What’s happened to many degrees is a bit disturbing. I have interviewed recent grads in Computing Science who couldn’t write well and who couldn’t tell me the difference between a stack and a queue.
There’s a reason Google and other companies are dropping degree requirements. And the rapid rise in ‘certifications’ in tech as a replacement or supplement for a degree is also telling.
And the humanities are much worse.
I’m 50% disabled (well, 70% if you ask the VA) due to PTSD. I had to retire from the Navy because I could not focus. Kept having flashbacks while doing even simple things like office work. Frequent, stabbing, grinding chest pain (psychosomatic of course) would keep me up at night so I couldn’t sleep, which only made things worse.
Anyway, since being rated as half as capable as I once was, I am currently looking at another line of work, attending law school (with an approved accommodation, of course), in part because I don’t think I could ever be a nuclear engineer again (the job I was trained to do and could theoretically have found work doing outside the Navy—had a masters in engineering management, too—if I only I could handle the stress that would come with it). While I suspect I would be unable to manage at a major law firm, pulling down six-figures, I have hope of succeeding in the public interest sector when I graduate. Legal aid if I’m lucky (I see a lot of stress coming from working closely with disadvantaged clients, but then there is the added boost that comes from actually helping people, which is something that was lacking in my job in the Navy, and would similarly be lacking in Big Law).
…but if the stress of legal aid proves too much, perhaps I’ll try working for a government agency. Something simple, not requiring too much effort or skill, probably paying about half of what I could have made as a Senior Reactor Operator at a nuclear power plant, but I do want to make an honest living. Maybe I could manage it as an ALJ?
Just FYI, most public interest law jobs I’ve come across are quite stressful and involve long hours. Government jobs or in-house counsel positions are where you can find work-life balance. I’ve been a public interest lawyer for six years and I’m about to keel over from the stress. I’ve outlasted many colleagues already.
Yeah, that’s what I’m trying to feel out. I could very much see public interest work for clients or various worthy reform-oriented organizations would be quite stressful. I’m hoping to find that the knowledge that the work matters (as opposed to doing work that does not matter, the sort that might feed certain nihilistic tendencies) might be enough to overcome it. But I completely understand that just because public interest is paid less doesn’t mean it’s less stressful. I would simply emphasize—and here I think we’re on the same page—that if the sense of doing meaningful work for worthy clients doesn’t counterbalance the stress, I might well be better off taking a government job. Simpler, less stressful, commensurate with my disability.
So far, I’ve had the opportunity to work in three different legal aid clinics (two semesters and a summer in between) at my law school, will be doing a fourth clinic next semester, and have an internship lined up at an LSC legal aid group this summer that I am very much looking forward to. I really, really hope I find I can make this work, because I really don’t want to fall back on government work.
Not trying to turn this thread into Unsolicited Career Advice for ASL, or Esprise Me Bitches About Her Job Some More. But there’s something here that I’m trying to flesh out that I think is relevant to the original topic, and it’s maybe something along the lines of what Tired and Cranky was saying about how just because one could theoretically hold down a job doesn’t mean such jobs are available. I think a lot of people assume that lower-paying jobs are easier, less demanding, more easily adjusted to accommodate disabilities. After all, a guy who can’t focus for long periods shouldn’t be a brain surgeon, but why can’t he push a broom? And the thing is, maybe he can, but good luck finding an employer willing to work with his needs when there are plenty of people who can focus for days while pushing a broom. And it’s not just broom-pushers; it’s lower-paid people across the board, including, for example, public interest lawyers vs. big firm lawyers. People with disabilities have a lot to offer. But it’s hard for employers to want to even try to work with them when there are non-disabled qualified applicants they can pick from too. Maybe the current labor shortage will force some of them to rethink. Somehow I doubt it.