Me, freshmen year of college: “I’m going to major in computer engineering - with additional math and physics courses. Capable of designing all sorts of cool stuff, and get paid well”
Me 16 years later: “I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing, I don’t know what the fuck management wants, I don’t know what the fuck I want to do, but at least I get paid well.”
I’ll never forget my first one on one with the director of my engineering department.
I had been languishing away for a month at this new job trying to get a bearing on what they want from me when thankfully I got an email from the director scheduling a meeting to discuss just that.
It was a major turnaround, I felt like my life was going to finally get a dose of meaning and direction.
During the meeting the director said he needed me to write some software but gave no real specifics on its purpose out loud while he was also writing down notes. At the end of 45 minute meeting, he left his notes, shook my hand and said he looked forward to seeing what I come up with.
I shit you not, this was the “notes” he left for me
Getting out of a meeting and realizing you have deliverables with no idea how fulfill them is the worst feeling
“You know, for kids!”
This is generally true. My brother is a musician, and he struggles to find work. I got lucky growing up working on programming projects until 3am for fun, then being interested in database research and later AI research several years before people started paying attention. I think we need a UBI so that the people who don’t want to build stuff can do what they want instead of going into marketing or sales, or anything that’s a net drain or neutral on society.
Scuse me, I burned ~46k on a culinary arts A.S. degree. 🖖
The world needs moar Neelixes.
Wish I did engineering/tech hardware tho.
Maybe self learning how to fix my own motherboard’s/firmware can happen some day.
Hobby of PC building/self-linux administering for ~20 years…do I know more than some fresh grads? Probably lol…
The grass is always greener I suppose
I did engineering, wish I had done something like culinary arts
After all day engineering, I come home and watch chefs on YouTube and botch their recipes in the kitchen while daydreaming about running a chaotic professional kitchen
Three of our best senior engineers eventually decided to become farmers. One “retired” to be a personal chef.
I’m just saying.
Farming requires a lot of engineering expertise.
I quit and became a truck driver for a while
I’ve had fantasies of becoming a bus driver.
I’ve had fantasies of my city getting public transit. Such a cruel dream.
“Well what subject did you like best in school?” Is the worst way to choose a major and it’s terrible that college recruiters use it to rope fresh-HS graduates into signing up.
For anyone considering college in the next few years, you should really consider college as a career prep rather than a place to simply learn more. Unless you’ve got the money and support network to just dilly dally for 4+ years, you should be going in knowing 100% what you want to be doing with your life and make sure that courses you’re taking the the connections you make are getting you there.
Easier said than done. At that age, with no professional experience, it is really hard to know what you want to do for the rest of your life.
there’s no law that says you need to do college at 18. i started at 26, and it would’ve been a waste before that. i hadn’t even discovered any learning passions until just a couple years before that.
so maybe just avoid that problem like i did?
No it isn’t. People just don’t think about it….like ever. It also requires being honest with yourself which is a too tall order for most.
Even if you do, you may not find answers. Obligatory: not everyone has the same experiences as you, and that’s okay.
Serious - Don’t follow your passion. I did. Went to school for something I was passionate about. Did well and graduated. I got a job in my field. But soon enough, my passion felt like work. My priorities shifted as I aged and I grew to hate what I studied and once fell passionate about.
Find a career path that makes you money. Once you have that money you can make time to dabble in your passion projects and hobbies. Just wanted to add a different perspective to the meme :)
You can do both and people have done for ages. The thing about work is that you need to do it even when you don’t want to, which makes some people resentful. But that’s the difference between a hobby and work. Passion has nothing to do here. There are passionate people who went into a job because of it and won’t trade it for anything.
I agree with what you’re saying. You gotta work even when you don’t feel like it. Being passionate makes it easier to work (in some cases).
easier to be taken advantage of by employers too
Most of us have many different parts of the job, and like certain parts more than others.
A doctor may be passionate about actually solving medical issues but might hate communicating with difficult patients, dealing with paperwork and recordkeeping software, dealing with insurance companies, marketing his practice, managing staff, etc.
Programmers may actually love coding but hate dealing with customer requirements, or the office politics of sales versus delivery, or even the way their team is run.
It’s like that everywhere. If anyone is only able to do work they’re passionate about, that person is gonna have a rough career.
This 100%. I’ve worked in some sort of IT all my life. It took what I loved and turned it into a job.
Joke’s on you, I got a degree in computer engineering twenty years ago
Seems like it was the exception to the rule (I took it too)
I have a feeling this meme is for younger people who studied the humanities
Or worse shudders business majors
I thought business did alright
I went for a major that I thought sounded interesting but wasn’t really passionate about, and I figured would have good job options. Then I graduated… during the height of covid.
I majored in History as it was my only interest at the time and I could graduate on time.
Never major in History.
Anthropology is another bad choice.
Friend majored in philosophy. Guess how much he got to use that?
I didn’t graduate in philosophy, but the little I know about it is useful every single day.
I guess monetary success is capricious in philosophy; they all cannot be Chomsky or Žižek (because unfortunately intellectual stardom is reserved for a few by definition in any given field). Also, academic environments are depressingly unfair and are influenced by ridiculous factors more than they should. But is money all there is to life for someone that most likely loves to learn, to ponder, to explore? Answers might vary among them.
I graduated with a philosophy degree. I’m a lawyer now. So are a huge chunk of my classmates from undergrad.
Even the ones who didn’t go on and get more schooling tended to find white collar work in some kind of business, same as the people who majored in business administration, finance, marketing, other business school fluff.
There are plenty of majors that are interesting and help students learn how to think, how to write, and how to research. And there are plenty of career paths that don’t care about major, just want to see a 4-year degree for their entry level people.
Exactly the sort of answer I’d expect from a philosopher (and I greatly appreciate it as someone who loves learning and knowledge). My friend did go into tech with his philosophy degree. It’s certainly not that he didn’t get to use knowledge from the field. Just that there’s no gig being a philosopher in modern times.
Thank you, although I’m just a master of none… Yes, I imagine looking for a job with a philosophy degree is limiting. On TikTok, I’ve noticed some recent graduates working on self-made projects (magazines, private classes, etc.). That’s a creative solution that I hope works out for them.
Philosophy is just knowing how to think well. It is useful in almost every business that needs to conceptualize or problem solve.
I spent one year on philosophy before changing major to engineering because I can’t stand how pompous the people are. Although that intro to philosophy actually helped me in my career. YMMV tho.
as a cs major, you kicked me in the stomach with this one
A bachelor’s degree isn’t a vocational degree. It’s ok to major in something you don’t intend to work in, because at the end of the day more than half of college educated workers aren’t working in their field of study. Part of the reason is because the typical 4-year degree teaches only barely enough to scratch the surface of what actually happens in industry, and those entry level workers need to learn a ton on the job anyway.
Here’s a helpful chart of career outcomes by major. Note that many of these undergrad majors tend to be feeders into graduate or professional programs, and that a lot of the joke majors in the humanities and liberal arts have long term outcomes that are better than the sciences. Compare biochemistry to philosophy, for example. Both of those majors kinda expect people to go get graduate or professional degrees after, but the unemployment and underemployment rates are pretty similar.
Have a plan for getting a job. Whether that plan involves a specific major or not is up to you, and isn’t strictly required. It’s mainly engineering that provides a specific pipeline from undergrad degree to specific career in that field. All the others are much looser about which degree is required, or require additional schooling to enter (and once you have a graduate or professional degree, your undergrad basically doesn’t matter).
Double majored in business/accounting and psychology. Went into financial auditing (not my passion but paid well). Hated my life for 12 years. Decided to go for a graduate degree in social work. Am now a very happy psychotherapist even though I make less money.
Moral of the story? It’s never too late to switch if you end up hating your original choice.
I went from a prestigious role in tech to a much lower-rung one that isn’t so demanding. I’d rather have a pleasant life than a large paycheck. Went from miserable to very happy.
I went back to school in my early 30s.
I have a coworker who went back in his 40s and is changing careers (from tech lead to management). And another who is nearing 50s who just wanted that piece of paper. (IT guy who wanted a fine arts degree)
I chose a major I loved and that has good paying jobs but now I sort of hate it
The American DayDream.
Not always true. Sometimes you major in what you love, graduate, get a job doing cool stuff, (get fucked over by an asshole boss, change companies, kinda hate working there every day, find out through the grapevine the asshole fomer boss had been fired for being an asshole, return to the company you liked working at), well paid the whole time, and continue to love what you do so much you don’t get enough of it at work and do it more every evening and weekend as a hobby.
But then, my experience is a) a bit dated (I graduated college before 2010) and b) most likely atypical.
