<p>Suitably generalized, that’s probably more common than a job on Wall St.
Common Ivy League “career” paths after college include:</p>
<ol>
<li>aspiring (starving) artist, musician, actor, writer, film-maker, film reviewer, director, full-time blogger. Waits tables in NY, LA, or London.<br></li>
<li>humanities graduate or second-rate theoretician. Unqualified for anything but school-teaching.</li>
<li>hanger-on. Stays on campus after graduation as a teaching adjunct, admissions officer, or administrative gofer.</li>
<li>hipster. Works as serf on organic farm, park ranger, bicycle repairman, or other eco-friendly occupations. </li>
<li>temp worker / revolving door. Pays dues after graduation that state school , low-tier and community college grads did during their regular semesters.</li>
</ol>
<p>I know plenty of Yale and Harvard alumni who have never made as much as $100,000 in any year. Some of them are unhappy, but most of them are quite satisfied and are doing what they want to be doing.</p>
<p>And I can easily top your waiter and call-center stories. Four years after graduation, I ran into a close college friend and one-time roommate on the street in Washington DC. He was homeless, alcoholic. When he recognized me, he ran away. (He got his life together a few years later, and owns a small business in the Midwest, now.)</p>
<p>My best friend from college (and before) has been a partner in a law firm, chief of staff to a U.S. Senator, and a department head at a major environmental non-profit. But in between those jobs, he had a period of real personal crisis, which included some months of unemployment, followed by being an Outward Bound instructor, then a crewman on a yacht sailing from San Diego to Tahiti, then a full-time volunteer on an unsuccessful mayoral campaign in our home town. He went a good three years between real jobs. And he hasn’t worked in the past six years, either, although he will be doing something by this time next year (he hopes).</p>
<p>I’ll go with siserune on the whole explanation thing, well stated, and well defined. The fact is, if you didn’t major in some type of business, engineering/sciences, mathematics, or plan on going into a professional program, your pretty much screwed. I mean most liberal arts majors either move on the law school, etc. Others go on to grad school and end up teaching in academia or whatever. But if you don’t take these options, what the hell are you going to do with a degree in history, maybe get a job selling insurance, hey, sounds like what orientationed mentioned. When you major in something like I just mentioned and don’t pursue futher options you will end up like that. It is not like you are trained to take up a job for Lockheed Martin developing air craft, or a six fig. job doing production engineering for Shell Oil. If you are seriously going to college to get a job, specialize in something, especially if you don’t have contacts/family owns a business of some sort. You are royally screwed, and in debt up to your eyeballs, unless you just wanted to blow up your parent’s bank account, then have at it, lol.</p>
<p>I would say good money is 60k a year atleast, enough to live comfy. I mean with the increasing prices of food, gas, utilities, I would say that anything below 45-50K is on skid road. I mean, what kind of house are you going to afford with that. Living well would be 80-90k range. That would be enough to afford some toys, and pick up some cash while doing it. Anything above 100k, especially if your single, and no family, your really living. However, if you have a woman that eats your bank account and spends 200 dollars just on one picture frame, your screwed no matter how much you make, lol.</p>