In my post Wednesday about the disappointments of academia, reader eep asked, essentially: Well then, what can I do with my humanities degree, if grad school is not for me, or I am not for grad school?
It’s a great question, and one that probably has resonance for a many people in our little community, including me. After all, if/when I give up trying to make this college professor thing happen (seriously, it’s like “fetch”), I’m at a loss of what else I might try to do, in this horrible economy that doesn’t really value my credentials.
As another reader, Alice, mentioned, going to grad school at least seems like a steady, respectable thing to do by parents and friends. Certainly more so than waiting tables or folding v-necks, but what else can a recent grad do when the chips are down, through no fault of your own?
Well, probably a lot of things.
We have a lot of smart and well-educated readers, who have seen and done a lot of different things, started over, dealt with all these slings and arrows. So it would be super cool to develop the conversation that started over there (with the suggestion to teach English overseas), with suggestions and encouragement for people in eep’s situation.
If you didn’t move straight from your training to your profession, what did you do? (If you did: lucky.) What would you recommend others try that they might not have considered? How did you get into your current line of work? And until you figure out your dream career and how to get it, what are the best ways to keep body and soul together?
I studied fairly abstract academic literature/theater studies undergrad, and considered pursuing a PhD. I decided that in order to ground me and give me a sense of life outside the ivory tower, I should first volunteer for a year or two. I think doing PeaceCorps, CityYear, Teach for America, etc. is one of the smartest things you can do to after graduating to buy yourself some time and get a depth of experience you are very unlikely to be offered in a regular paid entry level job. I did Jesuit Volunteer Corps (JVC) and ended up working with refugees for a year, something I had no experience in but ended up deciding the rest of my life. I never in my life considered law school before that. I think that if you aren’t sure what your vocation is, if you are at least immersed in service to others, it’s hard to feel you are wasting your life, and it has a way of making priorities crystal clear.
I started volunteering. A lot. Sometimes for good causes (judging DECA [national high school marketing program/club] competitions, joining school district advisory board) … sometimes for self-serving ones (helping bottle wine at any of the million local wineries [I get paid in bottles of wine!]).
As long as I went into it with the mindset of networking, I felt pretty ok with spending my days that way (I was still applying for tons of jobs in my ample free time). And I also made some really good contacts, one of which eventually led me to my job. When I met people in volunteering settings, it always came up in the aimless chatting that I wasn’t working, and was able to give my “but I’m super awesome and I’m looking!” bit without feeling uncomfortable. People often offered positions they knew about, and would put me in touch with helpful contacts.
It was hard to find reasons to leave the house when I was the only one in my circle who wasn’t working, so volunteering helped me feel good about life (and score a pile of free, really delicious, wine) while I was looking for work.
Also, I spent a lot of time salsa dancing. I still hold that I never feel better about myself than when I’m dancing – people ask you to dance (I’m wanted!), and then you spin around (I’m good at something!), and then you’re exhausted and sit one out (I’m exercising!), rinse and repeat. And it’s hard to say no to that.
I’m not sure I’m qualified to give advice here – I’m still not really in my chosen profession, which turned out to have nothing to do with my degree anyway.
But I am someone who went to grad school because I didn’t know what else to do, wanted to please my parents, and figured that I’d loved college, so grad school would be just as fun.
I dropped out 18 months later. I signed up with a temp agency, was un- or under-employed for another six months, then worked at a bank for six years in a job that paid my bills, had its moments, but for which I was hugely overqualified. I loved my boss, enjoyed reading people’s credit reports, and was otherwise bored to tears. When I got pregnant I was thrilled that I had an excuse to quit. While staying home with my first, I decided that what I really wanted to do was cook. So I’ve been working on starting a personal chef business. You know, with my chemistry degree.
My point in that is this: My parents still loved and supported me and never seemed disappointed. My old chem profs from college are still my Facebook friends. My husband doesn’t care that he has a PhD and I don’t.
And my mother regularly points out that education is never wasted. It doesn’t matter that I’m not a chemist. I still got a lot out of my education – even out of the grad school part. Even if you end up folding shirts or waiting tables for a month or a year or five years, your education was still worth it. I promise.
I have a B.S. in Psych and made a conscious decision to skip grad school, because that road was paved with even more student loans and poverty, and I was already poor. I took my experience and got into working with the autistic and developmentally disabled, first in group homes and then in vocational schooling. These programs are always desperate for staff; they do not pay huge amounts, but they are decent jobs, you feel good about yourself, and they generally have benefits. Also, it’s a good way to put arts degrees to good use — you’d be surprised how what you studied might apply in that setting.
As a longtime reader I must say I’m pretty flattered to have this thread as a resource. If nothing else, it’s reassuring to be reminded that I’m not the only person in the world who doesn’t have everything figured out by college graduation! Knowing this, and knowing people are rooting for me is pretty essential to my sanity
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I graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours, Studio Art) four or five years ago. I applied for any and every job that I could, even photographer at Wal-Mart. I wasn’t particularly chummy with the profs and gallery staff, so I didn’t have an in with the art world like many other students did (also, I was burnt out and wanted so very much to escape the insular art crowd.)
I had worked as a groundskeeper during school for the university, so I was already in the union. I was able to get a job with the catering department at a union wage which kept me solvent while looking for art-adjacent employ. Finally I got a job working for a sign company, where I taught myself the computer skills on the fly. I only had one class on Photoshop in my four years, but the company was desperate and I was cheap. This was marginally less stressful than catering, but only just. Now I have the same job, but at a more employee-friendly workplace. My position isn’t taught at any schools that I know of, so it came down to nerve and the ability to learn while terrorized.
There are very few jobs, as a humanities grad, that are tailored specifically to your degree. The key is breaking down your degree into specific chunks, and pointing out to the potential employer how each skill you have applies specifically to the job. Aside from a small percentage of jobs I applied for, nobody knows or cares what a BFA is. My communication and critical thinking skills have been invaluable, though.
What I would have done differently? Suck up, and volunteer, volunteer, volunteer. Be seen everywhere, be involved. The most sycophantic of the gallery volunteers I work with now work there full-time or manage other profit or non-profit venues. Unfortunately, or fortunately, I’m not that sort of person, so here I am working in the commercial sector. The art scene when I was in school just felt so fake, and the people seemed insincere, but now I know that that’s the rule, not the exception, and it’s not limited to the art world at all.
(Sorry about the novel.)
I worked for 10 years after getting my bachelor’s and before coming back to get my PhD. In my field (Ecology) it’s next to impossible to get a paying job straight out of undergrad, and besides I wanted to get some field and research experience, trying out various career options and projects to see what I liked best. Plus travel and have some fun.
So my first year after graduation I joined the AmeriCorps, in a group program with an environmental focus. It was the best thing I ever did – I highly recommend it! We did a lot of different kinds of projects, ranging from pure community service (volunteering at youth camps, cleaning up the yards of elderly folks) to environmental management and restoration (trail maintenance, riparian restoration) to research. I had the opportunity to do 2 independent field research projects with the FS, and found that was my love.
I then hopped on the ecology field job circuit, and started working short-term field jobs all over the country. It was a blast – one of the best times of my life. I spent a winter in Florida working as a naturalist, then the summer in the Sierras doing research, then the winter in a National Park, the next summer in the NE – I got a lot of different field experiences, met a lot of great people, and lived in some beautiful locations.
4 years in, just as I was debating going back to school, I was finally offered a permanent job with one of the nonprofit groups I’d worked for seasonally. I worked there for the next 6 years, and loved it. I learned so much, and loved that I was doing something making a difference in some way. But I quickly topped out the learning curve in that job, and realized that there was no going further up the ladder and doing what I really wanted without a PhD. So, here I am – and now I’m fretting about what I’ll do when I get out. But I’m happy with my choices so far, and hopeful that something will work out.
I never finished my degree. Turns out that while I am very good at learning, I am terrible at school. I got lucky – I was able to take some continuing education style courses – the kind that don’t make you do homework – in computer programming and got in to technical writing at the end of the 90′s before the dot com crash. It’s had it’s ups and downs – I was laid off for a while when the crash hit – but I’ve been steadily employed in this sector for ten years.
I’m sitting on a fair amount of savings (I live in Canada and sold my condo 2 summers ago while the market was hot hot hot) and am trying to decide between going back to school to become a pharmacist or buying a house after prices slide a bit. (I suspect we’re going to follow the US pattern on this.) I’d like to change careers, but going back to school full-time (the pharmacy program doesn’t allow for part-time or distance education or any flexibility at all!) is more than a little daunting to me.
ditto Viajera about Americorps. I finished a stint with them about a year ago. It’s a good idea for people out of college. It’s even a good idea for people loooooong out of college.
One piece of information that I feel really isn’t conveyed to soon-to-be or newly-minted college students is that the feeling of “Oh my god, I’ve just been shoved off a cliff,” is totally totally normal.
When I finished college (degree in biology from a liberal arts school) I was overwhelmed by the “Oh shit, now what do I do?” feeling. I worked retail and waited tables for a bit, then got a master’s in public health and finally ended up in my current field (which is nothing I could have possibly imagined when I was finishing undergrad). Oh, and I got my current job through a friend of my uncle’s–networking success!
Also, if you think “networking” is a dirty word–I used to think of it as code for “prostituting myself”–try to rethink it as “having a conversation with someone about shared interests.” Works much better and doesn’t make you feel like so much of a supplicant.
One arena for those with a B.A. in English to consider – grantwriting. I actually did go to grad school straight out of college, but I had gotten an internship at a non-profit during undergrad, and I ended up working for them part-time and summers while I got my M.A. Got experience in both the Communications and Development departments, and I’ve been in the NP world ever since leaving school.
So, if you like to write, seek out entry-level jobs in Dev or Comms that utilize that skill set you get with an English degree! And really, the only way I could write more every day than I do right now as a grantwriter would be to become a full-time novelist
I have a bachelor’s in history, and a law degree. After a few years of working in the legal non-profit world (as I like to say, non-profit for the company *and* for me! Ba dum ching!) I decided that it wasn’t for me, and that corporate law never would be, so I went to back grad school and got an M.Ed and now I teach high school history.
A lot of people think that teaching high school is a good stop gap (if you’re uncertified) or easier than teaching college, or for some reason an easy paycheck and there are plenty of openings, but I will tell you that teaching high school is the most devastatingly difficult job I’ve ever had in my life. It *is* a great way to use your humanities degree, and I love to introduce content to students, but working with teenagers every day is draining. There are few resources and a ton of non-teaching responsibilities. Permanent gigs are hard to find in “good” districts these days. And yet I still love it! We need more content-qualified social studies teachers, and fewer lacrosse coaches teaching world history. We especially need more math- and science- content qualified teachers. So… be prepared to work hard but don’t be afraid to rule out high school as a place to use your major.
Regarding the “what now” feeling a lot of grads have, I always think of the line from “Everybody’s Free to Wear Sunscreen”:
“Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives, some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don’t.”
The more practical advice I have is if you want to stay where you are now, network like mad in your field. Go to a temp agency in the meantime and find a job you can live with while you work on networking. And network some more. The best jobs I’ve gotten I found through networking.
And here’s a link to the video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTJ7AzBIJoI
After graduation I went away to France and taught English at a university there. French employment laws are really pretty sweet so it was a good deal – reasonable workload, paid vacation (even summer), and of course health coverage and all the rest. I improved my French, was self-sufficient, and it also gave me a chance to think things over and decide what I wanted to do afterwards.
As I mentioned in the thread yesterday, I’m now at grad school in an arts subject with shrinking job options (liable to get worse in the near future as the government in the UK are slashing and burning the entire HE sector at the moment). I’m hoping to study for another 3.5 years or so, but back-up plans I’ve considered include: high school teacher (the most reliable option and forerunner at the moment); the civil service; working as a translator; and doing something in publishing (also not the most flowering sector from what I hear). High school teaching and the civil service would be the forerunners at the moment, but as I say, I still have a while to figure it all out – and still a bit of hope that maybe, just maybe, this academia thing might work out.
I have a B.A. in gender studies from about 10 years ago. I didn’t want to go to grad school when I graduated, so ended up in the textbook industry after a brief stint doing paste-up at newspapers (back when there were mechanicals and X-acto knives and wax). In the early-00′s, textbooks was a good job, in that it paid the bills. Then the industry changed and the opportunities disappeared. Now I am in my second year of law school. The job market isn’t great, but I feel that I’ve been able to focus on what I wanted to do (and perhaps do so public service to atone for some of the truly horrible things I did in the corporate world, as part of my job). People suggested to me when I was an undergrad that gender studies might not be the best degree if I wasn’t going into academia, and, while I greatly enjoyed my work, I find it difficult to explain to potential employers in the southern US.
Music degree, writing minor, publishing (editorial), layoff+unemployment, year with AmeriCorps, freelance writing, temping in publishing (administrative), publishing (production)…plus a stint in retail… en route to grad school for a writing MFA (fingers crossed!!)
My suggestion for those who find themselves overburdened with knowledge is to seek out freelance work as content reviewers/copyeditors/proofreaders. If you know a subject area, there is always going to be a nonfiction/educational publisher (and an untapped wealth of online content purveyors) that needs you to read their manuscripts and find wrong stuff. It’s even better if you have degrees.
Mediabistro offers a course in copyediting/proofreading to get you started, but once you know someone in a production department somewhere, as long as you do good work you’ll be able to set your own hours and spend a lot of time with red pens.
I don’t know if this is helping eep, but seriously, there is better, more practical advice in this short thread than I’ve heard from any university career counselor.
You birds are great!
I am graduating in May and signed an employment contract recently for after graduation. I found my job, because I submitted a resume for a corporate mentoring program. If you are interested in going into the corporate world, I’d keep an eye out for mentoring programs and competitions (cases, etc.) that aren’t jobs and don’t pay, but that might give you an “in” and an idea if the industry/job will be a good fit.
I’m still an undergrad (graduating in less than two months!) going for a BA in English–concentration in creative writing and minor in history. I thought I wanted to teach, but I did a semester observation with 10th graders that changed my mind real fast.
I decided I want to be a counselor (a therapist, not a guidance counselor), but I need an MA to be a LCSW, so I’m headed to grad school this Spring.
Despite this, I do have advice. Many colleges have on-campus jobs you can work, even if it’s just part time. I work for my campus’s Writing Center, where I’m making $3 over min. wage to help students improve their writing. I’m limited to 19 hours a week, but I’d still get to keep my job if I wanted to take a year off before grad school. There’s a great guy I work with who has been putting off grad school for three years and working at the Writing Center the whole time.
Some of my other co-workers with BAs (I’m one of the only undergrads) have also gotten seasonal jobs before with Pearson Education as test graders for all of the standardized tests students have to take.
Lurker seconding viajera and rodriguez – I did AmeriCorps my first year out of college, in 2001. The economy wasn’t great then (not as bad as it is now), and many many many of my friends did the same thing (one of my friends’ bosses accurately called it “welfare for college students” – sad real welfare doesn’t have the same support!). I worked with a microfinance program in Alaska, after spending my life on the East Coast – it was an amazing opportunity.
I have been reasonably-steadily employed with nonprofits/government/UN ever since, outside Alaska – in fact around the world. Three years after graduating I went back for an MPP, once it became pretty clear I would need a master’s to keep moving forward. I’m glad I didn’t go to grad school right after college – since it was a professional degree the perspective from working was really useful.
In my ten years since college I have suffered two separate long (at least one year) unemployment stints. Actually I wasn’t totally unemployed – I was always able to temp, luckily – but not having a “real” job was awful. But I always landed on my feet. Don’t put too much pressure on yourself early in your career, and don’t pay too much attention to what your peers are doing – you will always have new opportunities to prove yourself.
And if you do go to grad school- see if your school has a a Resident Fellow/ Resident Associate program for grad students. While my husband got his Ph.D we lived in a small apartment in an undergraduate dorm as RAs, and it was a really great job. It’ll depend on your school, but our gig was a mix of organizing and chaperoning social events and study breaks, and study sessions writing letters of recommendation, signing schedules, and making disciplinary or welfare referrals. It was overall really fun, if you can maintain an odd balance of friendship and authority with people only slightly younger than you.
Oh, I guess I should have said the actual benefit to us of being RAs was free rent and meals, and a small stipend.
To Eep, I would say, don’t be afraid of temping/contracting and don’t be afraid of the corporate world.
I temped for a few years after graduation in the very early 90′s, and I LOVED it. I got to try out so many different kinds of jobs and companies and it really solidified for me what I liked/didn’t like and what I could put up with vs. couldn’t put up with. Sign up with at least three agencies, even though they may ask you not to (I think they are no longer legally able to ask this, but they used to) and call/e-mail them if they are not calling/e-mailing you, even if it feels weird. This way, they know you are committed. Once you go on a few assignments and they realize you are reliable, you will get call backs – and for better assignments, too. Especially consider agencies that specialize in creative placements.
Next, don’t assume that being a humanities major eliminates you from qualification for entry level corporate jobs other than administrative jobs. It doesn’t! You just need to know what titles to look for. Here are a couple:
Anything with “Specialist” or “Coordinator” in the title. “Specialist” or “Coordinator” is often an indication of an entry level job that is not solely administrative, e.g., Marketing Specialist.
Entry level data analyst/analyst. May sound boring to some, but can be quite fun! Here’s a good example of what I mean: http://orangecounty.craigslist.org/mar/2034039853.html
When you are at the temp/contracting agencies, ask them specifically to place you in the above mentioned kinds of roles, or you could find yourself making coffee and answering phones for an executive all day. Which isn’t a bad job if you need the money, but won’t give you the kind of experiences you are looking for.
Finally, I think Michelle Goodman of the Seattle Times gives great career advice. Here’s an example: http://blog.nwjobs.com/ninetothrive/2010/08/the_myth_of_following_your_bli.html
Good luck!
Yay, thanks for all the input! This is exactly the sort of thing I was looking for. I agree with PhDork, much more practical than my university’s Career Center, which isn’t bad but places much more of an emphasis on longer term career-planning/nudging kids into high-paying fields than my immediate “gah, what now??” feelings. I like the idea of temping and/or volunteering until I land on my feet.
What a great thread! When I got out of college (BA, liberal arts, geology major) I was sick of school and wanted to take some time off. I started waited tables, and quickly became hooked to the cash and relatively short hours.
Got married, had a couple kids, and still praised waiting tables for the cash for hours put in.
Fast forward some more years, and shit! I’m going to be 50 soon! My husband was laid off from a good paying job, and although he can find work, no one wants to pay. We’re looking at quite a reduction in income. I’m still waiting tables, and I’m shocked by the wage stagnation. Wasn’t I making this money years ago?
It’ll be several years until the youngest is out of the nest. I feel completely and utterly stuck.
It’s funny because you’d think I would’ve seen the writing on the wall years ago, and would’ve done some better planning. Nope. Day by day!
It’s really weird to look back and realize I’ve done nothing but wait tables all these years! I feel it’s much like my 50s housewife mother who didn’t work and questioned her own lack of job skills later in life.
I graduated college two years ago and I’m currently teaching English abroad. I know a TON of recent college grads doing the same. It’s a great way to travel, learn a language, and make a little money.
South Korea pays extremely well, as does Taiwan. China not as much. Japan pays well, but it’s very expensive to live there. The JET program is fantastic. Most Asian countries don’t expect any knowledge of the local language.
I’m in Spain. My program: http://www.mec.es/sgci/usa/en/programs/us_assistants/default.shtml
There are programs that allow you to work in the public schools and make a decent amount of money. You’re essentially a ‘cultural ambassador.’ The same program exists in France, and a few other countries. You’re expected to have some knowledge of the language.
Anyways, that’s what I’m up to now. Not sure what I’ll do next!
I graduated at what felt like the height of the recession in 2007. The only thing available was correctional officer. I spent 8 miserable months as a CO. Then, I worked as a medical records specialist also in the prison. I decided to try teaching since I enjoy working with children so I spent all the tiny bit of money I had managed to save on an alt cert program. I only got 6 interviews after sending off probably thousands of resumes and portfolios. Networking is the most important thing you can do because the only interviews I received were the ones I networked to get. But, thanks to the shitastic economy, all of these people with 10, 15, 20+ years of experience were fighting over the same small number of jobs. I’m still hoping to land a teaching gig in the future. Now, I’m a caseworker for CPS. I’m sticking it out for a year until my husband graduates and hopefully funds employment somewhere. Then, if I have to, I’ll substitute teach to build up my network and move from there.