05.08.06
Confession Time
My last two posts on being overeducated and under employed and having reached a financial goal of making $40k a year seems to have touched a nerve for some people.
OK. Confession time, all you thirty and fortysomethings. Do at least three of the following apply to you?
Are you:
- college educated?
- hold a graduate or professional degree?
- make less money than you anticipated?
- working in a job where you're a) overqualified, b) doesn't require a degree and c) is not even remotely related to what you studied for in college?
The second part of the confession is how you feel about it. Are you happy? Or do you feel like a loser?
For myself, I can say I am happily guilty on all counts. And unlike the writer in the Guardian article on the experiences of underemployed Gen Xer's in Britain, I don't feel like my time and talent is being wasted.
But it wasn't always that way. I graduated from a small public liberal arts college and went straight to an Ivy League University for graduate school, where I earned a professional degree. When people find out my education background, the immediate question is some variation of "What is a smart woman like you, doing in a job like this?" For a long time, I didn't know what to say.
Next Time: How to be a Healthy, Happy, Well Rounded Underachiever.
Medicated Money said,
May 8, 2006 at 4:21 pm
This is a very interesting post. We can say the first two of the four applies to us.
I would ask the same question as many of your fellow questioners! Did you know while in school that you had no interest in the career you were pursuing or did it occur after some years in the field?
We know of a few friends who spent much time and money in school only to decide that they wanted to do something completely different shortly before finishing? Then again, we have a friend who continues to be in a field in which he absolutely hates because of his degree and financial benefits/downsides it brings. When he gets a little bit of a cushion, he jokes that he is going to be out of it completely and do something completely different. He just doesn’t know what yet!
- Sam said,
May 9, 2006 at 3:51 pm
Did you know while in school that you had no interest in the career you were pursuing or did it occur after some years in the field?
Lord. I had no CLUE. I’m still glad I went to college — it’s value is more than monetary. And as a credential, it’s necessary if you don’t want to relegated to certain types of jobs.
Your friend’s very wise to realize the career he trained for is not a good fit. You have no idea how many people hang on, thinking that things will change and get better.