I'm still trying to figure out why whenever I tell someone I have an English degree they automatically assume my career dreams are to be a teacher? Let's be honest, I don't have the patience to teach. I mean I really don't have the patience for it and if I did I would be teaching college level when people actually want to be in my class and do well. I have great respect for anyone that does teach, I think it takes a lot passion and drive to be a teacher. But that's just not me … and that's okay!
I got my degree focused in Creative Writing and found my place on the Fiction track. Now let's face it you rarely find posting on career sights, or in the classifieds, or employers looking for Creative Writers. It's just not a common job posting you really see when doing your job search. And for anyone that looks at me skeptically and thinks to themselves "Creative Writing what's she going to do with that?" believe I know you're thinking it and a few of you have even voiced it. I can tell just by the look on your face that you think I'm a fool for spending four years in school to gain a degree that does not guarantee job security, and your skepticism and doubt is nothing I haven't encountered before. But I'm a tough girl and I know how to stand behind my degree and my dreams.
Because yes I may be working in a job that I did not study for, I work in the automotive industry, which if you ask anyone in this industry it's really not a job people look to get into. You kind of stumble into and find your niche; well guess what I like my job! I'm good at my job! And if I can't be making money in my dream career then I'm glad to have found a job that I enjoy and can do well, it's better than getting out of bed everyday and dreading going to work because it's not where I want to be.
Ultimately I don't want the car business to be my career, I have dreams of my own in regards to my writing and that is where I eventually want to end up. It's getting there that will be the issue. But for all the doubtful nay-sayers, all those that think the only thing I can do with an English degree is be a teacher, to everyone that thinks I'm fooling myself about job security … I know all of this!
All of these reasons are the reasons why I am not fooling myself by being unemployed with my head in the clouds! I found a job that I like and I work on my writing on my own time. I have a plan to one day be a published author with writing credits. I hope that one day I will be able to support myself solely on my writing, but realistically should that day ever come it is a long way off into the future.
And to anyone that doesn't know what this process is like, how difficult this journey can be please I implore you to think before you pass judgments. Like anyone fresh out of college the job market is difficult, paved with potholes and contingencies; can't get a job because I have no experience and the jobs I can get I'm too over qualified for. Believe me all of us are stuck between a rock and a hard place. But I refuse to be the one to turn my nose up at a job just because it's not what I went to school for or think that I'm "overqualified" for anything! A job, any job, means work experience, it means networking connections, it means potential. And that's really what it's all about.
So for now I'm a car girl, I kind of always will be a car girl, but one day I will be an author! I'll make that transition from writer to author. Just you wait and see!
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