I just tore up my degrees

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Although you said you have a Master's in Poli-Sci, I found "the most popular jobs" for someone with a Bachelor's in Political Science from some survey. I don't know if it will help, but here goes anyway:



Not all of these jobs are Political Science related, "Restaurant Manager", and some require previous experience if you want to get into them. However, they're listed in order of most popular for those who've earned a bachelor's degree in poli-sci. Also keep in mind these are not starting out pay.

More information and methodology for survey can be found at Payscale.com website for Political Science Majors To search for these specific jobs, there's Job Search at Payscale.com

Note: That other graph I had was from Salary.com, while this is from Payscale.com

I see job postings all the time. The federal government is hiring and so are some states and local governments.



Again, I don't want to make a fortune. I just want to be self-supporting, move out of my parents' house, and not have to apply for SSDI. BTW, if a Poli-Sci degree is useless, why is being used as a reason not to give me SSDI? Yeah, that's right, the agency said they wouldn't give it to me in part because of my educational level.



I've done volunteer work....it hasn't gotten me a paid job. I can't get internships anymore because they all require that the applicant be in college or be a very recent graduate.



Here's what I don't get about the "you majored in something impractical argument": IN COLLEGE, YOU DON'T JUST TAKE CLASSES IN YOUR MAJOR. I've taken English, Geology, Theatre, Sociology, Psychology, Religious Studies, Algebra, Statistics, Speech, Mass Comm., Law, but I guess those are all useless too. I don't understand why people think you only take classes in your major...yeah, in grad school that's true (for the most part), but not in undergrad.

And I haven't applied to accounting firms. I only apply for jobs that ask for a poli-sci degree OR say that any degree will suffice.

I've applied for TONS of contract specialist/administrator positions, seeing as there's so many government contractors in my area.

I've also applied for legal assistant positions.

Grant writer? Sounds good to me, but all the postings I see ask for years of experience.

Program coordinator, non-profit organization? Again, have applied for several of those...gotten nowhere.

On charts and averages, I've learned to utterly distrust them.

I think it was Mark Twain who said "there are lies, damn lies, and statistics."

It's easy to take data and make it say anything if you want to fudge the way you look at it.

Nationwide, things can look good. You take people with uber high pay scales because they live in an uber high cost-of-living area and blend it in with those making more "average" pay and those making low pay.

Break it down to region, it changes, even within a single state the average changes from one region to another. East coast of Virginia pays differently than the western end...mostly due to cost of living issues.

Even with the high pay scales, I always tell people to hunt for the "net pay" numbers or numbers that reflect what you get to keep from your paycheck.

Living in NYC is very expensive. That big paycheck, when removing taxes, cost of essentials, etc. could leave very little money for yourself while a much smaller check in other places would leave you a nice bit of money for yourself. You can't look at gross pay and think it's an honest number.

My college minor was in statistics and most of the time when someone says that statistics lie, it's because they're taken out of context not because of actual false statistics.

That's why earlier I said just saying the median or the mean probably wouldn't say the whole story because not everyone with a master's degree is going to make the national 50th percentile (median) amount of money each year. Although many with a master's degree are going to make 50 thousand and even some 100 K, there are going to be many many who only make 10 K/year, some are going to be unemployed for 20 years. That's why posts earlier I said I wonder if it would be better to say having a college degree only improves the likelihood of having a job, but not necessarily means you'll have one.

That's why posts earlier I said it would be very useful to see something that shows us how people are spread out. I don't know if you're familiar with boxplots, but what if for example we look at one and it shows us that 25% of all those with a master's degree make less than 15 thousand a year? That would give us a lot more reason to be distrustful of a college degree than if for instance the lower 25th percent happens to be at $35 K. That's why posts earlier I said I'm suspicious of the median and mean giving us the whole story.

Then even more insightful would be if we could look at a normal bell curve for what people make who have a high school diploma only, and another for someone with a master's degree. It could give us insight if there are a lot who don't make much, even if on average they make different amounts.

Well, that's the point. In my statistics course, the professor was clear that the science is only reliable if the person presenting the results is honest.

It is very easy to take a statistical analysis and get false results to present by how you pick and choose the data. This is why statistics are inherently suspect...people with ulterior motives love to take data that gives an outcome they want to present and run with it. Not many places will give the raw data without an agenda shaping how it is presented.

The same can be said about journalism. True journalism is almost dead because the owner has an agenda and the editorial staff has an agenda. The ideal of being impartial and informative has seemingly gone out the window.

You and a few hundred or even thousand other similarly qualified people are applying for each of these jobs. The problem is that the number of people taking a broad approach to education, stretching their minds (which is a good thing), outnumbers the number of people able to productively hire them. And the number of people with market skill focused educations also outnumber the suitable available jobs. When there are more openings than candidates, the smart student in anything becomes a good choice, because that person is trainable. But when the candidates out number the openings, odds are good of finding someone smart AND trained. In a different economy, you might have had a different result, but you aren't in a different economy.

If you can stop being angry and get proactive, you have a better chance at solving this dilemma. Anger gets you no where. Giving up because it didn't work last time gets you no where. You are now in a race with a dozen guys just like you to prove you are the one to get the only good job. You'll have to be flexible, determined, and willing to do anything and everything to prove you are that guy.

I've been in the work world a long time, and I've done a lot of hiring. You can dig in and accept the realities, or you can keep burning paper. You have to show employers how the same intelligence that got you those degrees is going to make them money, and the burden of proof in this economy is on you, despite the degree.

My boss, btw, loves hiring smart people who did not study accounting and then train them on the job. Because he's a small firm, the graduates with the degrees in the field aren't interested. They are after a bigger career. So he hires these smart grads into this boring, tedious, clerk position that pays crap and he sees what they do with it. It's been a brilliant move for him. Not a one of these people complains. They jump in and do what it takes. They prove their worth. They are happy to be employed. Less than half end up staying past a year; having a job, any job, opens doors, after all. But the ones that like it and stay have been brilliant.

You'll have to find someone like my boss and spin gold from it.

I have mixed feelings. I majored in Political Science and Mass Communications.

With what I learned, I could tell you how and why if you want global change on an issue, you need to convince people to embrace the change on a personal level. It is invaluable to any field that needs or wants to effect change by influencing/manipulating people. Often these tools are used in the political arena, but it can be used in most any field to varying degrees.

What happens globally, nationally, regionally, etc. all happens on a personal level on a smaller scale. The principles are consistent, and the results are largely predictable.

Still, try and SELL that to a prospective employer and it seems to just shoot over their head like 4th of July fireworks with a less spectacular effect.

Now let's put things into perspective, you talk to one person and he'll say he knows someone who has a doctorate degree and that someone isn't doing too well because he happens to be a truck driver. Then you talk to another person and she'll say she never would be doing as well now with her job if it weren't for her college degree. Statistics in this case can give us a bigger big picture of what's going on, by comparing the average of people who went to college versus those who didn't.

From my perspective, to say that statistics are lying in this specific situation would be taking the meaning of "lying" out of context. What I mean by that, what if someone were to say SadAspy is knowingly intentionally lying when he says he can't get a job, because it may be misrepresenting what's typical and throwing people off? Besides thinking the person's a jerk for accusing SadAspy in that way, it would not be correct to say that SadAspy lied, even if people understand him out of context. Likewise, even if someone takes these statistics out of context, it would be taking the situation out of context by saying these statistics are lies. I mean, the graph below I got from the U.S. dot gov Bureau of Labor Statistics (from last year), how is something like that made up, especially from the type of source?



bls.gov - U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

In reference to that graph you just posted... It may not be "lies", but it's extremely misleading. Even the "unemployment rate" statistic on there is. It doesn't include people who've stopped looking for work or people who've run out of unemployment benefits.

As for the unemployment rates of each level of education... It doesn't separate people who've recently graduated from college from those who've been in the work force for 20 years. There is a huge difference between the two groups in both employment rates and salary. Then there's an even larger difference between majors. That BLS graph puts someone with a BA in English who just graduated in the same group as a guy who has a BS in Chemical Engineering that's been in the field for 30 years.

Does the "median salary" take into account all of the people who don't have a job and are making $0? That would be pretty important to know. What percent of people with degrees are working at jobs that are far below their skill level? That would also be a good thing to know.

The statistics are just manipulated to support an agenda. The government doesn't want to tell the truth about how bad things really are. So instead, they just ignore differences and data that would actually show the direness of the real situation. This graph is saying, "Keep going to college, kids! Make sure to rack up plenty of debt, because you'll make more." It's just not true anymore.

Exactly. Degrees may have meant a better job and better earnings thirty, twenty, or even ten years ago, but it doesn't now. They should compare the 22 year-old with a degree to a 22 year-old who went to work right out of high school. Yeah, the counter-argument is that the former will EVENTUALLY make more, but I'm not convinced. I'm 28, worked in jobs not in my field, went back and got a master's, and it's still getting me nowhere.

The government is not hiring people with a humanities based education unless it is linguistics. They are hiring people with mathematics, science, and engineering based backgrounds but not usually for entry level jobs.

I look at the Department of Homeland Security's site, and they have had the same unfilled positions for an expert cyber security analyst for months now. I get their newsletter which constantly asks for people to fulfill that position. No one bites because no one is qualified or qualified people have better opportunities.

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In my case, I realized that a CS degree is worthless if I do not specialize. So I am going to make myself as marketable as possible. I will learn and get certified in German/Arabic, know how to apply my computer science knowledge, make a portfolio of these applications, and then apply for positions. I'm going to dress professional to all my classes, get internships, etc.

People, you HAVE to make yourself marketable. Degrees might get your foot in the door but they are no guarantee you will keep or even get the job.

I feel really bad for you man.

That was a ton of work and thousands of dollars worth of investment, but I promise you it wasn't in vain. My step sis was actually in that situation. She graduated from college with a education major (they have an AMAZING education program at her college) and got put 120k in the hole. Right now where we live they had some major education cut sand she was so stressed out. After months she finally got into the system as a preschool headstart teacher. You just gotta keep trying and you may not get into the job you want to, but eventually you will get there.

I wish I could help you further but I'm a college student myself with a different major. Only advice I can give you is keep trying.

I'm an English Major. Therefore, I am homeless (but not really).

I've got one more year and I'll tell you what, I don't even plan on using this degree.

To me, college is just a skill building industry. It doesn't teach you anything except how to link up and join with one of the many service organizations out there. This is good, I guess. But people become so infatuated with their skillsets that they think they matter more than anyone else. They're not intelligent, they're just well read and that's all they're good for, is obeying what they read.

Knowledge is something you can gain without going to college. For me, I came to college to pick up people's viewpoints. Sure, I could've easily gone into some workforce or online or a cult or something but I felt that the place and time I want to be in is in college. It breathed life into me, in more ways than one.

That's inspiration.

So, don't worry too much.

Or hell, maybe I'm wrong and you should start worrying like crazy.

I loved that, synecdoche, "it breathed life into me." THAT is what education is all about.

As long as you have that experience, and share that sense of it, it has value.