So what if you changed your university major four times? You're in good company. Here's what these people did for a living, once upon a time.

1. When he published his paper on the Special Theory of Relativity, Albert Einstein was working as:
   
   • A patent clerk.
2. Before he became Stalin's favourite playwright, Mikhail Bulgakov was a:
   
   • Doctor. (That BBC show is partly autobiographical.)
3. Actor Peter Falk had an early career as a(n):
   
   • Sailor.
   • Railway worker in Yugoslavia.
   • Efficiency expert.
   • All of the above.. Really.
4. Before inventing a telephone, Alexander Graham Bell built a:
   
   • Robot head. (It said 'Mama'.)
5. Before entering politics, Jimmy Carter had been a:
   
   • Nuclear engineer in training.
   • Peanut farmer.
   • Submariner.
   • All of the above.
6. Which of these jobs did Douglas Adams not have?
   
   • Astronaut.
7. What was Czech president Vaclav Havel's first profession?
   
   • Absurdist playwright. (More politicians should have this training, we suspect.)
8. Before he was Pontiff, Pope Francis once worked as a:
   
   • Nightclub bouncer. (We like to imagine this.)
9. Hermann Hesse, author of Steppenwolf, once spent 14 months learning how to:
   
   • Build and repair clock towers.
10. Robert Burns' day job involved:
    
    • Ploughing.

See? Even groundbreaking geniuses started somewhere. And in Robert Burns' cases, actually broke ground. Or cleaned chicken coops. So if the kids have a problem settling into a line of work, take comfort: they may be on the verge of greatness.

Dmitri Gheorgheni

06.07.15 Front Page

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