I have a French literature degree.
I now work in government communications/PR/media relations. Some might consider my degree frivolous, but it's an interesting job, with very generous pay and benefits. So I don't consider it to have been a frivolous endeavour. I do a job I enjoy, meet interesting people, learn all kinds of new things, get paid very well, and most days I feel like what I'm doing could make a positive difference in someone's life.
People often forget about the very practical career possibilities for people with Arts/Humanities degrees. Corporate communications (or government comms, PR, etc.) can be really interesting, and even in the private sector, the pay isn't terrible (not awesome, but not miserable either). I work with policy analysts who have degrees in philosophy and also really enjoy their jobs and get paid well. It's not all doom and gloom.
Yup. I majored in English, and got a master's in Irish Literature. I will make around $214,000 this year, mostly from my public relations job. This work was also fantastic when I was a mother of young kids -- I worked as a freelance writer/PR consultant. I had some lean years, but ended the run with a two-year contract for a retainer of $72K per year for 20 hours per week of work.
I won $50 bucks on a one dollar lottery ticket once. Luck, hard work, and circumstance has a role in all our lives however it seems to me that most English majors can not expect a similar outcome.
Skyhigh
My dad had an English major, flew F-14s and is retiring with something north of 5 million this year (the number changes depending on how many bottles of wine he's had). You can do anything you want to do with anything.
greaper007,
I agree that you can do anything you want in life but not everything. Life is very competitive. If one wants more than anything to become an airline pilot then I agree they can. However if one wishes also to have a family, financial resources, and personal a life intact often one can not. If someone wishes to retire early and enjoy a life that is more of their choosing then I believe that it is imperative to avoid starting out deeply in debt for a career path that will not likely bare considerable financial fruit.
I have customers right now who are $100,000 in debt for a BS degree and a masters in geology and can not even get a job in a grocery store. They are in big trouble. We make choices in life. As a teenager aviation and higher education was presented to me as the path to higher earnings and a better life. My generation did not experience that and for those to follow increasingly will not either. Many careers in America have become working hobbies. Higher education can become a burden if indulged with reckless abandon. If one desires FIRE then there will be sacrifices to be made. The first step I believe is to find a practical profession that provides surplus income, control, and stability. It also should be transferable to other industries or careers. Most likely those careers are not fun, interesting, have much status, nor do they garner social respect. Those careers are fairly pedestrian and around us everyday. Workers in those fields are paid more for what they can do over what they will do.
The business I have now is not fun at all but cost very little to become certified for and produces far more than anything aviation could have done for me. My family is very happy with our new life and is prospering. I have a fair degree of control over my time. The main thing I had to do was to give up on my aviation dreams and to choose a realistic path for my self. I wish I could have had this perspective when I was 18 years old.
Skyhigh
I apologize in advance for the long post, but I was on a roll.
I'll disagree, I find I can do everything I want to do, I just have to do it differently. I could still be a pilot and have a family and support them. We would simply have to be willing to live in a small apartment, my job would take priority over my wife's, and we'd move every few years so we could live in my domicile. Now, I was changing domiciles every 6-9 months and my wife had a great job that paid 3 times what I was making so that arrangement would have been kooky. If I made as much or more than she did though, it would have been great. I simply would have bid reserve and spent time with my family. The last few months I was flying I bid a line where I only did 1 standup overnight a week (fly out of Dulles to White Plains, sleep for 3 hours then fly White Plains to Dulles) and I still got a 70ish hour pay guarantee for the month. No one wanted it because there was no way you'd ever go over guarantee picking up extra hours. But, I drove a 20 year old car,and my wife made the bread, so I could cover my expenses on guarantee and I jumped at it.
Financial independence is a worthy goal, it's why we're all on this site. There's also the Tim Ferris school of thought thought. I'm trying to combine the two. The four hour workweek philosophy would say this. Want to drive a Ferrari? You could buy one for over $100,000. Or rent one for a day for about $700. Like to ski? Sleep in your minivan or pile 10 people into a hotel room and back country ski. You can save the price of a lift ticket and get lots of fresh powder. There's even some safe areas like abandoned ski resorts.
As far as the student example you brought up. I had a good friend that graduated from an expensive school with about the same amount of debt. He had an undergrad in math, couldn't find a job and ended up working in a grocery store for a year. Then he decided to grab the brass ring and started talking to actuaries about how to get into the field. Now he's making an ungodly amount of money, living in a hip area of Chicago, working as an actuary. A geologist could make big bucks working for oil companies, mining companies, have an interesting job working for the government etc.
I really have to disagree about going into a high paying field just for the money. If you're interested in that field, fantastic. If you're just doing it for money or because your parents think you should, it's a horrible idea. I went into aviation because my dad was a pilot. I liked it, but I was never really an adrenaline junky so there was a lot I didn't like about flying. Still, I followed his advice so I could be like him and work 3 days a week and make $300,000. First he said go in the military. So I joined the Marines on an aviation contract. Even though I'm a flaming liberal that abhorred the Bush doctrine before that phrase was ever uttered. I lasted 6 weeks in OCS before I DORed. And no, the yelling and physical training didn't bother me. I was used to abusive parents so getting yelled at was old hat and I really liked the physical training. I had abs for the first time in my life. What bothered me was the kill kill America Fuck Yeah attitude everyone seemed to have. I figured everyone would display some sort of existential angst about our chosen profession, but there wasn't much of that.
So I went to flight school. Worked hard, got a job, and quit 3 years later because I didn't really like flying airplanes. Our airline also had a crash and I knew one of the jumpseaters fairly well. I had a 9 month old and couldn't imagine orphaning him for a job I didn't really care about. I just wanted money and an easy schedule. Something I could have gotten with my dad's connections. If someone told me I'd have $1,000,000 in the next 5 years I still would have quit.
Nothing works unless you follow your interests. If you have a passion, even better. But mostly you have to follow your interests. Once you get into a field then you simply have to be constantly looking for opportunities. They're always there you just have to recognize them and take a leap. Most psychologists my wife knows scrounge for a bs associate professor position at a small college. Those jobs are considered the pinnacle of the career. She decided to work for a for profit company, and then start a consulting firm. At first she was looked down upon, and now she's envied. Because she chairs international conferences and makes 6 figures at her own company. Be agile.
