<p>My friend is graduating from college in the spring with an english degree. She went to the same community college I did and transferred to a nearby university. Apparently throughout her college experience she was so insecure and convinced she wasn't good at anything that she never made any decisions about what she wanted to do or anything, and when she had her advising meeting when she started at the university they suggested english, language, and literature to her and she just went along with it. Has not been to an adviser since, doesn't know how to even find the advisers, etc and so forth. She hates literature and likes to write papers but doesn't think she's any good at it. She considered teaching at one point but doesn't like kids.</p>
<p>NOW what is she going to do? We discussed grad school at length and agreed she isn't ready for the commitment, and this point it'd be just like when she transferred to the university and went through the motions without any direction. She needs to get to a point where she is feeling better about herself and has an idea of what she wants to do with her life before she can commit to grad school, but now what is she going to do? She works two jobs, she is a pharmacy clerk and has been for probably like 6 years, and now she has bought a house so she delivers pizza too to help with the bills. I know she doesn't want to work at the pharmacy forever but she has no idea what else she could do. She has no other work experience, no experience in clubs, no volunteer work, no career connections, and no connections with professors. She effectively did nothing in college but enough work to get her a 3.3-3.5 GPA and that's it.</p>
<p>Obviously she needs to regroup. I think she needs therapy, but we have been friends for 20 years and this is the first time she's ever admitted she needed help, I don't see her taking that step any time soon. She'd like to find some sort of a job to do that is more than the minimum wage, no-skill stuff she's been doing since high school, and she needs to find a way to build her confidence and find a passion. Once you graduate college without accomplishing these things, what is left for you to do?</p>
<p>“once you graduate college without accomplishing these things, what is left for you to do?”</p>
<p>Grow up. Go ahead and accomplish these things over time. </p>
<p>It’s not as big a deal as you might think, and people do not graduate college having all of the answers, just different questions. College is just school, and life is a process. Your friend will be fine and you will, too. Lot’s of kids are “lost” at that age. </p>
<p>Of course, lots of kids are lost during thier mid-life crises, too. Life has a lot more of that built into it than people will tell you in HS and college. Probably the best thing you can do for your freind is just tell her this is a lot more “normal” than she might think.</p>
<p>I don’t know, poetgrl. Just sitting back and waiting for things to change is how people end up being 40 and still being unhappy with what they are doing.</p>
<p>I think TwistedxKiss is helping her friend ask the right questions. I don’t have any answers, but I think her friend is right to think she needs to develop a plan and some goals.</p>
<p>She should definitely not consider grad school. It’s for those who are committed to a particular field and career, and even so, the jobs just aren’t there.
She has a good GPA. She likes to write papers. Most people who have an English degree do not end up in grad school or teaching k-12. She should look into jobs that require good writing skills. She might look for a clerical position or something similar. Has she gone to the career center of her college?</p>
<p>Midmo-- You may well be right. I’ve never been unhappy with the things I’ve been doing in my life and while I have had many goals and destinations, I think we actually tend to stumble over the “right” thing when we think we are on the way to something else.</p>
<p>Worrying about things tends to create it’s own version of unhappiness, imho. As a counselor for adolescents and young adults, I’ve noticed a persvasive sense of worry about “being where I should be now” which has very little to do with finding one’s way to a productive and happy way of life.</p>
<p>I would actually suggest some of the books by Tal Ben Shahur for anyone interested in positve rather than negative psychology. Of course ymmv. :)</p>
<p>I would definitely go to the career center at her school. She’d be missing a big opportunity, if she didn’t. Now, she is, or shortly will be, a fresh college graduate with a decent GPA entering the workforce, with people at the career center working for her to connect her with prospective employers who are there looking for fresh grads to hire cheap, but into positions where there is most likely upward mobility.</p>
<p>After you’re out of college, and into a go-nowhere, minimum wage job, as opposed to a career, you’re just another schmo looking for a break.</p>
<p>Going to college and getting a degree, any degree, is quite an accomplishment. Failing to follow through with that degree immediately when you graduate is one of the biggest missed opportunities in your life. But you’ve got to be confident enough in your own abilities, and in the value of your degree to present yourself with confidence without being overly cocky. Realize you’ve got a lot…a lot to learn, but that if a degree proves nothing else, it proves you have the ability to showup, stay the course, navigate a difficult environment, and come out victorious (i.e. with a degree).</p>
<p>I’m a recruiter, and I see resumes from people who are not pursuing jobs in their major all the time. Sometimes the problem is that there are no jobs specifically for their major because they picked a major that is too broad like english, too limited in jobs available like history, or too defined like oceangraphy.</p>
<p>There are a lot of jobs out there, and they are not necessarily on everyones radar. </p>
<p>I might suggest going on Careerbuilder or Monster and just looking at jobs. The titles, the responsibilities, etc. If something excites her, or interests her, figure out what it would take to get an entry level job that would lead to that kind of job.</p>
<p>Monster was complete waste of time for me. Apply to any job and continue going to school. But in all honesty, the question about what to do after college is usually asked during HS, then after careful and long research, the proper decision is made in regard to where to attend, major, minor, financial burdens, EC’s and so forth.</p>
<p>The market for new college grads is dismal at the moment. She should explore the possibilities of using her English degree and writing skill in the medical field. I would suggest that she build on her experience at the pharmacy. Is it part of a larger group, possibly with a marketing arm? Even if it is a small shop, she should look into taking on whatever marketing tasks are available, including learning software that would help the business. This is a solid field for people with her major and one that has had stable growth. A major plus is that, if she has been a good employee, she will be building from a position of strength.</p>
<p>These are some good ideas, I am meeting up with her this week to discuss some sort of a game plan. I think she is so caught up in the idea that she doesn’t have options that she’s defeating herself, and if I can just show her she does have some options I think she’ll perk up and get moving. We’ll look into the career office at her school, I am pretty sure they have SOME sort of career center that might be able to help.</p>
<p>She is going to start going to some of my volunteer endeavors with me too, which I think might help. I started volunteering in a time in my life when I felt like I just had nothing going for me and I needed something positive to focus on, and not only did that work like a charm but I also accidentally found what I wanted to do with my life in the process. You never know when these kinds of things will sneak up on you. If nothing else hopefully that’ll build her confidence and help her figure out what she is interested in and what she isn’t, at the moment she doesn’t even know that.</p>
<p>I agree–you are a kind and thoughtful friend. So, to review, here are the positives about your friend:
–3.3-3.5 GPA, degree in English, language, and literature, likes writing and research
–pharmacy tech for several years, so familiar with pharm. world, customer service, general retail environment
–recently bought a house (with someone else or by herself?), so fiscally responsible
–hard worker, since she has second job delivering pizza</p>
<p>Lots of people with degrees in English have to then find a career path. Teaching, library work, and publishing have been traditional routes for that degree. She doesn’t want to teach; publishing is really hard right now as many print related jobs have dried up and many with experience are all chasing the remaining jobs.</p>
<p>Does she like libraries and the information management world? She could try to get a job in a library system to see if she likes it, and she could get a master’s degree later in some area of information management or in more traditional library service. University of Michigan has an excellent master’s program. I was an English major too, and that is the route I went (and the grad program too).</p>
<p>Management: she could pursue management in the pharmacy/drugstore realm if she wouldn’t mind staying in that field. </p>
<p>Paralegal program: she could look into becoming a paralegal. A good friend of mine from high school recently did this. Her degrees are in music. She was an excellent writer in high school and college. My college roommate also did this; her undergrad degree is in retailing. Your friend could start by finding a paralegal to interview/shadow; researching programs in the area; volunteering in a law firm.</p>
<p>Both the paralegal and information management ideas are definite career paths for her. That’s what she needs: a career goal and path to work on.</p>
<p>Many people get vocational training after college- like paralegal ( which they have at the community college) especially when they have a more general degree like English or sociology- and are very happy, but happiness is a matter more of outlook, than circumstances I think.</p>
<p>I think she needs to be assessed by a therapist, to determine if she is depressed and to help clarify goals.
I think it is good you are supportive, but a therapist or coach would have a more structured relationship with her, because I would be concerned, that she would lean on you more rather than start to assume more responsibility for herself.</p>
<p>I agree that she needs a therapist, and have suggested it to her more than once. We’ve been friends close to 20 years and this is the first time she’s ever admitted to me that she is FEELING something-- she didn’t even go to therapy when she lost her father in high school. She is just very stubbornly independent. I will continue to suggest it as much as I can, but in the meantime she does need someone to point her in the right direction and I am in a position to give her some ideas to get her started. If she won’t take the initiative for herself to do something, I know she’s not ready to do it and will leave her to it. So far, she’s taken the initiative to ask me to help her research her options, and I will do that. Where she goes from there will be up to her.</p>
<p>I don’t think she wants to be involved in pharmacy but may enjoy health in general, I don’t know if she’s considered it. She has not enjoyed being the one to have to tell seniors with cancer that their medications are going to cost them 3k, those kinds of experiences have tainted pharmacy work for her-- plus her mother has worked at that pharmacy our whole lives and that’s not where she wants to end up. Library stuff is definitely something to consider, and she has expressed interest in marketing type work. I think she’d be really good in the legal field but she’s never brought it up. I don’t think she’d mind going to grad school some day if she could find her thing, and I suspect she wouldn’t mind going back to community college at all-- she loved it there and never wanted to leave.</p>
<p>Part of her problem is that she is good at everything, and as such thinks she’s good at nothing since nothing really stands out to her-- I just think she’s more skill oriented than subject oriented, which isn’t a bad thing and makes English a good program for her to have been in. For some people, all their skills cluster into one area and that makes their decision relatively easy for them, but for others like her their skills are spread wide and she has many more viable options to consider than most. There is a phenomenon, “paralyzed by choices.” Seems to be the case here. There are so many choices that she doesn’t see any.</p>
<p>How does one get a taste for the library arena? I’m sure that’s never even occurred to her, I know so little about the field other than that there is a masters program that I am not sure how to suggest it to her.</p>
<p>Human Resources may be another area of interest. With her education & work experience she can do everything from recruiting to writing training manuals.</p>
<p>=================================
My experience.
I majored in Econ and English. </p>
<p>Worked for a big name company out of college doing nothing interesting.</p>
<p>Disillisioned I assessed my strengths. I enjoyed research. I was detail oriented – which is not always a positive aspect – I can get bogged down by the details. I enjoyed a continual challenge instead of the same set work rules daily. I enjoyed logical analytical. It all pointed to law school. I was young, married, in debt & wanted a family. Law school debt and the hours of young lawyers didn’t appeal to me.</p>
<p>Took a full time summer paralegal course specializing in Employee Benefits – the school was only for folks who already had an undergrad degree – and landed in the pension/401(k) field. Perfect combo for my undergrad majors. I have met many in my field who have an English undergrad. It serves the field well – ability to research law, comprehend and then explain in non-legal terms.</p>
<p>============================
You are a good friend. The biggest challenge doesn’t seem to be finding a career path. The biggest challenge will be to stay positive and confident. No one will hire someone who can’t sell oneself. No one can sell oneself unless confident or a great actor.</p>
<p>This is why the friend needs counseling. You do definitely need to have confidence in yourself to get a job, especially in today’s dismal job market.</p>
<p>Re the library field: encourage your friend to talk to some librarians in public and academic libraries. She could arrange to shadow some librarians. She could make an appt. at U-M in the information school to discuss options.
[School</a> of Information - University of Michigan: The iSchool at Michigan](<a href=“http://www.si.umich.edu/]School”>http://www.si.umich.edu/)</p>
<p>Personnel is also a good idea. How about hospital administration?</p>
<p>It sounds like there is a lot of fear paralyzing your friend, and this is where a therapist can help. It can be hard to transcend the model you’ve grown up with (her mother) especially if you can’t imagine yourself being successful. Learning to overcome inertia (fear by another name) is done with baby steps. The first step is engagement with something, anything. If she loved community college, could she go there and take a class or two, just for fun? Except this time, she could think about the class as a first step on a possible path to a new life, not necessarily in subject matter, but as a way to start moving. The goals will appear but she has to take some action first. The smallest shift in thinking can make for a huge difference in the long run.</p>
<p>Twisted Kiss, you wrote:
“She has not enjoyed being the one to have to tell seniors with cancer that their medications are going to cost them 3k, those kinds of experiences have tainted pharmacy work for her-- plus her mother has worked at that pharmacy our whole lives and that’s not where she wants to end up”</p>
<p>Being more than a clerk involves a whole raft of unpleasant options. My sister-in-law, a partner in a big firm, was given a job like George Clooney’s in “Up in the Air.” She described it as, “Fly in, ruin several people’s lives, fly out.” There is no perfect job, and if your friend thinks there is a yellow brick road out there, she is sadly mistaken. This is a real downfall of people who are, as you say, fiercely independent. They don’t see the assets of working in a business that has know her family for years, who are most likely to treat her fairly. This is a vicious economy, and recovery is not on the horizon. I hope your friend learns to value what she has, and build on her accomplishments.</p>
Lot’s of kids are “lost” at that age. </p>