Did anyone else here study literature in college / university and fail to make a long-term plan for afterwards?

If it helps I know plenty of 30+ people working at walmart and fast food

Yes, they are. My mother's partner's son is my age and earning a ton working as a lawyer and his career is set. And tons of people graduated and applied for apprenticeship schemes in the civil service, libraries, etc and are now reaping the rewards. I stupidly panicked about money and took the first thing that came alone after months of rejection and have stuck it to ever since. I feel like I've just woken up after letting 5 years go by without incident.

Professional what?

You posted this yesterday.

Bro it's never too late what does that even mean. Just learn for the sake of it, it's fun! I take English composition courses they're really fun

>trades apprenticeship

I have a lit degree and I did this, but my family is actually upper class.

You need to be a Chad to get a good job. If not, you should settle for something else.

I can't! I applied for those kind of jobs for months and months after leaving college, but the only interviews I secured (for whatever reason) were for a year-long unpaid internship, a civil service job which I turned down as it was in some rural town, and a bunch of "we'll keep you in mind" promises from some textbook editing company. The only thing I can DO right now is resign from my current job, but that doesn't seem wise despite how miserable I am.

I realize other people have it harder, particularly those who didn't go to college / university etc, but I feel so pathetic for not pursuing a career or gaining some skills by now. I mean it has little to do with money, but even Pessoa for example despite being relatively poor was an apparently sought-after copywriter and translator. And Philip Larkin for example spent his early and mid 20s slaving away in regional libraries then had a comfy career later in life in a senior position. The prospect of beginning at 27 what he was doing at 21 makes me want to drown myself immediately.

Did I? I don't think I posted on Veeky Forums yesterday.

This guy's writing style is so cartoonish. I wouldn't be surprised if this was a STEM false flag thread

I dunno man. I'm going to law school

I'm 22 and graduated with lit BA, user. I've worked part-time jobs in law, sales, and mundane office-type shit. I've written articles here and there, and other random shit to make a bit of money.

Are you looking for a career to dedicate your life to? I'm not that kind of person. I'm perfectly fine bouncing around different part-time jobs and enjoying my life, reading as much as I want, etc.

Ask yourself wtf you want. It's never too late to start a new path. It seems like you've just been floating through life until now. Stop floating and start being your own lighthouse.

If you're a weeb, apply to the JET program, get paid $35k a year to do nothing in Japan, fuck some J-bitches and be happy. desu you should just do this.

OP here and I was similar to you at 22, although only after I started working full-time did I realize how much I would prefer part-time work, but I couldn't afford it in the city I was in and I was terrified (stupidly) of falling back into unemployment since that made me very depressed. I'm not a fan of travelling, and I really desire is a secure routine which leaves enough time for reading and writing. The pressure I feel to publish a book is immense, and each year that passes leaves me even more distressed when I have nothing to my name. And now I'm faced with the prospect of studying librarianship, or teaching, or something else for an entire year thus limiting even more the time I have to write. As dramatic as it may sound I feel burned out and I realize now what a bad idea it was to waste my youthful energy on stupid office work which anybody could have done, simply not to feel like even more of a failure.

anyone else here simply not care?

What real job did you actually think studying litterature would lead to in the first place?

I figured I'd go into journalism or editing in some way. I was naive I admit, but I was even more naive not to study for a Masters or pursue some kind of training that would lead to a career. I feel so foolish, and walking around the city today with students eight years younger than me laughing and crowding around made me feel so pathetic. I've almost always felt this way, which is why I so eagerly took the job at the call centre, I thought it would make me feel more mature, independent and less pathetic. And for a while it did, but I realize now what a waste of time it's been, and with my 27th birthday approaching this year I feel totally ashamed of how pathetic I am. What's more, I am exhausted after forcing myself to work a soul crushing office job for four years which beyond money has provided very little in the way of experience or skills. I really do feel like I am in the top 1% of pathetic people in my country, psychologically speaking. Speaking to my mother last night about this (I am currently on holiday at home) she said I think I am worthless, that I limit my own potential, that I pigeon-hole myself, try to make myself as insignificant as possible and that what I need, and have long needed, is a father figure to shake me up and give me a push.

This faggot wants security and predictability but doesn't want a 9-5 grind. Toughen the fuck up

What do you mean? I said I felt like that at 22, not that I acted on my feelings. I have been stuck in the EIGHT to five grind since I turned 22, only now I realize it has been a waste of time outside of earning me a little bit of money.

This is your long awaited father-figure speaking. You're being hysterical and you bitch a lot. Be creative, figure something out and show what you are capable of or shut the fuck up. You don't have a book written because you don't write. You think you're a failure for stupid and arbitrary comparisons. And those that you are so jealous of didn't get there by making excuses and being dramatic on this shit forum. Be a man and take your fucking beating then get up and try again.

idk copywriting or some shit nigga

I thought no one gave a fuck about what arts degree you have as long as its a degree

I do write. I have written two novels, and have made a start on several others. But name me one successful novel in the past 20 years written by someone working from 8-5 with a 2-hour commute and I'll name 10 more written by those who avoided such a routine. But thanks for the advice.

>turns down a job because it is in a rural town
>whines about not having a job
uh bro...

I'm saying who the fuck wouldn't prefer part-time. You did what life required of you and that is admirable but now youre having a little pity party thinking you have to blow your life up and jump into something you believe gives you prestige even though you could come to revere yourself by using your free time to do interesting things.

Life is a grind man. We millennials all think if we're not the best we've failed or unconsciously look to see how our position/job would look in a movie. Fix your own shit before you go trying to be great or adding debt to your young life

t. 30 yr old blue collar with a BA in English and aspiring fiction writer

Herp derp somebody had a rich daddy and a trust fund so they could be a super good writer. But I don't and if only I did I'd be super duper successful

As if 98% of novels in the past 20 years are worth a shit

Im 28 and a useless neet with healthproblems. My god what am i going to do?

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23 w/ health problems. All I can do is pretty much stay at home and read and write and try not to get too depressed.

This is terrible...

Blue collar in what sense? And I'm also an aspiring fiction writer, as stupid as that might seem to be in the context. I'm just trying to secure a routine that is somewhat fulfilling, or which at least allows me to gain skills I could use to find another job if I wanted to move to a different area, or if I lost my job. At the moment I'm dependent on my employer, and I don't want to be in that position in 10 years' time.

That's not at all what I'm saying. I very much doubt I'd have published something "super duper successful" if I'd spent the past four years or more in my grandma's attic writing all day. Nor am I claiming successful writers are all trust fund kiddies, only that most of the novels I read tend to have been written by a writer who avoided full-time work for however long to focus on their writing. For example, right now I'm reading Santantango by Lazslo Krafussdfdqi, which as expected was written in the years he decided to be nothing more than a "writer" and part-time student.

Even books from 50 or 100 or 200 years ago tended to have been written by people who weren't working long hours in a draining job. There are many exceptions of course (notably in poetry for obvious reasons) but even Huysmans, a life-long civil servant, took year-long sabbaticals in order to write his most popular novels.

I'm a freshman Computer Science student.
If money was no object i'd study English.
it's painfully obvious to me that for men, a degree that does not pay is suicide.
Women can study whatever they want and when it dosen't work out they can just get married (one more reason to be jealous, haha)
We do not have the same liberty

How's being a librarian like? Is that a viable option for going forward in life?

computer science major logic right here

>didn't take unpaid internship
this nigga

Unless you have connections in the industry you want to join, you will be getting shit for a while, what the fuck were you expecting? Your lawyer friend that is set now either had the connections or worked for free during or shortly after college

I studied engineering but fucked around and studied abstract math and philosophy in my free time so I ended with a 2.9 GPA and no internship experience.

Currently working at a Starbucks. DESU, I don't regret it. I've been so depressed my whole life, and the only thing that makes me feel slightly better is deep thinking. I'm not fit for a serious job due to my paranoia and depression. Still live with my mum at age 25.

i studied literature in uni, had no idea wtf i wanted to do, just went to some recruiter meetings on campus and got a job at a bank and then at a hedge fund. now i make 300k/yr at age 24. life is easy.

Imagine waking up at 8:30am, it's a bright early Summer day and you have left the windows open a little to allow a breeze to cool you as you sleep beside your cute, 19-25 year old bookish, sensitive shy pale girlfriend. You slowly get out of bed, stretch and walk to the shower. Waiting for you after you have dried, shaved and brushed your teeth is a hot cup of coffee on the small kitchen table, while your cute lover cooks a fried breakfast with her behind visible beneath the apron (which prevents the oil from spitting out and burning her chest). She brings it to you and you pop open the egg with the tip of your folk, and the yellow yoke runs down the white of the egg and you cut it in half and eat it. It is very, very yummy. After a small chocolate muffin your cute girlfriend kisses you on the cheek and watches you through the window (waving if you happen to turn back to look) as you walk to the library at which you work, which is about 15 minutes away on foot. You are dressed in black leather shoes, long black socks pulled up to the shin, black pleated cotton trousers, a crisp white shirt, black blazer, and somewhat eccentric tie (of which you own many). You have your long traditional trench coat folded over your arm, and a briefcase in which you have your small laptop (for updating your poems and short stories at work) and some other small items such as spectacles, handkerchief, a novel, and so forth. Arriving at your workplace a little late as usual (it's fine) at around 9:15am you walk to your own private office, which is behind a door with a frosted glass pane with your name across it in small capital letters. You sit down and prepare for that morning's routine meeting, which begins at 10am. During the meeting you lead the discussion, rousing the minor assistant librarians (women who have moved up from administrative roles) and rather autistic male librarians (all far-left, politically speaking) and the meeting ends at around 11am, at which point you return to your office, work on a poem for an hour, then "nip out" for at least an hour to eat at a cafe nearby, working class in nature, in which a middle-aged woman who is very maternal and treats you like a young man -
- which you enjoy - brings you some nice food and a cup of tea or coffee. You pay her and leave a small tip, for which she is grateful. Some labourers from a nearby "site" sit in the cafe also, along with some retired working class people, and all of them nod towards you as you walk to leave, each of them recognizing "one of their own" who has "made it" in the world of academia yet has not betrayed his working class roots. Stepping outside, you blink for a moment towards the sun, breathe in a great big lungful of fresh air (cut grass, fresh leaves, ocean breeze etc) and head off back to the library, getting there at 1pm, walking about the service desk where some assistant librarians are helping the undergraduates find this and that, then retire again to your office, w

what are you trying to say? I don't get it

so why not just stop? make a radical change in your life and do what you want? you should have a bit of money saved up to be able to live on while you make a big change.

This seems only true for like... overseas ESL teaching

I wanted to take it. There were three rounds of interviews and I made it to the last one. It was for a children's charity and they asked which country I'd like to visit (apparently I would have a choice) at the end of my internship. I said "I've always wanted to visit Africa" then spent around five minutes explaining that I realized Africa itself wasn't a country and that Algeria has very little in common with Benin, and South Africa with Niger etc. They seemed to think I was retarded and let me know soon after that I hadn't made the cut. My "lawyer friend" doesn't have literary ambitions, or any ambitions really beyond making a ton of money. Which is fine of course, and all the luck to him, but if I'm forced to compete with people like that I will never succeed.

OP here and thanks for sharing your story. I also suffer from paranoia, and guilt is also something I suffer from immensely. What are your plans for the future?

it's honestly such a gamble to read newer literature. you're most probably wasting your time.

Studying literature is actually a great preparation for law school. Most of the people at the top of my law school class were English majors. You need to be able to write (most law school exams are pure essay), analyze situations, synthesize text and apply rules to facts.

1. I am a stupid person

2. I studied English Literature in college with no career plan

3. After graduating I felt like eve more of a failure - after a lifetime of feeling this way - due to my unemployment

4. I took the first job offered to me, in a call centre, where I have worked for 4 years in pretty much consistent misery

5. Despite despising this job, and feeling at times as though I was about to have a nervous breakdown, I wanted to prove I couldn't "be broken" and so I stuck with it (there was also a year-long infatuation with a girl that went nowhere)

6. My only ambition is to publish a novel, preferably by the age of 30 before life really goes downhill and my youthful energy and stamina are depleted even further

7. At the age of 26, 27 later this year, I am trying to live a life I realized I should have been living years ago - namely one in which I am gradually gaining skills and experience, and which I can see myself doing in a decade, and which will allow me to find a similar job relatively easily if I am made redundant or leave my current one

8. I feel I am at a crossroads (or perhaps have been at one for years) whereby I can either take a year off to write the very-likely-unpublishable novel and then train to become a teacher, or whether I should train to become a teacher, librarian etc now like I should have done at 22.

>What are your plans for the future?
I'm thinking of applying to grad schools for mathematics education and teaching high school. I think I could handle that. Have you considered teaching? Supposedly it is fulfilling

Don’t listen to the devil

I am considering teaching highschool english, but I know the workload is apparently immense due to bureaucracy etc.

>tfw you can write fiction and you enjoy literature but you cant write an essay to save your life unless you're invested in the topic

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I don't know about you, but my depression has always been most manageable when I've been extremely busy and without time to reflect upon my life. I think a huge workload might help

this.
try delivering mail, OP. thats where my two lit degrees got me.

Yes I agree, and it is the same in my case. What is eating me up right now is that I'm on a week's holiday from work, and having escaped the intense demands of my job I calm down, look back and realize five years passed with nothing to show for them beyond some money saved. It's pathetic, literally. I also can work independently, in the sense that I am never bored and can do things well if I have the time and energy. But having wasted my twenties in a call centre job, I'm now practically in the same place I was five years ago, or even eight, but now older, more worn-out, more depressed and with less time to publish a novel before the age of 30 as I've always hoped I would. Many people have it harder, don't get me wrong, but my standards remain high.

filtered

about OP or just life in general? actually whatever, the answer is yes.

The harsh reality. I learnt this now at 24 wish I just bit the bullet earlier.

i don’t believe you

You see happy and miserable people at all sorts of jobs, whether retail or academia. I don't think your accomplishments are going to make you any happier, you're just going to have to do some serious introspection and meditation and find out why you're not happy. I've been both successful and a NEET and wasn't happy in either state.

why not?

im almost 20 almost done with my second year of college, only classes ive liked were my humanities courses i dont enjoy anything else about uni (no friends and all). never had a job in my life or interned either.
considering taking a break for 2 years or however long it takes since i don't know what to do perhaps get a job. not that this is stressing me out since i go to school for free since i go to a pleb public school and get financial aid, but what did you guys do during a break for those who took one? do you recommend it or should i just keep going through school even though i dont have an idea of what im doing?
also what are decent careers that will let me live a minimalist life style? i really don't want much just to get by living in a smallish space and read.

>eight to five
>grind
management consultant checking in, lol

if only there were a book about this predicament...

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Consultants consciously choose that career though, and very few attempt to write fiction while also working their full-time job. No aspiring writer becomes a management consultant, and there's a reason why.

The Pale King says nothing about the aspiring writer though. It is on the one hand a self-help book for driftless, aimless young egotists and on the other a celebration of the obscure heroes of society. But DFW couldn't have written the book, or any other book, were he working full-time at the IRS.

>The Pale King says nothing about the aspiring writer though. It is on the one hand a self-help book for driftless, aimless young egotists and on the other a celebration of the obscure heroes of society. But DFW couldn't have written the book, or any other book, were he working full-time at the IRS.
you mean you didn't read the self-insert chapter where he talks explicitly about the problems of trying to financially survive as a contemporary writer?

Which chapter is that?

Quick rundown?

Go to law school.

chapter 9, right after he talks about being disciplined for writing "fiction" for other students

where's the logical fault

Have you looked at scientific publishing?

A biology degree and a communications msc + some articles on the side got be job as an associate editor in the UK. My boss has a lit + creative writing degree. Now I do some political journalism on the side.

How old's your boss? And I'm assuming your in London?

Is this as long winded as IJ? Because that book was a pain in the ass

>tfw 24 with no degree working retail

Could be worse OP.

She's 30ish. And not London, no.

Is it a major city at least? I'm not trying to doxx, just curious. And does she have a NCTJ qualification or anything? How'd she become a senior editor?

>Teachers.
>PhD graduates.
>Low level lawyers

These people probably aren't any better off than you are, both materially and in terms of life satisfaction.

Yep. I'm about to turn 26 as well.

Not much better for light STEM shit. I was a bio major, got a masters in Biomedical sciences after. Totally useless. Worked in a call center for 2 years.

I'm in Med device now only because I had a family hook up. I sort of resent higher ed and everything that it encompasses. I was a deckhand on a ship for 2 years as a summer job. That was cool. If I could do it all over again I would work on container ships and skip college.

Near a major city. Nobody has an NCTJ. She just started as an associate and worked her way up. It's a small magazine.

>falling for the career meme

You're still a wagie at the end of the day. The only thing worth working towards economically is financial independence.

they're both pains in the ass for different reasons. IJ because of gratuitous plot and PK, less so, because of tax jargon. IJ is more creative while PK is more essayistic.

If you're accruing debt seriously consider what you're doing. I will be paying mine off until I'm 50 and only make 50k a year. This is actually an improvement from the 35k I was making and I have a masters.

Being debt free and having savings is actual wealth and freedom. College is useful insofar as it gets you a job. I've been on both sides of the labor spectrum. I've done manual labor landscaping and that is truly difficult work. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. It is hard, backbreaking work especially in the summer. it's pretty shitty, factory work is awful terrible. White collar jobs are almost exclusively bullshit with important sounding titles that mean "jerkoff, disposable phone dialing automaton"

Find that middle ground and if it doesn't include college don't feel any shame in it. Higher education is full of retarded faggots.

Network fucko.

Do not do this. It's jammed packed full of self righteous losers who think they are cashing in on the next civil rights movement.

It's what everyone does when they realize their degree is worthless and the field is supersaturated.

Hey user. I’m one of those lawyers you’re talking about. Currently 26 myself

Let me tell you that the grass is not greener. While I make enough money to be self sufficient (for now), there isn’t a single aspect of my professional, and consequently personal, life that I enjoy. In fact, I would rather be dead than be a slave to wagecuckery, billable hours, debt, and tedium.

So just know the grass is not always greener. Furthermore, you can easily unfuck your shit without becoming me.

Reach out to your network and extended network. Draft a phenomenal cover letter with those sexy composition skills, and do whatever you want. Also freelance on upwork, if that floats your fancy.

Good luck pal. Don’t go to law school

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Im a lawyer and im doing an internship that pays like shit. good company won't take me and in the shit company I have to worry about times where there are no cases

>he studied lit but can't even write and sell pulp

This is why I don't knock pulp fiction or pop music. Yeah, it's simple? Prove you can do it. Actually writing that shit is hard precisely because it is inauthentic and detached.

Why don't you write Stephen Hunter action novels?

>Gaps in your CV
no one gives a shit. also you can (and its better to) say that you worked jobs that are not relevant to the job you are applying to now.

(not op) I would but I have bad eyesight so I can't drive. my current boss was upset I could not be his personal driver (no he would not have paid me more)

>The prospect of beginning at 27 what he was doing at 21 makes me want to drown myself immediately.

Everyone has their own path to take in life. It doesn't matter what age someone else started something - all that matters is you actually start something. You might get lucky and land a decent job and start gaining the skills you want in a couple of years. You might find a different calling in life and switch focus completely, beginning a totally different career you never thought you would be interested in. Your years of seeking and trying out ideas and even failing are not necessarily wasted years - put everything down to experience.

You're 27, you're still young. The only thing you shouldn't do is nothing.

I'm 24 and I recently graduated with a BA in English lit. I spent the last 5 years smoking weed and socializing and not much else. It's been about 9 months since I graduated and I worked squashing boxes and shelf stacking in Lidl.

Decided to start teacher training this year. First interview is on Saturday. If I put my foot out I'll be a qualified teacher at 25 on 22k a year and then I can think about aiming higher (more qualifications/better teaching position/teaching abroad/whatever)

never too late to get your shit together. especially when you're under 30

You're all fucking pussies, especially the OP.

If you're single and in your twenties, the world is your fucking oyster. Nothing is tying you down. Go out and find some excitement. Take a backpack and what little money you have and move. Travel. Network. Apply for various jobs. Write as much as you can and submit all of it. Get up every day and go look for what is out there.

You don't have a wife/husband, a mortgage, or children to feed. You are free to do WHATEVER you want.

And remember that most of the time it's not WHAT you know, but WHO you know. Fuck your lack of experience or qualifications, just go out and get something.

This.

Just start doing what you want (within reason) and find something that makes you okay with being born rather than wanting to fucking kys all the time (like me).

What if you’re in your late twenties? I’m turnng 27 and mortified that I’ll be completely useless by the time I turn 30. Everyone else is getting married and stuff

There are plenty of jobs for English teachers.

Do you even want to get married? No? Then don't. You don't have to do anything except ask yourself, "what would you like to do?"