#but tbh if I ever get a bachelor's degree and decide to pursue a master in gender studies this will be unofficial title of the master thesis

[oh-my-damn]

Hi I have a question. I think I read that studying law is the second college degree that you are pursuing. How did you decide to start over? How did you get the motivation for it?

This is not meant as an insult for you but I sometimes feel too old to go back to college (I am 28). I guess in my culture there also is just this immense pressure to function and if you're not happy with your job better suck it up. I am scared to start over and I also wouldn't know what would make me happier but someone like you, who started over is a big inspiration for me to at least collect some information about it

Well, it's not really starting over, as I see it tbh.

I have the first degree fully (it's just a bachelors, not a masters) and I got that back in my early twenties so I would have something to fall back on just in case.

Then I worked full time as a manager for Disney and I really enjoyed it for the most part, but also knew I didn't want to do it my entire life.

Law School was always my dream. The reason I didn't study that initially was because I couldn't get in. When Covid hit, I had a revelation and was like "I'll be damned if I die of a stupid virus without even TRYING to pursue my dream"

So I put in a lot of work and effort to get in to Law School despite my terrible grades from high school (I was a slacker) and to my enormous surprise, I got in on one of their "special" spots (84 people got one of those out of 2000 applicants)

So it was a chance I took that I didn't expect to pan out. Ever since I got in, I've taken it as a sign from the universe that everything was meant to happen this way. I would have never been able to go through this without the experience from my former degree, as well as the time I spent working. Everything was building up to this.

It's never too late to pursue your purpose or dreams in life.

If you have something else you'd just know, in your fucking gut, that you'd be amazing at, pursue it. If you know it would make you feel more fulfilled in life, perhaps even happy, pursue it. Even if you're not entirely sure, there are ways to find out (I took a course, for example, to make sure I really would enjoy law, not as it's portrayed on TV, but as it's actually like, before I applied to school)

Fuck what everyone else thinks.

Do you live your life at the benefit of others?

What are you going to look back at when you're old and tired? Will you regret pursuing your dreams? Or will you regret feeling pushed by others into going in a direction that didn't truly satisfy you?

Your life is about you. It's about no one else.

I'm in class with people ten years my junior, and while I rarely go to parties, they love me because I have a different outlook and different life experience. It seems scary in thought but most people tend to want to be around people who can help them develop, teach them things.

My best advice to anyone who's considering making a change but are scared of what might happen;

Just do it. Worst thing that could happen is that you learn something along the way.

If there's one person you should always bet on, it's yourself.

Thank you for the question hon, and please keep me updated on what you decide. Feel free to drop by any time if you have more questions or need clarifications on some of this!

[thespacebetweenworlds]

ABO is just feminist propaganda

[antthonystark]

i want to major in psych, i really like it, but idk if i should ... everybody tells me it's an 'easy' 'useless' major and even though i don't agree, idk if it's a good idea ... any advice?

yes definitely! i’m about to finish my 4th year in psych and it has afforded me a lot of perspective that i wish i had at the beginning lol. 

in short, it all really depends on what you want to do with it - and it sucks that you have to make such a massive decision that defines the course of you’re life when you’re like 16 or 17 and applying to uni for the first time, but them’s the breaks on this bitch of an earth lol 

the first thing is, there’s no such thing as a “useless” major, but there are some majors that are more conducive to employment opportunities right out of the gate, and some majors that aren’t, and psych is one of those that isn’t. it still doesn’t make it useless, but it makes the (false and problematic and untrue) model that most people expect life to be like – the “school -> bachelor’s degree -> lucrative job” model – a bit more complicated than most people like. 

with psych, you are almost certainly going to have to do more school if you actually want a career in psych - you can do things like be a counselor or addictions counselor or something like that with a bachelor’s degree in psych, but like i said, there’s not much more that you can do and not a whole shitton of opportunities. if you want to be a psychiatrist, you’re looking at med school, and if you want to be a psychologist, you’re looking at a masters and a phd. most careers in psych otherwise, even including psychotherapists and other careers in clinical psychology, or even research, need at least a masters, if not a phd usually. if you’re willing to go that far with it, then those are some really good careers in the field that might be available to you with more education. it’s not going to be the standard, simpler “get your degree then be an accountant or engineer or computer scientist” route, but if it’s what you love, then it could definitely be more worth it for you than something that you don’t want to do. ultimately, though, if you’re looking for an undergrad degree that gets you immediately and easily into a lucrative career, psych might not be the best choice. (otherwise, i’ve really enjoyed it as a discipline overall, and learning about it has been great as an educational experience.) 

(although, there are also options - you could get a B.Sc./BA in psych and get certified in something like ABA or something which can open up more opportunities for careers in the field, but i’m not well-researched in stuff like that tbh, but it’s definitely something to look into)

another option: double majoring or minoring!! if you’re interested in psych but you’re also interested doing something that might be more easily lucrative or lead to easier employment opportunities, you could do a double major in that thing and psych, or major in that thing and minor in psych. but make sure that thing isn’t something you hate and are just doing for the job prospects, because that’ll just be another whole host of problems tbqh.

otherwise, if you’re passionate about working with people or helping people or stuff like that, and you’re more interested in being able to get a job out of it, you could also consider a college diploma. a lot of the time people have a disadvantaging view of college diplomas compared to university degrees, but dependent on the trajectory that you want to take, a college diploma might suit you more. or maybe not a straight up degree in psych, but university (or college) programs for mental health nursing, or social work, or personal support work, or something like that might be more suitable to you depending on what you want out of life. degrees or diplomas like that are a lot more conducive to actually working with people in a related field to psych (like social work), whereas a B.Sc/BA in psych might put you onto more of an academic/clinical/research path unless you choose med school and go into psychiatry. and i mean, a degree or diploma doesn’t have to be one or the other - you could get a degree and then also diploma to help you be more employable in one particular aspect 

the thing is, sometimes people think that they want to put in that many years into schooling and get their PHD or whatever, and then decide after or during undergrad that they don’t want to - or some people just don’t have the financial wherewithal to do that much school, and both of those situations kind of suck and might not be fully predictable right at the outset of your academic career. so that’s what makes these decisions complicated and difficult.

HOWEVER, if you end up going into psych, and you find that you can’t or don’t want to pursue any other kind of education or certification in psych – getting a degree in a field that you don’t end up working in, or getting a job outside of your field, is NOT THE END OF THE WORLD! i’m most likely going to go into law school after my degree, which isn’t related, but that’s not the worst thing in the world and i’m chill with the decisions i’ve made. because i know that something like software engineering, which might have involved less years of schooling to be successful, was never going to be a career for me. turns out neither was psych, but i figured myself out more or less at this point. so i would advise you not to listen to people who want you to do something difficult or lucrative just because it’s lucrative, and instead try to balance doing what you love with doing what’s practical for your life’s trajectory and your situation - which doesn’t mean doing accounting just because it’ll get you a job, but it’s smart to think pragmatically at the outset as well as following your heart. i think both are important in determining your decision.  

finally, to get a little philosophical and existential because i currently need to be studying for an exam and this is what i’m doing instead,  the thing with life is that it’s interesting and weird because…. we’re all still young and we have our whole lives ahead of us, and it seems like the decisions we make today and in these years are going to completely and utterly define us and set us on a path that we can never, ever, ever turn back from. but that’s not true - if you ask anyone older than, like, 30 and ask them if they’re doing what they thought they would be doing at 17, you’ll often find that they aren’t, and they’re doing just fine. if you start on a path now that you don’t like, there will be opportunities for you to turn back and start over - the world is a bigger place than you think and there are lots of places to begin and re-begin. it, again, might not be the “school -> degree -> career” trajectory that is the conventional wisdom, but to be honest, a lot of people’s career paths are never that straightforward. if you decide to switch your major halfway through uni and have to take an extra year or two as a result, that’s fine. if you graduate and decide to switch fields and go back for a diploma, that’s fine too. it’s REALLY FUCKING HARD to make decisions that decide your whole life when you’re 16-18 years old. these decisions seem binding because that’s what we’re told, but it’ll turn out fine if it doesn’t go the exact way that it was planned. once people start on a path, they feel like they have to see it through, but that’s not the case - if you take a wrong turn, as soon as you realize it, you can still turn back. you might lose time, or money, but it’s better than staying on the wrong road forever. the best thing to do, though, of course is when you hit the fork in the road, you pause and take stock and make sure you’re embarking on the right path in the first place - think about instead of doing the first thing that feels like it’s right or the first thing that people tell you to do. but if you do start on a road that’s not the one you want to be on, you don’t have to stay there forever is all i’m saying.