I spoke at a career day yesterday, which is something I’ve never done before. I’m not the most qualified person to talk about journalism – or even a career. I’m just starting out, after all. But I think the more exposure and options kids have, the better. And I remember my own experience with career day.

In middle school, working for a newspaper was never on my radar. I thought I wanted to go into science, though the topic changed day to day. My teachers started giving out career assessments in elementary school. Tests we’d take to show which field was best suited to our personality and interests. Mine always told me I should go into psychology – counseling, specifically.

So when career day rolled around while I was in middle school, I picked a science and I picked psychology. My first session was with a veterinarian — my career focus for the month. I don’t remember a word the vet tech said. What I do remember is that she brought samples.

She passed around jars of preserved heartworms and other parasites. She also, to my absolute horror, brought a jar containing a litter of unborn kittens. I’d stopped paying attention at the parasites, and shuffled the jars down the table. But I couldn’t even bring myself to touch that one. It was the day I struck anything to do with veterinary sciences – or any medicine – off my list of possible futures forever.

The psychologist was equally disappointing. He worked as a counselor in his own office, and spent a lot of time talking about what I’d later learn was called abnormal psychology – personality disorders, dissociative disorders and a few severe cases. And while it was interesting, it wasn’t anything new and it didn’t tell me anything about what it was like to work as a counselor.

Unlike the veterinarian, I still enjoyed learning about psychology, but I no longer considered it a career option – it was just an interest.

I spent the next three years flip-flopping between sciences until I met and talked to a former journalist in high school, and until a freelance writer sat down with me a few months later to answer any questions I had.

Maybe I wasn’t the best speaker yesterday. After all, public speaking is not my strong suit. I get nervous and fumble my words, and any plans or points I had fly straight out of my head. If I write cue cards, nervousness makes me forget to look at them.

But I think the opportunity is the important thing. Some kids know what they want to do. They have a goal and a perfectly laid out plan. I was never one of those kids. I always took other people’s experiences into account before looking at a career. I wasn’t thinking I could persuade anyone yesterday morning – maybe I dissuaded them. Maybe they thought I was boring. But if that means they’re one step closer to figuring out their passion or their career, I’ll call it time well spent.