CYBERCOLUMN: The career plan by Donna Van Cleve_120803

Posted: 12/09/03

CYBERCOLUMN:
The career plan

By Donna Van Cleve

I thought I was ready to be put out to pasture. I thought I was on the downhill side of my life. I thought I could retire the rest of those brain cells that had been misfiring for years now.

I was wrong.

My husband and I decided I needed to start a career to build up some retirement before I officially retire. (Better late than never?)

Donna Van Cleve

I found out after I moved to the Austin area that a bachelor’s degree and nine years of experience in managing a small-town public library doesn’t count for much in the real library world. The best I could do up here without a master’s degree in library science was to be hired as a library assistant, which allowed me to check books in and check books out and give college students directions to the bookstore and bathroom. It didn’t matter that I could write grant proposals or newspaper copy, or that I could keep financial records and write annual reports to the State Library, or manage a collection of 20,000 books and multi-media items, or plan the Summer Reading Club, or design and oversee a $100,000 capital improvement project renovating our library building.

My lack of a master’s degree in this environment would not let me step out of a menial role, no matter what skills or experience I had.

So I started graduate school this past August to earn a master’s degree in library and information science. One of my last assignments in one of the two courses I’m taking (heavy load, I know) requires me to write a career plan.

I told my instructor that because it was a graded assignment, I was torn between writing what I think he wants to hear—to create new information models in the library world, to obliterate illiteracy, and yes, world peace—or what the truth actually is—I need a better-paying job with some retirement and benefits. I have no grandiose plans of climbing a career ladder. There are more important things in my life. I still have creative ideas, noble goals and a strong work ethic, but at my age those things are established habits, not future goals.

I’m not sure where in a career plan I’m supposed to include my family, but they’re definitely there. And God’s will for my life, that’s the most important aspect of my career plan, but that would have gone over like a lead balloon in that assignment. And the more I learn about God’s will for my life, I believe that the priority is less on me building a career and having the best job and more on the people God is placing me around to impact for eternity. Or it may be that God is placing me in a particular job to learn from others. Or it could be to learn a spiritual lesson or to grow spiritual fruit. I’m still trying to let those thoughts sink in deep, especially for those days on the job that I ask myself, “What in the world am I doing here?” But I’m afraid listing those concepts, too, on my career plan would not earn me a good grade.

I know God allows us to use our gifts, talents, and learned skills and knowledge in particular jobs and careers, but for Christians, it’s so much more than that. We should never forget that wherever we are, we walk daily among the eternal. Too often, we can’t see beyond the mortal shell, or circumstances, or even across the desk to that soul who will live throughout eternity—with or without God.

I’m sure I’ll have to resurrect some brain cells to get through graduate school, but if all goes well, I should complete my master’s degree by the summer of 2005. It should make a difference in the job opportunities in the area I live. But more importantly, my Master’s plan for me takes precedent over any career plan, and its benefits and the people I impact are eternal.

Donna Van Cleve is a writer and wife of one, mother of two, and grandmother of Audrie, and a member of Great Hills Baptist Church in Austin.