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[quote=Anonymous]I think this article was particularly compelling for me as I can really relate to much of what ails the author. I too went to private school, an Ivy caliber college and studied English Literature and chemistry. I was one of the smartest students in class, and and idealist. I left college with a profound sense that I wanted to make the world a better place. I grew up comfortably with my parents providing everything I could dream of, and in my sheltered naivete it never occurred to me to think of logistical matters such as salary, cost of living and earning the UMC existence I grew up in.

A bright eyed dreamer with a big head full of goals and dreams, I joined the well regarded foreign policy world in DC. It was mesmerizing, the ideas, the important people, the inescapable sense that what we talked about in our discussion groups mattered not just in DC but around the world. I was star struck by the smart and famous people who frequented our think tank and the other interns and I spent many a lunch hours dreaming and planning for our bright futures.

After a year of this I realized that none of us were going to get hired. Almost everyone started applying to graduate school or if they already had a graduate degree, they applied elsewhere.

I did not have a trust fund with which to pursue a graduate degree, especially as I realized the jobs those graduates were qualified for would pay 50k to start!

I decided to find fulltime employment without an MA from SAIS or Hopkins and found an entry level program admin job at a nonprofit starting pay of 37k.

Most of my colleagues had MAs or were pursing them. I also noticed all of them came from well off families with their parents or grand parents funding their nice DC apartments, buying them, expensive jackets and paying for further education.

I felt lost and demoralized. The poor pay and lack of advancement affected my mental health and years later, I work as an admin at another non=profit. In hindsight, I am glad I did not go to SAIS and put myself in 200k debt only to qualify for jobs paying 60k.

I feel lost and angry at being so stupid. Most of my cohort are still in non-well paying jobs in the non profit sector and a few got MBAs and joined the corporate sector.

Not having their family money, I feel like I got myself stuck in a dead end route.

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