Taylor Swift’s first ever career dream revealed – and it has nothing to do with music

It’s no secret that Taylor Swift is taking the world by storm – reaching dizzying heights of success, breaking stadium attendance records and making the ground shake with her Eras tour shows. The American songstress, 34, has earned her place as a global megastar, winning countless awards and accolades for her genre-spanning work as a musician.

However, it has been revealed that becoming a pop star was not always Taylor’s dream career and her aspirations as a youngster were a far cry from her life now. The star’s elementary school teachers spoke to CBS Philadelphia about what she was like as a young girl. Her teachers – music teacher Barbara Kolvek and her third grade teacher Heather Brown both said how proud they were of their former student. Barbara looked back at yearbooks and revealed that Taylor said in first grade she initially wanted to be a stockbroker.

But, by second grade she had changed it to singer – something that her millions of fans are undoubtedly now thankful for. In a 2011 interview, Taylor told a YouTube interviewer that as a child she had hoped to follow in her father Scott’s footsteps, who is a financial adviser and stockbroker. ‘On the first day of school, they’re like, “What do you guys want to be when you grow up?” And everybody’s like, ‘I want to be an astronaut,’ or, ‘I want to be a ballerina,’ she said. ‘I’m like, “I’m going to be a financial advisor.”

She added: ‘Ever since I was a little kid… my dad has been telling me to save my money or invest in utilities… cause my dad is a stockbroker. ‘And he lives and breathes it. My dad is so passionate about what he does, like in the way that I’m passionate about music. ‘I don’t know… I just saw how happy it made him and I just thought, like, I can broke stocks’.

Meanwhile, her mother Andrea is a former marketing manager at an advertising agency. During the early years of her career, Taylor credited her mother for her unwavering support. Taylor, a 14-time Grammy winner, was born in West Reading, Pennsylvania on December 13, 1989. She was raised on a Christmas tree farm. When she was 11, she visited Nashville with her mother Andrea to visit record labels and give out demo tapes of her singing – but she was rejected by them all.

She decided to focus on songwriting soon after and learned guitar. By 13, she secured an artist developmental deal and moved to Tennessee with her family to focus on her music. In 2005, she sang at the famous Bluebird Cafe in Nashville, where Scott Borchetta saw her and signed her to Big Machine Records.

Taylor’s first single was Tim McGraw in June 2006, followed by Teardrops of my Guitar, Our Song, Pictured to Burn and Should’ve Said No – making Taylor a household country star. She eventually transitioned to pop music, becoming one of the most famous artists in the world. Her teacher Barbara also revealed that Taylor was ‘always writing poetry, always. Even in music class even when she shouldn’t,’ she said with a laugh.