23 year-old college graduate living with parents: How do I change that?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Before I explain my situation, I understand that this is all my fault, so I really don’t need to hear that in the comments.

When I was in high school, I was excelled in math, and even got a reputation for being a math whiz. When picking a major in college, it seemed like a no-brainer to me. I picked pure mathematics as my major because I thought there was no reason that I wouldn’t do well in it in college when I had well in it in high school. Well, I was proven wrong by the end of my sophomore year.

In high school, math was mainly about computations and memorizing formulas, whereas college math is mainly theory-based and almost all proofs. At the end of my sophomore year, I knew I ought to change majors, but that would have meant taking a fifth year, which I really didn’t want to do. So I decided that I would just double my efforts. However, the classes become even more theory-based, and I continued to barely scrape by. I ended up just barely good-enough grades to get my degree.

I’ve been out of college for almost a year, and I have yet to get a stable full-time job with my degree. Right now, I’ve just been shuffling through minimum-wage part-time jobs as a math tutor. I’ve applied for jobs and indeed and zip-recruiter, but I never hear back from them, and I know it’s because of my weak qualifications. I don’t expect to get a super-high-paying job(at-least not right now). The moment I graduated, I was willing to settle for a $20/hr full-time job, with the possibility of working my up slowly, but surely. But even getting to the bottom of the ladder is proving hard.

I’ve ruled out the possibility of getting a Master’s Degree, because the gpa I would be required to maintain in the graduate program is one I did not achieve as an undergrad, and I would just be wasting more of my family’s money. I might go back to school years later as a part-time student, but right now, I just need to work.

Like I said, I don’t need to be told that this is my own fault, because I already know that. I just want to know what I would have to do right now to get $20/hr full-time job with my math degree. I just want to be able to afford a 1-bedroom apartment right now, and start paying my parents back for my college education.

2

It’s almost always cheaper to find an apartment to share than to rent a 1 bedroom on your own. You could go back to community college for a year to learn programming and there are a lot of jobs in that field Community college is very low cost and can even be free depending on where you live.

3

Welcome to the Dope. I reported your OP to the moderators so that they can move it to a more appropriate forum.

I’d suggest getting a teaching certificate. Math teachers are always in high demand.

4

Mathematics is quite a versatile discipline that is needed in a lot of areas. The finance industry, for instance, has quite a demand for people who can handle quantitative stuff, so that might be an option. Another one would be programming and coding, for which mathematics gives you a solid ground to build on. There’s a lot of online courses at modest cost that teach the basics of coding, and while I don’t have inside knowledge of the IT industry my understanding is that some of them are actually renowned among employers. You could use that as a starting point to get a first job, then keep learning on the job and specialise.

5

I graduated college in 2016, with no employment prospects. I couldn’t tolerate living another day with my father, so I escaped that situation in what I saw to be the quickest and easiest way- I joined the military, US Army. While I’ve got absolutely no love for this organization, I don’t regret my decision.

6

If you want to learn a tech skill the Air force is a good choice. You could go in as an officer if you qualify for OCS. the only people in the Air Force in combat are pilots and other air crew and a few others.

7

The exact same thing happened to me. The calculations are a blast, the theory… not so much. My grades didn’t suffer, it just wasn’t fun. I went on and got a Masters in Math Education. The course work was actually easier than a lot of the upper-division undergrad stuff (not easy, easier). I now teach at the community college level.

Another road you might take is becoming an actuary. I looked into it pretty extensively when I was an undergrad, but that was 10 years ago. The way I remember it, if you get a couple of the tests under your belt, you could probably get a job with a decent salary, and they’ll fund further tests, and maybe even pay you to study for them.

ETA: actuaries can make six-figures, after taking all of the tests.

8

Where do you live?

A math degree is one of the best bachelor’s degrees to have in the job market.

First link I found, but there are tons.

9

Since this is tax season in the US I have to ask - have you considered some sort of accounting job? You may have to take some additional courses to qualify. It’s not a field I know a great deal about, but look into it.

Can you leverage your math degree into working for a casino? Clearly, they need staff who are good with basic math.

Note: I am not a math whiz and could be completely off base about these suggestions, they just seem to make sense to me.

10

Moved to IMHO.

Colibri
General Questions Moderator

11

Some things to consider:

  1. Your undergraduate GPA is not predictive of what you’d make in graduate school. Undergrad kind of whooped my ass, so I earned a 3.3 GPA in college. But I had a perfect GPA in graduate school. The work is harder in some respects in grad school, but the grading is different because many of the courses are seminars. As long as you participate in the discussion, you’ll earn at least a B in those classes. There’s also all the research credits you have to sign up for. You just get “PASS/FAIL” for those, not a grade.

  2. You don’t have to pay out of pocket for STEM graduate school if you enter as a doctoral student. I know you don’t want a Ph.D. And I’m not advising you to get a Ph.D. But if you enroll as a doctoral student, your tuition will be waived as long as you work as a teaching assistant. Then when it comes time to take your prelims (aka known as comprehensive exam), you study your ass off and pass them. At that point, you can say “Adios” and the institution will likely grant you a Master’s since you will have fulfilled all the requirements for one.

12

Actuaries for insurance companies are often the highest paid salaried positions other than upper/executive management and some sales (with big numbers bonuses). Your degree has you started down that career track, just get certified.

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I meant to also say…

You don’t have to go study math in graduate school. Tons of graduate student focus on a different subject or discipline than they did in undergraduate.

14

Don’t study math in grad school. It is going to be more of the stuff you don’t like, but there may be other majors where you would do fine.
I agree with the suggestions about teaching and programming. Did you do any coding in college? How about statistics and data analysis work? That is heavy math, but not theoretical, and data scientists are in very high demand.
You might check with the placement office in your college also. Did you use them when looking for a job? My company went through them when hiring out of college, and it is a lot more effective than answering ads since in that context no one expects much experience.

15

Another strategy:

  1. Get paid - for anything. Make some money. Who cares what kind of job, as long as it makes good money, and as long as you can handle it without getting hurt or in trouble.

  2. Use the money for your new place.

  3. When you feel financially OK, or when you’ve just had enough - math career options. Or whatever else.

16

“23 year-old college graduate living with parents: How do I change that?”

My circumstance too!

Well he’s only been back in the house a few months …
Seriously OP, not sure what “fault” you think there is to be had. You are a fairly common circumstance to my read. This is my third one with one to go and so far none of them, or many of their friends, have had straight paths.

Eldest went from undergard with degrees in Studio Art and Psychology to teach and then administrate for a program in Japan for several years and now, after taking some science classes, is a second year in med school.

Next graduated with Soc/Anthro, worked a few years at low paying (well less than $20/hr) the broad area of urban agriculture (including teaching gardening in inner city public schools) but living (mostly) independently, and discovered that his passion is for social work thinking mainly working in schools. Waiting to hear back on his apps but should be starting grad school in the Fall.

The current grad discovered a love of geology in college. And there are lots of jobs with that degree! If only he would be willing to work for petrochemical (“Dad, it’s not just working for the death star, it’s the most boring work on the death star.”) Working regular hours as a vet tech (has through college, was originally thinking pre-vet) and picking up hours as “over-hire” for stage crew (for month that came to nearly two full time jobs and he was just sleeping 3 to 4 hours a night many nights). Neither great pay. Does not want to become an academic geologist, or go directly to grad school. Applications out to lots of things I hear. Who knows what direction he’ll end up going. Maybe full time stage crew.

(Number four child is just starting to think about colleges.)

Trying to get number three to get that he does not need to start a path thinking it is forever. Use a petrochemical company to get skills and resume padding that he can leverage into something else, even if he does not yet know what it is. Only thing I require though is that he is out of my house within some reasonable period of time.

I do not think my kids’ and their friends’ prolonged launches are uncommon nowadays. Mine have the luxury of little debt (my wife and I both agreed that we would gift education to them mostly, instead of leaving them estate to deal with after we die) but the taking some time to find the path and then shifting to a different one? It seems normative today.

One to consider for you (although data analysis is a good one!) - Teach For America. Admittedly the acceptance rate is not high, but it doesn’t hurt, and they have an emphasis on teaching STEM.

17

At my current company, we hire tons of Math majors - it’s a great degree, and very flexible.

I will second and third the idea of coding - if you’ve got a good calculation-mind, you can probably write code. Positions that would use this that we hire math majors for are Data Analysts (mostly SQL), Data Scientists (mostly Python), Business Analysts (SQL again, coupled with some business knowledge). And all of these aren’t exactly Developer-level or elegant coding skills required (although that’s another great position if you turn out to really love coding), but as long as you can think rigorously and code well enough, those are all available.

I’d recommend going on Hackerrank or Code Academy and doing beginning coding exercises in Python and SQL to see if you have a taste for it (and if you do these for a while, they can get you to proficient in that language from a base of not knowing any code). If you do and find you enjoy the exercises, definitely look into these jobs, because there’s actually booming demand for them.

If coding isn’t your cup of tea, teaching is another good route already mentioned, or numerous state and federal positions just want you to have a degree without being concerned overmuch about which particular degree it is.

18

Chin up!

Various things you’ve shown is your willingness to stick at something you don’t like, a knowledge of what you do and don’t enjoy, the ability to see that a change is needed, a desire to strike out on your own and pay your debts and you able to admit when you’ve made a mistake.
These all seem like good character traits to me and I have no doubt that you’'ll find out what you makes you tick and make a success at it. College degrees are not the be all and end all of a successful career.

19

Lots of great advice here, OP. I’ll just add this: don’t go into teaching simply because you can’t figure out what else to do. That kind of motivation leads to poor teachers who are miserable in their jobs. There’s a myth that anyone can teach if he wants to badly enough. It’s a myth. Teaching requires skills and abilities just like any other career. I’ve seen bad teachers who couldn’t improve, and I’ve seen students suffer because of it.

Don’t go into teaching unless it really appeals to you, and even then, ask to shadow a math teacher for a few days before you decide.

20

Or substitute teach for a bit. Generally you just need a college degree. Get paid a little while you try it out.