I’m going to push back on this a little. I’ve known some very, very bad teachers who had a deep, abiding passion for education but who just sucked at their craft, and I’ve known people who wandered into teaching and were very, very good at it. The one unforgivable sin is going into teaching when you actively disrespect teachers and the work you do–going into teaching out of self-loathing or low self-esteem, thinking 'considering what fucking idiots teachers are, surely even I can be successful there". You have to honor the work, you have to believe it’s worth doing right and recognize it’s a big responsibility. Furthermore, teaching doesn’t have to be a forever thing: lots of people teach a few years and decide it’s not for them, but that doesn’t mean they do a bad job. In some cases, it means the kids got a teacher instead of a sub all year.
Substitute teaching is like all the negatives and none of the positives of being an actual teacher. I don’t think it really shows you much.
I also wouldn’t bother with TFA. TFA is a strange organization. Where do you live? Many states have emergency and alternate routes to certification that can be completed while you are working at your first job–though the schools hiring teachers through those routes are going to be the ones struggling to fill slots: they won’t be suburban enclave schools. Where do you live?
If they accept them into the program. When I was in a similar situation, with a physics degree that wasn’t getting me a job, they didn’t even give me the time of day, despite physics teachers being extremely scarce.
Alas, I have little advice to give. I got a good job using my degree after nearly 3 years of looking, and even then, it was mostly a fluke that I got it. At least two majorly unlikely events happened in quick succession that put me in just the right spot to get the job.
The tech school in our town is half the price of a “real college”, almost everything you learn is The Practical Stuff You’ll Really Use (and also What You Need To Know To Get a JOB!). The profs know what companies are looking for programmers, or paid interns, and even who to contact there.
And, you meet good people – fellow students who’ll help you through, and who might just need a roommate, or have a friend who does.
Speaking of Community/Technical colleges, they always need teachers, and often don’t have minimum degree requirements for that. I got a part-time gig (3 hrs, 2 nights a week), did that for almost a decade while having a day job.
Then moved up to a full-time teaching job… with NO degree in the field (I’ve got a BS, but totally unrelated; did NOT need it, would’ve gotten the job without it). My boss has an Associate Degree from a polytechnic (tech. college) – the school cares much more about whether you can connect with students and motivate them.
Oh, and we’ve found that, often, people (like you?) who had to struggle with the material as a student (Bs and Cs) are much better at reaching the average student than Brainiacs with advanced degrees that aced all their classes. It was easy for them, and they can’t relate to struggling students.
And I’m here to tell you: teaching’s a blast. I get paid to insult Millenials and they love it.
I would second the suggestion to look at the military. I can’t speak for the Navy or Marines, but I would think the Air Force would be similar to the Army in this, a math degree, next to an economics degree is one of the heavily preferred degree for officers to have. Plus, there would probably be a sign up bonus for you (possibly quite significant) since you already have the degree, or for longer commitment, the military might offer to reimburse your college costs. But the real bonus is that as on officer in the military, you are getting job experience in middle or (depending on how long you stay in and how far you progress) upper management.
I agree with this idea. A friend was tending bar while looking for a job in his field (Chemistry). After two years of looking he found a great job, but he actually took a cut in pay taking an entry level Chemistry job.
Anyone who struggled with math in college shouldn’t consider this as an option. The actuarial field is a long road of exams, many of which involve math especially at the earlier stages, and the percentage of people - most of whom have hitherto done very well at math - who pass individual exams tends to range from about 40% to 60%, depending on the exam.
Does the math on the actuarial exams lean more toward the “calculations and formulas” stuff, or to the “theory and proofs” stuff that was the OP’s downfall?
Definitely “calculations and formulas”. But they tend to be very tricky “calculations and formulas”, and you don’t have the same type of conceptual understanding of the underlying principles which enables the “theory and proofs” part, then you’re unlikely to do well. Simply learning how to apply the formulas in the straightforward manner demonstrated in the textbook is not going to cut it.
I was very much in your situation at 23 (in fact, at 25), except that my talent was with words instead of numbers. However, a few things to consider: $20 an hour isn’t even close to the bottom of the ladder. The bottom, obviously, is minimum wage.
I’d say $12.00/hour is entry level for “employers you might want to stay with for more than a year.” And that’s what you’ll have to do: take a shit job that you think is probably beneath you, just like the ones you’re working in now, at least until you have a year of work experience in a single job. Presto: you are suddenly employable to a much broader swath of employers.
Things worked out for me in the long term. I’m doing well enough now to have turned down a job that would literally have doubled my salary last week. I suspect that things will also turn out fine for you.
For what it’s worth, I don’t think it’s all that rare and don’t see any reason to attach “fault” to anything. About 25 yrs ago, I was a 23 year old college graduate living with my parents. I was even working in my field making decent money. We had a good arrangement at home where I paid nearly all my expenses, except my parents did not actually charge me rent (their decision, I offered). I helped with my younger siblings from time to time, but I had a lot of freedom. It worked for us. I could have moved out, but it didn’t make sense at the time to spend that much money on rent at that point. If you’re still living at home in 5 years and you have not progressed career-wise, then I would say start worrying.
Consider going into accounting. I did it at 34 years old after over a decade of living with my mother and trying to find something to do with my math degree that wasn’t teaching or going to school more. Even better if you can find a mathematical finance program, but they didn’t offer that kind of stuff at the business school I was required to go to for my accounting degree. I don’t even know where I could learn mathematical finance stuff now, and don’t really care that much right now that I’ve found the perfect place for me to work as an accountant.
I’m probably never moving out. My mother is a widow and I’m an only child. I have no interest in interpersonal relationships. My mother has no interest in marrying the person she’s in a long-term relationship with. I contribute my share of the expenses and housework. I don’t feel like I’m living with my mother, but that I’m roommates with her. It’s very slowly morphed from “adult son living at home still” to where it is now as I’ve managed a good job now, and finally feel free of the feeling of mooching off my mother for so long.
I did move out for a year once when I headed back to school, supported entirely by loans. It was the worst year of my life, and presumably second worst for my mother (the worst being the one where my dad died then she broke her leg then got fired). The move-out was not either of our ideas, and she soon removed from her life the person who suggested it after what happened to both of us that year.
An IT tech certification can be a good way to make that minimum wage you want without spending a ton of money. Coursera.org offers extensive courses with attached certificates from many leading tech schools such as MIT/Harvard that you can display on your LinkedIn profile and include on your CV. Udemy.com offers very good IT courses at rock bottom prices. Take a programming course, get certified from the company that owns that technology (example IBM/Oracle/Google) and you should be on your way to a well-paying tech career. You are young, so the age factor works in your favor. IT is one of the fields where it does not really matter what graduate degree you hold; and the longer you are employed in the field the less it matters. Good luck.
