Did I Miss The Memo?

Did I miss the memo? Since when does spending four years in school and getting a degree make me a baby? Sure maybe I'm not working in my field that I studied for but I'm working! I'm an adult and taking charge of my life by at least working to support myself rather than depending on someone else to pay my bills and my lifestyle. Because it's just not me!

I've been working since I was fifteen years old, I held two jobs while I was an undergrad and still managed to maintain a minimum of a 3.0 GPA. I know how to work hard; I managed to stay in school and graduate on time which in this day and age seems to  be a feat in an of itself. When I started school it was right around the time of one of the worst financial periods in our history since the Great Depression and I still managed to stay in school. I don't appreciate the insinuation that I may be a princess or a brat, don't pity my parents because I still live with them. Don't pity any potential future husband because he will have to support me! Because that's not how I work.

I'll admit that it kind of stinks that I spent four years in school and yet I'm not really utilizing my degree in the ways I had hoped. But that being said I chose my major knowing full well that my career choice, my passion, was not an ad I would find in the classifieds of employers looking to hire. In fact it's pretty non-existent that you see an ad for creative fiction writers, so I work. I'm a car girl and just seemed to fall right into place in a dealership not far from my home. I like my job and I'm good at it; I don't plan on it being my career but it's my job now so I'll give it 110%.

Now I understand I went to school and studied English, I have a BA in it. But once again, did I miss some sort of memo that gives other permission to belittle my degree? So because I didn't get a degree in medicine, or physical therapy, or some sort of trade it allows others to turn their noses up at my degree? Believe it or not guys I worked hard for my degree, and all you other English majors can agree, it's not exactly as easy as everyone else seems to think. I read Shakespeare, I know how to think critically and dissect stories that I read, I spent an entire semester studying Chaucer! CHAUCER!

My degree is something that I am proud of, something that I earned! So I do not appreciate being talked down to just because I chose to study English. I don't enjoy being told that I picked wrong when I declared! Or that I'm a fool because I would like to one day get my MFA in Creative Writing! That's the fast way to tick me off and put me on the offensive and if you haven't gone toe to toe with before I give as good as I get, especially when what I'm fighting for I have a passion for.

So please someone, if there was a memo sent out that declared an English degree to be akin to a degree in comedy I'd love a copy of it. Otherwise keep the side comments out of my earshot; they're not appreciated.

4 Years of College + English Degree = Teach? Is that my only option?

     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!