Loafing under gray skies, I find myself gazing back on the major decisions of my life. Ever-entertaining….
It strikes me that the single worst decision I ever made was NOT to have majored, as an undergraduate, in a subject that would have landed me a decent job. Without benefit of a graduate degree.
As it is — stupidly having majored in English and pursued not one but two graduate degrees — I can’t get a “decent job” for love nor money.
Consider the likely possibilities:
An Ed.D. would have gotten me a principal’s position in some high school in a desirable location — like the San Francisco Bay Area, for example.
An MBA almost certainly would have led to a decently paying corporate job. Just about anywhere.
An MS in microbiology (my favorite subject) would have landed a job at a hospital or a university, pursuing interesting challenges.(nevvermind that women were not welcome in the sciences at the time…TOTALLY not welcome!)
Any of those jobs could have led me to a career far, far away from hot, muggy, intellectually backward Arizona.
But ohhhhhh no! I had to chase a Ph.D. in English…so that I wouldn’t have to go back and change my undergraduate major to a subject that would have made economic sense.
What? Me? Make sense?
Surely you jest…