Anonymous
07/14/2024 13:11
Subject: Re:Recommend A Career/First Job for Me
Anonymous wrote:OP: Your career field is teaching.
OP: your career field is NOT teaching.
Listen to your teacher parents. You do NOT want to go into education. I have been teaching for 20 years and I fully agree with your parents. This job is draining to an extent I can’t even describe anymore, and it gets worse each year. Teachers are miserable and quitting at an alarming rate.
(Warning: DCUMers who have never taught are going to tell you it’s easy and you get summers off. They have no idea how much teachers would trade those summers for better working conditions.)
Anonymous
07/14/2024 13:04
Subject: Re:Recommend A Career/First Job for Me
OP: Your career field is teaching.
Anonymous
07/14/2024 12:10
Subject: Re:Recommend A Career/First Job for Me
I had a very meandering career path and ended up in corporate comms. I'm not saving the world but the money is great, I get to use my skills, I like my coworkers. It helps to actually like and use the product that your company sells (vs. AWS like you said). I have a lot of career mobility to move around to other companies if necessary. It's a nice, solid career path and I recommend you look into it!
Anonymous
07/14/2024 10:01
Subject: Re:Recommend A Career/First Job for Me
Do you dislike sales as you experienced it at amazon only, or do you think you'd dislike all kinds of sales jobs? You indicate you're motivated by a desire for a "lucrative career", and sales is in fact one such potential path to a high income. In other words, how about sales for a different employer, or for a product you find more interesting/valuable/beneficial?
You're really asking about options for people with no prior vocational qualifications or degrees. Many public service jobs involve government-provided training post-hiring. Compensation will include good healthcare and retirement benefits, you'll enjoy job security if you perform reasonably well, and work-life balance is often better than can be found in the private sector.
Examples include roles in the Intelligence Community, in federal, state, or local law enforcement, in the fire and emergency medical services, and in the military.
You're really asking about options for people with no prior vocational qualifications or degrees. Many public service jobs involve government-provided training post-hiring. Compensation will include good healthcare and retirement benefits, you'll enjoy job security if you perform reasonably well, and work-life balance is often better than can be found in the private sector.
Examples include roles in the Intelligence Community, in federal, state, or local law enforcement, in the fire and emergency medical services, and in the military.
Anonymous
07/14/2024 09:08
Subject: Re:Recommend A Career/First Job for Me
Congratulations on your achievements thus far! I’m a Gen-X mom who graduated with a degree in English from a large state university, and wasn’t really sure what I wanted to do upon graduation. I’d also done some health education volunteer work, so I applied to the Peace Corps on a whim and was accepted for an assignment in West Africa. I ultimately ended up with a career in healthcare as a nurse practitioner, something I never could have imagined before that experience. All this to say that I think you should take advantage of these types of opportunities to travel, volunteer, etc. while you’re still a young adult. I’m sure the Peace Corps experience has changed since I was a volunteer 20+ years ago, but it was just such a valuable experience and taught me so much self-reliance. And I commend you on your choice to major in English! I think the ability to read and write clearly is so important and will serve you well in whatever career you choose. Best of luck to you!
Anonymous
07/13/2024 23:44
Subject: Recommend A Career/First Job for Me
Anonymous wrote:Go back to clinical psych. You'll have to stick out some stats in grad school, but thereafter you're free to do what you want. Small.price to pay.
Or, if you are interested in mental health more than academia you could consider a master’s in social work, or possibly school psychology?
Anonymous
07/13/2024 23:24
Subject: Recommend A Career/First Job for Me
Go back to clinical psych. You'll have to stick out some stats in grad school, but thereafter you're free to do what you want. Small.price to pay.
Anonymous
07/13/2024 23:18
Subject: Recommend A Career/First Job for Me
PP. MBA mom. I like the post above about User Experience Research. I have done some Market Research and lite User Experience Research. I was a research assistant for a Cognitive Psychology prof in college. As in OP's case, I decided against pursuing an academic psychology career. But Market Research taps into psychology in a fun, but business-oriented way. Having had Intro Statistics is very helpful and it's better if you have more or can use a statistics software package.
Sometimes Sales and Market Research are connected organizations in a company.
Sometimes Sales and Market Research are connected organizations in a company.
Anonymous
07/13/2024 22:50
Subject: Recommend A Career/First Job for Me
I’m a former English major who now works in tech as a User Experience Researcher. User experience is a field at the intersection of fields like psychology, art, English, computer science, sociology, ergonomics, and more. In the field you do a wide variety of work but it often distills down to evaluating how people use software/hardware/experiences, etc. and identifying improvements to make them easier for people. I got a master’s in the subject but nowadays with your background in psychology you don’t need an advanced degree. you could consider finding an opportunity to do this work on campus and gain experience before you graduate- see if there are any professors doing research on usability, or ethnographic research. You could also pursue an internship in UX Research for an upcoming semester or Summer and then try to parlay that into a job. I work at a large FAANG company and really like it (have been here for over a decade), but there are a wide range of companies out there big and small, that do this work. And I find I use my English major every day- to read for comprehension, write reports, write compelling statements to get buy in from colleagues/ leadership/etc. Overall great pay, great benefits, slightlyyyy worried about what AI will do to the field, but I don’t see the impacts to my field as near term right now and I have built enough financial security in my 10 years in tech that I feel confident if something does happen.
Anonymous
07/13/2024 21:48
Subject: Recommend A Career/First Job for Me
Law school
Anonymous
07/13/2024 21:13
Subject: Recommend A Career/First Job for Me
Hi back! I'm a Gen X mom with an Econ undergrad and an MBA from a top 20 MBA program.
You already seem to be using good judgment and reflection to try different possible paths. That's really great. And you were diligent about pursuing opportunities. Also great. These skills/behaviors will help you.
Poke around Amazon while you are there. See if there are other jobs there that would suit you better. Find some permanent employees to have lunch with and ask them questions.
You got hired for a reason. If your interviewers are still in touch with you, also check in with them. See if they can give you info on what they saw as your strengths. Even if your internship is not perfect, they might still be contacts for you later.
You might consider some of these fields:
Communications
Lobbying/trade asociation work
Advertising
Technical writing
Make sure you stay abreast of developments with AI so that your work is more valuable.
I recommend keeping printouts of job descriptions that look good to you and reviewing these for common threads to understand yourself better.
Also review alumni resumes through LinkedIn and do informational interviews with them. Do create a LinkedIn profile or get more active if you haven't been.
I recommend against Teach for America. Teaching is a valuable job. Not to be done because you don't have a better life plan. I know somebody who left urban teaching for an MBA and now is like a chief of staff for a corporate exec. He seems like a sincere guy in some ways but he left teaching because it's thankless and low paid and I don't think he felt very effective at it.
When I had trouble finding work right out of college during a recession, I got a fed job. I really liked it and my atypical career background helped me get a great scholarship to B-School. I'd look for the newer and more vibrant parts...like this agency.
https://www.usds.gov/
Believe in yourself, find a job you like well enough where you can at least add some value, and plan to switch jobs every 2-3 years to improve your lot in your 20s.
Keep asking questions. This site is full of smart people. Unfortunately it can get a bit nasty but the occasional gold nuggets of insight are worth it.
You already seem to be using good judgment and reflection to try different possible paths. That's really great. And you were diligent about pursuing opportunities. Also great. These skills/behaviors will help you.
Poke around Amazon while you are there. See if there are other jobs there that would suit you better. Find some permanent employees to have lunch with and ask them questions.
You got hired for a reason. If your interviewers are still in touch with you, also check in with them. See if they can give you info on what they saw as your strengths. Even if your internship is not perfect, they might still be contacts for you later.
You might consider some of these fields:
Communications
Lobbying/trade asociation work
Advertising
Technical writing
Make sure you stay abreast of developments with AI so that your work is more valuable.
I recommend keeping printouts of job descriptions that look good to you and reviewing these for common threads to understand yourself better.
Also review alumni resumes through LinkedIn and do informational interviews with them. Do create a LinkedIn profile or get more active if you haven't been.
I recommend against Teach for America. Teaching is a valuable job. Not to be done because you don't have a better life plan. I know somebody who left urban teaching for an MBA and now is like a chief of staff for a corporate exec. He seems like a sincere guy in some ways but he left teaching because it's thankless and low paid and I don't think he felt very effective at it.
When I had trouble finding work right out of college during a recession, I got a fed job. I really liked it and my atypical career background helped me get a great scholarship to B-School. I'd look for the newer and more vibrant parts...like this agency.
https://www.usds.gov/
Believe in yourself, find a job you like well enough where you can at least add some value, and plan to switch jobs every 2-3 years to improve your lot in your 20s.
Keep asking questions. This site is full of smart people. Unfortunately it can get a bit nasty but the occasional gold nuggets of insight are worth it.
Anonymous
07/13/2024 21:01
Subject: Recommend A Career/First Job for Me
Anonymous wrote:Hi all,
I found this website back in March while I was trying to find housing in NoVA for this summer. I'm a rising senior in college who's living in Arlington this summer for an internship at the Amazon office in Crystal City. I applied to this internship in software sales at AWS because it seemed like one of the few ways to leverage a relatively impractical humanities major into a lucrative career. To give some background information about myself:
-I'll be a senior in the fall at a good, but not super selective, liberal arts college (think Haverford or Wesleyan level, not Williams or Pomona)
-Majoring in English and minoring in Creative Writing and Psychology; I don't regret my major/minor choices since reading and writing literature are the biggest loves of my life, but sometimes I wish I chose something more pre-professional since I don't have any generational wealth
-From a very middle class background (both of my parents are teachers); I'm only able to afford attending my school due to a generous merit scholarship, and my parents can't afford to support me financially post-grad (whether that's through paying my rent after graduation or paying for grad school)
-Not a very competitive person; I ran for the varsity cross-country team at my school for my freshman and sophomore years, but I quit after my sophomore year because I wasn't a fan of the intense, competitive environment (even though it was only D3). I play a club sport at my school now and am a lot happier.
-Previous work experience includes an NSF-funded REU in Clinical Psychology (more on this later) and working as a backpacking trip leader at an outdoorsy summer camp (which I adored, but not really something I can make a career out of)
-Not good at math and would dislike a quantitative career
-Not interested in law school (probably stems from my dislike of intense, competitive environments)
I entered college with the hopes of majoring in English and Psychology with the goal of going to graduate school in Clinical Psychology. Everyone kept telling me how competitive graduate admissions is in Clinical Psychology (1% acceptance rates, harder to get into than med school, etc etc). So imagine my surprise when at the end of my sophomore year of college, I was awarded a summer research job (commonly called an REU) funded by the National Science Foundation in Clinical Psychology. The first day of my summer research program, the program director told us that we were one of a dozen students selected out of 300 applications, and that if we were able to get accepted into this competitive program, then we were competitive for grad school in Clinical Psych if we kept working hard and making strategic career moves.
Cue to the end of last summer. I hated my research job, and my entire summer felt pretty bleh. I found the environment of academia to be way too intense and competitive for my tastes, and I learned that I really disliked Clinical Psych research because it was WAY too quantitative for my tastes. I spent the entire summer hunched over my laptop either coding or conducting literature reviews when I was only really interested in Psychology due to its potential in interacting with other humans (in a therapeutic way or not). I decided that I wasn't interested in grad school in Clinical Psych, which started an internal crisis in me. What was I supposed to do, then, as an English major at a strong but relatively obscure SLAC? I had already decided that there was no way in hell I'd go to law school, so I didn't know what I'd do next.
Last fall (the fall of my junior year), I applied to over 100 internships in random fields -- marketing, sales, communications, etc. I somehow managed to land a summer internship in software sales at Amazon Web Services. Before I started my summer internship in tech sales, my advisor, friends, partner, and acquaintances all told me that I would hate tech sales. "It's just not very you," they all told me.
I was determined to prove them wrong, and I suspected that part of their dread for me was based in my progressive SLAC's hatred of Amazon and Corporate America in general. I came into this internship with a positive attitude, but I found that my friends and advisor were right. I really do hate tech sales. I hate staring at a screen all day, and I hate that my only human interaction is centered around something I couldn't care less about (selling software packages and meeting my sales quota).
This website is going to flame me for being a spoiled brat for saying this, but working in tech sales does really feel soul-sucking. I'm definitely an underperformer in my internship cohort, and I doubt that I'll be able to snag a return offer for post-grad. But even if I did magically receive a full-time offer here, I'd be pretty miserable.
Does anyone have any suggestions for potential careers or first jobs out of college for me? I was thinking about maybe applying to Peacecorps/Teach for America/Americorps/Fulbright, although my parents really discourage me from being a teacher (and seeing what their jobs are like post-COVID is really scary). I guess there's always law school, but I think I'd hate being a lawyer.
Or are there really no other options for an English major? TIA.
Please don’t go to law school. You described exactly what I hated about it. You will be miserable.
Have you considered going into recruiting or human resources? Americorps/Peace Corps —> Fed Gov is another route, though I’ve heard Americorps sucks.
Anonymous
07/13/2024 20:55
Subject: Recommend A Career/First Job for Me
I’m a former TFA corps member who went onto law school. TFA is a great option if you can’t imagine doing anything else, and that doesn’t sound like your situation. If you think you’d hate being a lawyer, I would advise against spending any more time considering law school.
If I were in your position, I’d spend more time researching opportunities with Amazon. Corporate trainer? Writer of some kind? I’d also go back to school this fall and take full advantage to the Career Services office.
Good luck, OP!
If I were in your position, I’d spend more time researching opportunities with Amazon. Corporate trainer? Writer of some kind? I’d also go back to school this fall and take full advantage to the Career Services office.
Good luck, OP!
Anonymous
07/13/2024 19:58
Subject: Re:Recommend A Career/First Job for Me
Major props for you posting here and using all the resources you can!
Anonymous
07/13/2024 19:51
Subject: Recommend A Career/First Job for Me
Hi all,
I found this website back in March while I was trying to find housing in NoVA for this summer. I'm a rising senior in college who's living in Arlington this summer for an internship at the Amazon office in Crystal City. I applied to this internship in software sales at AWS because it seemed like one of the few ways to leverage a relatively impractical humanities major into a lucrative career. To give some background information about myself:
-I'll be a senior in the fall at a good, but not super selective, liberal arts college (think Haverford or Wesleyan level, not Williams or Pomona)
-Majoring in English and minoring in Creative Writing and Psychology; I don't regret my major/minor choices since reading and writing literature are the biggest loves of my life, but sometimes I wish I chose something more pre-professional since I don't have any generational wealth
-From a very middle class background (both of my parents are teachers); I'm only able to afford attending my school due to a generous merit scholarship, and my parents can't afford to support me financially post-grad (whether that's through paying my rent after graduation or paying for grad school)
-Not a very competitive person; I ran for the varsity cross-country team at my school for my freshman and sophomore years, but I quit after my sophomore year because I wasn't a fan of the intense, competitive environment (even though it was only D3). I play a club sport at my school now and am a lot happier.
-Previous work experience includes an NSF-funded REU in Clinical Psychology (more on this later) and working as a backpacking trip leader at an outdoorsy summer camp (which I adored, but not really something I can make a career out of)
-Not good at math and would dislike a quantitative career
-Not interested in law school (probably stems from my dislike of intense, competitive environments)
I entered college with the hopes of majoring in English and Psychology with the goal of going to graduate school in Clinical Psychology. Everyone kept telling me how competitive graduate admissions is in Clinical Psychology (1% acceptance rates, harder to get into than med school, etc etc). So imagine my surprise when at the end of my sophomore year of college, I was awarded a summer research job (commonly called an REU) funded by the National Science Foundation in Clinical Psychology. The first day of my summer research program, the program director told us that we were one of a dozen students selected out of 300 applications, and that if we were able to get accepted into this competitive program, then we were competitive for grad school in Clinical Psych if we kept working hard and making strategic career moves.
Cue to the end of last summer. I hated my research job, and my entire summer felt pretty bleh. I found the environment of academia to be way too intense and competitive for my tastes, and I learned that I really disliked Clinical Psych research because it was WAY too quantitative for my tastes. I spent the entire summer hunched over my laptop either coding or conducting literature reviews when I was only really interested in Psychology due to its potential in interacting with other humans (in a therapeutic way or not). I decided that I wasn't interested in grad school in Clinical Psych, which started an internal crisis in me. What was I supposed to do, then, as an English major at a strong but relatively obscure SLAC? I had already decided that there was no way in hell I'd go to law school, so I didn't know what I'd do next.
Last fall (the fall of my junior year), I applied to over 100 internships in random fields -- marketing, sales, communications, etc. I somehow managed to land a summer internship in software sales at Amazon Web Services. Before I started my summer internship in tech sales, my advisor, friends, partner, and acquaintances all told me that I would hate tech sales. "It's just not very you," they all told me.
I was determined to prove them wrong, and I suspected that part of their dread for me was based in my progressive SLAC's hatred of Amazon and Corporate America in general. I came into this internship with a positive attitude, but I found that my friends and advisor were right. I really do hate tech sales. I hate staring at a screen all day, and I hate that my only human interaction is centered around something I couldn't care less about (selling software packages and meeting my sales quota).
This website is going to flame me for being a spoiled brat for saying this, but working in tech sales does really feel soul-sucking. I'm definitely an underperformer in my internship cohort, and I doubt that I'll be able to snag a return offer for post-grad. But even if I did magically receive a full-time offer here, I'd be pretty miserable.
Does anyone have any suggestions for potential careers or first jobs out of college for me? I was thinking about maybe applying to Peacecorps/Teach for America/Americorps/Fulbright, although my parents really discourage me from being a teacher (and seeing what their jobs are like post-COVID is really scary). I guess there's always law school, but I think I'd hate being a lawyer.
Or are there really no other options for an English major? TIA.
I found this website back in March while I was trying to find housing in NoVA for this summer. I'm a rising senior in college who's living in Arlington this summer for an internship at the Amazon office in Crystal City. I applied to this internship in software sales at AWS because it seemed like one of the few ways to leverage a relatively impractical humanities major into a lucrative career. To give some background information about myself:
-I'll be a senior in the fall at a good, but not super selective, liberal arts college (think Haverford or Wesleyan level, not Williams or Pomona)
-Majoring in English and minoring in Creative Writing and Psychology; I don't regret my major/minor choices since reading and writing literature are the biggest loves of my life, but sometimes I wish I chose something more pre-professional since I don't have any generational wealth
-From a very middle class background (both of my parents are teachers); I'm only able to afford attending my school due to a generous merit scholarship, and my parents can't afford to support me financially post-grad (whether that's through paying my rent after graduation or paying for grad school)
-Not a very competitive person; I ran for the varsity cross-country team at my school for my freshman and sophomore years, but I quit after my sophomore year because I wasn't a fan of the intense, competitive environment (even though it was only D3). I play a club sport at my school now and am a lot happier.
-Previous work experience includes an NSF-funded REU in Clinical Psychology (more on this later) and working as a backpacking trip leader at an outdoorsy summer camp (which I adored, but not really something I can make a career out of)
-Not good at math and would dislike a quantitative career
-Not interested in law school (probably stems from my dislike of intense, competitive environments)
I entered college with the hopes of majoring in English and Psychology with the goal of going to graduate school in Clinical Psychology. Everyone kept telling me how competitive graduate admissions is in Clinical Psychology (1% acceptance rates, harder to get into than med school, etc etc). So imagine my surprise when at the end of my sophomore year of college, I was awarded a summer research job (commonly called an REU) funded by the National Science Foundation in Clinical Psychology. The first day of my summer research program, the program director told us that we were one of a dozen students selected out of 300 applications, and that if we were able to get accepted into this competitive program, then we were competitive for grad school in Clinical Psych if we kept working hard and making strategic career moves.
Cue to the end of last summer. I hated my research job, and my entire summer felt pretty bleh. I found the environment of academia to be way too intense and competitive for my tastes, and I learned that I really disliked Clinical Psych research because it was WAY too quantitative for my tastes. I spent the entire summer hunched over my laptop either coding or conducting literature reviews when I was only really interested in Psychology due to its potential in interacting with other humans (in a therapeutic way or not). I decided that I wasn't interested in grad school in Clinical Psych, which started an internal crisis in me. What was I supposed to do, then, as an English major at a strong but relatively obscure SLAC? I had already decided that there was no way in hell I'd go to law school, so I didn't know what I'd do next.
Last fall (the fall of my junior year), I applied to over 100 internships in random fields -- marketing, sales, communications, etc. I somehow managed to land a summer internship in software sales at Amazon Web Services. Before I started my summer internship in tech sales, my advisor, friends, partner, and acquaintances all told me that I would hate tech sales. "It's just not very you," they all told me.
I was determined to prove them wrong, and I suspected that part of their dread for me was based in my progressive SLAC's hatred of Amazon and Corporate America in general. I came into this internship with a positive attitude, but I found that my friends and advisor were right. I really do hate tech sales. I hate staring at a screen all day, and I hate that my only human interaction is centered around something I couldn't care less about (selling software packages and meeting my sales quota).
This website is going to flame me for being a spoiled brat for saying this, but working in tech sales does really feel soul-sucking. I'm definitely an underperformer in my internship cohort, and I doubt that I'll be able to snag a return offer for post-grad. But even if I did magically receive a full-time offer here, I'd be pretty miserable.
Does anyone have any suggestions for potential careers or first jobs out of college for me? I was thinking about maybe applying to Peacecorps/Teach for America/Americorps/Fulbright, although my parents really discourage me from being a teacher (and seeing what their jobs are like post-COVID is really scary). I guess there's always law school, but I think I'd hate being a lawyer.
Or are there really no other options for an English major? TIA.