50 years of “EvEryBody n33dZ A ColLegE dEGrEE!!!111” policy at all levels in American education.
I have a bachelors degree in interdisciplinary studies, which is essentially a nothing degree. I wanted to major in sociology but apparently that doesn’t have any money in it to support yourself on. Psychology would be a second choice to me as well.
How are your computer skills? Because a lot of jobs are open to anyone with some computer skills and a college degree. Some of the ones I can think of don’t have any specific qualifications, but instead are the kind of thing you learn as you go.
My daughter got a undergrad degree in Psychology, but you need a graduate degree to do much in it. She got a Masters in international business, and now does project management. Which an interdisciplinary degree would be fine for.
If you hate math and programming, what do you like about engineering? How far along are you in the program? I’ve got a BSEE, and with as much work as an engineering degree requires, it would especially hard if you don’t like those classes.
I’m curious about that. Could you go on about the jobs in that category?
What can count as “computer skills” for those jobs?
My older daughter earned her degree in Equine Business and Barn Management. She now does mule-drawn carriage tours in New Orleans. (She has this week off, the drunks frighten the mules over Mardi Gras).
My younger daughter has a degree in Film Studies and Production. She has won some awards at Cons but works as a paralegal.
My Wife has no degree but has consistently earned more than me during our marriage. She has real customer service skills.
Certainly, you should be able to use Outlook, Word, Excel and perhaps PowerPoint. Some typing ability is needed. Beyond that, there have been openings in my office for people who are reasonably smart and learn as they go.
I have an Art degree. Not a teaching certificate. I drew the line there. I knew i could never teach. Forget this line of work if you want to earn the big $$$. Ain’t gonna happen. The most money I ever made is for lettering (which I hate), I do it only as a special favor.
Get your degree whatever you do. At age 27 you should be at least pinned down to at least to knowing what you like. Talk to a career counselor at your college. If Art is ‘it’ you may have to just be poor. Suffering for your Art is not new.
I think most of the computer jobs that people talk about usually involve programming, which I utterly suck at. I never encountered a subject matter with which I had so much difficulty with that I never understood a word of what was being said to me.
You can start your own business.
OP, you seem split between, “I hate those fields” and “I can’t make any money with the majors I really like.” What if you stopped focusing on majors and start focusing on what careers make you happy? Personally, I think it’s a huge error to go into a field you hate and reserve what you really like for your spare time. Spending half your waking hours five days a week in something you hate can lead to quiet desperation and heavy drinking.
Sociology can be the springboard toward a lot of careers IF you combine it with something else, maybe at the graduate level. You could become a guidance counselor, an attorney, a human resource specialist, a PR rep, or lots of other things. See what you can do with what you like and are good at.
Interestingly, I’ve suffered from similar problems that the OP faces. And people give me similar advice like “what about starting your own business?” or “what about working at a company like Google or McKinsey?”
Really? I can’t decide what I want to do in life and haven’t really excelled professionally working at mid-level jobs in nth tier companies. So your advice is a) just up and start a “business” or b) land a job with some of the most sought after competitive companies on the planet?
Rather than just go to school and see what happens, I think the OP needs to figure out at the very least what “success” looks like to him and what sort of job he thinks he would like doing.
Not necessarily. There are plenty of jobs for graphic designers and other creative types. A guy I went to college with is quite an accomplished artist. He works as VP of Design or something at a major videogame company and did the book jacket art for a number of top selling books.
Then again, my flakey uncle is unmarried, never held a real job and is content living alone off of his inheritance just dabbling away at mediocre art family and friends sort of go “oooo…ahhhh” over.
You actually sound a lot like me. I was really into Legos and art as a kid. Although I was also into science and a bit of programming too. While I was always identified as “smart”, even “gifted”, I have always struggled with figuring out what I “want to do” and matching that up with what I am actually good at doing.
You might actually be “gifted” (whatever that actually means). You might also be suffering from some undiagnosed form of ADHD.
Sadly, at 46, I don’t really have much advise for you besides try to pick something you think you would like doing and try to focus on that for as long as you can. Don’t worry if there “is no money in it”, so long as it pays enough to live off of. I think when people say “there’s no money in it”, they are actually comparing it to running a hedge fund or becoming a startup millionaire or something. Even most people who set out to do that stuff never become “rich”.
FWIW, on some level I’ve always kind of envied people like my wife or younger brother who just sort of picked some career path, manage to click with their job and just grind it out for 20+ years. They aren’t any smarter or better educated than me. But they have the discipline to just get their degrees and work their corporate jobs without constantly being distracted by bullshit like “is this my true calling?” or “what am I really good at?” They aren’t going to achieve “great things” beyond corporate middle management. I mean it’s great if you have some burning passion for something you need to go after it, regardless whether you have to struggle or wind up poor. But I think it’s the worst to feel like “here’s all this random things I like doing…how the fuck do I fit this into the actual working world?”
Another thing that I think makes the OPs situation harder is I think there are fewer “bullshit” corporate jobs he can get into. What I mean is this. I was watching Office Space the other day and it struck me how a guy with some computer skills like Peter could land a corporate job where his biggest complaint was he had maybe an hour of actual work each week. I remember having jobs like that where you could just come in to work, kind of coast along doing your job, while pursuing the rest of your life outside of work. IOW, you could make a decent living without your job being this all-encompassing thing.
Fast forward, jobs these days are more like the show Silicon Valley. Companies seem to want these special little unicorns who are burning with passion to “change the world with their work” and are quick to fire them if they aren’t.
I would classified as your flakey Aunt. I could never be a 9 to 5 person. I’m not much for time constraints or repeating something daily for years. Just can’t do it. Luckily Mr.Wrekker came along and saved me from myself. I’ve dabbled a bit here and there, my whole adult life, in Art. It’s been mostly a pleasant life.
If this is the corporate norm, then I am grateful I work for government. My job is not some all-encompassing thing unless I want it to be. No one expects me to work harder than my boss, who puts in his 7.5 hours every day just like everyone else.
I will probably never make six figures or enjoy a fancy job title, but at least I have time to relax and smell the roses.
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Pretty much. I did a trade school paired with my last 2 years of high school, and worked as an inside/outside mechanic [machinist] for a number of years. I also learned welding as part of the job as on the job training. I found it very satisfying, I was creating and repairing stuff, and making a damned good living doing it. My brother went to a trade college for plumbing and heating and ended up somehow managing the warehouse for a couple of different companies, and he enjoyed that as well as being able to repair pretty much anything that went wrong around the house. My husband had a 20 year Navy career as a glow in the dark waterborn plumbing greasemonkey [machinist mate auxiliryman, submarines] where any given day on the boat he could be repairing anything from ‘the bomb’ [oxygen generator] to a HUGE diesel engine to the frozen soft serve machine in the galley …
You could go to trade school for nondestructive testing, welding, carpentry both basic for building houses or cabinetmaking which can be very artistic [have you seen the hippo desk?!:eek:]
Thanks.
What jobs which require this were you thinking of?
Outlook, Word, Excel and PowerPoint sounds like the kind of thing you could learn over a few weekends. It’s really that undemanding? Why would I use Outlook anyhow?
I don’t know where you work but in my company most employees use Outlook throughout the day to communicate with co-workers and people outside the company. (It’s also used for scheduling meetings and tasks.) Perhaps in other companies, they use some other form of mail client. But certainly email in general is something I’ve been expected to do for decades. Is this really news to you?
As for which jobs require this, I’m not going to get more specific, partly because of privacy concerns and partly because you seem to be setting some weird trap.
It’s news to me that people still use Outlook. It’s like saying it’s a good idea to be familiar with AOL or MySpace.
Sorry if I gave that impression; Tone can be difficult to communicate or parse through a text-only medium. I’m just curious about what counts as resume worthy computing skills that would set someone apart. I was expecting you to talk about scripting or Maya.