Has anybody gotten a degree in something and is doing something completly different afterwards?

:) I have a degree in education. I got side tracked in my search for a teaching position and wound up doing a thousand different things, mainly customer service. I also owned my own business for four years. But just last March I actually landed a teaching position, in an adult degree completion program. Basically I teach every high school subject there is, which means, of course, I have to relearn it all myself as I go along.

I haven’t been certified since 96, but I’m working on that now, as we speak, and eventually plan to get secondary certification in History so that I’ll actually BE eligible to teach History in a regular HS class room, if I so choose. Which I probably never will.

And in answer to your question….no degree is ever wasted. I’m sure the fact that I am a college grad opened a lot of doors for me, even if it wasn’t in teaching.

Education degrees are relevant to a great many other seemingly unrelated areas.

For example, the planning and delivery of curricula and the management of learning is essentially project management.

Teaching has a lot of application outside of what is officially the education market. Organizations need people who can help other people learn.

Most degrees probably aren’t really directly related to a career. How many people with political science degrees work in politics? How many with philosophy degrees sit around and think all day? Even if you have a degree in music or mathematics, you probably apply it very incidentally (unless you happen to work as a musician or mathematician).

I have a degree in education. I’ve even used it for part-time substitute teaching jobs through the years. I’m a butcher. Perhaps it’s because it was a Liberal Arts Education that I do not feel as if my degree has been wasted.

Your degree will not be useless and many people change careers over time.

Read a book, “What should I do with my Life?” by Po Bronson. If you can manage not to take the title of the book personally, you will do very well. Peace.

my dad got a BA in Anglo-Irish Literature, and he’s done human resources consulting for most of his life. completely unrelated.

I have a business degree, spent five years managing an office, and my kids cried when I came home sometimes because I was so stressed out. I switched to preschool teaching (after caring for a family member’s toddler for a few months) and never looked back. They sent me back to school, and I don’t ever see me doing anything else.

I have four degrees in engineering and history. I’m a farmer.

Damn. If this wasn’t in “General” – I have a good smart farmer joke.

My dad got a degree in Psychology and just retired, forty years later, as a commercial airline pilot.

Degree in engineering, did that for a while, now segueing into agriculture.

A degree is not the be all end all of your life. It does not have to be a waste of time. Having the piece of paper will set you on a path and open doors for you, but there will always be opportunities to move in different directions. The path you end up taking may not be the shortest, but there must be a reason you took it.

That said, if you’re certain at this point that teaching is not for you, then don’t be afraid to move on to what you really want to do.

Have a degree in computer science. Doing finance now and will be in law school in a few months looking to do human rights law.

I worked in my degree field for about 10 years, then tossed it all in and went into the dog business as a professional handler, trainer and kennel owner. I don’t think a degree is wasted if not used but neither do I think a degree is a necessity. For me it was more a situation of doing what was expected of me then eventually going where my heart (and head) led me.

I agree with @lilikoi s opinion on degrees. Having said that, I’m still pursuing my long overdue PhD in history merely for the sake of completing something I started over 30 years ago; a matter of principle, I finish what I start. I have no intention of using the degree, but you never know what curveballs life will throw at you.

Use your degree as a way of learning something. It’ll give you one way of thinking. Most likely that way of thinking can be applied all over the place. Sometimes, a different way of thinking can open up new ideas.

@stranger_in_a_strange_land Me go back to sckul soon, too!!

ME SCHOOL BACK GO SOON TOO. YODA