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much of the advice you have been given so far is on point, so you must forgive me if I repeat.
At this time I would advise taking the call center job for 2 reasons:
1)You can still apply, make yourself more hirable for the more ideal job after the 9-5, M-F. Just because you "settle" for the call center job does not mean you give up on your dream career.
2) If you are unable to find the dream job (maybe to much competition, to few open positions etc...) you at least set yourself up for a better office job down the road. It is much easier to get out of the "grunt" work office role , when you have experience, references etc...
The only issue I see with that call center job is that if he doesn't find his dream job quickly, then he's kind of screwed. I took a job because I needed a paycheck (manual labor) despite having a Master's degree, and now my resume looks like garbage. I imagine it's hard for employers to take a candidate seriously if they stay at a dead-end, no skills job for more than a couple months.
Hey thanks very much for your response. I wanted to wait until I had more time to reply.
Ill start with the first part...you are right that it matters less in what you do, however, since I just have a BA in History, a lot of my experience either comes from teaching(which I did temporarily) or retail and call centers. I do not really have any "business experience" per se, I worked at a non profit for a bit, but I have yet to find another job in that area as well. At this point, I really do regret my degree. Everyone that has a degree in History is either teaching or working low paying jobs. A few people that I know have had to go back to school to get another degree. I got my MPA, thinking that that would help and it has not yet either, but I will start applying again soon.
As for the Second part, I was told the other day that to get a job in government in my city(that has over a million) I would have to know someone. I don't know if that is just their experience, but I have tried multiple times and it seems that that may be the case. I do like the Neo gov website since you only need to fill in the information once, so I may try that again and see what happens. You are right about the degree situation, but at this point, I really just regret getting my History degree. i wish I would have gotten a degree in Spanish or Political Science as those degrees, while liberal arts, are still seen as having more utility and practicality vs. History. I was looking for a degree in Communications, but to be honest, I am burnt out with school and since I have applied at my school, they have been hounding me to take classes which is kind of a turn off and comes off as desperate, I got two or three calls from them this week. The degree will be more useful I think(BS in Corporate Communications) and I think that will be better than what I have, but I honestly will struggle since I do not have the money and each class is like 740 dollars. I would only need to take 12-13 though.
I know one girl that has a degree in something..either liberal arts or something else..she got her MBA online with Texas A&M Texarkana and now she is a budget analyst for the military...I should technically be able to get the same job with my MPA I think..I might look into that route and see how she did it.
I have a Political Science (2005) degree and a MBA (2010). I worked for a Fortune 500 insurance company for 7 years until I reached my goal of getting a position with local government. I had to apply to several different jobs before I got the position I was after. I knew absolutely no one in local government, but continued to reach out to the HR reps working for the city. It can takes years, but stay persistent.
Like another poster stated, do things outside of work that will feed your passion. I was a homework/after school tutor for the local library system. The library even let me design an after school poetry/history program for youth.
Are you politically active? Many cities actively look for volunteers on election days to help run the poll sites. This is a good opportunity to network with local government.
If there is a museum or historical society in your city, volunteer there and build relationships.
If there is a local tech/ 2 year college, reach out to the institution to see if you can teach a class.
Also, find a young professionals group and get out there and network! In my city we have Newaukee, Fuel, Urban League Young Professionals, NBMBAA, Hispanic Professionals. If you are in a city of one million+ you need to actively seek out some groups to join.
There are so many things you can do. You have to be creative, and really think outside of the box these days.
Stop with taking more classes and/or acquiring more degrees. A BS in communications, Spanish or PoliSci will not do anything for you at this point. And honestly - at least in the business world - all liberal arts degrees are pretty much interchangeable. One is not going to give you an advantage over the other.
You desperately need some real experience, which you will get in the call center. Take that job and stick it out for a while. If you need to feed your passion take some MOOCs, do some volunteer work or freelancing. All three of those will help you build your skill set while you get real experience.
Most degrees don't determine your life, your future unless you want to be a surgeon or do other extremely specialize jobs. Most of the time, it has to do with YOU and what YOU do with and for yourself. You determine the outcome of your life. It's a shame our society are brainwash people to go to college. Get out of college. Go to work. Education is important but there is more than one way to skin a cat. Think outside the box for once.
You have one problem that so many young people have today. You study what you are passionate about, and then complain there are no jobs, or that if you can find a job in the field, that they lowball you on wages and won't pay you what you are worth.
Problem:1 There are only a limited number of jobs in those fields, and too many people took the easy way out and took those degrees, so the competition drives down the wages. There simply are many applicants for every job available, it is almost impossible to get a job in those fields.
Problem:2 Those jobs, are for teachers, etc., and the pay is far lower than it is for the more difficult degrees, with limited number of degree holders. Some degrees will have several offers and near 6 figure incomes.
If you want to be in demand and offered high pay jobs, you need to take the difficult courses that are not fun but required to get the top high pay jobs, and have several to choose from.
Who said that liberal arts degrees are less difficult? Try reading something like Emmanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason or Hegel's Phenomenology of Geist and see how far you can get without going to an online discussion group asking for help.
I have several undergraduate and postgraduate degrees, including a law degree and a business degree. I must say that my Masters thesis for history was one of the hardest things I ever did, it almost killed me reading early modern documents and presenting my findings in a logical and coherent dissertation. My review panel was also the biggest bunch of hard asses out there and my work was sent back to me for corrections twice (and I am usually a high distinction law student!).
Despite my history MA being difficult, it was no the hardest thing I have ever done. The hardest thing I ever did was freshman year Latin. We basically hit the ground running in that class and in only a few weeks were were expected to grasp rather complex grammar and translate big chunks of Cicero into English.
Last edited by robert000; 12-14-2015 at 08:41 AM..
Major in something that you like AND can make a career out of. The majoring in "your true passion" is crap advice spilled by career consultants. Unless you are truly passionate about medicine, accounting and programming you are likely to struggle in getting a job in your field of study.
If I did what the true passion advice I would have majored in sports administration. Where I probably would still be flipping burgers 40 hrs a week.
Who said that liberal arts degrees are less difficult? Try reading something like Emmanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason or Hegel's Phenomenology of Geist and see how far you can get without going to an online discussion group asking for help.
I have several undergraduate and postgraduate degrees, including a law degree and a business degree. I must say that my Masters thesis for history was one of the hardest things I ever did, it almost killed me reading early modern documents and presenting my findings in a logical and coherent dissertation. My review panel was also the biggest bunch of hard asses out there and my work was sent back to me for corrections twice (and I am usually a high distinction law student!).
Despite my history MA being difficult, it was no the hardest thing I have ever done. The hardest thing I ever did was freshman year Latin. We basically hit the ground running in that class and in only a few weeks were were expected to grasp rather complex grammar and translate big chunks of Cicero into English.
I have a PhD in liberal arts, and while it was certainly quite difficult, the difference is that with enough time and perseverance ANY student with average intelligence can do it. No special skills or special knowledge is required. Engineering, on the other hand, is simply not possible for everyone. No matter how hard you try, if you don't "get" math and don't have a good math and technology background, you just won't succeed. Dump a hundred unprepared people into either liberal arts or stem, and many more will succeed in a liberal arts field than in a stem field.
I won't even get into the simple foolishness of wasting years of your life studying something as impractical as philosophy or literature.
You might want to ask yourself what characteristics and functions of a job, as opposed to the job itself, do you find stimulating -- and which "turn you off".
My first "real' job after finishing college involved handling all the minor "in the field" emergencies for a trucking line -- everything from finding someone to fix a flat tire to cleaning up accidents and monitoring foul weather. I never knew what I was going to encounter, but I soon learned how to determine if I'd made the right choice, and how to develop a "standard procedure" for similar problems in the future. I got to be pretty good at it, and the rest of the team acknowledged it.
And unfortunately, 35 years later, I found myself at a not-that-much-different role at another office, but cellular telephones and GPS software had diminished some of the personal skills that used to enhance my knowledge. And the boss was a person with a military bearing who required some sort of "salute" every hour or so. So I was at the bottom of the "pecking order" and every menial, time-consuming job found its way to me.
There was another job as a railroad signalman -- formerly a low-stress, slow-paced role where you had plenty of time to think before making a move. I got the chance at it due to previous exposure through friends. But the place I was recruited for was a very "hot" junction on the Amtrak main line in New Jersey -- since remote-controlled and eliminated. It was a place were you were expected to be perfect, and the only time you were noticed was if you made a mistake.
It was Alexander Pope who said "All our knowledge is ourselves to know"; he knew what he was talking about.
I have a PhD in liberal arts, and while it was certainly quite difficult, the difference is that with enough time and perseverance ANY student with average intelligence can do it. No special skills or special knowledge is required. Engineering, on the other hand, is simply not possible for everyone. No matter how hard you try, if you don't "get" math and don't have a good math and technology background, you just won't succeed. Dump a hundred unprepared people into either liberal arts or stem, and many more will succeed in a liberal arts field than in a stem field.
I won't even get into the simple foolishness of wasting years of your life studying something as impractical as philosophy or literature.
A philosophy degree is only impractical if you want it to be. You can do quite well with philosophy, you just need to get the right contacts, be prepared to travel and have your mind set on a particular niche area.
An old undergraduate friend of mine is actually doing better than me even though he did philosophy, theology and art history. He had his mind set on medieval Catholic philosophy and throughout his studies he worked hard to build up contacts in the academic community and Catholic church. He now has an awesome job in the Vatican doing what he loves to do, getting paid decent money and enjoying benefits such as travel to international functions. He probably also has more job security than I have because he is an expert in his field with contacts around the world, whereas the market is flooded with law and accounting graduates these days.
I actually found my law studies to be easier than liberal arts. Philosophy I found to be particularly difficult. During my law degree I had a subject on the philosophy of law and it almost killed me. I literally busted my brains trying to read Hegel, Kant and the classical German philosophers theories on law and justice (I still do not really understand them even after putting in all that hard work). I have literally paid a German tutor because it was impossible for me to get my head around key concepts without a bit of background in German.
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