My bold dreams of acquiring a PhD and securing a life in academe went up in flames a few days ago. While I still may go to grad school eventually, it won’t be for a few years from now, after I’ve made far more money than I’ve been making and have reassessed whether entering the professoriate is what I really want to do with my life.
That said, everybody says that the bachelor’s degree is the new equivalent to the high school diploma, and that people cannot hope to secure lucrative careers without a four-year degree. I graduate with my bachelor’s degree in under three weeks - major in Communication, minor in Political Science - and though I’m aware that my major tends to prepare people for careers in media/journalism, I really want to cast a wider net than that.
So help me out, SDMB. What are some careers that simply require any bachelor’s degree (i.e., the actual major is irrelevant) as a requirement for entry?
What field were you looking at for academia? There are research assistant/technician sorts of jobs that hire people straight out of undergrad, particularly in science and medicine. Typically you’re only expected to have a handful of classes on a related topic, no major required. That’s also a good way to get some exposure to a field, to see if you really want to make a life-long commitment. And it’s also a good way to earn some recommendation letters for your next grad school application.
Honestly, bro, the fact that you weren’t able to make it in academia was probably best for you–the Ivory Tower isn’t all that’s it’s cooked up to be, it’s not that great.
It is (mostly) a liberal enclave, although the professors are friendly and don’t try to indoctrinate people
General Business Degrees are practically meant for city government jobs. That fact that your minor is in poli sci is a bonus. In my experience government jobs require checklists regardless of any other skill; you have to pass the checklist. One frequent item on a lot of government jobs is “Bachelors Degree.” It won’t matter what the degree is in as long as you have one.
Basically there’s a cohort of jobs out there where a BS/BA is used as a gatekeeping device, but doesn’t have much to do with the job itself- things like retail management and sales are good examples.
But your BS is in communication; your best bet is to probably aim for one of those corporate communications jobs - someone probably needs a kid right out of college to make corporate tweets and format press releases, and what-not.
A B.A. in Communications can be used almost anywhere.
My wife has a Comm. B.A. and is an IT Project Manager. A friend with a Comm. degree is VP of Human Resources at a multi-billion $ international company.
Outside of the sciences or engineering, you have about a thousand paths available.
I have a bachelor’s in Theater which is, if not the top, near the top of almost every list of “most worthless degrees to get” and I currently am making a pretty good living working with databases.
Not just city government either. Lots of state and federal jobs require generic bachelors degrees (although it might be hard to get into the federal government right now, unless you want to be an immigration cop or something like that).
Also, how about higher education? Student services, financial aid, accounts… probably lots of jobs there.
I have a B.A. in Political Science, and I work in corporate communications. I started out in state and local government, but ultimately ended up working for a very large financial institution. You should be able to obtain an entry level position in this field, although it’s not going to be particularly lucrative. However corporate provides a lot of opportunity for mobility, and once you have established yourself, you can move into a wide variety of positions.
Look no further than the school where you are getting your degree. Universities are full of employees who got a job there while considering grad school. And only some of us are pinko liberal commie recruiters.
Most government and also non-profit administration people I’ve known have been a pretty random distribution of degrees. For example, Environmental Regulatory Officer with an Art History degree.
For a lot of companies, a degree requirement is just a sifting tool to limit job applicants. It cuts down on the number of applications they receive and have to sort through. A degree often just gets you in the door for the interview, but your experience and attitude is the clincher.
I have a BA in social psychology, which has only been useful for the above reasons. In my working career, I did everything from carrying a toolbox to being the chief operating officer of a company. If you don’t want to work in the field of the degree you get, then you need to start piling on field experience that provides you not only with work, but also leadership/management opportunities.
I worked as a clerical temp in a cancer research hospital, then used some meager research and computer skills from a semester and a summer’s work-study job in college, plus a lot of enthusiasm I suppose, to get a job in their clinical trials office following new cancer treatment studies for pharmaceutical/biotech companies. This was back in 1989 when simply having a knack for computers went a long way. I then used that experience to get a job working in clinical trials on the pharmaceutical company end. I have a BA in music. I think it was more a matter of being constitutionally suited for the work than anything else because I pretty much knew squat about the jobs I was interviewing for. Plus it’s not really something they teach in college anyway.
Most jobs only require a nebulous bachelor’s degree. You don’t have to only look into the food service industry.
I’d look for a large company that looks interesting and apply there. Either an interesting company, or an interesting job. Just get one and make a name for yourself. Once you have a better idea of what you want to do, go to grad school then, probably part time.
Most of the people that I know of (I’m in my 50’s and I make, well, kind of stupid money at the moment) have a degree unrelated to what they do now. But they had a degree. They then took a job, moved from job to job until the found a situation they liked, and worked a little harder than the next guy and moved their way up.
