If you want a paycheck and more, be a professional accordianist.
Posted on 11/03/2016 10:50:18 AM PDT by CorporateStepsister
If you only have a few credits left just bite the bullet and take what on-line courses are required. Sometimes you can CLEP through courses and they do not cost nearly as much.
Sit down and draw up a plan, what do you want to do, what training is required and what kind of economic investment will be needed. You will also need to decide if it is physically and emotionally feasible for you to follow this course. If you are allergic to animal dander being a vet is probably off the table. :)
Once you do that then you should see what you need to do
“Went to community college for a semester in 1972 but majored in pinball.”
Fast forward about 25 years ... I started “collecting” pinball machines around that time ... now it is a sick, obsessive habit :-).
I should have done more drugs :-). It’d be less expensive and I’d get the same feeling I get when I frigging get “Lost in the Zone” playing Twilight Zone :-).
About six months later, joined the US Army as an infantryman and served in that role for three years, promoted to Sergeant/E-5.
In 1978, switched MOS to become a court reporter. I have worked in that field since then, currently Clerk of Court and Senior Installation Court Reporter for Fort Hood, Texas. I couldn't have chosen a better job field if I had designed it from the ground up: I have no clients to please, I work in a technical position where output and results are all that really count, and I don't have to deal with very many people. I have only one or two people who critique my work and they're the only ones who have a say in what I do and how I do it.
I really like my job and, as I've told those that I supervise, will probably have to be dragged out of here by my ankles ...
There are a ton of online options.
I have a college degree, and to be honest, I would never have gotten a job at the level I did without it.
If you are working for yourself, it is entirely dependent on what you are doing. At that stage you have an idea of your shortcomings. There are probably many options for keying in on that rather going to college.
Without knowing more of your background and future plans, its is virtually impossible to give you any sound advice.
I’m seventy five and I started college seven times. I have a high IQ and I had too many subjects that I was interested in. Was always changing majors. When I was seventy I decided to pick a major and stick to it. I recently graduated summa cum laude with a BA degree.
I skipped college because my family (Democrats) were losers and there was no money for college. College would have meant student loans and then then years and years of paying them off before I’d be free to have a life.
So I got married at 18, I’m now 26 with six children (the first pregnancy was twins), and another on the way.
My husband paid for me to go to culinary arts school which was $13k. Since then my seasonal part time jobs as a pastry chef have paid back that $13k a few times over. I also took a home school curriculum and did high school all over again. If you look at my posts from 2009 and look at the posts I write now I’m sure you’ll see the difference!
Meanwhile my old friends from high school are paying rent on apartments, paying for school loans, dreaming of houses some distant day in the future, and putting off kids until they’re in their late 30’s or early 40’s...if ever. They also tend to limit their writing skills to 140 characters or less and then they wonder why they have such a hard time ‘connecting’ with other people.
None of them speak to me anymore and they treat me like a traitor because I didn’t do the same things they chose to do. This whole anti-family ethic is like some sort of a cult where being a wife and mom is treason to ‘The Cause’.
While I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have some regrets on my choices the fact remains that I’m far happier than my old friends are and I’m deeply happy that I never had to subject myself to liberal brainwashing at one of their ‘accredited’ indoctrination camps. [/rant]
- Megan
I know quite a few “successful” people. Some serious software developers or managers at places like Microsoft, as well as corporate lawyers who went to top law schools like Yale, Georgetown. They have a lot of influence on things that many people use, or do, in their daily lives. These people worked hard at school, and then and have been pursuing excellence and professional notoriety their career path for decades.
Also know successful people who sell tires, operate vending machines, run restaurant chains, or build buildings (or kit them out). These folks did not go to college. In fact, in terms of net worth, this group is probably worth more than the professionals above. But - they too became successful by choosing their careers, working hard, and sticking to it.
So if you don’t have at least a basic plan or interest - don’t waste your money on college. to me, it sounds like you do not.
But at the same time, if you don’t have a passion to succeed at in a workplace, or can’t dedicate yourself to a skill-set, then you won’t succeed at whatever it is you are doing.
I got a degree but learned 99% of what I needed to know for my work from travelling and working in my field. I can’t think of a damn thing I learned in university that I use(d) in my work.
Except for the piece of paper at the end (which I admit does open some doors) the time spent there was a near total waste of time and money. I did meet some interesting people.
Not everyone will have positive experiences, but in the end, a College Education was not necessary for me.
If life is a paycheck, get training.
If you want more, get an education.
If you want a paycheck and more, be a professional yodeler.
I wanted to major in medical lab technology but like you didn’t have the academic horsepower. I did however manage to get a liberal arts degree.
Worked various jobs over the years and have done ok. Finally 5 years ago I decided to take an algebra class to console myself having blamed my lack of math skills for not doing well 30 years earlier.
To date I have earned 39 undergrad credits at my community college and this semester I’m taking organic chemistry 1. Next semester ochem 2, then in the summer English comp 2 and finally in the fall semester I’m taking college trig. That will get me a Biology AS degree which is basically all of the pre-requsite classes I would need to do the medical lab internship.
I’m not going to do that but I just wanted to prove to myself that I could. It was a black cloud hanging over my head all those years.
The problem as I see it in a nutshell:
Most employers are like my parents. They’ve consumed that Kool-Aid and believe that a candidate without a degree isn’t worth a bucket of warm spit. Their resume won’t even get a look beyond the education line.
Their unwillingness to consider the alternative (or.....heaven forbid....invest in TRAINING their own employees!) has resulted in the massive amounts of student debt and the swarm of fly-by-night online schools.
My ex-employer knew better. We had to apply for visas for certain employees who were going to do work in other countries. As a cost-cutting move we trained our $10.25/hour receptionist with a high-school diploma to do the paperwork.
A year later her rejection rate was LOWER than the attorneys that we had been paying $300/hour to complete the same task.
I have a mechanical engineering degree. But now I can study any technology I want on youtube. If you are past the rudimentaries and just want to learn, there are now alternatives online.
“but i do miss not being smart enough to get that degree”
I earned two degrees in computer science 40 years ago, which now aren’t worth the paper they were written on then. They were a help then, but now they don’t even have any bragging rights. (I DO have LOTS of things to brag about since then, but the degrees are not one of them.)
there’s lots of different types of intelligences. the kinds needed to get a degree aren’t the only kind by a long shot. I’ve seen many degreed individuals whose common sense wouldn’t cover the surface of the end of a needle.
Academics aren’t for everyone, and I’ve seen many successful people in the trades who are really great at what they do, really happy doing it, and have made very successful and lucrative businesses for themselves doing it.
I’ve got a close friend in his 60’s who was a natural born entrepreneur and his a multi-millionaire. This guy is smart but does not have a degree. I’ve recently helped him discover the Internet and he’s dived into it and is learning all kinds of stuff. He’s become an instant expert on many kinds of firearms and is buying up deals at national auctions and reselling at local auctions for a profit.
I also once saw a guy in his 50’s go back to school to get his PhD, even though this guy was an extremely accomplished computer programmer and making really good money in a really good job. This guy had made it. We all just shook our heads at such a pointless exercise and could only speculate that it was solely because he felt his feeling of self-worth depended on proving to himself that he could it.
It sounds to me like you’ve made yourself a great, happy life WITHOUT a degree! So just forget about it and focus on those things you are great at! You really didn’t miss very much.
If you want a paycheck and more, be a professional accordianist.
Is the prrofessional degree in English Language Studies? :-)
I’m 54 and doing just fine without a college degree and no family business to walk into.
I went to college for a year and a half but had NO clue as what to actually go for. My parents insisted so I just took basics.
I mulled around in low paying jobs throughout my 20’s. Got into the USPS at 27 and started my ‘adult’ life - newish car instead of the beater held together with chicken wire, bought a house, got married, etc...
Like a dope, I left that job after 10 years via pressure from the wife (now EX) and got a ‘respectable’ office job working 8-5, M-F for WAY less pay. So I started playing music on the side. It was always a hobby but I started earning weekend $$$ to supplement.
That day job I had was tied to the housing/mortgage business and when the bottom fell out, I kept getting laid off. Meanwhile, the music stuff increased.
And so, now I am a full time musician. Not as secure as I’d like but I make enough to keep my family going. We don’t live in poverty, but we don’t live like the obamas either. I consider it an average $40k existence. We do just fine.
College WOULD have made it easier, but whenever I ask myself what I would go for... I STILL don’t know.
I would encourage young people to consider trade schools instead. College produces idiots these days and upon graduating, you begin your new life in unbelievable DEBT.
“Fortunately I graduated long before I discovered FR.”
ROTFLOL!
I’ll tell you it’s not in posting on a smart phone with 56 year old eyes!
I like your story, Don’t EVER regret having kids early (I don’t think you do). I know so many “professional women” (and men) who thought success was being a high-level drone at some corporation. They neglected family - and now its too late. Also, you are young and can manage a family easily. Children are the wealth of this era, people just don’t realize it yet.
You now have a totally useful and transportable skill - baking. If you want to pursue that full time, by working hard, many paths in many related fields will be open to you.
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