Different reasons can make one leave a career or decide to pivot to a new branch within it.
For women, it is important to document our career stories and the reality that we can be multifaceted.
This is to fight off the belief that women must not aim high or must be static with no plans to spark the fires of our creativity throughout our lives.
In our latest listicle, Urban Woman Magazine asked some women to share what inspired their career paths.
Read their responses below.
K
Kdrama.
I watch kdrama’s for fun, for the handsome male leads and the romance, but when I saw Pinocchio Syndrome, something resonated with me.
The female and male leads were journalists and I watched them go from scrambling for stories as cub reporters to making sure the stories were reported objectively, truthfully and factually, to become investigative journalists as the female lead couldn’t tell a lie. This prompted me to be an investigative journalist.
Like most people, I wanted to be a doctor but when I saw Pinocchio Syndrome, I knew this was what I wanted to do and wanted to be. Now, I’m not an investigative journalist but I’m a factchecker who’s debunking misinformation.
L
The need to do more and be more.
I have had 3 successful career switches, pharmacist to data analyst to programmes and business development and now operations.
E
I began in print media, and it was truly eye-opening to witness the risks and challenges journalists undertake to source news. This experience transitioned me into broadcast media, where I worked with a female-centric organization that broadened my perspective on various career paths, particularly in women’s health, women’s rights advocacy, human rights protection, and advocating for improved livelihoods and government policies.
During my time in broadcast media, I had a great time and was fortunate to have a boss who significantly shaped my ideologies and helped me recognize my potential. It was through this experience that I gained insight into transitioning from broadcast media to the NGO and development sector, focusing on the intersection of media, development, and civil society organizations, and aligning with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
I am now driven by the desire to advocate for people, promote better lives, and support the implementation of effective policies that enable individuals to thrive without dependence on others. I believe in the importance of communication in driving organizational success and I recognize the numerous opportunities available to me with a background in communication.
The need to advocate for people, promote better policies, and ensure that everyone has access to basic necessities drives me. I am committed to making Nigeria and any other country I may work in a better place, advocating for good health, good life, and the protection of rights of women and girls.
OT
Fame, glory, the idea of a Nobel prize in science and leaving a mark on humanity. That’s all.
A
My dad sheltered us a lot growing up so we didn’t visit our cousins or spend time with people a lot. But after I started medical school it was becoming apparent that I needed to leave Jos once because I was becoming too depressed at home.
I went to see my aunt who was a lawyer in Abuja. She had just recently lost her husband and based on what my father had said about their family he believed they were extravagant because they lived in Abuja and bought what they desired with their money and that wasn’t his reality.
She’s my mother’s younger sister and she says a lot of off things about her style being extravagant and blaming her back pain on wearing heels which she enjoys but my mum thinks it’s too much. But secretly I’d always admired her. I admired her ability to look so fly; she is very articulate and beautiful and her style is off the chain.
She was a baddie in law before a lot of babes caught up on social media; like she’d ever been a diva and she always said her mind to my dad in a respectful way.
On that trip she asked me my plans after graduation and what I saw for myself after med school.
I said I’d come back and work for my dad to repay him for his kindness and whatever.
She laughed and said: “Hmmph I’m not speaking to you as your aunty. I’m speaking to you as a woman. You better go there, do everything you can to make something of yourself for yourself and not come back to be fighting for a space at the table with your brothers when your name wasn’t even in the running.
Be so good that your daddy would have to pay and fly you here to do surgeries he is not able to do.”
No one has ever told me the truth like that in my house. I never understood why she said it but it changed my life. I knew patriarchy affected how my dad raised me but I didn’t know how much till I passed my exam. I didn’t know how much my mother was “in on it”.
Like they were ever more interested in me being a mother and wife with good character and a degree than being prosperous and making money and a life for myself.
Because my brother is graduating this year and no one is beckoning for him to come home. No. They want to develop him in the States. All this while I am to go home and wait so that my mother can make sure I’m not sleeping with my male friends.
To see that my career even to my well educated parents paying for my medical degree…was always just for show to them.
I will always and forever be nothing more to them. And that conversation was the seed planted for me to understand my reality.
AK
Well, I got into medical school because I had the grades to do so. And of course, Nigerian parents. The only valid careers then were doctor, lawyer, engineer. I also was so naive, I didn’t know anything.
I’m out of school now, and I’ve done a couple of things. I’ve done social media management, I’ve been a medical writer. These are opportunities I took because of time and chance, but also my perception of what my abilities and limits were.
Now, I’m paying attention to what my values and motivations are. I’m decentering values I believed were super important like “prestige.” As long as I’m not stealing or doing anything illegal, any job I can do well that gives me the kind of money I want to earn to live the lifestyle I want to live is very cool and prestigious to me.
Angel Nduka-Nwosu is a writer, journalist and editor. She moonlights occasionally as a podcaster on As Angel Was Sayin’. Catch her on all socials @asangelwassayin.