I am looking for a full-time job, and am I finding myself in a terrible place. I’m either underqualified or overqualified. It sucks to have a master’s degree and cannot find full-time employment.
Are there any jobs out there for people like me?
Teaching!
What’s your master’s in?
I’d rather not share that, to protect my identity.
Let’s say what my masters is NOT in…
-Anything related to math
-Anything related to science
-Anything related to foreign language
-Law or med school.
I looked into that. In my state you have to be an education major, do student teaching, and pass some sort of hard test that I can’t remember the name of.
I know several people that got into teaching right out of college, not yet knowing what they really wanted to do with their lives, and it gave them the luxury of having a decent job with benefits while they thought about what to do next.
But then came the recession and budget cuts, and those young teachers just out of school were the first to go. Oh well. That doesn’t mean it wouldn’t work out for you.
ETA: An education major to be a teacher? Huh. Who knew?
You can’t just pass the test? That is kinda weird.
With all due respect, the subject that you got your masters in does not threaten your identity and it makes the question impossible to answer. You shouldn’t have posted this thread at all unless you were willing to give vague details at least for the things you may qualified for but didn’t know about yet. That is what the SDMB is for. For example, if your degree is in English, you could teach abroad, tutor, go to law school or countless other things.
Well, not knowing exactly what your degree is in combined with not knowing where you’re located makes things a bit difficult, but I’ll share what I know.
Disclosure: MA English, NE Texas USA
Your degree is probably going to overqualify you out of the service industry, or at least the most visible parts of it that have come to dominate our cultural mileau. And, really, if you went to the trouble of getting the education, you probably don’t want to be there anyway.
I live in an area with a low percentage of people with even the most basic education–the dropout rate is high, the college graduate rate is low (but slowly rising) and the graduate school ranks are almost non-existent. To put it in perspective, the average household income in my county is about $20,000. Living in a rural area meant that even with a Master’s level education, there simply weren’t many opportunities to use the degree.
Now, I knew what I wanted when I began the MA–I wanted to teach at the college level. If you’re in the United States, you can do this with a Master’s. If it’s in psych, you can teach psych. Mine’s in English, so I teach English. A goodly number of universities require a terminal degree for their full-time faculty, but I’ve found that there are more exceptions to that rule than you’d expect, at least around here (but, of course, we’re dealing with fairly low-prestige universities, too.) If you’re willing to get a doctorate, your chances might be better.
I am a product of the community college, and because I’m not so interested in publishing, that environment was ideal for me. But I had zero teaching experience out of graduate school, beyond some tutoring. So I did the only thing I could do–I filed applications everywhere to be an adjunct. The first semester (last fall) I began adjuncting with 2 classes; the next semester (this spring) I had 5.
5 courses is a full-time load, of course, but you’re only getting paid about a quarter of the money, with no benefits. But it can get your foot in the door.* Once you’re established within the college, there are other opportunities that present themselves. I made a reputation for myself by being ready, willing, and able to take classes on short notice, including developmental courses. I was also offered the opportunity to facilitate interactive television courses, which I’m doing for another 2 weeks. By working at 2 or 3 different colleges, I was able to scrape together a living–I averaged about $2,000 per month, which isn’t so bad here.
At any rate, when a full-time English professor job got posted at one of my colleges, I applied for it and got it (just found out 2 days ago that it was mine, actually.) My experience is surely not the norm, because most people don’t get hired based on their first interview with a search committee, but like I said–if you can make a name for yourself by being dependable and dedicated, it can happen.
Another thing to consider: the Master’s requirement for college teaching only applies to college-level classes. You can teach developmental courses in your field with only a Bachelor’s degree. Usually there are developmental reading, writing, and math classes offered. Those are on the rise, as are dual-credit courses.
If you have any more questions, I’d be happy to try to answer them. If you’re looking outside of academia, I only have limited advice, though.
*Or not. There are people everywhere, including on the Dope, that have been adjuncting and scraping by for a decade with no end in sight. Some people advise NOT to get pegged as an adjunct.
I majored in English, and I have no education degree, but I got a job in a high school as a teacher’s aide for a while. Shitty pay, but it’s great experience.
I just landed a job as a high school English teacher through the alternative certification program in Missouri. I go back to school for a couple of years to take education courses, and they let me teach on a temporary certificate. At the end of two years, I’ll have taken the classes, passed the Praxis I & II, and be a teacher.
To teach full time in public schools, sure. But private schools aren’t always held to the same restrictions, and may be more willing to consider teachers with your experience. In this area, you can also teach at the local community college with a master’s degree. It’s not a full-time faculty position, but a semester-by-semester contract gig - that might be something to look into.
You can often teach in community colleges with a Master’s in the subject area and no education degree.
In a different economy, there are a lot of basic business jobs that you can get into - things like Project Management. Unfortunately, as capital constrained as businesses are right now, there are plenty of experienced people out there.
Yes: entry-level positions. Just like the rest of us took when we had no experience.
My master’s degree might help get me some extra notice, and might even qualify me for jobs I otherwise wouldn’t be a candidate for, but it would certainly never get me a job without the requisite experience.
Yup - clerkships, fellowships, and/or internships (depending on what these sorts of jobs are called in your field). A lot of people straight out of grad/professional school build up the crucial first year or two of experience by taking on temporary gigs with government or non-profits. You’ll get paid crud and minimal benefits most of the time, but it’s a start.
Sorry that advice is so vague - but, as others have said, your reluctance to provide additional context makes it difficult to advise you properly.
Have you spoken to your university’s career services people? What about people you’ve interned with in the past?
To echo what Misnomer said, you would be looking at entry-level jobs in your chosen field of expertise.
There seems to be this common misconception that there is a single career ladder for everyone and that education somehow lets you start higher up on the ladder. That is not the case. Different industries have different professions and each one has its own track. In many cases like being a doctor or lawyer, the advanced degree is required just to start at the bottom. Even a Harvard MBA doesn’t gradute as the vice president of a company with no experience. He starts as an analyst or associate at Goldman Sachs or McKinsey with all the other Ivy League MBAs.
If you’ve got a masters in just about anything AND you can program computers, get a job in IT.
In fact, forget about the degree.
I’m not kidding. much
Also get a plane ticket to Bangalore or a time machine to 1995.
The days of companies hiring any clown who can code “hello world” are long gone.
Also, IT sucks. Most jobs aren’t working with the next Bill Gates or Steve Jobs designing the latest cutting edge tech out in a Silicon Valley office park full of Porsches and Ferarris. They are community college grads with vendor certifications minding email servers in the bowels of some company making snide comments whenever someone asks them to do their job. Maybe a few years ago you could go work at one of the thousands of Accenture clones that hired armies of 20-somethings and made them work 100 hours a week designing custom apps.
One area where education is overvalued is for administrative positions in colleges and universities. You don’t need a master’s degree to be a department’s administrative manager, they might even be better off hiring someone with solid administrative experience and a 2-year degree, but they often choose the person with the master’s anyway.
Also, are you sure you’ve investigated what’s called lateral entry to teaching thoroughly for your state? Many states have more flexibility than what you’re describing.