Career Crisis

So a friend said I was going through a college-withdrawal, but I think it may be something more serious.

Last night I was with my sister, enjoying a lazy Monday night. The past two weeks at work have been busy and kind of stressful--I broke a story that was pretty big, and it got some people riled up. My sleep was restless because it was hard to get my brain to calm down, but it was definitely nice to be consistently busy. I'd rather be making 20 phone calls a day than sitting and looking for things to do to waste time on the Internet.

Julie and I were talking about jobs, and I told her about this doctorate discussion class I sat in on at UNT's Health Science Center. The class, social epidemiology, was great fun--me and four students and the professor, discussing the tangle mess of race, socioeconomics, epidemiology. When I left, I told her how I'd much rather sit in a class like that then be bored at work, and so I was telling Julie how it'd be great to get a master's in public health.

And it really would be a great degree. There's so much to learn, and it's where science gets complicated with other subjects--do you get different treatment because you're black or because you're poor? Can we ever figure it out? How do we change it? It's an area of science that's very cool to me. I started considering applications, the financial costs of going to school (again . . . it would only happen if they paid my way), where to do this. I looked at Fulbrights, wondering if that would be worthwhile. (I decided I couldn't leave the country for 9-12 months and leave Topper again, and I don't think they'd pay to cover his international travels.)

"You've got a really sour look on your face," my sister said.

And it's true. I did. I was thinking about what I'm doing now and where I want to be. I like my job now because A) it's a steady paycheck B) I can write about science and health C) I get to learn lots of little things and C) they value my talents and knowledge. But it's not keeping me busy. I spend a lot of time reading celebrity news and other nonsense and reading every news site I can find. I'm not challenged, either. I might write a story about the costs of cancer treatment to patients, which is something I care a lot about and want others to know about, but it's not a hard story to write. Even the big stories I chased down over these past two weeks are more "shoe leather" than talent.

That's where the problem is. I want a job where I'm challenged, even if I don't love it, and I want a job where I can be a bit more consistently busy. Journalism is a hurry up and wait business--there will rarely be times where you're constantly busy, just because you're waiting on callbacks or whatever else. But the challenging thing has me worried. I'm not challenged here. Am I going to be any more challenged in a reporting job at any other publication? Each story can have its own quirks to figure out--the right way to word something, structure, keeping to word count--but it's all routine trouble-shooting.

I have this horrible idea that maybe journalism may not be a challenging field for me.

Remember, I love journalism. I love words, I love writing, I love deadlines and bylines and relaying information. But is it harder to write stories at the New York Times than the local business newspaper if you're in science journalism? Instead of getting easier with age and experience, does it get harder, more challenging?

I talked to Dan briefly about it. He said now that he's at a bigger paper, it's easier to report and write stories--he attributes it to the staffing differences. He said he's not really challenged. He enjoys it, sure, but challenging? Maybe not.

I've had it hinted to me that perhaps I could become an editor here at some point. Maybe editing is more challenging. I certainly enjoyed it at the Skiff, but that was small-time. I don't know if that was an accurate representation of real journalism. But if that does happen, at least it will give me one more piece of information--either editing is something challenging, or not.

For now, I think my only decision has been to get off my ass when I'm doing nothing at work and redouble efforts on the novel. At least it's challenging.

And perhaps I'll look at some more degrees to add to my resume.