Venting - my honours degree seems worthless

[ParsleyCake]

I got an honours degree in Classics and now I feel like I wasted my time as I can't find a job. It seems unless you want to work in admin or for some supermarket chain there's nothing.

You might think I should have thought about this before I chose to study classics but I was originally studying something else and was persuaded not to drop out when I was failing miserably and instead study something I had a passion for. I chose Classics as if interested me more than history (Classics being the study of the Greeks and Romans, including the Latin language, ancient writings and plays and general history). So basically it was a degree in Classics or nothing.

I studied so hard and got an average grade which was more than I expected and I was so proud. I decided I wanted to work in archiving and applied for an intern type job at a local council archive. I'm a hard working person and I get on well with people and even have experience from volunteering in those archives, but I didn't even get an interview. I know my CV and cover letter were fine so I don't know why I didn't even get an interview.

It's been months since I graduated and this has been the only job I have been able to seriously apply for. Not only because it is in my area of interest, but simply because on all the job websites, it was the only things I felt qualified for. I already spent years working as a cleaner and in cafes and shops, surely I should be able to get better work now that I have a degree? And by better I mean with better opportunities. In those crappy jobs it's not worth working your way up. You get to earn 8p more per hour for being a supervisor rather than a cleaner/waiter/shop assistant in some places, and that just isn't worth it.

Why did no one tell me that university was a useless waste of money? I've got student loans to pay off and my life feels stagnant and miserable at times. Where are all the job opportunities I was promised?

Where did you get the idea that a degree in classics would lead to employment opportunities? I'm surprised anyone in their early 20s would think that.
Thinking back to my post graduating days - my 3 friends and I worked in admin, admin, admin and a coffee shop for the first year or so after graduating. Those jobs were found after applying to many places. And that was over ten years ago and the job market is much harder now.
Pull your head out of the sand and get yourself a job. Any job will pay the bills and provide opportunities for social development and possibly networking.
As a cautionary tale - my 3 uni friends and I have all done post grad study to get the careers we wanted in the end.

An undergraduate degree is not really much on its own anymore. Many more people have degrees nowadays. You either have to do a graduate degree or get some work experience.

OP. My DD graduated from Glasgow too. She is 23. Maybe you knew her! As I said up thread her degree was in theology. She graduated with a First in 2014.

She had no idea what she wanted to do job wise so she came home and took a waitressing job whilst she was looking for jobs. Very quickly she decided to do volunteering, applied through ICS and spent 10 weeks earlier this year in Nicaragua with Raleigh.

When she came back in April this year she set about getting a job with determination and treated it like a full time job. I helped her by searching for suitable positions whilst she applied for jobs. She made her CV the best it could be and tweaked it to suit each application. The best websites were the ones I linked to up thread.

She had a number of phone interviews and one place invited her for interview. She had 3 interviews with them in total and started this job in June. Out of all the applications this was the only one which offered her an interview. She wasn't certain about it. The job is in legal publishing. Now she is there she loves it and she knows it can be used as a stepping stone to move onto other jobs.

What I am trying to highlight is that it is hard. You need to throw everything you have at the process and be prepared to move out of your comfort zone. The jobs won't come looking for you. Do you have friends, parent, boyfriend you can enlist to help you with your search? Have you got a temporary/casual job right now? Can you do local volunteer work? Have you got a great CV?

It isn't easy to get a job but they do exist. You just need to put all your effort into the process. I am sure you will get lots of support here with getting your applications right.

You've been given some fantastic advice here so I'm not going to add to it, but I was astonished at this comment:

"Where are all the job opportunities I was promised?"

If you do want to work in archiving then your degree wasn't a waste of time, it's just not enough, but I'm surprised that in this day and age anyone led you to believe a bog standard degree in a non-vocational subject would automatically lead to lots of job opportunities.

I'm 39 and I studied history at university. I've never used the degree at all, never worked in anything related to it. I now have a vocational post graduate qualification and having done a degree helped me in terms of study habits etc for that, but I've never used the degree itself.

I only picked it as it was my favourite subject, I didn't know what I wanted to do for a living so pootling about studying history for three years seemed like a good idea. There were no fees to pay and I got a bit of a grant combined with small loans so financially it was no big deal. I'm very very clear that young people now do not have the luxury of making a decision to study in the same cavalier way.

Your experience is not unusual. It's very sad that so many youngsters go off with high hopes and come back a bit deflated. It takes time to get the perfect job.

There is funding for masters now I understand if that helps?

OP, I feel your pain. I studied English and graduated 6 years ago (I'm 27). I've never had a job related to my degree.

I do feel that our generation was told a big lie when it comes to university. Sadly for a lot of people the reality is that you take what you can get job-wise. My first job from uni was a £14k admin role (that apparently you needed a degree to do - we were all graduates there). I'm now on about £20k doing a job that you don't need a degree for but I do enjoy it. There's no great earning potential there but I've kind of come to terms with that now.

You've graduated from an excellent university with a good degree. A 2.1 is the requirement for most graduate level jobs so it's not like you're at any disadvantage there. Go and speak to your careers service - they aren't closed to you just because you have graduated. They should be able to talk to you about your interests and ambitions and suggest some other areas to be exploring. Don't be downhearted, it's a tough climate.

Lots of greasy ayes make this realisation, op, often 4 years & a mountain of debt too late.

An undergrad degree is only the very start of the path to a 'graduate job'. For most jobs you need a pg degree aswell. Often a year or 2 of unpaid/voluntary work. You also need to be prepared to move to find work/course.

It's tough and why our call centre's , shop floors and admin offices are full of graduates.

Look up the evening classes of the Unis in your city and do one in public speaking.

It's a skill you will need.

Thanks for all your help! The other thing I want to add - because I made it sound like I've been doing nothing since I graduated - was that I also have a 3 month old baby. I already have a part time shop job too. I also have been searching for jobs (volunteering not an option right now) but as I alrady have a decent (though dead end) part time job, I'm not going to apply for anything that doesn't have either more hours, pay or upwards mobility. There hasn't been much and the archiving job was in fact 'entry level' and the only job so far I was just excited for.

If you have any form of childcare volunteering is possible. Even if it is just an hour or two at a weekend in evening manning an enquiries desk at a museum, sorting returned books in a library, setting up resources for school group activities at a local stately home or even at a children's centre (maybe taking dc with you). You are bring unrealistic to expect to land a well paid job on your own terms without any experience of the field. Even if you had a pg qualification you'd need experience to give your application the edge.

The problem is that pretty much everyone has a degree now. :( and the standards have dropped accordingly. If you've got over half the year group getting a degree, by definition you have below average people getting degrees, when degrees used to be for the top ten or so percent academically. The number of graduate jobs hasn't kept pace with the expansion in the university sector either.

Unless you've got a vocational first degree (medicine for example, or engineering or nursing) then theres no set or defined career path. Even with things like medicine you still have to do ten years or so of very arduous ongoing training to get your career going.

All degrees (arts and STEM) should result in a graduate with a certain level of skill in researching, writing, collating evidence, presenting an argument etc. It's a myth that humanities graduates beat science ones in this - there's a ton of essay writing, researching etc in most stem degrees. What STEM degrees add is all that plus a degree of numeracy and problem solving ability.

I've got three degrees in hard science, including a PhD and I still had to start on the ground floor to get into my current career - it took me a good five years to get out of the 'shitty drugdey' level of work - you do, alas, just have to work your way up the ladder. That means applying for LOTS of jobs and jobs which may only indirectly give you a leg up.

If there's a specific sector you want to work in, then you need to get any job in that sector and prove yourself.

Keep your linkedin profile up to date. It's a useful source code f jobs

I remember typing my dissertation one handed when dd1 was bf. it was at least something to do during night feeds! When she was tiny I ran the local thrift shop three days a week (on a volunteer basis) as I could take her with me.

Congrats on your baby. You will have to be extra-motivated to organize yourself and really put yourself out there, now that kids are on the scene. It's too easy to sleepwalk away away the next ten years because you have a baby/ a pt job etc etc. there's nothing wrong with deciding you want to work pt and raise your dc, but if you do want a career, now is the time you have to maintain your focus and grit your teeth and make a plan. The longer you leave it, the harder it will be.

Tbh even in nursing, there is an expectation that you'll do specialist modules/ masters level study or even PhD, depending on your career path. Otherwise you'll be stuck on a band 5 forever more.

I think, especially with a baby, you have a huge decision to make now. Do you want a steady good income ASAP, or do you really really want to get a job related to your degree?

Because although it's not impossible to find a decent job using a Classics degree, the odds are that it will involve a lot more financial sacrifice before you get there, and it's probably never going to pay big money.

If, however, you look for a more generic graduate office based job, either a starter job or part of a graduate scheme and work from there in the areas that most interest you, then there are loads of jobs that nobody outside those fields has ever heard of that will help you support your family and that have plenty of challenge and interest.

Good luck.

This has given me some really good ideas. I have looked into volunteering - there are plenty of admin assistant type unpaid positions in my area, so I think I will sign up for one of those. I have also made an appointment with a career advisor.

I won't lie, I feel quite depressed and let down. It seems I would have been In the same position or better if I had left school at sixteen instead of spending my life savings and almost a full decade of my life continuing in education. I resat a year, had depression for a few years, almost dropped out twice and commuted for over an hour each way to uni for four and a half years to get to this stage in my life. I made not one friend while I was there and never had a night out with my classmates. I studied so hard for my degree that I soent six hours a day minimum studying in the library most days and worked two or three part time jobs simultaneously (though I dropped the other two towards the end) to pay my bills. It's not that I'm stupid, just not as smart as everyone else there. I don't think 'the world owes me' at all, it's just that I never thought after all this work and money I would still have to consider working at McDonalds as an option.

I know I'm whinging but no one in my family understands. I'm the first to go to uni in my family and my fiance never went, so everyone thinks I'm exaggerating or being dramatic when I told them how I'm probably not going to be earning more than minimum wage for years. Everyone was so proud when I graduated, telling me I had done my time and before long I'd be settled in a good job. My school teachers sold us all this unrealistic dream and the university and their careers service was just as bad.

There are no full time jobs ANYWHERE. Not even in terrible cleaning jobs, waitressing, bar work...everything is 0 hour contract and they expect us to be at their beck and call. My partner got called at 8am yesterday to come in for a shift at 10. He's already refused two shifts so they told him last chance or he's out. They don't care that he has two other jobs or a family to support. Life is crappy sometimes. I thought I could 'save' us by getting a job with a decent wage.

I was stupidly naive, trust me I know. I know I will have to put in more effort. I just really hope, for my son's sake, that I can do better.

That's rough. Your family are right to be proud of you though as you've done really well.

You will get a good job if you invest some time into getting some experience and making a lot more applications.

University careers no good then? That's disappointing- they were really good for me though I was asking quite specific questions I guess and also that was a decade ago. Can you at least search their database for jobs as some will be quite a way from uni itself. Our careers service had nationwide jobs listed and that was from Durham so back of beyond.

I don't think an undergraduate degree has been a passport to a well-paid job for a long time. I graduated with a chemistry degree over 20 years ago. My tutors made it very clear that I needed a PhD to have any kind of career in science. Even then, I spent 6 years working on short-term contracts before getting a permanent position.

I've since done a further postgraduate degree and a series of professional examinations. I have a well-paid job nowadays - but graduating from university was only the start of my journey to get to this point. As I said earlier, this has taken a further 20 years and is due to a combination of work experience, further study and additional qualifications.

Good luck with your career OP - I'm afraid you will need to work at it for some years to come to get to where you want to be.

I would say keep applying to lots of different places / jobs. It's a numbers game. ONE job that you feel excited about really doesn't give you a lot of chances. You need to send your CV to 70 places or more, and aim for at least 10 interviews, to start understanding what is possible with your degree / qualifications. So think about how you can broaden your net to do this.

Also, you can't always tell whether the job is suitable or not, by just looking at an ad, you really need to have a lot of interviews and see a lot of places.

I personally think that my education was a waste of time too, but I don't feel depressed about it. It's just how it is. With my background it was the best I could have, and it served me well, eventually. Same for you. If you're the first in a family with higher education, then you've really done great to go as far as you did!

Postgraduate will hardly increase your chances of getting a higher paid job. In a way it might do the opposite - the choice of suitable roles will be even more limited. I'd put the postgraduate idea on hold for a couple of years at least.

It seems I would have been In the same position or better if I had left school at sixteen

You probably wouldn't. Some companies, including my own dear employer, will now only look at graduates. Because there are so many about, it's just a filtering mechanism, as much as anything - some jobs really do need graduate skills, but plenty don't, and still ask for graduates.

You will have lots of transferrable skills from a degree in classics - look at things like the analytical skills and so on. There will be jobs you can work in, but you might need to think more laterally about how you fit in to them, which skills you can adapt. (I started with a history degree, worked in libraries, and from there, got into IT.)

Would you consider further study in an area where there are more jobs? The supervisor job might be only eight pence more per hour, but think of the extra training you will receive or opportunity to learn new skills in managing people! Then you can go for the managers job.....think long term.

I agree any degree opens doors

A degree shows committment, organisational & communication skills

If you can add work experience & volunteering onto your CV you have a great start

I agree you may not get a job in your preferred field, but any job with career prospects is good.

Some jobs offer time to do courses & qualifications

Keep applying

Or perhaps I was 17 and everyone around me was telling me that university would set me up for the best possible future, and being 17 and the first in my family to go to uni I didn't know any adults who'd recently been through it