major steps forward and I enjoyed being part of this and being able to contribute.

Sorry for the long description. I wanted to show there is a great deal to offer in HR. At different times I was WH&S Office, Rehabilitation Office which had some interesting moments and facilitated workshops. So quite a variety of life. This was in a large organisation and it does make a lot of difference. I think you may be right in saying perhaps it was the organisation. Although companies accept work placement students they do not necessarily give their own staff time to supervise the student, answer questions, talk about the role and the overall role of HR. All those things you want to learn in a placement.

As usual I'm running out of space. Think about the sort of tasks you like to do instead of an overall role. Most jobs have facets someone enjoys and and some not so hot. Can I ask you to think about what I have written and get back to me. I would love to hear how my role strikes you. Also where I can help you most.

Mary

[louise12]

Hi Mary!

Thankyou for sharing. I love that aspect about HR how it’s broad and it gives you variety. I did enjoy the WHS part of it which made me consider doing my masters in WH&S as I have now since completed my Human Resources degree. It’s just disappointing as the internship went for 6 months (1 day a week) and felt I didn’t learn as much as I should have. I would always get anxious the night before aswell. It was unpaid and didn’t count torwards my degree so I was genuinely there to gain experience in HR, however supervisor never really let me gain experience in major aspects of HR for eg. Recruitment. All I did was observe, therefore was hard for me to tell a future employer what I actually contributed in my internship :(.

However, I did really enjoy contributing to anti bullying projects. They also asked for me to extend my internship (unpaid) because they knew they didn’t give me their time which I declined. It was taking a toll on my well-being as 4 months in my supervisor said she has been noticing that I’ve been doing a few mistakes from the last couple of weeks. I asked her why was it mentioned only now as I would of appreciated the feedback so I could correct it before any further mistakes were made. She didn’t really answer. I then suggested we could go through this software together so I can avoid further mistakes and she didn’t follow this up with me which made me not want to turn up up my internship anymore but I persisted and finished it. Now I’m just stuck. I’m just confused between if I should try HR again as in finding employment or work experience or should I just go ahead with teaching as I would be able to teach HR/business studies to students.

[louise12]

Hi geoff

thanks for your response. I shall look into this.

🙂

[romantic_thi3f]

Hi louise12,

Welcome to the forums and thanks for being here!

Hmm this is a good question!

I'm sorry that you didn't have a good experience with the internship but ultimately, I feel like you have the answer within you (oh how wise :P).

Teaching and HR are vastly different careers so I want to talk about that for a second -

HR can include anything from payroll, recruitment, induction of new staff, termination of staff, creating company policies and procedures, managing training and development (in house and out of house), working with conflict and resolution, etc etc. It also depends on the company as to how much moving around and contact you have with others. Some people in HR never sit down at their desk because they’re too busy working with people (I know some who don’t even have a desk!), where as others might not even leave their desk unless they have too. You’re purely working with adults.

Teaching on the other hand can include anything from preschool, primary school, high school, vocational education, tertiary education or special needs. You can basically work with any age group.

Which of these careers do you think appeals to you the most? What sorts of people do you want to work with? and if you could wave a magic wand and get rid of your anxiety, where do you think you’d like to end up?

So - I don’t think I can give you an answer, but hopefully this gives you something to think about!

[LavenderTea]

Hey Louise,

Thank you for posting. I found this super interesting since recently at uni we've been preparing for Open day and haven been prepping ourselves on how to run career assessments for future students. Long story sort - the uni has access to personality questionnaires and work values assessments which we wouldn't be able to do over an online forum here... but the theory remains the same... so I'll try to be helpful here.

I find it interesting that you're considering going from HR to teaching - I'm curious as to why that is. You said that you really enjoyed the WH&S and anti-bullying parts of what you learned as well.By the sounds of it, you like dealing with people, but can find it anxiety-provoking if you're pushed out of your comfort zone - that's only natural!

I do agree with everyone above and think that it's something that you have to try to work out for yourself, but it can be helpful to have us as a sounding board. I think some things you can ask yourself include:

• What work conditions do you value
• What job might provide these conditions
• Are you going to commit to more learning (and if so, how many years will this take)

Perhaps it might also be a good idea to consider trying to intern at other places in a HR role in the mean time, or while you study so that you can definitely rule it out or in... your original intern workplace does not sound super supportive in any way, and I'm certain that there are better workplaces out there.

Hopefully this helps, and good luck!

[White_Rose]

Hello Louise

I can see you have been given heaps of suggestions. I have another suggestion which is for you to ask the uni if they can give/find you another internship. Ask for more than one day a week. That is no good to you at all. How can you become involved in projects on one day a week. Even if there is no pay you can ask CentreLink to recognise the internship as further training and pay you.

I suggest you do not return to the other placement. It probably was not all their fault. Was the one day a week their idea or a uni specification? While you are working, whether in a placement or paid work, consider your option of a Masters in WH&S. It's a good base to work from. Have you considered any other type of degree? For example a Masters in Ethics? It would fit in with your degree.

I don't know where you live so this may not be an option. Have you applied to a public service agency for an internship? I think you will get a better deal that way. How did you guess I was in the public service. ☺

Keep on trying, which I know is a cliché, but it does bring results.

Mary