April 22, 2003
A: FROM MENTOR ANNE LUCIETTO IN IL
Alexis,

You can do whatever you set your heart out to do! I've always been what my family terms eclectic in my choice of what I like to do! I'm a Mechanical Engineer by degree and position... but I'm fortunate to work at a large facility with a very supportive structure. The people that I work with and for understand that I love biology... so I'm involved with our sitewide group in environmental things and have been named to the group that is responsible for making sure that all of our future buildings are built with LEED's in mind. I majored in music for a time and also sing in the "for fun" choir that meets on our site! One of my projects is to investigate the cause of very quick pipe deterioration and to spec out pipe that should be put in it's place to maximize it's life... this is going to be the subject of my Master's Thesis and it seems as though my Masters is going to be in Civil/Materials Engineering. One last item... I teach math at our local community college and have taught business (I have an MBA).

I hope that helps... yes, you can go from one to the next and even integrate them!

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A: FROM MENTOR JOAN LUSK IN RI
It's perfectly OK to want to do a million different things. (What
the world needs is an invention to increase the number of hours in
the day so we _can_ do the other 999,990 or so!) If you take
advantage of the opportunities that arise to study different things
or try out different things as a volunteer or in short-term jobs,
you'll find that some really appeal to you and others do not, or
appeal much less as a major commitment. Finding a focus tends to
happen naturally - even though that focus may shift over time.

Most people (even scientists) have interests outside of their jobs,
and most people change careers several times during their lifetimes.
Even someone who can describe her entire career as "engineering" or
"medicine" or "computer science" will have worked on many quite
different projects, or for several different companies - your first
job doesn't define your whole career. And the nature of science is
progress. It's impossible for the same field to remain the same in
detail.

The real trick to a fulfilling life is to be interested in enough
things and activities to fill your days, whether that is one
all-consuming passion or a variety. Someone with work and avocations
that satisfy her needn't mourn the fact that a lifetime is finite and
there may have been other things that would also have satisfied her.
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A: FROM MENTOR NANCY WHITE IN WA
Today, quite a few of us have many careers over our lifetime. As new fields
and specialties emerge, people are called on to use a diverse range of
skills that may not seem, on first blush, related at all. I have used my
botany/science training to hone my critical thinking skills and have had
three distinct careers. Yes, there are threads that continue through all of
them, but it would have been hard to predict the diversity or paths of my
career. The key is lifelong learning. Never stop and your possibilities are
MANY! SET careers can be built up over time!
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A: FROM MENTEE ALICIA T. IN CA

There are several fields where you can incorporate one into the other, such as biotechnology where you have medicine and technology. Generally people focus on one SET career because they are all so hard to achieve, but there are people who just love doing two different things, such as some people having an engineering degree and a medical degree. They chose to have a career that requires the knowledge of both fields of study and have applied it their career choice. There are many possibilities when it comes to different SET careers overlapping.