If you know me at all, you know I have an unhealthy obsession with planning, especially when it comes to the future.
Unfortunately for me I tend to change my future plans at least once a week. So for someone who is obsessed with planning, being indecisive can be frustrating.
But lately my worry for the future has been about career prospects. I know this is probably a common thought for many 20-30 year olds, but honestly the more I think about it, the more I feel like its impossible to really get anywhere nowadays.
First I was always told go to university. When I was younger, university was this thing that I seriously thought only rich kids and smart kids got to go to. I really had no concept of the idea of loans or that as long as you had a pretty decent average, you could get in. It didn't really matter as my highschool grades in my final year were atrocious (there were reasons) and I wouldn't have gotten into uni anyway, but I kind of wish I had gotten out of that mentality of university being this sacred thing and maybe I wouldn't be 28 years old and only in my 3rd year of undergrad. But I digress.
Anyway, so university was always held up as this awesome accomplishment. And yes, education wise its pretty cool to say you have a degree. But in the real world, unless you are going into something involving medicine, law, engineering, business and maybe a select few other disciplines, an undergrad university degree really seems to mean squat.
I am talking about my own experiences FYI. Almost all my friends currently hold degrees in various fields. All of them are smart, creative and hard working people. Guess where most of them work? Starbucks or some other retail job. Its not because they are not motivated either, I see them applying for jobs and trying so very hard to get a career in anything, not even just the field they studied (because finding a job in the arts is extremely difficult). I see them frustrated and discouraged on a daily basis unable to find anything. Its scary, espeically as someone currently going through what they've already finished. I really question myself "is this huge amount of debt I am going to have worth it?" Sadly, I don't think it is. BUT I have no other option, because undergrad is the new highschool diploma, and if you don't have post secondary education, you might as well make Starbucks or McDonalds your career. Because you can climb the ladder quite easily without education at those jobs, but customer service is not something I can do for the rest of my life.
Before I went to university though, I did a year of college for an entirely different thing then I am studying now. I thought college was a lot more practical than uni. It teaches you hands on stuff, real world applications whereas uni is a lot of theory. Plus college is a LOT cheaper. I discovered after a year though, that I was not into the program I was studying at all and decided to drop out insted of wasting more time/money. Well guess where a good chunk of the college grads from my program are? UNIVERSITY. So in the end they just went where I was going to end up going anyway. Now I know a couple of them do have jobs in their field which is actually pretty awesome, but most of them just went on to do university after college.
Ok so its been established that you need to have a diploma or a degree. You just have to have one even if you want a slightly better chance. But now everyone has one, so what can you do? Well I guess you can go on and do a Masters. I contemplated Library school for awhile, and its not totally off the board, but as of now I really don't want to spend more time and money on school.
You can try to go straight into the job world, but every single job posting I've read wants "3-5" years of experience or something along those lines. Its the classic Catch 22 situation. I need experience for a job, I can't get hired for a job without experience, therefore I can't gain experience to get a job.
What the hell are people suppose to do??
Networking is probably the best bet. I've known some people who have gotten lucky and found work through friends and their connections. It really seems to be all about the people you know. Even then, its not a gaurantee but that is the most success I've seen so far.
When it comes to me, I honestly still don't know what I will do. I'm damn well finishing university by summer of 2013 come hell or high water. I will not waste anymore time at that establishment. Its honestly a real struggle for me to do this because I don't feel motivated because of all this uncertainty, and money involved. But I know I need to finish, if anything for myself.
After undergrad I've been looking at grad certificates at colleges. I've found a couple that are only about 4 months, and affordable. Mainly I've been looking at Occupational Health and Safety Management. My friends laughed when I told them, but I researched it and apparently job prospects are good (because EVERY company needs one of these) and the pay is decent.
In the end I have no dream job. Even if I did I know it would be something that I could barely make money off of anyway or I would need to do more years of school to get anywhere successful. Unlike most of my friends I don't have that luxery of being young. I have many other things that I want that are more important to me than school.
I just want a career that I don't hate that I can make a decent living wage off of. Thats it.
Hopefully that is not too much to ask.
