Paying Bills vs. Interests of the Mind?

As a mid-40s career changer, I have a larger, weightier question I'd like to get comments on. It seems more and more, you have to make a choice today between what you truly love intellectually and what will pay the bills. Most academic areas I'm interested in have iffy employment prospects while the growth fields become more more narrow and technical.

How have other people resolved this divide? Do you just plunge in and follow what you want to really to pursue or do you live with this division between doing what you have to do to pay the bills and what drives your interests? I know there's many nuances to this question, but I"m just putting it this starkly for brevity's sake.

Curtis Price

 

Curtis,

had this discussion with my 10 year old daughter this morning.
I did what it took to pay the bills until I could afford to move on with formal education. However I continued my learning through self-study, local library etc.... I am fortunate that I was able to meet my interests half way with what I do for a living.

I have a firend who has a BS in Nuclear Physics. His lifelong goal is to be a shrimp boat captain.

If I can ask what are your academic interests?

Learn as much as you can on your own and document this learning, you may be able to put it into a portfolio at some point. Until then you have my admiration for at least meeting the obligations you presented.

 

I gave in and went for what will pay the bills, which is why I will be doing an MBA.

Left to myself, I'd be off to Oxford to do the MPhil in Byzantine Studies or a second degree in Classics and Oriental Studies followed by the MPhil. However, job openings for Byzantine-Arabic warfare historians are just a tad thin on the ground, even in Oxford, and the pay is absolutely awful.

In my case, I'm interested enough in systems and process analysis to make the MBA fun, but that may not be the case for all people.

I rationalise that if I do what pays the bills now, I should have a long and productive retirement ahead of me in a few years, and I'll still be young enough and intellectually flexible enough to have a great deal of fun doing something for the sheer intellectual hell of it.

Angela

 

I am lucky to find a path that does both. First, I do have to say flexible management has helped, but I urge anybody (especially those going into the workforce) to get in with an employer that has education reimbursement. I have over 50K paid for and now in my doctrate studies - all paid by employers. I have always put the employer first in my studies as well. That is hwy a flexible school is important.

 

People always say...

money can't buy you happiness. However, not having money can cost you a lot of unhappiness. Kids, cars, homes, etc. cost a certain amount of money and you need to be employable to make ends meet. I love to travel and the day job, which I don't like, pays well enough for a lot of travel. It is a trade off. I saw a post on another board from a guy whose wife is a corporate lawyer and she hates it. She is going back to school to get a PHD in history and wants to get into academia. I wonder if she ever read the CHE to see how many PHD's in history are unemployed? According to the CHE they have one of the worst hiring rates! They had a column in that same edition by an unemployed history PHD working part time as a lawn mower. He had lost out on a job as a historical librarian to a girl who had a BA in Communications. He was very bitter about it and his career prospects in general. Over at our state historical library they advertised for a PHD in history and wanted to pay them $24k per annum. Starting compter geeks make at least $30k!! We all make our choices.

 

I'm afraid I have to go along with the pragmatists and admit that I've tried an uncomfortable little compromise between love and money with every qualification I've ever done. The result? Well, I can pay the bills, and there may be a bit of satisfaction in being able to do ok in fields that don't interest me that much. the downside has been losing touch with what really intellectually. But how many people can afford to follow that route?

I think the key decisions in this regard are made pretty early in life. If you end up in a field that doesn't grab you, but where your expenses have risen to meet your income, its pretty tough to change lanes. Some fo my 30-something friends are unhappy engineers and lawyers, who reckon that profeesions rapidly become prisons! However, if you've always been in your ideal field, however poorly paid, it may be ok.

 

Curtis Price writes:

> It seems more and more, you have to make a choice today
> between what you truly love intellectually and what will pay the
> bills.

"More and more"? Consider that if you had lived a century or two ago, you'd probably be doing some unintellectual task that a machine is doing today.

> How have other people resolved this divide?

I resolve it by saying that I want to do something useful.

If "what you truly love intellectually" is useful, somebody may well pay for it. Expect detours along the way, but you can keep looking for the appropriate customer.

And if "what you truly love intellectually" is not useful, you'll miss out on more than money by pursuing it as a "career": you'll miss out on the smiles of satisfied customers, too.

 

One can also say that "ministry" could count as an "interest of the mind." In that case, being one of the lowest paying fields and highest stress, I opted for the time being to do something like the apostle Paul, "making tents." I deviated from the traditional MA-PhD track to get a teaching credential, which in CA, is a long and arduous process.

Fortunately, I'm still under 30. No kids. Still some good career options. But I'm flabbergasted, having chosen the academia at an early age, how few the options are for those to devote themselves solely to the study of the "important things."

Chris

 

I will be going for my MBA soon, because thats where the big bucks are. However I do enjoy marketing and economics. Once I get my MBA and have the cash to spend I will be going for a MA in Humanities from CSUDH and MS in Criminal Justice from Boston University. I'm 24 so I have time. Also I hope that when I get my MBA I will land a good job with a very good company, so maybe they will end up paying for my MA and MS.

Bo

 

Thanks for Replies

Sorry, I had computer problems and couldn't get online to respond in time.

I appreciate all the replies to my posting; the responses clarified the gray areas for me, the necessary trade-offs and compromises . . .

But what I meant by "more and more narrow choices was not comparing factory work to service work, but that in the intellectual fields, there's little commitment these days to disinterested inquiry. Where would a Darwin, Simmel, Marx or Veblen fit in today's specialization and "practical" utility i.e a technical approach to education?

Curtis

 

Big bucks? With an MBA? Be careful - I don't think the relationship is as clear cut as that!

 

For the most lucrative MBAs, see here:
http://www.collegehints.com/boards/showthread.php?t=152

I'm sure exceptions exist, but the correlation is clear.

 

Re: Thanks for Replies

It depends on whether they knew a good grant writer, I guess.

Jack

 

I may misunderstand your question but I'd like to comment anyway. I have had two careers in my adult life, one for 20 years in banking, and one for 6 years in nursing. Both careers I would say could be deemed as technical and perhaps not inspirational/fulfilling as I believe you are referring to when you talk about those things we would love to do.

In mortgage banking, my work revolved around rules and guidelines and quotas and pressures, etc. But ultimately I was putting folks in homes, real homes for them and their families. There was work with rural programs and urban programs. Work with the wealthy and work with those who had very little. It was ultimately satisfying in that I helped people obtain their highest personal possession, a home.

Then, nursing is highly technical and drenched in applied theory. Greatly dismissed by the doctors as somewhat lowly (they remind us daily) yet necessary (we remind them daily) . I walked away, at age 39, from nearly 60,000 per year to start over at a whopping 23,000 per year because it was something I had always wanted to do, something I thought was important. Was it worth it? There are many nights that my tired feet argue with my aching back and I long for those long days sitting in a comfortable chair behind a desk.

I have a son that wants to be a writer, not very practical. Can he make a living at it? I doubt it, even though he is quite original and creative. I have yet to discourage him from it. I would love to see him make a living doing what he loves rather than doing something because he needs to do it.

I think the world revolves around the narrow and technical. It pays the bills. I think it all depends on how you look at it. Narrow and technical provides alot to those who depend on those who do it, whether they are buying a house or having surgery, therefore, it can be fulfilling in its completion, in a job well done. I guess the world would be a wonderful place if we could all pursue only that which interests us. Unfortunately, for most of us, the two never truly meet. We're grown ups, so we do what we have to. Wish it were different.

 

To Angela re: mind versus bills

Yes, aren't many of us in a similar situation. How have I solved the challenge of divergent interests (Eastern religions, art, music, English teaching, linguistics, classical studies etc)?

I made a list of all the courses at the three universities I am considering, any that look interesting.

Then I divided them between professional development (i.e. those that could help me advance in my job, do a better job of it, give me better pay etc). They are in linguistics and education. I highlined them in blue.

Then I highlined the same list in pink with the subjects I love, for no reason. In my case that is courses like 'Art Transcendent', 'Early Civilizations of Asia', 'Pre-revolutionary Russian culture' among many others.

Those courses which will prove useful to both my pocketbook and heart I will definitely take. There aren't many.

In my field of ESL in Asia the kind of degree matters less than the fact that one has one. So I will go with what fascinates me. Fellow ESL teachers in Asia bear in mind however that some countries, such as Korea, don't recognize distance learning degrees.

My final decison is based on not what will be the final result of the degree - as in what will it do for me when I have it? It is based on 'what will it do for me in the process?' Will doing DL be an intellectual and emotional respite while I am working, or will it be a chore? If it's reading and writing in subjects that interest me I'll not only enjoy a more satisfying non-work time, I will get better marks too.

The other strategy is to do several degrees, which I intend to do. But one problem with my middle age is the realization of how to ration one's time left on earth. Tick, tick tick...

 

Chris Green, and Hermes,

I think we're in the same boat.

Good luck to you!

 

Know what I noticed in this bitch-and-moan thread? The absence of self-pity in the complaints! It's one thing to observe that choices and circumstances can be tough (I wish I actually made 24K, fer instunce), and it's quite another to sit around and whine about being unappreciated intellectuals, or something.
Having seen both B&M humanities grad students (I gasp! was one once--oh, I'm so ashamed) and DL types, I have to say that the maturity level is higher around here, and that by a long shot. Maybe the comparative age does the trick--I doubt that it's because we're just plain smarter than others. This isn't to say that we lack an infantile brat contingent, but the difference between these complaints and those I recall from Torquemada University was striking. Realism--whatta concept!
Best wishes to you all.

 

Yes, I sit and listen to my son and his art-sie friends talk in terms and ideas not tuned into the real world, what they will be, what they will do. Something about being on campus smack in the center of acedamia makes them walk around in a sort of collective state of unconsciousness, heads in the clouds. Well, this too will pass. Still, it's fun to listen to them muse. I hate to burst their bubble.