History Major

I've just been thinking about life, graduating college created a lot of changes for me, and I feel so much older than I did when I graduated. It's only been a year and a half, but life has taught me so many lessons. I suppose I didn't have to learn those lessons until after college, but I'm such a hard-headed person, I'm the kind of girl who learns from experience.

At first I felt like my education meant a lot less than it should. I never landed that wonderful college graduate job, I still don't have a dream career. I wasn't married when I graduated from college, I graduated in a major that really can't launch someone into a career.

Life is not easy, you have to make ends meet. When you graduate from college you have bills to pay, and you can't rely on student loans any more to pay them. I was lucky enough to have a job when I graduated, it was not my career, and it was nowhere near a dream job. It did not require an education, but it did have a lot of challenges and problem-solving. Most importantly: it paid the bills. It was a really, really good job, and I was so lucky to have it, but it did nothing for me (meaning I did not find it interesting). I felt so dissatisfied with my life, because I felt entitled to a career that would do something for me, but no one was hiring. What did I expect? I majored in history, what kind of careers come from that? I had reaped what I had sown, or so I thought.

Since graduating I have come to realize something very important: you do reap what you sow. I majored in history, so I had few career options in history...unless I made one for myself. Sometimes there aren't jobs, but you still have to eat, you still need a place to live, and so, you have to find another way to make things happen.

That's what I'm writing about, making things happen. That's one of the wonderful things I have learned from my incredible husband...you don't just sit around and dream. Big things don't come to us through simply wishing we could have big things, you have to take them. The better it is, the harder it will be to get, but boy will it be worth it.

Up until recently I felt like my degree was a multi-thousand dollar piece of paper, a waste of four years. Then we started to dream a little bigger. My husband and I learned that we want things, we are passionate people. We want to collect art, we want to see the world, but how do we do that? I majored in history and my sweetheart is not finished with school, how will we fulfill our dreams? Well, crappy jobs and that multi-thousand dollar piece of paper are coming out, and we will use them to get what we need. Sometimes you have to take the job from the person that will hire you, because you are a responsible person, and debts must be paid. That expensive little slip of paper has actually become quite handy since then, not because I have it, but because of what I did to get it. Those are the skills that mean I will not be stuck in that job from the one person willing to hire me, they are my escape into a life where I can live on my terms.

I majored in History, what a useless degree unless you're going to teach or go to grad school, right? Maybe, but maybe not. How did I get it? I went to the library. I lived at the library! I looked at book after book, academic journals, newspapers, even microfilms of old, old records. I am not a historian, like I had planned, but boy, I am a GREAT researcher. I know where to look, because while I was earning that slip of paper that was supposed to earn me respect and money, I acquired the skills it takes to succeed. My good grades did me no good in finding a respectable career , but the effort it took to get those grades have created a teacher, a writer, and a finder. Those are important skills in every field.

I feel like I'm being fairly unclear, but my main point is that my life is nothing like I pictured it would be while I was in college. I was really disappointed by that at first, but now I feel like I'm finally on the path toward achieving goals and dreams I never knew that I had. That education I resented for a year (it's rough feeling like your career will never move forward!), has stuck, and I have the skill, and more importantly, the time management skills to achieve whatever I want to.

I suppose what I'm saying would be more convincing if I was already there, but I just wanted to write it all down while it's on my mind. I'm grateful for my degree, I'm grateful for the things I learned to get it. I'm glad I did it because it was fun, but I'm also glad I did it because my "useless" degree taught me how to be a responsible and forward-thinking adult. After graduation I wasn't handed a future like other majors, I have to make something of myself, and I'm thankful to have the opportunity to do it.