Thesis

I think I have a great subject for a thesis. I say that not because I am remotely close to obtaining a doctorate but rather due to the amount of research this subject would require. The subject is, "Ultimate Career (Path) Compared to Initial Goals and Expectations". In other words, how many of us end up where we started?


Following along that line of thought, I find it very difficult to believe that all garbage men planned to pick up trash all their lives upon graduation or that all bank employees always hoped to work for a financial institution more than anything else or that lifelong waitresses or teachers started out down those paths. Wouldn't it be interesting to know what their ideal jobs had been in their minds and then to see how far they shifted from their intended path in reality?

Fot instance, just for grins, I wonder if there are certain careers that most frequently turn down a certain other path like teachers or teaching students who end up in Human Resources.
What about lawyers who end up working at an insurance company or software programmers who ultimately finish out their career driving UPS trucks?

My thought is that if there are trends that typically take people who start on one path down the same alternative path, might there not be ways to help the students within a given study program better assess their interests, personality fit, training, education, etc. before they waste time and money heading the wrong direction. It just seems to me the education system could better point people in the right direction if they took more into account about the individual than what courses the plopped their money down to take.

Anyway, it's possible someone has already performed similar research but if not, it seems to me such a project would be time well spent.