/lit/ - Literature

>>17629943
Why don't you do something you like instead

>>17629952
Not OP but how do I find what I like? I graduated a couple years ago and I just work on excel all day it's boring af. Every job I could apply for is just excel bullshit, this is all the entire economy is.

>>17629943
Lawyer is soul crushing. Teacher is by far the better choice and is best in small schools.

>>17629943
Teacher. Lawyer is now a corporate rat race gig.

>>17629969
You don’t. All jobs suck, there is no such thing as a vocation for the large majority of us anymore, and if you picked the wrong major/career off the bat it’s worse. I’m in the same boat.

>>17629982
How can I compete in prestige with my STEM-PhD girlfriend though?

She'll cuck me.

I’m trying to become a teacher but I only have a bachelor’s degree and I really don’t want to teach my degree field or in a public school. I’m kind of fucked.

>>17629943
Become a teacher, do your PhD afterwards, and try to get a job at private schools. Not only do you get paid more than most lecturers, the quality of the students is immensely rewarding, the environment is agonal, and you get to spend your time reading and immersing yourself in literature while getting paid handsomely to do it. On top of this, you also escape the academic horror life of trying to get 2 papers published every year on pain of becoming a laughingstock

>>17629984
If you can't be the man in your couple it's your problem and it certainly has deeper roots than you being too much of a child to do your phd in time and to pick a job.

>>17629989
You know, that is not a bad idea and I've been tossing it around.

However, a big concern of mine is that my rec letters will grow "stale" if I spend a few years teaching before going back to academia.

I would aim to apply for PhD's about 3 years out.

>>17629995
You're right, but even if I had an English PhD she'd cuck me because she'd be making more.

There is no escape.

>>17629943
I would advise that if you have the coin, you should do something you enjoy (academically/personally) before entering law. Law school is expensive, it isn't going anywhere and it's a shitty slog once you get in. I'd say do the teaching stuff, maybe take a diagnostic LSAT at some point and then re-assess whether law is for you.

>>17630004
Who cares, dude? You are honestly going to live your life worried about whether your girlfriend is going to cuck you over some degree or job? If she does, tell her good fucking riddance. Don’t waste your time with a PhD or academia either. Take it from someone in academia.

>>17629998
I wouldn't worry too much about that especially if they are respectable academics who respect your scholarly potential.
I should also mention the extra benefit in that you can still publish papers and build your academic repertoire should you decide to go into academia afterwards, all without having your career depend on you churning out papers while also grading piles upon piles of subpar undergrad papers and handling all the teaching positions that many of the more established academics couldn't be assed to do themselves.
And I know you can get your works published in real journals and academic resources without working in academia. One of my extremely prodigious acquaintances already published three papers in philosophy journals when he was still an undergraduate

>>17630072
>>17630083
Thanks anon. You're probably right.

>>17629984
Kill yourself.

>>17629943
Courts have been fucked by covid. Its hell as a lawyer right now.

Teaching is a deadend job. Law is whatever you make of it. Want to work your ass off for infinite money? Go corporate. Want to dick around and have a good time? Go criminal defense.

People say being a lawyer is boring. They are wrong because you can choose to an extent what you do. Working death penalty cases is incredibly interesting. Fighting some fucking bitch over millions is also interesting. If you want to grind away as a bankruptcy/ real estate paper pusher go for it, but it can be alot of fun if you value doing interesting shit. You can join a firm, PD, AG’s office, or start your own thing.

It is expensive and time consuming. The job prospects are absolutely horrible right now. But, if you ignore all of that and beat the hurdle of getting an initial job, it’s fun and should be a relatively decent career.

>>17630500
>Teaching is a deadend job
Anyone who genuinely believes this is a spiritually empty halfman

>>17630543
It's fulfilling, but seems not to have as much progression as academia, unless you go into admin.

>>17630547
The point of teaching IS that it is fulfilling. It isn't the non-stop climb to the top like most other career options. You can just enjoy the work and get paid while doing it. I've done lots of other work, including corporate drone style work, and doing a teaching job is the best by a country mile.

>>17630589
but can a teacher afford a house

>>17630603
Absolutely. Unless you're an absolute trash that can only live in Toronto or NYC.

You make the job, the job does not make you. Consider this heavily before making your decision. Regardless of prospects, if you are in a field you are good at, you will do well.

>>17630589
True. Man, it really does sound appealing. Add to that the almost total autonomy. No middle managers breathing down your neck etc.

>>17630543
I actually sorta agree with this even though I love the very “financially impractical” fields of theology, philosophy, and literature. The dilemma I myself feel when it comes to considering becoming a teacher is — I’ll be teaching something (let’s assume English) that MOST students won’t really care about, will view as impractical, will think, “How will this help me get me a job?” and just use SparkNotes to breeze through (especially in today’s generation of iPhone brainfried kids), and then there’s the absolute rare minority of kids who actually care about literature for whatever insane reason, and they’ll quickly have their dreams crushed by the insane hyper-capitalistic hellhole of the modern West where an English degree or love of literature is extremely impractical and useless, even if personally rewarding for a select few. The sad fact about the humanities today is you can’t do with it and you can’t do without it. Dedicating yourself to a career in the humanities “for the passion” today is like playing a lottery if, for instance, you decide to go for a PhD in it, with this being a tremendous emotional, mental, and financial clusterfuck for the majority of people who decide to do this and aren’t rich. So I feel that, tragically enough, doing something like becoming an English high school teacher or trying to become a philosophy or English professor is a sham in which I’ll end up exploiting students by, wittingly or not, ultimately supporting the entire for-profit predatory college-loan education system, in which naive kids who don’t know any better are told by parents to “just go to uni and get a degree, any degree, explore your passions” and end up paying boatloads for a useless philosophy or English or theology or history etc. major.

>>17629943
There are a lot of factors to consider, but I'd put out there that you should enjoy being around young people. I personally find even college students really irritating, so I don't think I could teach.

>>17630717
Of course none of them care, at first. The job of any good teacher is to show students why they should care about something.

Very few teachers realize this, but the ones who did were the ones that inspired me.

>>17630717
As for the second part, I see how you could think that. But you aren't forcing anyone to go to college or enter "the system." Everyone has to get educated in public schools. Studying literature is intrinsically worthwhile whether they realize it or not.

>>17629943
>get a job
no

>>17629984
You can't compete, not with this cuck'ld mindset. Rope. You. Now.