this post was submitted on 10 Apr 2025
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Self Improvement

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Hi comrades,

Long time lurker, very rare poster here. To make a long story short, I'm a humanist MA in my 30s who burned out of my first "real" corporate job. Struggled to find anything else, and started to worry that all the normal jobs my education qualified me to get were the same types soul-sucking office busywork. I quit, took a break and started working with kids (where I live government-subsidized childcare is a thing, so there are a lot of opportunities), but I'm again feeling burnt out. It's way more engaging and meaningful than the office work, but now my issue is that I don't feel intellectually stimulated at all. I'm in this fucked up limbo where on one hand, I've been conditioned to believe that my education is worthless in material terms (which it kind of is), and at the same time, I also know that I'm pretty smart, really good at doing research and have things to say - I just have no idea how to utilize these skills barring a return to academia - which kind of feels like running away (back to the ivory tower, I guess).

My question is this, are there any jobs that; a) provides an actual meaningful and valuable service, b) is still accessible to someone in their early 30s who wasted a lot of years not improving their CV, c) actually requires some conscious thought. Other than that, I'm open to anything. High pay is not a priority to me. If it also involves learning a skill that might be useful in a less than optimistic future, that's also a plus.

TL;DR: classic failed humanist with barely any CV. Tell me what to do, please.

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[–] Cadende@hexbear.net 7 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (2 children)

why would academia be running away if its intellectually stimulating and its what you're interested in and can pay the bills?

I could see it not being a viable career path if there just aren't enough jobs to go around, but it seems like maybe you've counted it out for no real reason

[–] WideningGyro@hexbear.net 3 points 6 days ago

Yeah, I should definitely have specified - I made it sound like I had an academic position lined up or something - I would be applying at PhD level if I wanted to get back in, and they don't hand out a lot of those where I am. There are also a lot of reasons I don't want to try to get back to academia. Terrible working conditions, publishing pressure, academic politics, no job guarantee at all, and the knowledge that the extremely specialized work you do will only ever be useful to other specialists - if even them. I very seriously considered this path when I finished my MA (had some attention, some professors nudging me to try), and all my friends who went that way are in situations I'm not envious of right now (except maybe in the sense that they get to sound "smart" and I don't).

[–] gueybana@hexbear.net 3 points 6 days ago (2 children)

why would academia be running away if its intellectually stimulating

The right wing brain rot in this country has spread far and wide. If you work in the public sector or academia, you might as well be all the awful shit Elon talks about

[–] Cadende@hexbear.net 4 points 6 days ago

I don't think that OP is in the US. But I guess its a similar story everywhere

[–] WideningGyro@hexbear.net 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I didn't really explain very well why I don't want to work in academia (calling it "running away" kind of suggests I could get a job in academia - not a guarantee at all with my experience etc), but jumping straight to attributing my choices to "right wing brainrot" is a bit dramatic, don't you think?

[–] gueybana@hexbear.net 1 points 6 days ago

My apologies, I’m just describing the zeitgeist