u/Calm_House8611

I’m 25, graduated in May 2024 with a B.S. in Exercise Science, and hold the ACSM-EP. I’m also pursuing the CSCS and planning to retake it after coming close on my first attempt.

I currently work two fitness/wellness jobs.

I’ve worked part-time at a large recreation/wellness center since August 2024, so about 2 years. I average roughly 13–17 hours/week doing 1-on-1 personal training and teaching small-group training 3x/week.

I work with a broad adult population, from people in their 30s/40s through their 70s, 80s and 90s. Goals include strength, muscle gain, weight loss, endurance, balance, mobility and maintaining independence, and I regularly modify exercise around orthopedic/chronic-health considerations.

The facility also partners with a regional healthcare system and has medical-exercise programming, although I work on the recreation/wellness side rather than the healthcare-system side.

I make $25/hr for 1-on-1 PT and $27/hr for small group. Most of my clients/classes are mornings. Cancellations happen, but after 2 years I have a fairly established client base and schedule.

In February 2026, I also started working PRN at a regional health system. I average around 10–12 hours/week at $24.21/hr.

There I do 1-on-1 PT and assist with Rock Steady Boxing for people with Parkinson’s disease. Starting in November, I’m also supposed to teach small-group bootcamp twice per week in the evenings, which fits my current schedule well.

Now the health system wants to involve me in Corporate Wellness on an as-needed basis. I was told roughly 95% of that work happens in the mornings, and they recently asked me to provide my availability.

That’s the conflict: those are the same mornings I’ve spent 2 years building at my other job.
For context, the recreation/wellness job is in a larger regional city of 100,000+ people, while the health-system job is in a smaller town of roughly 10,000–15,000. They’re also about 30–40 minutes apart, so switching between both workplaces during the same morning isn’t always practical.
Between both jobs I currently average around 23–29 hours/week.

I want the Corporate Wellness experience because it could broaden my background into employee wellness, health promotion and more health-system experience. However, income stability matters too.
The hourly rates are close. My bigger concern is established paid work vs. PRN/as-needed availability. I don’t want to give up several reliable morning hours and then find out the Corporate Wellness work only happens occasionally.

I also turn 26 next year, so health insurance and benefits are becoming an important part of my career planning. I’d eventually like to move toward a benefits-eligible part-time or full-time role while continuing to develop professionally.

So my immediate question is:
Would you protect the established mornings and take Corporate Wellness only when it fits, open one morning per week as a trial, or wait until the health-system opportunities become consistent enough to replace whatever income/hours I’d give up?

And longer-term:
If you were in my position at 25, would you start specifically targeting benefits-eligible positions before turning 26? How would you balance that with the experience and income I’m already building at these two jobs while becoming more marketable over the next 1–2 years?

Hello, I’m 25 and live in Central Illinois. I graduated in 2024 with a BS in Exercise Science and have been working in the field since then.

I currently have the ACSM-EP certification and am studying for the CSCS. Since graduating, I’ve worked as a personal trainer in both community fitness and hospital wellness settings. Most of my experience has been with general fitness clients, older adults, and special populations.

I also graduated with no student loan debt from undergrad.

Lately I’ve been trying to figure out my next step. I’m torn between going back for a DPT or pursuing a Master’s in Clinical Exercise Physiology and potentially working in cardiac rehab or another clinical setting.

I enjoy exercise prescription, working with people, and the healthcare side of fitness. At the same time, I want a career with room to grow, decent earning potential, and good opportunities long-term, especially in Central Illinois and the Midwest.

For those of you working in physical therapy, would you make the same career choice again if you were starting over? And if you were in my position, which path would you lean toward and why?

Hello, I’m 25 and live in Central Illinois. I graduated in 2024 with a BS in Exercise Science and have been working in the field for about 2 years now.

Currently I have the ACSM-EP certification and am studying for the CSCS. Since graduating I’ve worked in personal training, medical wellness, and hospital wellness settings. I’ve worked with older adults, special populations, and wellness clients. I also graduated with no student loan debt.

As of late, I’ve been trying to figure out my next step. I’m torn between going back for a DPT or pursuing a Master’s in Clinical Exercise Physiology and potentially working in cardiac rehab.

My biggest priorities are job stability, decent pay, opportunities in Illinois, and doing work that actually helps people.

For those of you in PT, cardiac rehab, or related healthcare fields, what would you do if you were in my position? Looking back, would you make the same choice again?

I’m 24 right now and turn 25 next week. Something happened recently that’s had me thinking about this whole situation again and I honestly wanted outside opinions from people who aren’t involved in it.

There’s a girl I grew up with basically my entire life, along with her longtime friend who was also around a lot growing up and came around the neighborhood all the time too. I grew up with both of them. We’re all around the same age. Same neighborhood from 2006-2016, families knew each other, always around each other growing up, then we still talked all through high school and college too. We took pictures together, stayed in contact, all that. This wasn’t some random short-term friendship.

We ended up going to Illinois State together and even lived across the street from each other for almost 2 years.

Looking back now, I honestly think things were already changing before everything officially fell apart in 2023. Even living that close, we barely hung out anymore and I started feeling confused by the whole thing. It felt like I was slowly getting pushed to the side and I never really understood why.

Looking back now, I think I could already feel the friendship changing during 2022. Even small things like us stopping random Snapchat streaks and talking less started messing with my head more than I probably admitted at the time.

I also remember sending messages asking if I was being pushed to the side because honestly that’s how it started feeling to me.

Part of me started feeling like I was more emotionally important during certain periods than I was later on, and once life changed, I slowly felt pushed further to the side. I don’t know if that perception was completely fair or not, but it definitely added to the frustration/confusion I was feeling at the time.

If I’m being completely honest, there are times now where I wonder if we all valued the friendships the same way by the end. That’s probably one of the hardest parts for me mentally.

Another part of this is that one of the girls lost her boyfriend in an ATV accident in May 2022. They had been together from 2019-2022. I’m not gonna sit here and pretend I know exactly how that affected her mentally or emotionally, but that whole time period seemed heavier and different afterward.

I’ll also be honest and say I didn’t handle the fallout perfectly. I got emotional, sent angry messages, said disrespectful things, and flipped them off publicly at the ISU student fitness center because I felt hurt and ignored.

A few months later in November 2023, after things had cooled down some, I actually reached out to one of their moms and apologized for my behavior and asked if there was any chance we could all sit down sometime and talk things through because I genuinely wanted understanding and closure. The conversation was respectful, but nothing ever really came from it afterward.

One of them also has a sister who I was never super close with, but we always at least said hi to each other when passing by growing up or around town. Since the fallout happened, we haven’t spoken at all either.

After the fallout one of them blocked me for about a year, then randomly unblocked me before graduation in 2024.

Since then we still occasionally run into each other because we live in the same small town. Usually it’s just quick “hi” interactions and both people move on.

What brought all this back up is recently we ended up sitting at the same table together with family/family friends around. One of the girls actually said hi to me normally and joked to her mom that she “said hi to NateDog,” but with the other one things still felt distant and awkward.

Nothing bad happened. Honestly it was just weird. Not hateful. Just distant. Like people who used to know each other extremely well now barely knowing how to interact anymore.

I think the thing that bothers me most is I never really felt like I got a clear explanation. One day somebody is a huge part of your life for years and then eventually they just become this polite stranger you occasionally see around town.

I guess I’m wondering:
- what does this situation honestly sound like from the outside?
- is this just a normal adulthood thing that happens sometimes?
- did I probably push things past the point of repair with how emotional I got?
- and has anybody else gone through a friendship where there isn’t really active hatred anymore, but things still never recovered?

Did it ever stop feeling weird for you?

I guess another thing I wonder sometimes is whether friendships like this are usually permanently changed once things get to this point, or if enough time and maturity can ever make things feel normal again someday.

And honestly based on this whole situation, what would your outside perspective/advice be?

TL;DR: Grew up very close with two girls from childhood through college, friendship slowly fell apart around 2022-2023, I handled parts of it badly emotionally, and now years later we’re civil but distant. Trying to understand if this is just a normal adulthood thing people go through.