College degrees in subjects that don't really interest you?

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What do you do when you have them already?

My first one was in music. I grew up feeling compelled to play the piano, and I got really good at it but never really enjoyed it, but it was what I had the most experience in, so when it came time to choose a college major, I chose that. I soon learned I wasn't as good as piano performance majors, so I switched to music composition, which was interesting, but not something I can stay passionate about long-term, and not something that leads to promising careers, anyway.

My next one was a master's in urban planning. I've always loved roads and highways, and people told me, "You should consider going into urban planning." I read books on the subject and got interested in urban design for a while, but by the time I was halfway through my master's in planning, I realized I was barely learning anything that qualified me to do anything that interested me; it was mostly policy and data stuff, which bored me. And urban planning culture is tragically so deep into New Urbanism these days that I don't see it getting back to sincere modernist design any time soon.

I was so heartbroken, that I decided I should give up on what really interested me and get a computer science degree (only a bachelor's degree this time). A year into it, I learned how much I hated computer programming, as well as sitting at a desk and fussing with things on a computer in general, but I finish what I start. The whole experience made my OCD worse, and it took years before I finally found a therapist who actually helps me deal with my OCD tendencies.

Unfortunately, my OCD ruined the one good job I ever had. I was an over-the-road truck driver for a year and a half after I finished my CS degree, but I couldn't take my self-doubt-induced OCD giving me nervous breakdowns anymore, so I ended up seeking psychiatric treatment. Now I have a data analysis internship, and I really don't want to do this kind of work for the rest of my life. I want to do something closer to trucking, where I'm not at a desk, and preferably something where I can be at least somewhat physically active (I know there are better things for that than trucking, though). I'm changing my anxiety meds, so maybe I can pass the DOT physical again.

I just don't know what to do when I feel like my college degrees pigeonhole me into one or two fields, when I really want to work in something else. Does anyone here have similar experience with college degrees?

I'll try to re-phrase the question more concisely. I apologize for being TL;DR earlier.

Has anyone else suffered from life-long anxiety so bad that you ended up with college degrees in subjects that don't really interest you, but you felt compelled to get them, because college is seen as obligatory? What do you do so you don't get pigeonholed into those fields? How do you get into other fields?

I'd love to know if anyone has any insight or similar experience with this. Thanks!

Not really but I got my boring MA cos I was told it was a guaranteed job at the end and that it was a great job for aspies even though the course was tedious.

So I did the boring MA.

Then they cut all the jobs in that sector...

I really wish uni was free so I could go back and get an academic MA in English literature or a creative MA in creative writing.

I'm unemployable due to mental health issues now.

Master of arts? I find some of those subjects interesting to a certain extent. I'm sorry to hear the job sector is so bad, though.


I wish university was free, too.


I'm sorry to hear that. I hope you're able to get disability/unemployment or something like that.

I never used "does it interest me" as the criteria for selecting a career path. I used the criteria "am I good at this". Many times these two overlap.

From my perspective, your career is the mechanism for you to earn a living and achieve financial independence. Once you become financially independent, then you can use excess funding to support all the hobbies or interests that drive you.

Now you do not have to be the best in your career field, but you need to be good enough to make a living and there must exists job opportunities for the career path.

Unpaid internship

Bachelor, cognitive science.
Associate, accounting

Not interested in either one
Not good at either one

But I am not interested in or good at anything

So whatever

I'm sorry.

Don't be. What other sort of problem is someone going to have if they are in the first world than a first world problem. It's still a real problem.

I'm not in a total quandary about this----and I'm satisfied with my lot.

However, there are times when I wish I would have pursued my original major: Accounting. I also feel I might have done well to pursue economics.

Instead, I opted to double-major in English and speech pathology. I learned quite a bit within both the English and the speech pathology curricula, and had quite a rewarding academic experience. However, basically, I can't do all that much with my BA. In order to become a speech pathologist, I would have to get an MS in speech pathology. I'm not cut out to be a teacher, frankly. Saying this, having a generic Bachelor's degree is certainly better than lacking a degree. Many jobs requite a Bachelor's, without specifying "in what."

Krafty

What jobs require you to have a degree without specifying "in what"?

K - 12 teacher is the only one that comes to mind

The question I was trying to get at was really wanting to know if other people have been so driven by anxiety that they ended up rushing to finish college degrees in things that might not interest them, rather than having the time to try to figure out what they really wanted to do with their lives first. It wasn't about having the "wrong" college degree so much as being driven toward it by anxiety rather than true desire. But I realize now why what I said was so insensitive, and I sincerely apologize to anyone I may have offended by saying it.

Many civil service type jobs require a Bachelor’s....most of these don’t specify “in what.” What matters is the 4-year degree.

I'm still in school (most likely graduating this spring and then working towards a master's degree) but when I saw this post, it reminded me of one of my family members. This was a while back, but she thought when she began college at 18 that she wanted to be an elementary school teacher. After completing her junior year and beginning her senior year, she realized that the idea of "working with small children in large groups" (her words, not mine) was not something she ever wanted to do. She finished the degree anyways and while she isn't currently working, she did find some office work jobs as a temp until a few years ago. I think a lot of degrees, no matter what they are in, might show a potential employer that you have both the determination to earn a degree and that you can stick to something in order to do that as well as showing that you have things you can learn in school no matter what your major might be...things that are skills that are applicable to many situations and careers as well as things like time management, things you learn from being in school and that are also important life skills.

For me, I started in graphic design and I didn't and still don't know why I thought that was a good idea aside from that it was a program offered at a school I liked and one I could easily commute to while living at home. After learning of more options through online learning later on, I transferred to another college for a double-major degree in medical coding and psychology and it was and has been a much better fit and I enjoy it a lot more than I enjoyed graphic design.

I majored in Electrical Engineering and minored in Behavioral Psychology.  Guess which career path I followed?

Hint: The one that does not involve running lab-rats through mazes.