What to do when you don't know what to do with your life.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Any Dopers feel like listening to my post-teenage angst? :stuck_out_tongue:

I’m home for Christmas, which means family members asking me what my plans are after I graduate from college. And I don’t know what to tell them.

I’m majoring in linguistics and minoring in music theory, with a focus on composition. I haven’t figured out a specialty within my major, and I don’t feel like I have any strong connections with any professors in either department. I chose my major because I was generally interested in the subject, and I originally expected to go into academia, but I am leaning away from that now.

I’ve been thinking of graduating early from college (December 2012 instead of the planned June 2013) because I’ll have enough credits. My parents are paying for it and I don’t want to be an unnecessary financial burden on them. I don’t just want to go to college because I have nothing else to do.

In terms of experience I’ve had so far, I worked on the administration/management/planning side of two festivals for folk music and art, and I really liked doing that, but I’m not sure how to get into it further. I’m looking at program development internships for arts and cultural organizations and museums.

Honestly though, I’ll just do anything if I can get hired and I feel like I’m making a real contribution. But I would like to work toward a career. If I’m scraping by on minimum wage, I want that to at least be a step on the way to something more stable.

I’ll go to graduate school if it’s totally necessary, but I’ve heard that it’s not worth it unless you have a scholarship and/or stipend, and I don’t know if my credentials will qualify me for that - since I haven’t done any research or worked closely with any professors.

I talked to my parents about these issues some. But I would still like some more outside input.

Dopers who are out in the working world with an established career, do you have any advice for me? How do I overcome my lack of direction? How did you figure out what you wanted to do with your life?

2

Years ago, I worked producing and recording motivational and sales training programs.
Some of it was bullshit, but this stuck out to me.
“What did you do at this young age when you weren’t forced to be doing something else”

That can be a clue for a path to follow.
In my case, I was playing music, listening to music, and playing with tape recorders.
I became a musician and recording engineer.

Peace
David

3

Have you thought about the Peace Corps? It’s a great way to contribute and step away from “where you’re at” and maybe see the big picture.

Have a good Christmas, 'kay?

4

Find people who are doing things you think would be neat to do, and see what their career progression was like.

Don’t freak out too much- you are young, and everyone loses a year or two at some point to not being focused, but to do keep an eye on trying to find that focus. Your career will progress much, much, much faster the moment you find that focus, and if you dally too long you’ll be forever a step behind. It took me until 26 to get past the post-college doldrums, and when I did it was spectacular…but I do feel a few years behind schedule.

Don’t go to grad school unless you absolutely know why you are going, why it is necessary, and what concrete benefits it will bring you. When it’s time to go, you’ll know.

5

Bluto’s advice.

:smiley:

Srsly, I’d echo banjoDavid’s words: do what you love, what you would do if only other things weren’t preventing you from doing it, what you would do if money wasn’t part of the equation. Then, figure out how to make money doing it.

If being happy is your #1 goal, I mean.

6

Plastics.

7

Hahaha, great advice from the Youtube clip.

Well fuck, if that’s true I should have studied photography. That’s probably my favorite thing to do. But I don’t know if I can realistically make it as a photographer.

I guess in general the problem is I’m not sure what I love other than that…

8

I’ve always thought this was ridiculous advice; trying to make money at your hobby doesn’t give you an awesome job; mostly it just makes you hate your hobby.

I used to teach horsebackriding and I loved it. You know what I love even more? Having more than $12 a week to spend on food. Having my heat turned up above 50F. Those things are nicer than the enjoyment I got from teaching horseback riding. Categorically. Now I’m a government lawyer. I’m about 1000x as happy as when I was teaching for the love of it.

I honestly feel this idea that you have to LOVE what you do to be happy is absurd. It’s nice if you don’t HATE what you do, but IMHO if it pays you enough to live on, fits your personality and native skills, and doesn’t take up too much of your time, you’re good to go.

Americorps might be something to consider, or Teach For America.

9

Agree with this 100%.

I very nearly went to grad school, and I’m really glad I didn’t. My friends who went to grad school with particular drive seem to be quite happy with that decision. The ones who went because they weren’t sure what to do and wanted to extend their college years for the most part ended up disillusioned and regretting it.

I’m 30 and I’m still not sure what I want to do with (the rest of) my life. But I don’t regret the decisions I’ve made. Instead of casting around in grad school, I got a good job and saved up. There’s a lot of value in finding work that you love to do, but if you’re not sure, you can do a lot worse than taking a steady paycheck and working on side projects that you love. I agree with Hello Again that people tend to vastly underrate the amount of happiness that comes from not being constantly stressed about money.

Obviously, you don’t want to take a soul-sucking job you hate, and you don’t want to give up searching for your passion, but balancing the two is a good idea.

10

As a linguistics Ph.D., let me tell you: absolutely do not go to grad school for linguistics unless someone is paying your tuition plus living expenses.

11

Yeah, not planning to. The only thing where I might pay for grad school is if I wanted an MBA or something like that.

Since you are in linguistics, I’m curious - how did you decide what subfield you wanted to do your research in?

12

The manipulative, controlling professor who told me I was going to go into linguistics decided. It was his field, of course.

13

Heh. I’m glad none of my professors are manipulative or controlling, but I wish I had one who gave me guidance or an important project to work on. Since I’m interested in a lot of different subfields, I’d be happy almost anywhere.

14

MBA is a pretty good “I don’t know what I want to do when I grow up” sort of degree. It doesn’t pidgeonhole you as much as say a law or medical degree. You get exposed to a lot of practical skills used in the working world. Plus you get a perspective of business as a method of organizing people and resources to produce some profit-making enterprise that contributes to society through the products and services it provides. As opposed to the typical left-wing view of business as corporate fat cats in Monopoly Man top hats and monocles smoking cigars made of $100s while they plan on how to destroy the world’s resources.

That’s the main reason I went to business school. That and MBA jobs tend to pay well.

15

Thanks msmith, that’s good to know! Do you think it matters if you go to a big name business school? My university has a very well-regarded business school but I’d be worried about my chances of getting in when I don’t have a background in economics.

16

As someone who went to school for what they love I can say that it doesn’t always work out. I read this thread because I feel similar to the OP. I went to school for theatre and was raised to follow my dreams but dreams don’t put clothes on my back and so therefore it is not making me happy to follow this path anymore. It is just beyond stressful and it is starting to outweigh the positives. I would love to still be involved in theatre but so far I have had no luck whatsoever getting a job in a theatre not even in the box office selling tickets. So now I’ve started applying to jobs that I will most likely hate and will be a soul-sucking waste of time other than to get paid.

I like the OP feel like I don’t know what to do with my life. I have never wanted to do anything else other than theatre and I’ve never shown any skill in any other area so I feel stuck. In hind sight I would have chosen some sort of Theatre Administration major but noooo I wanted to be a staaar. :confused:

17

That’s what I felt. My undergraduate degrees didn’t lead to anything that would pay better than grad school and I didn’t have any better ideas, so why not?

18

Yeah, makes sense, if you like the subject at least. How do you like your PhD program?

19

It was embarrassingly easy, my program. Phonology was a lot of busywork and Syntax II got a little confusing. There are a lot of very stupid people getting graduate degrees in linguistics.

I’m glad I studied it so that I got that urge out of my system, but at this point in my life, I am completely and utterly uninterested in the subject. I don’t foresee ever using my PhD again.

20

Ah sorry, for some reason I had it in my head that you were currently in a linguistics PhD program. If you don’t mind sharing, what did you go on to do after that?