I always find the first post to be the most difficult. That being said, my website has seen many first posts over its many iterations since 2006. I first started my personal website at a time that I had wanted to become a freelance photographer and web designer. Many things have changed since then and I’ve mostly left my website unused for the past decade.

Now I’m back with the intention of blogging about my own career development and lifelong learning. I had plans to start this personal project back in 2013. However, a lot of things have also changed since then. So, to get things started, I’ll begin with a brief narrative.

During my undergrad, I was pursuing a degree in Sociology. This encompassed my formal introduction to social science research and data analysis. I was fascinated with research and working with data—from formulating research questions, reading the existing research literature, developing a hypothesis, statistically analyzing research variables sourced from data sets, and interpreting the results—it satiated my intellectual curiosity.

On the other hand, I also had a strong interest in event and portrait photography, as well as front-end web design. This may be the closest I'll ever get to describing myself as a creative. As a hobbyist, photography and web design afforded me a creative outlet. It, too, also satiated my intellectual curiosity—but in a different way. Whether there was a certain aesthetic that I wanted to experiment with, or an issue with my code, I was able to put my critical thinking skills to task and synthesize a solution by way of trial and error and experimentation. It made me happy when I learned—discovered—something new.

However, I was not confident that I would be able to develop my interests into a profitable and stable career. My career vision at the time precluded my hobbies. Further, it just seemed like an easily accessible and, in turn, saturated pursuit. I would be lost in a sea of self-proclaimed photographers and designers. And with the end of my undergraduate career inching closer, I would soon be on the hook for paying back my student loans. Therefore, I did not develop these skills further. I did not believe that they were practical at the time. I needed to begin working.

When I earned my degree and began my search for work, I found that many positions in which I had an interest in required an advanced degree. Fresh out of college, it was impractical for me to go back to school for an advanced degree in a field I have yet to enter. So over the next several months, I interviewed with state agencies. And it was during this time that I began to realize that I would not be able to perform the type of work that I wanted to do were I to follow this career path.

And so I revisited my auxiliary interest in becoming a freelance photographer and web designer. I identified that if I were to ever follow this pursuit—outside of producing client deliverables—I’d be faced with matters regarding contractual work, intellectual property, and small business management. This gradually shifted my vision toward the legal field.

After doing some research, networking, and reaching out to law schools, law students, and bar associations, I decided to transition into the legal field first as a paralegal rather than going directly to law school. I would at least acquire a practical working knowledge and body of experience that was in close proximity to where I envisioned myself. This would also allow me to begin working and defer making the decision and commitment to law school. At the time, I just met too many anxious law students and unemployed attorneys who were contemplating a career change, but were too deep in law school debt to do anything about it. I needed to be sure.

So I enrolled in a paralegal certificate program while concurrently working at a small personal injury law practice. Several months later, I earned my certificate in paralegal studies and became a paralegal at a boutique employment law practice in San Francisco's Financial District. Since the firm specializes in class actions, I've been fortunate to have been able to occasionally utilize my undergraduate data analysis skills for a few cases.

At this time, I am searching for my own niche—where I can synthesize a career vision based off of my multidisciplinary background and interests. I am still in my discovery phase, so I am not yet able to articulate what that would look like. However, I intend to memorialize my journey in words and pictures and I’m looking forward to seeing how things progress.