By Donna Hruska

Doctor, lawyer, merchant, chief—which will you be?

These are the days to be an American girl deciding on her target for the future. The 1970s have opened wider career opportunities to women than ever before, and the 1980s hold even greater promises. Where yesterday’s girl with a love of medicine may have dreamed of becoming a nurse, today’s girl can stretch that dream and aim at being a doctor, dentist or veterinarian. Any job or profession is within her reach if she only prepares herself.

Why should you think of a career at all? Perhaps your dream is to be a wife and mother who stays at home and tends to the needs of her family. That should be a part of every woman’s life, but the chances are you will be working outside your home at some time in your life. The United States government tells us that nine out of ten girls hold a job sooner or later. About half the women in the population between the ages of eighteen and sixty-five do work away from home, and the number rises every year. More than five and a quarter million women are the heads of households with the sole responsibility of providing for their families.

The usual working pattern for American women is to enter the labor force after they get out of school until the birth of their first children at about age twenty-one. They stay home until their youngest child enters school when the mothers are about thirty and return to the working world until retirement at age sixty-five.

What this means for you is a probably working life of from thirty to thirty-five years. If you’ll be spending that long at it, you might as well be doing something you find exciting. And, if you should decide that the career of homemaker is the only one for you, any preparation you have made for another field will enrich the home life you provide for your family. A well educated woman is better prepared to teach her children.

What kinds of careers can girls consider? Almost every field is open to women today. The sky is really the limit for Karen LaBuda and Mary Ann Goold. They work for the Bell Telephone Company as telephone installers, climbing poles and stringing wire. Both of them started work as telephone operators, but asked to be transferred to the plant department. While the physical work is harder, they enjoy being able to move around from place to place installing and repairing equipment, and they like the higher pay.

Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross is a psychiatrist in charge of a mental health clinic in south Cook County, Illinois. In addition to treating her many patients, she has written a well-known book on psychology and travels all over the world speaking to people in the medical professions. She is married to another doctor and has two children, Barbara and Kenneth, who often accompany her on her lecture tours. Together they have seen many parts of the world.

Madelon Talley, a wife and mother of three children, went back to work just five years ago for the Dreyfus Corporation. Today she is vice-president of a mutual fund, in charge of investing over $55 million dollars for the Dreyfus Offshore Trust. Mrs. Talley believes that women are particularly good in picking stocks to buy on the stock market because “women are always looking for a new product.”

There are many opportunities for women in government. Mary Gardiner Jones is a lawyer who was originally appointed by President Johnson to be a Federal Trade Commissioner. Like other members of the commission, her job is to help regulate business and trade all over the United States.

In 1971, President Nixon appointed Barbara Hackman Franklin to find women to fill top government posts. Since her appointment she has found more than 100 women who have been hired to do important work for salaries of more than $28,000 per year. Mrs. Franklin, who was a bank vice-president before joining the administration, often speaks to groups of young girls, urging them to prepare themselves for interesting jobs serving their country.

But while you may stretch your dreams, dreaming is not enough. You must begin to train now for the interesting and creative jobs that will be waiting for you when you are ready to begin work. The first question is—how do you get ready for that dream job?

First, by finding out all you can about the many different kinds of work available. The Women’s Bureau of the Labor Department publishes a series of pamphlets on career opportunities for women which describe what certain jobs are like, such as, “Why Not Be—an Engineer?” and “Why Not Be—a Pharmacist?” They also have information on how to get training for various kinds of work. To get a list of Women’s Bureau publications, write the Superintendent of Documents, Government Printing Office, Washington, D. C., 20402.

Your librarian may have many of these publications available for borrowing. In addition, she will have the Department of Labor’s list of job descriptions telling about nearly every job in existence and explaining what you need to know to prepare for each one. The library will also have other books and pamphlets on choosing a career.

Your school counselor should be able to help you decide what kind of work you are most suited for and what schools, training programs and scholarships are available. Be willing to take aptitude and interest tests to determine where you are most likely to be happy.

But reading about a job won’t tell you what it is really like, and taking a test can’t tell you definitely that you’ll like the day-to-day routine of a profession. The fastest way to get information is to ask someone who knows. Ask the people around you about their work. Find out what they actually do all day. Your parents and their friends may be willing to take you along to their place of business to see for yourself what happens. You can visit your local pharmacist or stock broker, tell him you are interested in his field and ask if you can follow him around for a day or a week.

A lot of ingenious girls get summer or after school jobs in fields that interest them. Karen LaBuda, the telephone installer, started working for the phone company part-time while she was still in high school. Letty Cottin Pogrebin, a publishing executive and author, tells in her book, “Making It In A Man’s World,” how she knew she wanted to work for a newspaper when she was a teenager, but could find no one to hire her. She solved the problem by talking an editor into letting her work for nothing. By the end of the summer, she had made herself so useful that she was working as a reporter and receiving a salary while learning from the inside what newspaper work was all about.

Once you’ve decided on your career, get an education to prepare yourself for the best job in that field. Your goal may require a college degree and several years of post-graduate work, or you may not need to go to college at all. Many interesting jobs require technical training available at local schools or apprentice training on the job. If you do need to go away to school, scholarships can help pay for your education.

Begin now. The next time someone asks, “Doctor, lawyer, merchant, chief—which will you be?” you’ll have your answer ready. Just stretch those dreams. There is no limit to what an American girl can do.

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Donna Hruska
2711 2nd Private Road
Flossmoor, Illinois 60422

First North American Serial Rights

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