“Either, Or” (and an Introduction)

To start, I’m Ally – a 21-year old “seeker” in Orlando, Florida, about to graduate this May with an English degree. And no, if you’re asking from your chair, I don’t plan to teach. Though as many English majors as there are here, y’all probably aren’t asking. 😉
If I had a dollar for every time someone asked me that question, I probably wouldn’t need a job for awhile. I’m not sure why “English major” and “teacher” are so universally linked. I might someday want to go to graduate school, so I can become a professor but I definitely want to do something else as well. Write, edit, work in marketing, manage publicity, maybe start my own small publishing company… I’m not altogether sure yet, and that’s part of the “problem.”
I’ve gotten plenty of “advice” from the university, and I’ve found it pretty lackluster. Maybe some schools have great career counseling programs, but mine doesn’t seem to – or if it does, I’m not using it correctly. Maybe I’m just expecting too much. I mean, they seem to be pretty decent at helping get together a decent resume (from what you have, of course) or giving you interview advice, if you need it, but you can read most of that online anyway. They just don’t have the connections – except maybe for some of the students in the education, hospitality, and engineering programs – in the community to actually help students get a job. I think that’s the story at a lot of places.
The advice I’ve gotten from my actual departments (English and I almost completed a Marketing minor but ran out of scholarship hours first) hasn’t really helped that much either.
Advisors in the English department recommended a) grad school (almost unanimously) and b) going to Europe on a one-year work visa. I really do want to go to graduate school someday, for something, but I don’t know what yet. I’ve looked at everything from an MBA in Marketing and Accounting to an MFA in Poetry. As for Europe, I almost laughed. I’m not the kind of girl who likes to waste a year, which is most of my worry and frustration currently. I want to make every second of my professional life count. That might sound silly or very Type A personality – and it probably is a little of both – but that’s who I am. When the woman said, “get a work visa and bum around London or somewhere, even if you work a crappy waitress job – at least you’re a waitress in Europe,” all I could think was,
“What a waste of time.”
I mean, I want to go to Europe, and I’d love to live in Europe, if I could do something either professionally or personally meaningful with every moment. Especially since I won’t be in school next year, I want what I do professionally to matter for my future. You only have so much time to advance in life, and I want to do so much — but I feel like I’m so far from every goal that I have.
I think the problem I’ve come across is that everywhere I turn everyone – the English department, the business department, my parents, my friends, my boyfriend – is telling me you get one of two things in life. You either get to do what you love or you get to make money.
I just think they have the wrong conjunction in that sentence (which is an English major’s silly way of saying I hate the “or”). I mean, I don’t need to be a millionaire by the time I’m 30 or anything, but I want to make some money in my life, and I want to be happy at work. I hope that’s not too quixotic. I guess we’ll see. Eventually.
As for how, I currently make my money and spend my days, I’m an Administrative Assistant/Sales Assistant/Technical Support at a furniture design company. It’s fun, good for my resume, and the people are great, but it doesn’t have the growth potential that I’d like. (There’s plenty of potential for both salary and title growth, but not for a real increase of responsibility, since the owners are so involved in the day-to-day.) I’m almost-full-time there.
I also might be getting a second part-time job. I have a second interview on Monday. More about that later.