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I discovered I hate EET yet I love geography and history, and I have figured I need to go to college if I want to make more than a menial living.
Will having a 2 or 4 year degree in a subject like linguistics help me even if I am not able to get a job relevant to my field?
100% no....
If you fail to learn a useful trade in college, your basically asking the employee to train you in one since there is no "smart guy with good schooling" job unless they suck.....office manager, secretary, etc.
As a former ESL teacher, don't do linguistics unless you want to be a academic....if languages and money is your thing I have met guys making good money combining linguistics with computer programing. Granted, without the computer programing, they'd be flipping burgers.
Combined with an ESL background, it might boost your pay.
I think having any 4-year college degree will make you more marketable, regardless of what the degree is in. A lot of companies will use a Bachelor's degree as a minimum requirement to screen and weed out resumes, so the fact that you'd have one would ensure you're still considered for many positions.
Honestly, college is about learning how to learn, and many people work outside the field they studied in college. Most jobs will "train" you to do the job, provided you're a reasonably smart person. Obviously there are highly specialized fields that are an exception to this, but there are also plenty of positions that aren't as specialized.
Either way, the degree can ONLY help you. If you end up needing to find a job outside that field of study, just use common sense. Look at other job openings available and the skills they list. Think about your time in school and see how some of the skills you've gained can be spun to fit a specific job posting or translate to something that might be beneficial in a specific job and then sell yourself based on those skills.
Also, just networking and letting people know what your background is and asking if they can refer you to specific jobs will help you immensely. That gives you instant credibility, then you can sell yourself from there.
I think having any 4-year college degree will make you more marketable, regardless of what the degree is in. A lot of companies will use a Bachelor's degree as a minimum requirement to screen and weed out resumes, so the fact that you'd have one would ensure you're still considered for many positions.
Honestly, college is about learning how to learn, and many people work outside the field they studied in college. Most jobs will "train" you to do the job, provided you're a reasonably smart person. Obviously there are highly specialized fields that are an exception to this, but there are also plenty of positions that aren't as specialized.
The problem is unlike college, you don't get a choice in what you get trained as. I lucked out into I.T. so I get to go down that route which I like.
I could have just as well ended up being phone sales like alot of psych majors if my boss decided it. One family member with connections almost got me a job managing truckers....required a degree but it wasn't to everyone's taste. Spent 5 more months job searching because I didn't get that role
Non-specialized positions tend to have iffy long term prospects. My last work place had a few people like that....they were considered very loyal, hard working, office/manager type roles with 3-5 yrs. work exp. Took me roughly 8 months of working in a specialized role to get $10-15k higher than all of them in another company.
Study Math, Accounting, Engineering, or Computer Science. If you aren't cut out for it than maybe college isn't for you? There is nothing wrong with learning a trade or doing some good honest work in retail, food service, etc.
Linguistics is not the study/learning of a lot of languages "fluently." It is the study OF languages, how they work, how they developed, how they are related, parsing meaning, how various language families are structured, etc. It is possible to acquire a degree in linguistics and never learn to communicate competently in foreign languages. Linguistics majors learn ABOUT languages; they do not necessarily learn languages.
As a linguistics minor, I tried many times to explain this to friends/relatives/acquaintances. I think only about 5% "got it." I like to say that speaking languages is like being an athlete, while studying linguistics is like studying kinesiology. Someone could be a great athlete and know nothing about kinesiology, and someone could have a PHD in kinesiology and be terrible at sports. Same holds for languages/linguistics.
Unless you think $40K per year is a good salary, speech therapists need a masters degree these days if they're just starting out, to have a chance at a good-paying job. The OP is talking about getting a two or four year degree.
You can make a good living with a geography degree if you concentrate on geographic information systems. If you learn a foreign language that the federal government needs, then you might be able to land a federal job.
I discovered I hate EET yet I love geography and history, and I have figured I need to go to college if I want to make more than a menial living.
Will having a 2 or 4 year degree in a subject like linguistics help me even if I am not able to get a job relevant to my field?
Have you thought about the military or the Government? operationally speaking, there is what's called, the five operating rims of the world, two / three languages are a requirement in the US Special Force (Green Berets) and the (CAG) Combat Applications Group, tier 1 Delta. The Department Of State and other agencies can not only use your education but more importantly use you're skill set.
And the private sector is always looking for people who can speak multi languages with English being the primary language in hospitality, pharmaceuticals giants and various other well paying fields.
Probably Electrical Engineering Technology. A subset of Electrical Engineering, that generally focuses on practical application rather than theory and is generally less rigorous...the closest similar example I can think of is someone majoring in Information Systems rather than Computer Science.
Last edited by GeorgiaTransplant; 01-13-2014 at 08:14 AM..
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