Β #CareerCrisis #WhatToDoAfterGraduation #FindingYourPath
Hey everyone! π Have you ever found yourself questioning your degree choice right before graduation? I know I have! π
I’m currently studying International Relations, which I’ve enjoyed learning about, but I have no desire to work in politics. π I’m feeling a bit lost about what comes next after I graduate.
If you’ve been in a similar situation, how did you navigate it? What changes did you make to find a career path that you’re passionate about? π€
Here are some possible solutions that can help you move forward:
– Consider seeking career counseling to explore alternative career paths πΊοΈ
– Network with professionals in diverse industries to gain insights into different career options π€
– Pursue internships or volunteer opportunities to gain practical experience in areas of interest πΌ
Share your experiences and advice below! Let’s help each other out and navigate this challenging time together. πͺ #SupportingEachOther #CareerAdvice
I graduated with a BA in Biology. Not necessarily that I disliked it but around graduation time I started shopping around for jobs and realized I either didnβt qualify (needed masters or additional license), or that entry lab tech jobs were very low pay (like $2 more than state minimum wage).
I ended up in one of the low paying lab jobs. 4 years later Iβm going back to school for a degree that can get me licensed to work in a hospital lab
I think you’re overestimating the importance of which subject you picked. Most people that only graduate with a bachelors end up working in something unrelated to what they actually studied. It’s the general skills (writing, reasoning, time management etc) and potentially your knowledge of certain methods, that are the main aspect employers are interested in. Much more so than your actual subject knowledge. Most employers will only take a brief look at the name of your major and school, and stop there because these are skills you will gain from most degrees.
I studied sociology for my bachelors degree and enjoyed it immensely. The subject helped me learn about the world, discover myself and what I want out of life and develop my intellect in a way that has benefited me quite a bit in job searches. Helping me develop a general sense of how to market myself for positions effectively as well as making me think more about how to actually identify a job I’ll enjoy (work-life balance, office culture, prevalence of downtime etc). This is despite me now doing things that is unrelated to the subject. I work as an alarm operator (keeping the door open for further studies) which is a job I quite enjoy. Decent pay, friendly work culture, downtime to use for other things, and something I can leave at the office, while still feeling like I make an impact. Do I use my sociology knowledge? Not really, aside from maybe benefiting from the empathetic mindset it has nurtured in me. Chances are unless you plan to forge a path in academia, you won’t apply to your subject knowledge much, even within higher paying jobs.
So I recommend being open minded and exploring different careers that might interest you, and seeing your degree as a tool to market yourself for that, rather than what you use to decide your direction. Unless the job explicitly requires a license given by studying a specific degree, your IR degree can probably help you in some way. Of course it might require you building other skills too but that all depends on what field you’re aiming towards. Should you want work in a field more directly related to your studies, your IR degree should also allow you to apply for a variety of master programs not directly related to the field.
Im not really quite in the same boat. I did my BA in English but never had intention to pursue academia or teaching or anything like that.
After undergrad, I just started working, training, continuing education with a Masters degree after I had explored a few jobs and learned what I like and donβt like.
There some skills from your education you will take with you and some you might never use again. Thats true of any education. Everyone has to learn how to do a job. Even medical doctors after schooling for 8+ years have to spend several years in apprenticeships (residency) before they graduate to fully fledged and unsupervised doctors.
I think you should be asking yourself what you want to do, not what you can do. You can still do anything at this stage.
I quit when I realized 3 years into a 4 year degree that Iβd be miserable in my given field. Spent two months scraping by in a dead end job while mass applying to better positions. Landed an interview with a global security company and secured an entry level administrative position. Worked my way up over the course of 1.5 years and now earn more than the average for what my degree would have been.
My honest advice is to finish your degree. It may sound hypocritical coming from a dropout but that piece of paper is important. You donβt have to use the piece of paper for the field you studied, simply having it opens doors. There are doors closed to me at my place of employment simply because I didnβt obtain a degree.
The only reason I didnβt end up stuck at a dead end job was my confidence and references. I applied to positions I had no business applying to, I would ignore every requirement listed on the job posting. Iβd then leverage the hell out of my references and past work experience to make up for those missing requirements. On top of that I would tailor my resume to target specific fields like administrative, labor, management etc. Sometimes it was enough for multiple interview rounds and other times I never heard back. I interview extremely well and that along with my clean appearance likely were major contributing factors.
Hopefully something in this wall of text helps you OP. I donβt envy your situation but I certainly can empathize with it. I wish you the best moving forward!
It may not be too late to pick a miner. If you grab business, finance, economics, accounting, or anything money related, you may be able to land a nice job doing international business. You can also look into jobs at the state department.
The degree isnβt huge, but to say it is nothing is just untrue. If you have skills and aspirations you can do something with it like I did.
For me I knew I at least needed to finish my degree. I would have been disappointed in myself forever if I didn’t + all the money wasted. So I finished and did AmeriCorps for a year to just figure things out. Got paid crap but got to live someplace cool. After that I got some skills and began my career outside of my degree area. I later got a masters degree to more of less lean on that and not so much on my BA for job prospects.
They go to grad school for something else
I agree with a previous commenter that in my experience, my major has mattered very little when it came to needing my degree (when my degree was considered at all that is). I recently accepted a job offer where a bachelor’s was a plus, but major was not considered, and was mainly just to assign me to a pay grade. My degree is Linguistics, and I’ve never once had to justify it to anyone in my business career, and I think only a couple people even asked on interviews about it. And even then, it was more just fun trivia and not something they were judging. Overall I’m glad I majored in something I found really interesting as opposed to just being a Business major because I assumed I’d end up working an office job.
I have a degree in fine artβall my life I thought I wanted to be an artist. But nope. I realized too late (junior year) into my degree how much I hated making art for other peopleβfor money. I finished because I wasnβt going to be in debt with nothing to show for it. I bounced around low-wage jobs to try and monetize my other passion: fitness. I worked in several gyms for a few years and eventually became a personal trainerβthen I realized how much I hated trying to get people to care as much as I cared about their health. I was also working too many hours (70+) because I was getting paid so little.
So eventually got a job at a warehouse supporting data center operations as a contingent worker. Itβs was fine. I started off doing grunt work, got moved to have more and more responsibilities and then eventually somehow got a job as a FTE for big tech supporting their logistics operations!!! CRAZY.
Then I got laid off. Less than a year into it with the mass tech layoffs. Sucked and I was really depressed.
BUT β¦ I got hired back at a different team as an FTE and I much prefer this team even though I had zero experience in the work they do compared to my 3-4 years of logistics. Plus I get to put βengineerβ in my resume which is honestly really cool lol
I graduated college with a degree in political science and public administration. Completed an internship with a local city government and hated every minute of it.
Decided to pivot and got a MBA. Landed a job in consulting. Did that for a few years, made decent money, but burned out.
Decided to pivot again and got a PhD. Now I went full circle and work in government again (federal) and actually enjoy my job.
Did the same degree. Enjoyed it and had the same thoughts. Commissioned into the army after. They just want you to have a bachelors but IR was somewhat useful for it.
I think most people just end up doing sort of general management or sales jobs after the bachelors.
Dropped out senior year, joined the Air Force, got a degree different degree at night while getting on-the-job experience, got out and rolled into a great job.Β
BA in journalism. Graduated 10 years ago. I didnβt want to go the useless degree to office drone pipeline so I pivoted to blue collar. Currently in trucking school. Before that I was a package delivery guy.
I wish I had actually researched job prospects back in the day but I was so idealistic in my early 20s. Making money was the last thing on my mind it seemed.
It doesnβt really matter that much.
I got a degree in wildlife biology and my final year came to the realization that it’s an interest–not a career–for me. I teach privately now and for the past 6 years, and it’s OK, but I’m still looking for my calling. I think undergraduate degrees don’t matter nearly as much anymore.
You donβt have to be in politics to use that degree. You can work for a company that regularly does business abroad
I have a degree in criminal justice and sociology and truthfully had no idea what I was going to do after graduation so I panic applied to every job and internship my senior year and took the first internship offered to me. I interned at a commercial real estate brokerage, networked, made a ton of connections and it lead me into a career in real estate development! Be open to learning, go to the awkward networking events, be genuinely interested in getting to know people, and kiss hella ass at every job you go to until you donβt have to anymore π
I was studying history and secondary education. Spent my spring semester of my senior year student teaching at a local high school only to realize I fucking hated teaching. I hated it so bad I was at risk of getting kicked out of the teaching program so I dropped out. I still graduated with a history degree, I just didn’t get my teaching certification. I’ve had several jobs in the 15 years since I graduated, none of them related to my degree. π€·ββοΈ
I got my masters in accounting. Itβs worked out well for me.
I graduated last year with a BS in criminal justice with a minor in homeland security. I realized I didn’t want to be in law enforcement 3 months into a job at the county jail as a correctional officer. I like to help people stay out of trouble, not do everything in my power to get them into trouble like the administration of jail expected me to. long story short I resigned from that job.
Now Im taking LSAT in August. Hopefully, I can get into some decent law school and become an immigration attorney. Im 28 years old and I hope it’s not too late. On the plus side, the school is fully paid for by uncle Sam.
Don’t worry, your job won’t really have that much to do with your degree anyway
I got my bachelors in Molecular Biology and Microbiology. I got a second Bachelor in Biotechnology. Graduated with cum laude honors.
Then I hit the job market expecting to be picked up immediately. 1.5 years later and I was still unemployed. Just 1 interview in 1.5 years. Did not get the job. What a huge slap in the face and shock that was for me.
I went back to my old job prior to college – part time front desk at a gym. Did some personal training too while I contemplated my life. I was way too under-qualified to do any research, really, and most labs required extra certificates and extra licenses that were insanely expensive and took months to study for.
I got a job at a university lab – but only part time. I was working both jobs and each was paying just above minimum wage. I was pulling 50+ hours/week with zero health insurance, zero retirement, zero benefits. I was miserable and pissed. Where did I go wrong? How did I end up here? This was not what I envisioned after graduation.
About a year later, I did the logical thing and went to grad school. I got my PhD in the same field and just loved it. Ended up doing a post doc in my field and thatβs when I realized I was miserable doing this outside of a school setting. I loved learning. I loved reading. I loved being challenged but to do wet bench research my entire life – ugh. Now I had a decent paycheck (compared to grad school it was huge), but zero life, zero social life, no friends bc my post doc consumed all of my time, to include a lot of my supposed time off.
Finished my post doc and ended up in the same position – employed. No one wanted to hire me. Again.
I decided – fuck this academia research lie and I did massive research into other fields. What can I do? How can I use this insanely highly technical PhD so I can eat and put a roof over my head?!?
I then found the world of PMIβs project management.
I am now a program manager at a very large lab (thousands of employees). I freaking LOVE it. I am immersed in the science world daily, but donβt have to do any of the experiments! I listen to lectures a lot as I can show up to many of the talks, seminars, etc. as part of my job. We help scientists get funded for research in the lab I work for. I am involved in managing a βsmallβ portfolio of my own that comprises of hundreds of projects, collectively. Honestly, this is it – I have found my calling and my love for science, all in one.
Took some trial and error and about a decade, and many scary moments (I.e., unemployed not knowing how I would pay the bills) – but I believe this is where I will hang my hat until I retire.
Iβve been particularly miffed with the whole research academic setting – so little pay with so many hours of work demanded while you work multiple projects at times. Iβve recently been thinking about writing about this toxicity. Yes, Iβm a bit bitter bc these programs refuse to teach what other things you can do with your education outside of academia. But, thatβs another post for another day.
Op, youβre still super young. Go explore whatβs out there. Itβs OK to not know and itβs ok to test different fields. Itβs ok to not have such a linear path to get to where you wanna go. Trust me.
Good luck! π
I got my Bachelors and Masters in Architecture. Got to my final year to realise that it wasn’t something I wanted to do anymore. It was a mixture my teachers having a differing philosophy towards architecture than myself that put me off the industry entirely coupled with the idea that I would likely have little creative input on projects for a decent amount of time once I had earned my stripes so to speak.
In my final year, I did an elective class that was focused on 3D and Animation related to architecture. I fell in love with the class and put all of my effort into it which landed me an offer by the tutor to come work at his archvis studio. I got to be creative from the start and loved every minute of it. This led me to a career in advertising and motion design, where I am currently at a Creative Director level. I get to work on household brands – making cool shit for them that will be seen by tens of millions of people. If i ever get sick of it, or AI somehow diminishes the need for motion design, I will take my skills and focus them into some other creative field.
The biggest realisation I had a couple of years out of university was that I was into creating animations, messing around in Photoshop and creating short films from when I was a kid. It wasn’t the architecture, or the motion design, or the short films that were my passion, it was being able to use my imagination – and that got me into all of this in the first place.
What got you into International relations? What was the thing about that course that excited you and how can you trace that back to the original sparks of why you made that decision? You might find the skills you have developed are useful in a wildly different field.
I graduated with an Econ degree. I did that so that my helicopter mom, who constantly berated me, stopped bothering me. She’s also an extreme stage mom, and it was so hard to focus on my studies and do what I actually am proud of and liked. Economics was the easiest degree. Due to that, I somehow already earned the pre-requisites, and the program has a lesser load than microbiology (was already frustrated that my mom controls too much of my schooling at the same time have no idea how it works).
She finally stopped with her stage mom actions cuz she fulfilled her duty about me. I decided to go back to school in a community college and finish Medical Lab. I regret finishing my 4 year degree because I dont qualify for pell grant anymore for a 2 year degree. Have to pay out of pocket. Had a bunch of internships and now I have a job.