It feels like people around my age are falling through the cracks of society

[Sutter Cane]

IS the OP even around anymore? I do hope so.

@Sutter_Cane

Basically, not everything is worth studying from an employment perspective. Hard science is good, especially directly applicable, like medicine. While languages or philosophy might be good for personal development, it's just not going to guarantee a job at all. If anything, you'll be over-qualified for a bunch of jobs.

That being said, it's still well possible to use that education by yourself, use the knowledge you gained to be a writer or such. But you'll have to use it yourself. Someone hiring you because you studied such a course is unlikely.

You have to go after it. My parents did, back in the day. They both worked full-time and went to evening school in their twenties. My ma saw potential in the computer (and thought it was interesting), and became one of the first comp. people in the company she worked for back then. That took more courses, and more work. Then as the company grew, so did her position - because she actively went to seminars, signed up for courses and all that, and now she's pretty comfortable there. But it was a lot of work.

No one is facing a dead end. But you might damn well be facing a mountain to climb, depending on your education and financial situation. And you have to climb it yourself. It's very rare to just 'roll' into the position you want. And even the hard science - medicine peeps, they network and make a lot of contacts in university, and your teachers vouch for you when you eventually get out and get a job.

So find something you're passionate about, and go for it. Go for it entirely. There's more people than jobs, and you'll have to be the best of the lot to get the position. Good luck.

Yes, I'm still around. I'm just much more of a reader than I am a talker, so unless i'm directly asked a question, or there's a point that I feel needs to be made that I haven't seen someone else adequately bring up I'll tend to be a bit quiet.

Also It seems like I may not have made my feelings clear enough in the OP. At this point i guess I just really don't know which way to jump. I mean, the kind of stuff that I'm both interested in and tend to really excel at also tend to be the type of things where it's very hard to make a living (filmmaking, philosophy, journalism, etc). The general advice I've been given about stuff like that is that my major should be in something that there's more money in, and that once I've found a way to be financially stable, to try to break in to one of the things that I'd really want to do (filmmaking specifically). However with the way things seem to be going, even if I go after one of the more stereotypically "safe" degrees, there's still a very high chance that I'll still end up not being able to get a job and still end up flipping burgers for 5-7 years, except then I'll also be smothered with debt from student loans and still not making any progress at all towards what I really want to do. So really, I'm just completely stumped.

 

[Shivarage]

*snips*

Nobody is in a position to predict anything right now, hell not even the bankers who fucked the system for the rest of us
You're at the beginning of your existential crisis so a few things you will learn is

1> money does not bring happiness, a comfortable living does and the world is finding that harder to maintain
2> if you need a lot of money to keep a friend interested in being your friend... he isn't a friend.
3> the media are not a reliable source of information and ignoring it will feel like a weight off your mind
4> you cannot change the world so don't blame yourself for it's failings (see number 3)
5> there are many more nice people in the world than mean

going back to number 1, take a look at the pyramids of Egypt - there are important life lessons to be learned there that ask you the important questions

 

[sky14kemea]

Thread moved to the Advice Forum. Seems like it'd fit in more over here.

 

[lechat]

think i found the trick to getting a decent job

1. find job that any idiot can do (or you know you can do) but you won't get hired because you are "unqualified"
2. write the perfect resume for the job
3. forge all qualification and certificates from resume
4. grab some cheap pre paid sim cards and have yourself or your friends pretend to be the references from the resume
5. make a decent impression at your interview

that is literally what i had to do to get my last job. have to say it worked pretty well, assuming you don't apply for a rocket science job when you failed 2nd grade maths noone is going to check your qualifications and as long as you can perform most of the jobs tasks you should be able to pull it off

 

[AWAR]

-

You actually pulled that off? WOW...