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3 Careers for Self-Starters

By Wendy Croix
Learning & Life Columnist

You've just taken a personality test to determine your ideal career, and you've answered "YES" to questions like these: "I'd rather work with data than people." "I like to finish what I start." "I'm a detail person." "I like to work alone." Congratulations! You're a self-starter who's most productive when left to your own devices.

If independence is your gift, you'll enjoy a job that web design, accounting, or animation, where the bulk of your job involves working on your own.

Web Design

If your technical flair matches your autonomy, a job is web design makes the most of your traits. Whether you follow your passion for interactivity to a technical school certificate or a university engineering degree, your passion for creating and programming web applications will keep you hands on and independent. If you're one of the many designers who work for yourself, you'll use your talent on your own timetable.

Accounting

If business is the best outlet for your skill with numbers and your willingness to work on your own, consider a career in accounting. This job makes the most of your penchants for detail, order, and outcome - whether you go the full five-year CPA program of study or whether you take the two-year route to a paraprofessional accounting credential. Either way, you'll number yourself among the few who express their talents in a lucrative, in-demand occupation.

Animation

If the thought of showing a portfolio of the games you've designed or the technical effects you've created gives you a rush, then head directly for university or art school to study animation. Whether you eventually work in advertising or video or media, you're an animator at heart if you draw every chance you get--by hand and by computer--and you can't wait to set your drawings in motion. Best of all, you'll get paid for your independent imagination because your instincts are telling you to become an animator.

If you're best on your own and at your own pace, web design, accounting, or animation will let you bloom in splendid isolation.

Sources:

• Exploring Careers. JIST Publishing, Inc., 2003.
• Occupational Outlook Handbook
• What Color Is Your Parachute? by Richard N. Bolles. 10 Speed Press, 2005.
• Wishcraft by Barbara Sher. Ballantine, 2003.

About the Author
Wendy Croix, Ph.D. is a freelance writer, cultural critic and university professor. In her twenty years as a professional educator, Wendy has guided hundreds of students toward the careers of their dreams.

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