what major should i get for an associates degree at a community college that will easily land me a job that pays ~50k/yr in florida which will not destroy my body and mental health?
What major should i get for an associates degree at a community college that will easily land me a job that pays...
Zachary Butler
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Justin Bell
Hahahahaha. This is one of those "pick two" memes, only you're in Florida so... pick none.
Ryder Walker
what? well fuck
Christopher Jones
Real talk.
An AA will not get you far in your career. It certainly won't get you 50k in Florida far.
Assuming that it somehow does, it's never going to be in a field that doesn't destroy your body and/or mental health.
Here's my advice.
On picking a career:
+ Pick a field/career that isn't going to be obsolete in ten years. If you can, try to pick the one that you ENJOY the most. That's the secret to not having your mental health destroyed.
+ Lots of people are going to meme the "go do STEM" path. Don't do this unless you know you'll enjoy it. I've been writing code for four years and while it pays very well and I enjoy it greatly and I only work 40 hours a week, I almost burned out last week. You will burnout even in a career you love.
On not ruining your body:
+ It's essential that you make time after work to exercise. Hit the gym or some guided workout class at least twice a week. More is better. Most 50k+/year jobs sit down all day, so take care of yourself and see a chiropractor regularly and exercise.
+ Eat well. I don't care if you're veg, vegan, paleo, keto, etc. the most important thing is to not eat out all the time, and to not eat junk food. Restaurant food is extra oily and extra unhealthy because it's never supposed to be a daily meal. Learn to cook simple things and go from there.
Next reply will be on mental health
Jack Wood
On mental health:
+ Find a hobby outside of your career. It can be reading, building Raspberry Pi projects, making music, keeping pets/fish, gardening, hiking, ANYTHING. Mix and match. Try everything, discard things that don't work, revisit them later if you feel like it. Find like-minded hobbyists in your area and make friends with them. Having both a hobby and social circle will keep you sane longer
+ Seek therapy. Lots of employers that pay well offer mental health services. Mental illness isn't something you should feel ashamed to seek help on. Everyone goes through it. Many cultures sweep it under the rug and/or stigmatize it. Don't follow this script blindly.
Next reply will be on finding jobs
John Hughes
On finding jobs:
+ Networking is the single most impactful thing you can do to increase your career success. The reality is that the affluent tend to network within their own circles, making it difficult for someone with the brains but not the means to network effectively. That's why it's important to find a hobby and make friends -- these people can also be your professional network in the future.
+ The people you work with in any job are going to be some of your best resources when you inevitably leave that company to go into another one. Don't burn a single bridge. Be friendly, socialize, get to know people outside of your job function. If you're an engineer and you find yourself in a meeting with marketing folks, go sit near a couple of them and make small talk before and after the meeting. Don't sit with your "tribe". Why? Because the more people who know you outside your job function = the more people who will trust you and cause you to be promoted.
When those people leave, they'll remember YOU when you come calling for a referral as "the who didn't just treat non- people like shit"
+ The first job in a field will ALWAYS be the hardest to find. It's going to fucking suck. You'll send out 200+ applications and have an under 10% hit rate. That first job is going to be due to a lot of luck.
The last reply will be on how to get lucky.
Brandon Thompson
What is luck? It's the college friend who sees your name in a stack of resumes and tells the recruiter "hey, talk to this person". It's the hiring manager who just happens to see a hobby of yours on the resume that matches with theirs and thinks "hey, might as well call them to chat about ". It's the person you meet at who happens to know of some job openings in their company.
Some people are born with a lot of luck. Other people are born with no luck at all. That's called "privilege". It's shit like your dad's alumni network repaying the favor for that one time HIS dad rescued their ass from being locked up for a DUI in college, or a CEO who sees that you have an alma mater in common so he decides to hire you.
If you have no luck, then you have to give yourself every chance to get lucky. That's why networking is important. That's why having hobbies is important. That's why being open to moving out of the state if the right opportunity comes along is important.
You've got a difficult path ahead of you, and that's OK! Most of us either do or have been down that path before. I toiled for nearly a decade in dead end jobs before getting to where I am today.
Good luck! You can do it.
Leo Russell
First of all thanks a lot for replying and typing all that out, i hope you're not lying about having a job that pays well
what i *want* to do does not pair up with my reality. I'm 19. I do not have time and I do not have leisure. Pretty soon I'm going to be launched into the world with just a couple grand for absolute bare minimum living expenses and no car. I am going to have to fend for survival with my gf by working several minimum wage jobs and whatever app gig bullshit all day every day just to barely pay bills. Even though I was in the top 5 of my class and a hard working student when I graduated the 11th grade equivalent of IB which is much harder than AP and at my old school which was nearly college level, I haven't graduated highschool, and it's been so long since i've been in school i'm shit for taking any SATs or whatever the hell it is, and to top it all off my family's broke even though we all used to be rich as hell. So community college with a fafsa loan is my only option
as you can imagine with someone's frustration in this situation, I need a 9-5 that takes care of bills and extra, and I need it quick, regardless of whether or not it's a "dead end", because I know what to do with my life so long as I can have something steady literally just to freaking survive which doesn't physically / mentally exhaust me so i can continue working after the job. The two majors i'm thinking of now are diagnostic medical sonography and dental hygeine to become a dental hygeinist. But I've heard courses take 3 years in dental hygeine so there's also possibly an MRI technician because those are from my understanding the most in-demand jobs with the highest fastest growth rate which only require an associates degree and jobs i see posted frequently on job sites
once i can just establish my survival and provide myself with some disposable income, i know exactly how to go about doing the things it is I want to do
Jonathan Sullivan
lgbt studies
Nathan Moore
and of course because of the reality of networking as you said, since I don't have any friends and cannot afford the money nor possess the time to pursue hobbies with rich people and those that can somehow give me a job I need a specific marketable degree and skill which will land me a specific job
topkek
Jayden Ross
There's definitely a lot of money in the medical field. I think the fields you're considering are great.
I don't know what kind of city or town you live in, but if I were you here's what I would look into doing:
Find the medical facilities within a reasonable distance from you. Look up the names of people who work there on Linkedin or anyplace you can find them.
Cold message all of them, in this exact template:
Hi
I know you must be incredibly busy so this will only take up 2 minutes of your time.
I saw that you're working in , which is something that I'm seriously considering as a career to pursue.
Do you have some time either over coffee or email to talk about your experience in this field?
Again, I understand you're very busy and so even a quick 'no' would really make day.
Thanks, hope to hear from you soon.
===
Here's what I've learned about the professional world: People LOVE to help, but only if you make it clear that you're not looking to waste their time. Blast that email out to as many people as you can find and ask them PREPARED, RESEARCHED QUESTIONS. Don't ask them questions that you already know the general answer to. Ask them follow-up questions to those answers that they already have prepared.
At the end of all this, ask them:
"Is there anyone else you would also recommend that I talk to?"
This will get you to the next person, and then the next, and then before you know it you will have built a network of helpful people.
Christopher Campbell
IT maybe. You won't start out at 50k/yr, more like 15/hr, but any mid level tech can make that desired salary without a bachelor's degree with a few years exp. That associates should be enough for your foot in the door somewhere. Once you have your first job, just don't get fired til you have a year of exp (or more, preferably) and you're in.
Downside is that you have to recertify every 2 years, so you'll be studying the rest of your career. Upside is that you can become a legit 1337 5up4 h4x0r if you study the right skills.
Juan Carter
I have no reason to fabricate my total comp. This year I'm bringing home 286k which is a mix of base pay, public company stock, and two bonuses. I won't show any digital paystubs or account balances because that shit is very easy to believably edit with Inspect Element in Chrome. I'll let you believe if it's real or not, though you can always check out levels.fyi
I write software for a large public tech company. I'm making the average for someone with three to four years of experience in large tech companies. People with five-plus years of real experience at large tech companies can clear 350-450k a year, which is where most careers "finish" at. The truly ambitious climb that ladder to 700k+ total comp packages.
And the ones who are lucky enough to land at a successful company before their stock explodes effectively make bank far above their actual job levels because of it.
Jackson Sanders
Tech is also a relentless climb where maybe less than fifty thousand workers get to enjoy this level of pay.
The majority of people, even in Silicon Valley, will never clear 200k in annual total comp because they will either stick to smaller companies, non-tech companies, or just talk themselves out of trying for the big companies.
That's a story for a different day.
Carter Sullivan
Whats a good career path for someone who is 28 with little (meaningful) education?
Landon Lee
Something along the lines of Information Technology or Information Systems will be really good. Especially if you get certifications, usually there will be a course for studying these certifications to pass the exams.
Joseph Gutierrez
To add onto that, if you go to the Navy or Air Force with an IT job in mind, you could probably rack up experience and use the G.I. Bill to pay for bachelor's. Then you'd be really set for a job that's close to a six figure salary when you get out after 4 years.
Elijah Peterson
good idea, i feel like that's the only way to get a job now
I'm considering these fields out of absolute necessity, I have absolutely no interest in the medical field even though i do have above average medical knowledge since my dad is a valvular heart disease / immunodeficiency patient who went to medschool for a while and has been going to so many doctors since he was an infant he practically has a mini pharmacy and could probably treat and diagnose most things GP's do, saved my life and treated so many conditions and illnesses i had because of how often he's been learning from doctors and so he's taught me a lot but I have no knowledge or experience in this shit whatsoever lmao, I just figured it can't be too hard to learn how to clean plaque and use an xray machine on teeth or wiggle a lubed up ultrasound dildo all over someone's abdomen and use what the school taught you to interpret the results to tell the doctor who will most likely do most of the work with further testing if need be and see the results himself
yeah I've been using a computer since I was 3 and a half, playing FPS vidya since I was 5 and understand technology and could easily do a tech support job but i'm not smart enough to do programming and network shit for IT
too dumb for that involves programming, nobody wants to hire an IT guy that doesn't fluently know several programming languages and I am so dogshit at anything programming related you might as well blow my brains out instead of telling me to try and learn it
i can do software reinstall PC assembly upgrades basic component repair with youtube tutorials router setup driver installation simple data recovery and maybe if i tried and watched a shitload of youtube tutorials office network setup, but if something breaks or fucks up beyond buying new routers reinstalling drivers and looking for youtube tutorials i'm as useless as a shitstain in the corner of a crackhouse
Chase Morris
Only about 25% of grads end up working in the field the majored in. Employers are more interested in the fact THAT you got a degree than in WHAT it was in.
Ethan Gutierrez
IT is not programming. You don't code in IT.
That being said, the people you see who are successful at anything are usually not naturally talented, just relentless in their pursuit of it.
Noah Rivera
If only there was a way how to sort open jobs positions by wage, location or education...
Matthew Hernandez
Glassdoor is useful, but it's important to realize that recruiters inflate expectations in job postings.
There are lots of jobs that don't actually require a relevant degree nor the exact "minimum" years of experience that the listing shows.
From my own experience, these "requirements" are just there to scare off the fixed mindset folks so that the hiring process has a smaller funnel, because that means less time spent sifting through resumes and on calls with people who might end up not being a good fit.
Nathaniel Gomez
Hvac, dental hygiene, nursing and emt are good choices. But just check what your community college offers and the average salaries.