I don’t know where to start so I’ll say stuff about me.
First-gen. Latino. 23 year old. Male. NJ. Finished HS in 2020. Went to CC and graduated with an AA in Communications. Got in Rutgers-Camden, my advisor told me transferring to Rutgers NB was harder as an internal transfer. Went to Montclair State University. Linguistics major. Stayed there until 2024 not knowing what to do. Didn’t want Linguistics and my GPA was bad. Left in late 2024, early 2025. Felt bad because I wanted to go to any Rutgers and by then none really accepted me. Searched and turns out my advisor back then was wrong. Thought about it. I was really close to finishing. This Spring I started going to TCNJ. They accepted me. I was like, wow! History major. Grades are actually going well. Really. I’m thankful. Doing something I like and the grades are proof. Will finish my undergrad by this Fall 2026. However…
I still don’t know what to do.
I’m thankful. My financial aid covers it and I’ll be the first in my family to finish university. However, I still don’t know what to do. I currently work part-time at a library. Got friends at good law firms from the city (NYC). I’ve been told, how about an MLIS? How about a law degree? How about teaching? I’m not in the education program so I’d have to do the alternative teaching route here in NJ… But still, I’m not pretty sure about that either.
Job market is absolutely wild. I feel glad I’m majoring in something that is more general, unlike linguistics. Maybe speech pathology? I still got credits… I don’t know, really.
I would like some advise from lots of perspectives. I love art, I love museums, I love anything creative, but I also want to know and see about higher-income careers too. Law is obviously a no-brainer, but from what I’ve seen, it’s stressful, and you actually gotta like it to proceed into that (the 2 friends I have who are attorneys and went to law are bald! Not to generalize of course but… Come on now).
Anyways, I want some perspectives. The MLIS and library school sound interesting and I do like that, but long-term prospects are also difficult. The same with teaching, especially social sciences.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Thank you so much!
My advice: take some pressure off making the perfect career choice. Pick an area or two that you could see yourself working in for the next five years. And you don’t have to be super excited about it. You don’t need a bullseye, just get the dart on the board. Then go talk to some people doing it, or better yet observe them doing it. Then pick one and run with it for a couple of years. Not everybody — I dare say most people — don’t know what to do instantaneously. It develops as you gain experience, and your experience can also make you love something you didn’t know you would love.
You are asking people you have never met for a level of knowledge about what you like/what your aptitudes are as well as what the future holds for a host of different professions. My only advice is if you are unsure about which path to take, maybe work for a bit first.
I’m going to sound weird but part of me felt bad because I thought that by not going to Rutgers I would have less prospects in I don’t know, stuff… But thank you! I am quite grateful that I could finish. :–D
First off.. Don’t call us old … secondly does your school have a career counselor? Go make an appointment. You’re talking about industries with no relation to each other. Take a few of your interests. Put it into AI or the “old “search engines and ask what professions can you make. Seriously, take any two or three and just search. You will be surprised what comes up. Do this a few times. My daughter graduated undergrad. Worked for a few year’s (no jobs during the pandemic) but went back to school for speech pathology which she graduates in two weeks. She had to do a year Post Bac since she needed courses that aligned with SP…. She came from a BF in theater costume /theater design to transferring and graduating with Cultural anthropology with a polysci minor and finally her masters in Speech Pathology.
Not everyone’s road is linear. Sometimes it takes time to figure things out. She wouldn’t trade her back packing through South East Asia for anything. This is when she applied for transfers.
I’m a broken record on this but your long term career success is not determined by which college you go to but by the student her/himself. Researchers have been studying this question for decades and found very little evidence that it matters all that much where you go.
So don’t fret about Rutgers. They have no magic sauce. Only you do.
Please understand that many, if not most, college grads don’t immediately launch into their lifelong careers. You need to have some kind of job and start building your resume, your skillset, figure out what you like and don’t like in the working world. Connect with people and make your personal network. College gets you a degree, not necessarily a job to go with it.
Just apply to everything you find remotely interesting. You might apply to a hundred jobs or more. That’s not unusual these days. As suggested, definitely go to your college career center. Create a Linked in profile and follow their suggestions about how make a good one.
You have to just start somewhere. Your path will be more clear as you gain experience.
This is my advice as well. It’s often hard to know what a job is and how much you’ll enjoy it until you’ve done it. You will get a better handle on what types of tasks you enjoy, what environment you like to work in, etc., by doing it. You can always translate this into the next role.
Elaborating on what’s above, you may love art and want to work at a museum, but if your job is in accounting, for example, that’s much more about accounting than art. Or it could be in selling memberships, which is more sales. Or in planning events. But the thing is, you would be able to discern more about what roles excited you. And those things are transferable.
You would also learn what holes you wanted to fill in additional education or training.
IMO, do not go back to school until you figure out what you want to do. Unless you get paid to go to school (yes, there are people who actually get paid to get degrees and NOT financial aid or loans) , the additional tuition and opportunity cost will bury you more.
Like everyone above said, get a job, any job and learn from that and fill any void from that point on. Just don’t apply to more schools thinking anything will change by saddling with additional loans and worthless paper (degrees), as you already know.
My daughter’s undergrad is in history with a certificate in museum studies and an emphasis in art history. She then got a masters in history (it was fully funded, so those opportunities do exist). She loves museum work but because she doesn’t have an MLS she can’t touch a lot of the artifacts so her part in a project she go to work on was cataloging the items from photos.
Anyway,she’s teaching now, last year 7th grade Texas history and next year middle/hs art classes. She might get an MLS and many are online so that’s how she’d do it.
I agree you should try out some ‘real jobs’ to see what you like. My daughter didn’t think she’d like teaching but she does. First she taught at college but now likes the kids. If you get an MLS, you might like law better than art or public libraries or school libraries, which may lead you to law school. Or you may not like libraries at all!
Try anything that will get you out of the house. A wise man once said, “Ninety percent of life is showing up on time.” Do your law firm friends have any ideas?
If you love art and love museums, I say lean into that.
Entry level jobs at museums include the education department (giving tours to school kids; working with curators on brochures and curricula for adult students), gift shop (not just cashier- learning how the order entry system works, licensing the institution’s artwork for bags and coffee mugs etc.) marketing and social media (maintaining the instagram account, making and posting short videos about new items or special exhibits), finance (some of these entry level finance jobs will be fundraising oriented, some will involve the annual budget process, some the endowment and “special funds), operations (physical plant, pest control, transporting works which are on loan) and publishing (catalogues, research, working with the curatorial staff identifying the right expert to write the content for newsletters). And then some.
Pick 15 museums within commuting distance and log on to their “work here” section of their website. Make it a practice to check the websites of the Chronicle of Philanthropy, Idealist, and a couple of the Museum specific sites which have job postings. After a few weeks of this, you’ll have a better idea of what you want to do and will have a sense of how to approach applying there.
This isn’t your life you are determining. Just think of this as a one year trial period to see if you like the environment. And if not- plenty of other places to find a job!!!
Coming back to say that very often, people are offered jobs simply because the employer likes them. A HUGE part of getting any job is about your interaction with the interviewer.
My son’s first job post-grad was as a recruiter. He majored in Econ. When he had his first zoom interview with that company, he noticed that the foreign person interviewing him had a soft drink on the shelf. My son had this drink often as a child, so he mentioned to the interviewer how much he liked it and they had a great conversation. He got the job.
Later on, he said that so much of his job involved assessing if someone he was hoping to recruit was going to do well in interviews. If he clicked with the person, it was a good sign.
Look up interview techniques. Notice everything. Be likable. Those things can help you get a job maybe even more than your degree.
… secondly does your school have a career counselor? Go make an appointment. You’re talking about industries with no relation to each other. Take a few of your interests. Put it into AI or the “old “search engines and ask what professions can you make. Seriously, take any two or three and just search. You will be surprised what comes up. Do this a few times. My daughter graduated undergrad. Worked for a few year’s (no jobs during the pandemic) but went back to school for speech pathology which she graduates in two weeks. She had to do a year Post Bac since she needed courses that aligned with SP…. She came from a BF in theater costume /theater design to transferring and graduating with Cultural anthropology with a polysci minor and finally her masters in Speech Pathology.