What can you do with a history degree?
I've come to the conclusion that I wasted over $50,000, 7 years, went through a nervous breakdown, anxiety attacks, severe depression and wasted approximately $50 in stamps and over $500 in internet time looking for a use for my damned Bachelor's in Liberal Arts and Sciences, Honors History peice of paper. It means NOTHING. It gains NO respect ANYWHERE that pays more than $6.00. I can clean TOILETS for better money and wouldn't be $50,000 in debt. (By 2036, it will be another $53,000 on top of the original $50,000).
What is the point? Why give a degree, encourage people that they can find jobs, take their time, their effort, their enthusiasm and ambition and then...POOF! Nothing happens.
I got a job at a museum. I was thrilled. It had nothing to do with my area of study interest, but it's history and I love it equally. I did not even make it a full year. "It's just not your area." "You have strong this and that skills but not what we're looking for." They kept the undergraduate who decided she'd rather piss around on Daddy's money and the guy who couldn't even get out of his first two years (he *thinks* he's a sophmore but who can tell, being so long ago). Truthfully, this job was about popularity and who's ass you kissed, not about whether you were qualified. *I* did not attend the boss's church. My spouse did not help the boss's boss make costume and essentially be a personal assistant for free. *I* saw no point in purchasing a house when I wasn't even sure I'd have the job past one year's probation (smart of me wasn't it?).
I cannot even AFFORD to finish out the pathetic start I made on my master's degree. And the university I was with certainly will not take me back. Actually, the uni probably will. The department? Never. Cuz at Wichita State's history department, they don't care that you had two family deaths in less than six months. They don't care that you worked two jobs on top of the teaching assistant position in order to pay bills. They don't care that you had a nervous breakdown, was on the brink of suicide, and was clawing your way back out. All they know was that I wasn't 'the same as you were', so to them, I'm now a flake, unreliable, and not worthy of their precious time now that I feel better and more together.
Why am I paying $300 a month for something I cannot use, no one thinks is good enough for any job with it that it should be good for. I went to the American Historical Association. What a joke. They list all these fabulous jobs you can get with your degree in history. Apparently they've never actually LOOKED at job postings and what employers REQUIRE in those jobs. Everything from education (education degree!) to library (Masters of Library Science at the minimum even for entry level circulation!) to public history (masters in THAT too, sometimes PhD only). Writing? Bah. Writing what? Journalism? Magazine articles? Can we say FREELANCE WRITERS MARKET?
This degree, this time, this money, this EFFORT was a complete waste. And now...I cannot afford to go BACK to college to get something that I CAN use. Because I have to spend the next 30 years paying off THIS one.
This all leads up to the old joke, which apparently is more true than anyone in the history field that managed to find money somewhere, as well as the ability to move to a place that has a decent university worth going to, is willing to accept.
"Welcome to McDonald's. May I take your order?" I give up. I give in. I don't really have a goddamned choice. I'm 34 years old, $50,000 in debt from ONE CREDITOR, cannot afford to move out of my MOTHER'S house where I took refuge when my life fell apart because I work at a job that is so fucking menial it pays $7 an hour and people still make that several years later. No raises. No benefits. No vacation. Nada. Zip. Zero.
To everyone. Unless mommy and daddy have you the biggest fucking trust fund in the world. Unless you've won the lottery. Unless you plan on being in debt until you DIE, do NOT, I repeat, do NOT get a bachelor's degree in history. You'll get more out of a degree in avant garde art than you will history. Use history research and you're love of it as a hobby, a reading outlet, a pasttime. For god's sake don't think you'll ever get a job using it in any fashion or form, cuz it just ain't gonna happen.
Good luck. Would you like an apple pie with that?
Val Gilliam (who will, if someone has a brilliant idea on how to use this worthless piece of dreck, be happy to use it. I'm paying for it, after all, and will be until I'm in my 60s and unable to retire because of it)
What is the point? Why give a degree, encourage people that they can find jobs, take their time, their effort, their enthusiasm and ambition and then...POOF! Nothing happens.
I got a job at a museum. I was thrilled. It had nothing to do with my area of study interest, but it's history and I love it equally. I did not even make it a full year. "It's just not your area." "You have strong this and that skills but not what we're looking for." They kept the undergraduate who decided she'd rather piss around on Daddy's money and the guy who couldn't even get out of his first two years (he *thinks* he's a sophmore but who can tell, being so long ago). Truthfully, this job was about popularity and who's ass you kissed, not about whether you were qualified. *I* did not attend the boss's church. My spouse did not help the boss's boss make costume and essentially be a personal assistant for free. *I* saw no point in purchasing a house when I wasn't even sure I'd have the job past one year's probation (smart of me wasn't it?).
I cannot even AFFORD to finish out the pathetic start I made on my master's degree. And the university I was with certainly will not take me back. Actually, the uni probably will. The department? Never. Cuz at Wichita State's history department, they don't care that you had two family deaths in less than six months. They don't care that you worked two jobs on top of the teaching assistant position in order to pay bills. They don't care that you had a nervous breakdown, was on the brink of suicide, and was clawing your way back out. All they know was that I wasn't 'the same as you were', so to them, I'm now a flake, unreliable, and not worthy of their precious time now that I feel better and more together.
Why am I paying $300 a month for something I cannot use, no one thinks is good enough for any job with it that it should be good for. I went to the American Historical Association. What a joke. They list all these fabulous jobs you can get with your degree in history. Apparently they've never actually LOOKED at job postings and what employers REQUIRE in those jobs. Everything from education (education degree!) to library (Masters of Library Science at the minimum even for entry level circulation!) to public history (masters in THAT too, sometimes PhD only). Writing? Bah. Writing what? Journalism? Magazine articles? Can we say FREELANCE WRITERS MARKET?
This degree, this time, this money, this EFFORT was a complete waste. And now...I cannot afford to go BACK to college to get something that I CAN use. Because I have to spend the next 30 years paying off THIS one.
This all leads up to the old joke, which apparently is more true than anyone in the history field that managed to find money somewhere, as well as the ability to move to a place that has a decent university worth going to, is willing to accept.
"Welcome to McDonald's. May I take your order?" I give up. I give in. I don't really have a goddamned choice. I'm 34 years old, $50,000 in debt from ONE CREDITOR, cannot afford to move out of my MOTHER'S house where I took refuge when my life fell apart because I work at a job that is so fucking menial it pays $7 an hour and people still make that several years later. No raises. No benefits. No vacation. Nada. Zip. Zero.
To everyone. Unless mommy and daddy have you the biggest fucking trust fund in the world. Unless you've won the lottery. Unless you plan on being in debt until you DIE, do NOT, I repeat, do NOT get a bachelor's degree in history. You'll get more out of a degree in avant garde art than you will history. Use history research and you're love of it as a hobby, a reading outlet, a pasttime. For god's sake don't think you'll ever get a job using it in any fashion or form, cuz it just ain't gonna happen.
Good luck. Would you like an apple pie with that?
Val Gilliam (who will, if someone has a brilliant idea on how to use this worthless piece of dreck, be happy to use it. I'm paying for it, after all, and will be until I'm in my 60s and unable to retire because of it)