Things I Want To Learn About vs. Degrees I Want vs. Jobs I Want vs. Things I Am Incredibly Good At

Lately, I've come to think that these are all completely different things.

Digital Humanities is (are?) like a television show with really interesting characters. It's my favorite to watch because it's so highly visible. Accessible.

Public Policy is a bunch of white guys in suits that desperately need infiltration but like, I don't have enough money to join their ranks and I raise too much hell, anyway.

Cultural Studies is just stupid. It's not really stupid, I guess I am. I just feel like I have something to prove like a bratty little sister. I have no doubt I could get into the school that everyone else went to and I could find an interesting angle to study my boatload of interests from but like, that's a lot of trouble to go through just to prove my worthiness to a bunch of people that don't even have me on the radar. What? Do I magically think this degree will make them invite me out for drinks? They won't even answer my emails.

Higher Education Administration feels so much like getting a degree in order to get a job to get a different degree. Saying that makes it sound like just as noble an endeavor as the pop culture degree but the fact is that I have an administrative undergraduate degree, a higher education internship, I've applied to hundreds of higher ed jobs, I've read many books and websites on the subject, and frankly, I'm mad as hell. Being mad as hell just makes me want to work at the most privileged of universities just so I can FSU. (Of course, when I'm getting paid and going to school for free I'm much more likely to keep my mouth shut and be a nice person.)

I am NOT going to school to become a teacher. Similarly, I am NOT getting my CDA or a masters degree in anything that has to do with Early Childhood Education. Not, not, not, not, not! I love kids, I am amazing at teaching, whatever. Here's the deal: I need to not work solely with married women because it's depressing. Plus, I'd always be more interested in changing the rules and overthrowing the administration.

To be clear, I want to teach college, though. For fun.

I love taking marketing classes. I suppose I don't really need a degree in it because I don't particularly want a job in it but the subject matter is just so interesting. I'm at the point where I am confident that I could teach the courses much better than the people teaching me at the moment.

I'd really be interested in taking some more psychology courses and coupling them with business/economics/marketing courses and doing some sort of Behavioral Economics interdisciplinary degree. If I could then get a job teaching all of those things, I'd be very happy because those are interesting things I am enthusiastic about in the classroom.

Now I am remembering when Rob Gehl said to me with some degree of certainty that I should be studying Anthropology. Looking back, I now assume he said this because he recognized that I am nearly always more interested in the people and social structures rather than whatever it is I'm actually supposed to be doing. I've never taken an anthro course, though so I have no clue how that'd be.

If I'm being honest, all of the jobs I think I'd be really sincere about and good at, I'd need a degree in Social Work.

I want a degree in Nonprofit Management. I want it partially because I feel like I didn't actually learn anything about it in undergrad. "That's it? That's all you're gonna offer me?"

I've always hated the idea of doing research but now I desperately want to take a course in it just to prove I can do it. It never mattered until I saw that it made me unequal to educated people my age.

I would be genuinely happier at a small school in a rural area doing my program alongside working class people. I would feel better about myself in relation to others in an urban or suburban area at a larger school as long as I had funding. If I didn't have funding, I couldn't do it because I would a) be in massive debt and b) be really bitter about the fact that Miss Americorps over there got the assistantship and I did not. I just want to be a part of something, I just want to fit in with smart, hip people. I mean, that's the core of this whole damn thing. Maybe if I had a husband and a "group of friends", I'd go get that teaching degree and happily follow the rules because, much like Jesus, I do love the little children.

I just sometimes find jobs I really want. Rural tourism position? Yes! Database something-or-other at Monticello? Please! Gallery manager at a children's museum? Want! I apply for many but there's not a lot of rhyme or reason in relation to learning or degrees in the ones I really want.

That's probably just the tip of the iceberg. I keep thinking of more specific things to fit into an interdisciplinary degree.

I really wish there wasn't this whole big push for education. I want the stigma to be taken out of not going to college. And blue collar jobs. I also wish that I could unlearn the culture and people of academia because I learned to feel self-conscious when I saw What I Should Be Focused On. And hierarchy. Hierarchy led me to feel intense shame followed by bitterness and anger. This is the socially acceptable way to level up. I can go hide in a rural area and help people (this is appealing to me right now) but I don't know how sincere I am because maybe I'm just hiding. If I can't fit in, if I'm not smart enough, if I don't have enough money, if I don't have enough degrees, if I'm not of the same social status as someone else, if I'm not married, if I don't have a professional job........do I go somewhere where there are fewer educated people just to make myself feel better?

Wait. Isn't that gentrification? Ugggh!

I envy people that tell me they have no ideas. I have too many and I am not making money fast enough to do anything about it. The absolute worst part is that I never know when I am being sincere anymore. I am driven by anxiety, anger, bitterness, practicality, frugality, and God knows what else. Not "love" or "heart". Then there's this reality that my family has always experienced. You don't pick or choose what you do; you have to take what is available. A lifetime of that isn't so bad but a lifetime of that with education might be unbearable. I've seen how other people live, I know what it's like.

I was going to say that there is no school for driving with the windows down because that might be the only sincere thing about me anymore but then I realized that I could potentially go to truck driving school for that.