# Throwing Away My Degree?



## Devin87 (May 15, 2011)

So I graduated with a Bachelors in Elementary Education in 2009. I spent a year searching for a job and substitute teaching before joining AmeriCorps and teaching on the Navajo Reservation for two years. My two years of service are up and now I'm doing the searching for a job thing again. I know I'm a good teacher. I'm not really passionate about helping kids--I don't have that do-gooder "kids are our future" attitude a lot of people think of when they think of teachers-- but I am passionate about learning and being excited about learning. I think when I was teaching I was more concerned with me doing fun and creative things than with the kids-- but the effect was always that they would be inspired and excited with the learning as well. When they were having fun, I was having fun. When they succeeded, I felt like I succeeded. I was much more selfish in my reasons, but I still wound up being one of the best teachers in the school because of that drive. 

The first problem is there just aren't that many classroom teaching jobs out there and there are too many people applying for the ones that do exist. The second problem is I just don't have the motivation to apply for a teaching job. I sort of fell in love with my summer job being in lower management at an amusement park. If that job were year round, I'd do it for the rest of my life. I loved coming up with the daily plan and carrying it out. I loved driving my people to be better and teaching them how and seeing kids (and by kids I mean my employees who are almost all in the 16-21-year-old range) go from being terrified to interact with people and touch the rides at the beginning of the summer to being guest service all stars who own at operating their rides by the end of the summer. I loved the pressure and the quick-on-your-feet problem solving. I even loved the fact that the upper management wouldn't hesitate to rip you a new one if you messed up (and trust me, I got more than my fair share of reamings this summer). I just loved the whole environment. 

Now that the season's ended and I don't think my attempts to get a full time position by coming up with an awesome idea for an educational outreach program are going to work, I've been looking for something similar. And right now that means I've been applying for shift manager positions in fast food restaurants. And needless to say, my mother isn't too happy. She keeps pushing me to apply for daycare and teacher assistant jobs and I just really don't have the motivation to go into that. Am I wrong? I feel a little guilty throwing away four years of college and two years teaching experience in the hopes of being a manager at Burger King or something, but that's what I'm motivated to do right now. Maybe it's an ENTP thing. Do you guys think it's really bad?


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## fihe (Aug 30, 2012)

I feel the same way as you. I just graduated with a certificate to teach social studies, but now I'm not sure if I want to be a teacher after all. not only has my experience in schools so far kinda turned me off to it (discipline problems, standardized tests, POLITICS, etc.), but I've applied to about 30 districts and only one bothered to reply saying that I wasn't chosen. They also said that over 300 people had applied  I've been looking elsewhere, and applied for a job as a bank teller and got an interview, but wasn't hired. now I'm trying for other jobs, but at this point I'm feeling pretty unemployable. my parents aren't happy that I've stopped looking at teaching jobs, but I really don't think I could get hired as one anyway. it's also pretty difficult to find entry-level jobs, besides internships.

I wouldn't say you're wrong, just as long as you get a job that makes you happy, and is secure and pays the bills!


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## nordlund63 (Jul 24, 2012)

Man, being a teacher sounds hard.


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## fihe (Aug 30, 2012)

nordlund63 said:


> Man, being a teacher sounds hard.


yes, they have to do a lot of work on their own time, plus face problems when school budgets are cut. lack of money means fewer materials and funding for programs in schools, and could also lead to layoffs.


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## StElmosDream (May 26, 2012)

From what I hear more 1-1 jobs benefit for teaching certificates such as mentoring, study coaching, outreach programs, teaching as a foreign language, tutoring, special education needs, coaching people into employment etc.

I'm having the same problem, don't want to teach directly as a qualification but I do like empowering, educating and encouraging others with natural problem solving abilities (more so for those with learning challenges than 'neurotypicals').


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## Death Persuades (Feb 17, 2012)

Do not go into the fast food business x( it makes me want to jump off a building with a thin metal wire around my neck.


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## Plaxico (Dec 11, 2010)

What about a job working with kids? For example a youth program at a gym or a non-profit. I know a few friends who don't have elementary education degree who work full-time with kids with autism. Maybe try one of those? If these aren't your long-term goals then this experience would still be helpful and looks pretty good on a resume.


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## Philosophaser Song Boy (Jan 16, 2011)

Much of my family have been educators, and I must say, schools always need teachers.

Other than that, I feel like any other degree is throwing itself away. You could be like me, just graduated, and employers are requesting a minimum of 5 years professional, applied experience for an entry-level job. Maybe if I just spent less time studying the information and tools necessary for me to do a job correctly and without losing the employer money, and more time convincing a reputable source to bullshit information about me towards potential employers, I would have been better off.


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## fihe (Aug 30, 2012)

Premium G said:


> Much of my family have been educators, and I must say, schools always need teachers.
> 
> Other than that, I feel like any other degree is throwing itself away. You could be like me, just graduated, and employers are requesting a minimum of 5 years professional, applied experience for an entry-level job. Maybe if I just spent less time studying the information and tools necessary for me to do a job correctly and without losing the employer money, and more time convincing a reputable source to bullshit information about me towards potential employers, I would have been better off.


ugh, I don't understand how one is expected to have 3-5 years experience for an entry-level job. first of all, it's called "entry-level" for a reason; secondly, even if a student did an internship, very few would have 3-5 years of experience. I feel like without an internship (a.k.a. slavery), chances of getting into a specific field are slim to none. I really hope I'm wrong about that.


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## Devin87 (May 15, 2011)

fihe said:


> ugh, I don't understand how one is expected to have 3-5 years experience for an entry-level job. first of all, it's called "entry-level" for a reason; secondly, even if a student did an internship, very few would have 3-5 years of experience. I feel like without an internship (a.k.a. slavery), chances of getting into a specific field are slim to none. I really hope I'm wrong about that.


Yup. I moved out to the middle of the desert for two years to get a teaching job that would hire me with no full time experience (I had over a year substituting, but that doesn't count). Of course, now I only have two years experience while most places want three. And all the internships and practicums and tutoring I did in college don't count, either, because they're just expected and don't count towards the years of teaching experience employers want.

We need to stop telling everyone to go to college. Although I love the knowledge of myself and the world I gained through my college education, if everyone gets a college degree, they cease to be worth anything. It seems like everyone's getting one now. My mother has a Bachelor's Degree and she can barely write a coherent paragraph. We need to go back to having just the top performers go to college and steer everyone else to good solid jobs that require technical schooling or even just on the job training. Not everyone should be going to college. It's not the magic "happy life" pill they worked so hard to sell us all through elementary, middle and high school and then still made it out to be while we were actually in college.

Everyone seems to think I'm crazy for saying I'm more satisfied with my work and more fulfilled by my summer job in lower management at an amusement park than I was with my work as a volunteer missionary teacher helping poor Navajo kids on the reservation. You'd think that'd be the epitome of fulfilling work, but I find successfully managing a hectic shift to be so much more satisfying. I feel like I'm throwing away all the money I've paid and still have to pay on my college loans (I don't think the education itself was a waste-- I love learning for learning's sake), but so far I'm just so much happier with my low-level, 60-hour-a-week summer job. If it were full time I'd do it the rest of my life.


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## CoopV (Nov 6, 2011)

For what it's worth I feel ya. There are no jobs and there jobs there are suck. So I have a crappy job for now and was forced to move out from my mothers apartment because she got rid of it because she can't afford it lol

Anyways I'm not sure what to say really since I'm in your boat. I studied one thing and then wasn't sure I wanted to do that anymore and then considered a bunch of careers only to find I couldn't get a foot in the door for any of them and now voilaaa I have a bottom of the totem pole poopy job!

Us recent graduates should all just get together and go get high in our own little Woodstock since there are no doors to open for us at the moment. Just kidding hehe


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## Philosophaser Song Boy (Jan 16, 2011)

I studied Food Science, and ever since I got this one opportunity for an interview, I am striving for nothing less than an Artisan Cheese-maker...

Don't let the government fuck you up. Try to get a job you want, that you really want to do, or be passionately vocal about giving up your attempt to find employment. Let's fuck the economy up together. Start a real revolution.


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## Palaver (Jan 5, 2010)

Devin87 said:


> We need to stop telling everyone to go to college. Although I love the knowledge of myself and the world I gained through my college education, if everyone gets a college degree, they cease to be worth anything. It seems like everyone's getting one now.


Please, stop perpetuating this myth. The educational attainment rate of young people (18 to 28) today isn't very different from previous generations. A 5% added for young women and 2% added for young men compared to the previous generation. Not everyone is "getting one". The statistics are available on the Pew Research Center: Millennials: A Portrait of Generation Next ? Pew Research Center Really, if we believe in progress and economic mobility, increasing rates of educational attainment shouldn't appear shocking.

Maybe older people are going back to school and getting degrees. Good for them, but don't perpetuate the myth that young people are doing something radical or selfish at their age. Other generations have improved their educational attainment without "breaking the system". What has has become radical or unsustainable is the way we debt finance (monetize) education. If a country also went into debt trying to feed itself, should they ask their people to stop eating? No, in the same way you don't fix education by eliminating education. This is food for the brain and the machinery of a functioning democracy. A citizen's worth is beyond economics or we've gone back to feudalism, where large classes of people were owned and a small percent were entitled to their labor.

IMO, don't let the economic, financial, political, and social incompetence of the previous generations make you shoulder the blame for any of today's problems. The worst thing you can do to reform a system is for the least responsible to accept responsibility or to conflate one problem with another. Don't throw away education. You can't really do that. What you are really doing is discounting yourself. Same package, lower expectations, lower price, lower participation.

What the situation really demands is that you throw away society, something more befitting your age. If you are worried about upsetting the status quo, previous generations have done it. It's a coming of age ceremony, to prove to your elders that you are worthy of your birthright. These are your formative years and will determine how you will structure society once everyone above you has died off. A few years in college won't hold a flame to your accumulated years of experience. What would your future self say to you?


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## fihe (Aug 30, 2012)

@Palaver, are you from the United States? just wondering.

I think the problem is not so much that everyone has a degree, it's that there are too many qualified people for too few jobs available. as much as I hate it when employers demand 3-5 years experience for someone with a bachelor's degree for an entry-level job opening, they have the power to request that because they will most likely find someone with such qualifications, and they are in fact trying to make their pool of applicants manageably small.


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## StElmosDream (May 26, 2012)

Something I've found that the UK is missing compared to the US (in University terms) is lack of 'try before you buy' experience, when I got to the end of 2 of 3 years Computer Science course and wished to change to Psychology (in the ideal world) but couldn't because UK government student loans would not cover a 5th year to start from 1 Psychology then do the remaining 2 years... not sure why I'm 'sharing' this, maybe its not just job issues but desirable careers when many either need experience or 'paper proof' of competency.


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## Palaver (Jan 5, 2010)

fihe said:


> @_Palaver_, are you from the United States? just wondering.
> 
> I think the problem is not so much that everyone has a degree, it's that there are too many qualified people for too few jobs available. as much as I hate it when employers demand 3-5 years experience for someone with a bachelor's degree for an entry-level job opening, they have the power to request that because they will most likely find someone with such qualifications, and they are in fact trying to make their pool of applicants manageably small.


Yes, I'm mostly from the US.

And I don't agree with the way in which you frame the problem. The way in which you frame the problem determines the solution. Labor problems have labor solutions. Is this just a labor problem? You shouldn't stop at your analysis. How is labor connected to other economic, social, and political forces?

As for the phenomenon you are describing with unrealistic job descriptions, those companies are hiring to "expand" in a traditional sense, they are hiring to "steal" talent in a competitive sense. Peter Capelli, Professor of Management at The Wharton School, accurately (and radically) characterizes the current state of unemployment and under employment as a management problem, not a labor problem: Why Companies Can't Find the Employees They Need - WSJ.com


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## fihe (Aug 30, 2012)

@Palaver, thanks for the great article! I hardly ever see any open positions for management trainees, only for managers. but those positions are only open to people with previous experience. if no companies are willing to train anyone, then in 20 years the United States is gonna be in a piss-poor situation after older people retire or die out, because no one ever acquired the skills necessary to do certain jobs because no one ever offered any training.

I also found it very interesting how on the list of jobs hardest to fill in 2011, teachers ranked as #8. I just obtained my teacher certification a few months ago when I graduated college, and I applied to about 30 districts and only got a reply from one, and that was to say no. I see that #9 is secretaries/administrative assistants, which I have been trying to get a job in lately. although I've had no formal work experience in this field, I held several executive board positions in my sorority's chapter that helped me acquire all kinds of skills that I could use as an administrative assistant.


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## tanstaafl28 (Sep 10, 2012)

I have a teaching degree I'm not using. Taught for two years and fell into something else that paid better.


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## machood (Sep 28, 2012)

Palaver said:


> What the situation really demands is that you throw away society, something more befitting your age. If you are worried about upsetting the status quo, previous generations have done it. It's a coming of age ceremony, to prove to your elders that you are worthy of your birthright. These are your formative years and will determine how you will structure society once everyone above you has died off. A few years in college won't hold a flame to your accumulated years of experience. What would your future self say to you?


I have to agree with this, though I understand just as much how college isn't a wise investment for everyone! In my experience, people are going back to college in droves for the tax breaks. College loans can pay off high-interest debt or get someone by for another year while under-employed. What else can people do when they hit the job market and find no one interested in paying them a livable wage?

I recommend starting your own small business, homesteading, work somewhere you love to and try to simplify your life enough that you aren't living paycheck to paycheck. I know those things are easier said than done, but start now on the path to something fulfilling instead of waiting for that chance job to come along. Live your dream, if you can. Try to find a way to make some money doing something you're naturally talented at. Keep applying for those jobs if you want, but don't put the brakes on your life's development.


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## Cover3 (Feb 2, 2011)

machood said:


> I have to agree with this, though I understand just as much how college isn't a wise investment for everyone! In my experience, people are going back to college in droves for the tax breaks. College loans can pay off high-interest debt or get someone by for another year while under-employed. What else can people do when they hit the job market and find no one interested in paying them a livable wage?
> 
> *I recommend starting your own small business, homesteading,* work somewhere you love to and try to simplify your life enough that you aren't living paycheck to paycheck. I know those things are easier said than done, but start now on the path to something fulfilling instead of waiting for that chance job to come along. Live your dream, if you can. Try to find a way to make some money doing something you're naturally talented at. Keep applying for those jobs if you want, but don't put the brakes on your life's development.


The thing is this wonderful activity isn't heavily subsidized, whereas a social science or art degrees course is.


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## fihe (Aug 30, 2012)

sometimes I think of starting my own business, but for now I just occasionally sell and trade items online. if I can ever save enough money, I'd love to invest it. but for now, all my extra money is going towards my student loan.


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## koalaroo (Nov 25, 2011)

I've spent some of my time crafting random stuff for buyers on Etsy. I don't consider it a job, and I don't consider it useful employment of my time, but it did give me extra spending cash when I wanted something nice while finishing school. I have no qualms using my trust funds to fund education (I am legally bound to use them for education, starting a business or a down payment on a house), but I was not going to use them to buy the nice work clothes that I needed for my internships, and I don't really like asking my parents for money.

That aside, there are many fields that you cannot go into without at least a bachelor's degree. For instance, in healthcare, new associate degree nursing graduates are starting to be turned down in favor of nursing graduates with a BSN. This has been an ongoing trend, but many hospitals (especially research hospitals) will no longer hire new ADN graduates. They will, however, advertise positions targeting new BSN graduates. Part of this has been a push from the certifying agency. _Another part is because there is no actual nursing shortage and there probably won't be one if the economy remains stagnant_. For advanced practice nursing, the initiative by certifying agencies is to have only DNP (doctorate of nursing practice) studies offered for advanced practice nursing by the year 2015.

In short, while what I explained was merely a problem in healthcare, I do expect that some fields other than healthcare will see this kind of specialization requiring a bachelor's degree or better for an applicant to be considered viable.


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## machood (Sep 28, 2012)

That's true, but there's no necessity for outside aid to do these things.

In my region, a college degree of any kind can usually get you a job with a corporate chain in sales. They want to train you their way so there's little experience if any required. It can be a good paycheck at least.


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