​The Radical Sabbatical

What do you do when you don’t know what you want to do? Emma Rosen road-tested 25 jobs in a year. Here’s what she learned.

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That feeling. A year ago it was as much a part of my Sunday routine as roasts and a Netflix binge. I’d lie awake counting down the hours until I’d have to go to work in the morning. Knots of stress would tighten in my chest and I’d just lie there, thinking about how long my to-do list was – and how I didn’t want to do anything on it. I’d been desperate to leave my job in the Civil Service for months, but I felt trapped. The problem was I had no idea what I would do instead.

Mine is a generation bombarded with messages that we should ‘follow our dreams’, and that if we work hard enough at something, we can get there. I knew I was a hard worker... but that was about it. I had lots of vague ideas of things I’d like to do, but no idea if they would be a better fit.

I set myself a challenge to do something about it. I was about to turn 24 and had some savings. I would try 25 careers before I turned 25, through a series of ever-more varied work-experience placements. So for one whole year, I did everything from archaeology to becoming a newsroom journalist. I’ve since been a film extra, a tour guide, even worked with police dogs. Here’s what I learned along the way…

ARCHAEOLOGY

I flew to Cluj-Napoca in Romania (nope, didn’t know how to say that either) with a group of students. We’d get up at 7.30am every day and, depending on the weather, get covered in a fine coat of dust, or caked in mud. I was given a spade and just told to dig. You have to shovel through all these layers (at least a week’s work) before you get deep enough to find anything.