This is NPR's life kit and I'm a Listen AdWarning, an education reporter.

Figuring out what to do with your life and how to get there can be a major challenge for anyone.

Isis Harris, she's been there.

There was the uncertainty, there was fear, there was anxiety.

She's from Portland, Oregon and growing up she heard one thing.

Go to college, get your dream job.

But that did not happen for her.

Instead, in the 15 years after high school, she tried a lot of different jobs.

So I have experienced at the paper mill, like the steel mill.

I worked in a public utility company for a few years.

I went to a beauty school, I tried to go back to college.

Nothing stuck.

I kept hitting walls and I kept running into obstacles.

Then in her 30s, Isis did a free 10 week course,

designed to sample different types of jobs in the construction industry.

One of the activities they did, wire a light bulb.

You just wire a simple circuit and you lift the switch and the light comes on.

And when I wired it all up and I'd lift the switch and the light came on,

it just kind of came on in my life as well.

Like this is what I want to do.

That was nearly five years ago.

Today, Isis works as an electrician in the final throws of her apprenticeship.

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