Because I studied Sex, I work in the Sex Industry

liberal arts majors are pretty much doomed unless they went to a really top notch university and have a lot of ambition and networking skills.

i think the thing is to be good at administration, and eventually people will promote you because other people quit, and eventually you end up doing something you don't hate.

i eventually want to move out of the US so i am thinking about grad school to have on my resume (or CV i guess it would be, in time) but otherwise i would stay in my job forever.

My other half, he dropped out of high school early, failed everything, but always wanted to be a games artist/programmer and now he's senior coder at Atari, so go figure. As Larkin sort of said, books are a pile of crap.

http://nepom.ru/interest/img/5230-Nepom.Ru-173.jpg

My wife went to work as a secretary right out of high school. After we were married I encouraged her to look into higher ed. She went to college for two years but it got too expensive for us. Today she's manager of online content for the American Red Cross and outearns me by about $15k. It's competence and drive that get you what you want.

There seems to be this belief that arts graduates can do do some jobs, and science grads can do all the jobs art graduates can do, plus a few more that require maths or whatever. The result of this is not that science grads have more choice (although they do), but that they are more likely to end up in the tiny niche of the job market their degree prepares them for. Cry us a river.

fwiw, i majored in political science and english undergrad. i may someday use both for my job, though to date i have not.

i have a master's. now i write for magazines, do pr for a small fashion company, and do sex work. i mean, i'm published, respected, etc. but still.

i dropped out of college, majoring in communications. I wanted to be a record producer, I ended up taking a job at an investment firm in the call center, worked my way up to be a successful licensed trader and then got laid off. Now I counsel teen addicts.

and it much more rewarding...sure the money was great before and i make about 60 thousand less, but im happy to go to work each day. Before, i was one more year away from going postal.

Majored in biochemistry, history, and (later) computer science. Now I work in petroleum extraction.

I studied english lit/creative writing and thought I'd go into academia. Wound up working in college admissions for several years and then admin support also at a college. Went back to school for and MA in women's health and wound up doing policy work in teen pregnancy prevention and support and then working with highly at-risk teens/young adults which I loved but then I got laid off. Now I do research support and grant/project management for three researchers/Havahd med school faculty members. It's OK. I miss those kids though, I really do.

studied History. I open mail for 40 hours a week.

studied microbiology with virology specialization. now I'm a mid-level manager contracting for NIH, meaning I read and write e-mails all day, with occasional breaks for spreadsheets.

when people refer to strippers or prostitutes as "sex industry workers" it always puts me in mind of people in white coats and hair nets working on the production line of a factory making condoms or dildos or chocolate body paint or something.

studied English, now I'm an English professor training grad students to become . . . English professors

(reminds me of that Fat Worm of Error LP, "pregnant babies pregnant with pregnant babies")

yeah but some of those babies actually got a life/job/etc

undergraduate in political science; went to law school after two years in a master's program for communication; obtained my j.d., and became a lawyer, in 1995.

i've been practicing now for 15 years. law is eximius frustro suscito (Latin: "super duper exciting")

In this high-tech age, what used to be a "worthless" degree is certainly in question and probably has been for ten years. Nothing against an academic or teaching career, but an English major can write corporate literature, for example.