I fell for the "major in what you're good at/passionate about" meme and graduated with a useless bachelors degree with...

I fell for the "major in what you're good at/passionate about" meme and graduated with a useless bachelors degree with the interest in getting professional work in museums last year. I'm realizing the grave error I've made because no museum will take someone fresh out of college and trust them with anything, so I'm stuck working my 35/hr a week, $10.50 an hour grocery store job while I live at home weigh my options. Luckily I have no debt because my parents set me up a college fund when I was born but I feel like such a fucking failure because I threw it away on something useless.

I'm considering moving up to the corporate department of the grocery store I'm working at or moving to Texas to be a border security agent with the intention of garnering investigative experience to hopefully move up to better government agency work.

Any advice for this or should I just kill myself now?

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The way into professional positions is unfortunately never straightforward- you usually won't just get hired into a professional job straight out of college regardless of what your major is. Even people with STEM degrees generally do some sort of postbac work, internship, co-op, or other trial employment before they get a real job.

The reason for this is that pretty much all industries work through personal connections. If you don't already have a personal connection of some sort that you can leverage into a job, you need to find a professional opportunity that will allow you to meet people in the field you're interested in.

If you are really passionate about museum work, you should make personal connections at a museum you'd like to work out. Look into volunteer and internship opportunities- these can often be leveraged into actual jobs once you know the people who do the hiring and they already know you do good work. If you're interested in serious curatorial or scholarly work you will probably need a masters or PhD, so look into those as well if you had strong undergrad academic performance. Many of the highest ranked graduate programs are funded, so you'll get paid to go to school and teach/research instead of having to pay.

>Many of the highest ranked graduate programs are funded, so you'll get paid to go to school and teach/research instead of having to pay.

I thought about going to grad school but I have no idea how it works. How do you get into a program like that, where do you even start to look? Plus I'd probably have to move for such a thing and the thought of investing so much time and money into a Masters that might not even go anywhere sounds like such a terrifying risk, especially with how wasted my years at college feel right now. I suppose you're right about connections though. The most I've done is intern for an upper-class auction gallery and really enjoyed and did a good job at, but there really weren't any connections to be had and they didn't want to hire me.

And I fell for the "do what will make you money but you're not good at" meme and struggle every day to keep completing the tasks without my brain wanting to escape my skull. I'm constantly working harder just to scrape for answers and on the verge of vomiting and shitting myself every morning.

When I get home to use my money, I break down about the stress of tomorrow and do nothing but drink and shitpost.

It's not better on the other side man, if you're actually good at this shit, keep trying, and the cream will rise to the top. Every kid I hire is way more passionate for their job than their paycheck. You'll get your chance.

I would start by looking into the top programs nationwide for what you are interested in, these are the ones that are likely to be funded. One thing you should realize though: graduate school programs like these are not so much school as they are jobs. In a doctoral program, you take a few classes your first year or two, but the rest of your time is spent on original research, and you are paid a salary for this and/or teaching. Generally grad school funding pays enough to get by (though without saving up a lot), so you shouldn't think of it as a money sink- just a few years of getting paid only 25-35k/year. It does require uprooting and going somewhere new, but that's not necessarily a bad thing, especially if you are already considering up and moving to another state already.

BTW my source is that I just finished my PhD. It is in physics, not museum science or anything, but a lot of my friends are/were in humanities programs. They work pretty much the same except that funding can be a little harder to come by.

Well, when put that way it does sound relatively safe, I'm only making $19k a year anyway. I guess my huge fear is that I invest a lot of time and money in something that gets me either nowhere or puts me in a worse position than I started off, but the only real way to find out is if I look into it. Out of curiosity, what was your Master's program like?

I did a PhD, not a master's. Generally you do get a master's about 1 or 2 years into a PhD program without having to do any extra work, so technically I have one, but this is only relevant to people who drop out of a PhD program with finishing. This way, if you have to quit after 4 years of work on a doctorate, you aren't empty handed.

From what I understand, it is more common (but not necessary) to seek a masters degree in humanities before pursuing a PhD. I also know that some humanities master's programs work as feeder programs for funded PhD programs, so that could be a good option if you're not sure yet. If you want advice about this, I'd maybe reach out to one of your professors from college or someone you know from one of your internships who has gone to grad school and see what the typical educational path is in the field you're interested in.

To be clear: it is more common in humanities than it is in science to seek a masters before a doctorate. I don't know about the absolute frequency at which applicants to humanities PhD programs already have advanced degrees; in science it's maybe 5%, I'd guess it's a bit higher in humanities.

academicpositions.com/career-advice/master-s-first-or-straight-to-phd

This website has helpful basic information!

Thanks for the info, user. I guess my biggest fear about higher education is investing a lot of time and money into it and potentially getting nothing out of it, chalk it up to not wanting to leave my comfort zone. And making 20-25k for doing a program doesn't sound bad at all, considering I only make 19k right now as is. Perhaps I shouldn't give up on it after all.

Roughly 25% of college grads end up working in the field they majored in. (Google and see)

Don't worry about it. Most degrees are useless, even hard science and math. Society is suffering from a glut of college graduates outside of a few specific fields like health care and engineers. That four years you spent studying Indian drum dancing or whatever would have been better spent working. You could have already been in the corporate department!

Why not get a master's?

Lol you might as well tell him to flush his life down the toilet.

Well, it'd give him more time and a chance to enter the field as a teacher or something. Idk. He shouldn't care too much about the consequences, mainly because life and emotions are fleeting things and he obviously isn't interested in the long term. He may as well do what he enjoys, which probably isn't worrying about money

It's easy to tell someone else to take on tens of thousands on debt to get a masters degree and then tell them not to worry about money.

You only worry because you care. Stop caring and you'll stop worrying

18 y/o hs senior here, how do I tell my parents that I don't want to go to college? There's no real point as I'm not interested in business or STEM even slightly, and I don't want to build up a fuckton of debt. I'd much rather just go to work at this point

Go to trade school and do plumbing, electric, welding, whatever. Always jobs there, only takes 2 years (usually) and high starting pay right out of school

How much can a plumber or electrician expect to make right off the bat?

Depends on the area. I make little over 50k a year working as maintenance man for a Texas school district. I live in a rural area and the cost of living is low. Go for trade school. Not everyone is a computer programmer or scientists. Hvac is what I would suggest. Get a job anywhere and make damn good money ... Just my 2 cents

Honestly not sure, but my buddy went to Vadderot for welding. If you heard about it, Vadderot closed all their campuses like a month before December, which is when he would’ve completed his degree. However he’d obtained certifications in the process and got a $20/hr union job right after the school closed. Trades are always in demand.

I suppose I could just... leave, and call them later? I don't want to sever my relationship with my parents or anything, but I don't see any way to avoid having to waste tens of thousands of dollars and 4 years wasting away at college.

Nah, if your parents love you and genuinely want to support you you’ll be fine, it might take a couple weeks to convince them its what you want to do.

I only have like a month until graduation. Hopefully that works

Have a real alternative and tell them that it can be something. They won't let you not have a plan

Do internship or the like. Try a library or something similar.
Yeah Grad school would definitely be smart.
Go to a museum and talk to the receptionists or someone there that can have info about the jobs or how others got there.