Need degree recommendations, please

In My Humble Opinion
1

For the first time in my life, I’m without obligations–no real debt, no spouse, no house payment. I have the same telephone customer service job that I’ve been working at since graduation. It pays pretty well, but I don’t think I can do it indefinitely. I don’t even think I can do it another six months, honestly. I’ve been doing it since I was twenty, and I’m just plain burned out. And, given the structure of the company, lateral movement isn’t an option.

I want to go back to school, or otherwise completely change my career path. This is more difficult than it sounds; my BA is in English, At one point, in some long-forgotten thread, I debated the idea of teaching or getting my MLS; I’ve since come to realize that I’d be a terribly impatient teacher, and a terribly broke librarian (though my idea of what that market entails could be incorrect, so let’s not take it off the table).

Ultimately, I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to keep on doing what I’m doing, but virtually all of my job experience is in this job. I don’t know how I’ll get letters of recommendation if I do go back to school, since I was only at my university for five semesters (yay AP credits!), and I doubt that any of the professors I had remember me. And what I really would love to go back to school for is either a degree in folklore, or a MFA in creative writing. Neither of those options, however, is particularly marketable, and either of them would leave me in debt. That doesn’t seem like the smartest combination ever. I don’t want to saddle myself with more debt only to find myself in the same situation I’m in now.

Since Dopers are usually a pretty realistic lot, and aren’t so caught up in my happiness that they’ll placate me, I’m asking for advice. What should I do? I can write, though I don’t have the sort of experience doing it that you can put on a resume. I like creating things, and, OP title aside, I’m open to options other than a master’s–trade school, certification, whatever. Standardized tests for admission to programs aren’t going to be a problem–I aced my GRE once, I can easily do it again–and I graduated magna cum laude, so my transcripts aren’t a problem. It’s just been seven years.

So, take a spin at my life!

2

I don’t know about elsewhere, but librarian jobs are thin on the ground here at the moment. I can’t even get an interview to switch library jobs, let alone get one with no experience.

3

In some (most?) states you can get a substitute teaching job with a BA in one of the core subjects. Maybe try that and see if you really do like it?

4

You have a BA. Thus you qualify for many Government jobs whose only requirement is a BA.

5

Why not seek a job int he communications department of a large university? That would make classes cheap, and you could study what you like, do what you know and maybe enjoy life a bit more.

re: Dr. Deth, who also has a good idea there, tool around a bit at www.usajobs.com and see what looks interesting.

6

I can’t even tell you the number of times I’ve travelled back to that moment in time (age 21) where my parents offered to pay for me to get the necessary science credits & tutouring to apply to medical school and I blew them off.

Not that life as an ex-attorney is too terrible…but still! I considered going back in 2009 but at 31 I just don’t feel like committing to an 8 year educational plan. My sister is just finishing up her residency and it was hard on her in her late 20s, so I don’t even know what I’d be going through trying to do it in my mid to late 30s.

So my vote is stick to healthcare if you’re young and/or have the stamina. I haven’t been involuntarily unemployed since something like 2001, but I always felt like I got a really easy gig as an attorney/philosophy major and the kids graduating these days are suffering a lot more than I ever did.

7

At this point in your life, I think you should go back to school for only one of two reasons:

  1. You want to pursue a specific career that requires a higher degree.
  2. You want the experience and knowledge of getting the degree, and can afford to pay for it as a life experience.

It doesn’t sound like you necessarily have the money to just get a degree for its own sake (and quite frankly, there are probably a lot more personally enriching things one can do with that kind of money), so I would focus on figuring out what career you’d like to have before going back to school.

From your OP, it’s obvious you are interested in writing and folklore – do you have a dream job related to those fields? Novelist? Folklore researcher? Have you ever tried just writing in your spare time?

For you, the answer may be to find a job you don’t dislike that pays the bills and then do something else on the side that feeds your creative side, even if it doesn’t end up making any money.