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I can't seem to make up my mind on whether or not I should try to find a job or if I should go back to school and get another degree. What do you suggest? I graduated last year with a B.S. degree in a crap field and although I found a job overseas for a short period of time, my job did not work out and I ended up resigning. Now I am deciding whether or not I should just try to find a job or if I should go back to school.
When I look back at my life so far, I have always had a hard time try to make a decision. No matter what I do, I can't seem to figure out what I should do. I have tried writing down the pros and cons and other stuff like that on paper but it doesn't help. I am starting to think I have some type of pyschological problem.
Does anyone on here ever have a problem making a decision? If so, what do you do to "make up your mind"?
I would just go out and start earning a living .Start out with a list a of
jobs you might be qualified for and put in for them .After you land a job and still want to go back to school go for it .Use that degree even it ends up not being something you studied for .
Don't go back to school unless you know what you want to do and it requires a new degree. Otherwise, you will be wasting your money. I went to grad school right after undergrad and regret it (aside from the fact that I went to school abroad and got to live in another country for a few years). Now that I've been out of school and working for a few years, I actually have a much better sense of what I want to do.
Just get a job to pay the bills and pay attention to what sort of things you like to do. You don't have to work there forever, just long enough to get financially stable.
I have a B.S. in Criminal Justice but I don't really want to be a cop or work in the criminal justice system. While I was in college, I wanted to work in law enforcement, but it seems like after I finished school I lost interest in that career field. Most of the jobs in criminal justice are low pay, high stress, and have a high turnover. Also, the hiring process for a lot of jobs in criminal justice is very lengthy. For some jobs it can take as long as one to two years to get hired. Criminal justice is also a very competitive career field and it is one of those fields where you can be in the hiring process for a job and at the last moment you get the "thin letter".
To tell you the truth, I don't know what I want do in life. I have applied for a few security type jobs and one job may be calling soon, but I doubt I want to do that kind of work for the rest of my life. I wish I could find some type of job that would help me figure out what I want to do in life.
Some of you may suggest the military, but I have already served in the military for four years and I don't think the military is for me.
The only thing that really interests me is the Chinese language, world events, and world traveling. Some of you might say that I should major in Chinese or international affairs, but the problem with that is trying to find a job. Even if I major in Chinese, I doubt I will be proficient enough to land a linguist, translator, or fluency gig.
If I major in international affairs, I will be stuck looking for some BS job because most of the people working in that field have master's degrees and PhDs with extensive work experience.
I also don't want to teach English abroad. I don't like teaching and I don't think I would be happy sitting in a classroom with a bunch of kids.
Oh by the way, if I did go back to school I would be using my Post 9/11 GI Bill which will cover four years of tuition at a public university and it will also give me a housing allowance. Some of you may say, "I would jump on that in a heartbeat," but I don't want to end up wasting my GI Bill; I want to make sure I am going to use it wisely and I want to ensure that I get a return on the time and energy I put into that investment.
Don't go back to school, at least not yet. It sounds like you'd be setting yourself up to waste your time and your access to the GI Bill benefits.
Are you sure you don't want to give teaching English abroad (in China, maybe) a shot, at least temporarily? You probably will end up having to take a job you don't love anyway (since that's what many people have to do) and you might as well do it in another country and have an adventure while you figure out what you like and don't like. I have a relative who did that; she was able to do a lot of traveling while living there, met a lot of interesting people, and managed to work it into an international affairs-related job once she got back to the USA, despite not having an advanced degree.
I've been lucky that all of my permanent "real" jobs have been related to what I've wanted to do, but in between looking for work (we've relocated several times for various reasons) I've worked at temp jobs, and while those jobs weren't what I wanted to do in life they also provided a nice opportunity to just have a job, not a career (in other words, leave the work at work). I met new people, got a chance to do some stuff I wouldn't have done otherwise, learn a little about a different field, and have time to think about what I liked and didn't like in a job.
In any case, I wouldn't go to school until you know what you want to do, or at least have some better sense of the direction you want to explore. I think your concerns about wasting your GI bill and time and energy are right on. No sense in rushing it.
If you have the cash, I would apply to graduate schools. Now is an excellent time to go back to school, as jobs are hard to find. If you do find a job, you could also enroll in grad school part-time so that you're job really is a temporary gig that will eventually lead to something that you actually want to do.
I agree that majoring in Chinese may not be a wise decision; you are absolutely correct that fluency--rather than a degree--is essential. However, I think that pursuing a graduate degree in International Affairs--perhaps with an emphasis on China--might be worth looking into.
I also empathize with you re: teaching abroad. Many people have suggested the same to me and I think that it is ridiculous to suggest to anyone who hasn't majored in English. If I wanted to teach English, abroad or in the U.S., then I would have majored in it. Moreover, you already know that you don't want to teach so I wouldn't venture down that path.
Look into graduate programs while looking for a job. With any luck, you may end up with both.
Peace Corps? It would give you some time to figure out the rest of your life, and looks hella good on a resume down the road if you're wanting to work internationally down the road. It could also give you some exposure to the big NGO players who do all kinds of things in different corners of the world.
It's so very common for your first couple of jobs after graduation to stink. I know very few people who made it to two years in their first job. Many, if not most of my friends, barely made it one year. If you look at descriptions for most advertised jobs, the problem makes sense: positions that seem entry-level in their description "require" several years of on-the-job experience. The only solution is to go out and get that experience. Getting another degree often will not frog-jump you past those sometimes crummy entry-level years.
Do not worry about your major. If you want to work in the business world, your undergraduate degree has little to no bearing on how employable you are. I know a U.S. history major who worked for six years in research and marketing before getting her MBA and I know a economics and Norwegian studies major who runs alumni relations for an independent high school. A friend of mine who was a psychology major is now an accomplished institutional software salesman. The only people I know who are doing something related to their undergraduate degrees are those who majored in business. Yet, there are exceptions. (I have a business degree and now I teach.)
You are right not to want to waste the opportunity to go back to school. The only way to know what you want to do is to go out and get some life experience. Be sure that some of that experience is outside the office; that's just as important to establishing your adult identity and interests as a job is.
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