How Important is Your Degree?

By Tim Sardano

I'm not alone when I say coming out of college I had trouble finding work in my field. I held a degree in Communications/Journalism with a concentration on Public Relations, which are each different in their own right - communications dealt with new media (broadcasting), and journalism and public relations speak for themselves. I think because I took so many different classes under this one major I really didn't know what I wanted to do nor had the confidence to focus on one.

I chose Communications/Journalism because I wanted to be a sports writer, but that soured by my senior year and I decided to concentrate on PR. I was offered a job right out of school with the PR department of a Rochester, NY non-profit I interned with, but it was for minimum wage and that wouldn't pay my rent and my loans, let alone my other expenses. So I took a job with the dining service from my school; I liked to cook and it paid $10 an hour.

Fast forward a few years and I was still cooking and not doing something with my degree. I was then 24 and had recently moved to Maine where I was cooking at Bowdoin College. I kept my degree fresh by freelance writing for local newspapers and I held a second job, part-time, at a bookstore where I could read and study on my breaks and utilize my discount on writing books. I enjoyed what I was doing - wouldn't have done anything different - but I was at a crossroads; should I stay on the cooking path or make sacrifices to get into the field which I'm paying off loans?

I gave heavy thought to going on to culinary school, but just before I looked into financial aid I decided to call a local radio conglomerate to see if they had any internships available; from my degree I learned radio, writing and public relations so they must have something for me, right? And this was my sacrifice, I chose for a summer to take a non-paid internship - four days a week - writing commercials. My sacrifice was financial and time consuming, but I learned a lot from this internship and it opened doors to where I'm working now at Employment Times/MyJobWave.com and using my degree every day.

It's not so much that I HAD to find a career in the field that I hold a degree, it's more that I like to cook but I love to write. Maybe when I retire I'll open a little diner or a bed-and-breakfast, but for now I enjoy very much what I do for a living.

If you recently graduated college and you're still looking for work, just know that it's common. My friends from school have degrees in nursing, French, accounting and math, and are respectively in marketing, hospitality, sales and radio, almost complete opposites to what they studied...and there's nothing wrong with that if you end up following a similar path.

In this economy you may want to "just take anything", but consider your options before you do. It may not be a bad idea to continue your education. Speak with your loan company about delaying loan payments while attending school to help cut back your finances. More education in your field never hurts either. Or look at volunteer opportunities in your community to keep what you learned while in school fresh. There are some great causes out there to volunteer with, but you could also consider unpaid internships in the same facet. Sometimes sacrifices lead to outcomes we never would have considered, but you'll never know without trying.