Planning for your future Careers helping people

Careers helping people

Making a difference

If you like to solve problems and make people happy, why not build your career helping people? There are many ways to make a positive impact on people's lives.

If you’re passionate about making a positive impact to your community or the world, there are many career paths you can follow to achieve your dreams.

Think differently about the business of making lives better. What would life be like without entertainment? You could work in the events industry organising dances, music festivals and sporting events. And there are the occupations which are integral to success of companies, from admin to marketing to accounting.

A social worker promotes a positive and fair society working with young people, families and communities in need. They specialise in areas such as child welfare, disability, mental health, addiction and aged care.

Other roles include counselling, mediation and social policy development. To be a social worker you need to study a degree, and you’ll need sound achievement in English at school.

There are many different areas of science, and they all impact humanity. Scientists work in environmental management and produce sustainable food sources as the population expands. They discover ways to cure diseases, and scientists even create shampoos and make up!

Make sure you have Maths and some Science behind you, if you want to learn more and study science at university.

The public service provides basic government services. That may not sound exciting, but don’t switch off - without the public service society, as we know it, would cease to exist. The public service includes the services that provide free healthcare, free emergency services and free education.

Police, fire fighters, border control, and the defence force are all part of the public service. Take further study to become a power broker behind public policy and the Government.

Non-profit organisations may be a small animal rescue centre, or an international organisation like the UN.

An aid-worker provides help to those in a disaster zone, like after a bush fire in Australia, or in a war zone. If you want to work for a charity, you can be an aid-worker, or take a totally different role like graphic design, accounting or science, working to support the company from behind-the-scenes.

A lawyer is needed at the most vulnerable times of someone’s life to help fight for justice – whether that’s prosecuting a bad guy, resolving conflict, or fighting for compensation.

If you’re good at listening and dissecting information, and are keen to help people, consider law as an occupation.

Have you considered engineering? As an engineer you’re a scientist, inventor, designer, builder and a great thinker all wrapped up in one. You’ll improve the state of the world, help people do more and make people’s lives safer and easier.

Engineering is a diverse career path. You could build cyclone-proof housing or create medical implants, link them to smartphone apps, and much, much more.

If you want to help kids reach their full potential, teaching is for you. You can work with really young children before they start school, or teach at Primary or High School.

You can specialise to support students with physical disabilities or learning difficulties. If you love sport, you can mix your passions and become a physical education teacher.

Consider a career as a planner. You get to decide the design and appearance of cities and towns, as well as their services, facilities and communities.

Few other careers enable you to make such a profound impact on the public good – delivering functional cities, thriving regions and healthy urban environments.

This list only scratches the surface of jobs that make people's lives better. Think about what interests you, what you love doing as well as your desire to make a difference. Then see if there are occupations that suit that criteria. The possibilities are endless.

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