What do you want to be when you grow up?

As a kid, Dana Cochrane, now 20, dreamed of being a veterinarian.

Many years later, and two years into her college education, she has decided to follow a different career path.

Now Cochrane dreams of being an intelligence analyst.

"When I was little I really loved animals, and then I grew up and I still like them. It's just a lot of work to be a veterinarian," said the sophomore political science major from Boxford, Mass.

Cochrane explained that her decision changed in high school.

"I took a lot of political (classes) in high school and it was really fun and I like doing that sort of thing. I want to work for the FBI," she said.

If given the choice between the childhood job and college job, "I would still choose to be an intelligence analyst in a heartbeat," Cochrane said.

Many college students change their childhood plans.

Jonathan Wright, a 20-year-old sophomore from Middlebury, Vt., is majoring in nursing but as a child, "I wanted to be a doctor. I thought it'd be really awesome, as a kid. To care for people and be able to tell them what they had."

As a nursing major he is still in the field of medicine. "It changed mostly because of financial issues of pre-med then med school."

Wright explained, "If I could go back to my senior year (of high school) I would tell myself to be a doctor, just go for it."

"As a child I wanted to be everything in the book," said Margaret Manning, a 21-year-old junior double majoring in mathematics and education from Colchester, Vt. After a lot of trying to discover herself, she has a plan.

"Now, I'm trying to become a math teacher. I want to work with middle school and high school kids and share my passion with them," she said, "so that maybe fewer kids would hate math if I showed them it could be interesting and fun."

Manning explained, "I would definitely choose being a teacher (over my childhood jobs). It makes me feel like my life means something."

Sarah DeBouter, a 19-year-old sophomore from Middlebury, Vt., majoring in English, also suffered from the childhood indecision.

"First I wanted to be a photographer, then I wanted to be an actress, then I wanted to be a computer scientist, now I just want to be a business woman," she said.

"I came to college not really knowing what I wanted to do," she confessed.

After a lot of trials and taking various different courses, "I decided business is kind of what I really like to do. So I'm going to have a double minor in business administration and economics," DeBouter said.

 "I would choose what I am doing now (over what I wanted to be as a kid), because I am going to get my MBA (masters in business administration) and I can do almost anything with it. Then if I really want to I can go back to school."

Some college students knew exactly what they wanted to be as children and are carrying forth in their childhood endeavors.

Ciara Plymale, a 17-year-old freshman from Great Falls, Mont., double majoring in psychology and political science, said, "Since I was 7 I wanted to be an attorney."

"I didn't decide until recently what kind of attorney, but I did want to be an attorney," she said. "I also wanted to be in the military, so an officer. So I guess I'm pretty much doing what I wanted to do as a kid."

This big decision was made because "My grandmother, actually, when I was a little kid, used to talk to me about the future," Plymale explained.

 "She always wanted either a doctor or a lawyer in the family and one day she sat me down and had me look at it and (being a lawyer) just kind of caught my interest," she stated.

Kaitlin Saunders, a 19-year-old freshman majoring in studies of war and peace from Canton, Ohio, may not have wanted the same thing from the very beginning but has been passionate about her job choice from an early age.

"When I was in first grade, I told the teachers that I wanted to be a professional dog owner because I loved dogs," she began. "I changed my mind on what I wanted to do when I was 10 years old."

 "The first time my mother ever told me that she was a Marine and showed me her things I knew what my calling was, to become a Marine," she said.

"She told me stories of her past and I envied every word. As I grew older, my patriotism grew stronger and I became determined to becoming a Marine by any means necessary," Saunders said.