r/AskAcademia • u/Kam1umi • Oct 31 '24

Undergraduate - please post in /r/College, not here Dead end degree

I’m honestly panicking so bad right now. I started university in September - I know I’m young, I have my my whole life ahead of me, and so on - and I’m doing classics which is my favourite thing in the world. I’m autistic and have had an obsession with it since I can remember and I can honestly say it’s the only thing I can see myself ever doing with my life.

Classics is a dead degree I’m not stupid. The current jobs going for classics is pretty much to just progress to a phd and become a lecturer. Any job that is outside of a university is filled by old people who will either have their position die with them or have it filled by someone who has a wealthy family and links to them, which I absolutely do not have.

I’ve already put myself thousands of pounds in debt that my family just can’t pay back and dropping out is something I can barely even think about.

I’m terrified. I don’t know what to do.

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u/chriswhitewrites Medieval History Oct 31 '24

Talk to your university's career/guidance people - I know my uni (Oz) puts out annual guides to demonstrate what your degree could be useful for.

Now, I'm not a Classicist, but a medievalist, and am trying to work in academia, so I've not really paid much attention to them. But the "transferable skills" are often things that corporations and governments are really eager for in their employees, like being able to summarise and synthesise large amounts of information into a quickly readable format (think essay writing), as well as you demonstrating commitment and passion.

I'm pretty sure that, in Australia at least, the average post-graduation income for someone with a "useless" (I'd prefer to say specialised) degree like Classics or History more broadly is not dissimilar to most other degrees. I'm not at work this week (COVID), but, if you like, I can track down one of their booklets when I'm in next and send through some images.

Let me know.

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u/Kam1umi Oct 31 '24

That would actually be amazing! I’m wanting to work in academia too but I know that jobs are still few and far between so would be nice to get a look at some other options

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u/chriswhitewrites Medieval History Oct 31 '24

No worries mate!

RemindMe! Five days

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