Career/Major choice

[Minibit]

Do any of you guys get where you feel guilty over your career choice because it has nothing to do with curing diseases or helping refugees or feeding the hungry or restoring the broken or basically anythign else that improves the world in a seirous way, and conflicted over your choice of major because it's not really your career choice but it's the closest thing that can also get you a job after school, but you're also really shit at all the stuff involved in this major, but majoring in stuff more relavent to what you actualy want to do is a financial death sentence and you're sick as fuck of being poor, which also makes you feel guilty because other people have it way worse than you and your mom always told you to do what makes you happy even if it's not what makes you rich?

cause thats where I'm at :/

I want to work as a book editor with new authors. I'm majoring in Journalism to do so. Journalism isn't acutally something I terribly mind the idea of working in, I don't hate it, but it's not my passion, and it teaches editing, writing, story-finding, and analytical skills. It's just that in terms of serious news journalism I'm terrible at it. I'm not interested in the news. It sounds like a terrible thing for an adult to say, but I'm not. I follow big events and global stuff, but the thing is there's a lot of stuff going on in the world and I can't keep up with all of it okay? And I can't care about all of it, and I don't enjoy reading, watching, or tracking down the news at all. Mostly I get bored.

But majoring in creative writing or english literature is a financial death sentence (sorry, I know theres a bunch of folks on here who plan on or are doing just that, but yeah, sorry, it's true. These are not things that people look for on a resume, and bills keep going after school.). And every time we're talking in journalism about how journalists are able to give voices to the voiceless, or about how motions and change have been started because of news stories or photos, I feel worse for not wanting to work in that field :(

 

[Brovo]

I'm not interested in the news. It sounds like a terrible thing for an adult to say, but I'm not.

To be honest, this just keeps a lot of garbage out of your mind, so, no, not terrible at all. I mean, I tried picking up a newspaper yesterday and discovered it had an entire section dedicated to feminism. "Neat", I thought. Flipped to it. What did I get? An entire two page section about how handsome Justin Trudaeu is, and how he can do no wrong because he has nice eyes.

I wish I was joking. I'm not. The News is a giant, biased, severely corrupt industry. It doesn't just present facts anymore, it tries to present a "truth" constructed out of those facts for you to believe. Take one issue, and ten different news organizations will give you ten different truths, with the facts taking second stage. Most of them don't even bother to fact check anymore, either, cuz' it's a race to get your story out first. I don't blame you for not wanting to be part of it.

That being said, journalism has more outlets than just news. If it helps you get your degree, learn it, regurgitate it, forget it. Who knows, maybe you'll learn something interesting as a result.

Also, don't feel guilty. Seriously, don't. Pursue your passions. The people who died to get your rights and freedoms didn't want you and everyone else to use those rights to only do strictly important tasks. They wanted to save artists, writers, and kittens too. Life ain't nothin' without a little spice called variety.

 

[Kestrel]

I need to purge my mind sometimes specifically because of the news. If I don't, I will grow apathetic towards it and to an extent to my environment. This is part of why I quit my major in psychology for example. If I would pursue a career as a therapist, it would eventually become less about helping people and more about the challenge (ie people becomes puzzles instead of people.) I did not want that. I do enjoy challenge in my work, but I don't want it to go paired with dehumanisation. And I think that when I generalise this to other people, what it comes down to is that if you don't take satisfaction from helping others, you're hurting yourself and in turn become less efficient at helping others.

I understand too, however, that creative writing is a financial death sentence. My good deed of the week (a couple weeks back) was to land someone with a communications degree a temp job. I wish I was joking when I tell people that as a joke. Shit is ridiculous. However, I don't think that you should (as of right now) look at editing as a career but as a hobby. I mean, if that is what you take satisfaction from, money is the extrinsic reward and what you need can be better earned through putting a journalism degree to use. There's a lot of different venues where those skills are applicable, which I'm sure you know more about than me, so look for something that doesn't clash too horribly with your morals and keep the editing on the side. Who knows, if you end up in a more comfortable financial position you can pursue your editing further, or who knows the next best-seller will remember how you helped them out when they were just beginning (pro-tip, always keep in touch with your network). It's within the realm of possibility.

 

[Kagayours]

I certainly don't think anyone should feel guilty for pursuing what they love. Being concerned about future career options is one thing, but feeling guilty just because I won't be curing cancer? Yeeaaaah no, I don't think that that should be everyone's top concern when deciding on a career. @_@ Finding a balance between doing what you love and doing what will pay the bills is difficult enough.

That said: I think that what you're doing is already a fairly happy medium between those two. Going into journalism doesn't necessarily mean you'll be going into news, for sure. You could probably talk to a career counselor or something and find other career paths. In fact, if you really want to be a book editor, then perhaps you could keep your major in journalism and add a minor in creative writing? I know you said that creative writing majors are a "death sentence" because it's "not what people look for", but that all depends on the people in question -- I'm sure there are some people who look for creative writers. And book editing jobs are certainly a thing that exist. Having a journalism major and a creative writing minor sound like a pretty decent thing to look for on a resume if you're trying to find someone for that kind of job. Again, I'm no expert, so you should probably talk to someone who knows more about this than me, but, yeah. Instead of saying "there are no jobs for X major", think of the job that you want -- a job that you know exists -- and think about how you can best prepare for that job. If that involves studying creative writing, then I don't know why you would want to avoid it.

Plus, being a journalism major means there are other fields to fall back on if your ideal career doesn't work out.

Also, keep in mind that a major/minor isn't everything. There are other things that people look for on resumes -- like experience. That's a big one. If there's any group you can get involved in on-campus that could give you useful experience in the editing field (or at least useful skills that could easily translate over), then I would definitely recommend checking it out. Also, networking and connections -- those are the things that can really land you a job. Again, I'd ask someone with more expertise than me on how to pursue these things.

But yeah, it's silly to avoid a major/minor that there are supposedly no jobs for when you know that your ideal career would fall under that major. I can understand having this sort of concern if you're, say, a philosophy major, and you can't think of a single job that a philosophy major could have aside from being a philosophy professor, but, this isn't just about you having a major that interests you and not knowing what to do with that major -- this is about you knowing what career you want to go into and yet, somehow, still being convinced that you can't find jobs under the major that would best fit that ideal career.

Again, it's all about what you plan on going into and what those fields would be looking for. A law major might sound like something that's sure to get me places in life, but it won't land me a graphic design job. Meanwhile, an art major might sound a bit more iffy to most people, but it'll certainly get me into that graphic design job before a law major will. Likewise, even if most employers aren't looking for a creative writing major, the employers in a creative writing field just might look at that a bit more favorably.

For you personally, I would say that a journalism major and creative writing minor are probably what would be best for getting into the career you want. Don't approach majors with the mindset that each one can only pidgeonhole you into a single career: skills are transferable and there are probably a lot of careers that would be easier to get into with a fair amount of journalism experience. It's definitely good to keep some plan B's in mind, especially if your ideal career is difficult to get into, but, just think of the career you want and how to best prepare for that. I think an employer would appreciate seeing a set of skills and experience custom-tailored to best fit a certain career. It would probably stand out more than some cookie-cutter career path, anyway. And a more diverse background means more options for plan B's, as well.