[WhiteTiger]

Inspired by some reading in the American Politics thread, this is something I've been thinking about for a while. Do 'you' use your degree? With all the emphasis on higher education, do folks actually end up/stay in the field of their choosing of their youth?

I don't use mine. Throughout grade 10-13, I got heavily involved in theatre, more specifically, the backstage aspect of it. I really enjoyed it, and seem to have a knack for it. I went to college for it, and earned my degree in Technical Theatre.

Then I realized that not only are there almost no jobs, but those few jobs are super hard to get, and even more so if you don't have union backing, and getting union backing was nearly impossible. At that point in time, you were required to have worked 8 shows on your own, which is basically 2-3 years worth of shows on essentially a volunteer basis. Since I like eating on a regular basis, volunteering 40+ hours a week didn't seem like a viable career plan, and I turned to Manufacturing, and learned to drive a forklift. A skillset that served me well until my current job.


I'm not sure I would have skipped college, had I known how my life was going to go, or how much I liked driving a forklift, but it was kind of a 'college/university is the only path one can take' sort of thing.


So, that's a long winded way of asking...do you use your degree? Or feel you got your moneys worth out of it before finding a different field?