Ask Lemmy

Well, I did get my bachelor's. Once I got it, I was suddenly overqualified for lots of jobs while bachelor-level jobs don't want to hire someone with no experience. Just something to consider.

I ended up with seasonal work, call centers, low-level IT jobs, and now I'm unemployed again and nobody's hiring right now. With this terrible job market, studying may be a good option, so that's another thing to consider.

Honest question:

Have you been assessed for any learning disabilities?

The reason why I ask is that your post is well written. It is grammatically correct, spelling is good and even proper use of commas. Which is well above average for most people on social media.

My oldest has a lot of issues with reading. Fortunately, my wife and I picked up on it quickly and got him assessed. It turned out he was dyslexic (from his mother) with an auditory processing issue (from me). We put him in a program specific to teaching dyslexic people to read. Fast forward to today and he will be transferring to Northwestern in the fall to start his Sophomore year.

There is a lot of assistance and accommodations available to people with learning disabilities. Not all are free, but it's worth looking into.

I don't think you're "dumb", I think you need learn how to learn.

Bacame an electrician, entry level job at a utilities firm, now team leader at utilities firm, went as a stop gap 21 years ago, never left

The best decision in my life was to get a trade/industrial degree after school. I met some great people, I met some horrible people, and most importantly, it taught me to show up every morning with a clean T-shirt and an appropriate greeting. Sounds banal, but isn't.

Then I went to college, out of a mix of "I don't want to do this for 40 years" and no good offers in my region. But I still wonder how I would have ended up if I didn't go. I was happiest in tech support, believe it or not. We were pretty free in what we did as long as the tickets were solved. If the queue was zero, nobody asked where you were on a Friday afternoon. Good times.

a) I think there are plenty of hints at ADHD in your post. That doesn't make you dumb, it just means your brain is wired differently that most people expect.

b) Dropped out of my classes half way through my 1st semester for computer science. A few years later, I got an associate's degree in "New Media Production" or something. Building websites. Hated working with a client for my final project. Went BACK to my original school for a few more semesters. Still never completed my bachelor's.

I've been with the same company now for 20 years in a slew of roles that have led to me being a Salesforce Administrator. For me it's been about wanting to know more stuff, working hard, and taking opportunities as they come along. I'm not career driven, but hell if I'm not going to apply for positions that I know I can do and will make me more money.

Now I have a kid who is 19 (with ADHD) who just finished her first year of part-time community college and definitely didn't pass all her classes. She's moving to Florida soon to work in the Disney College Program. I wish she put more focus on school, but I suppose that's how my parents felt too. She's smart and a hard worker, and I'm sure she'll figure it out eventually.

Dropped out of college and I work as a web developer. I went to a 6 month coding school so I have some educational experience but not a lot.

Look into the trades: electrician, plumber, hvac...I retired from Walmart last year making $125k/year as a refrigeration tech. The trades won't be replaced by Ai any time soon. When your ac doesn't work or your drain's clogged or you need some power run, ai can't do it. Although Walmart's got some pretty slick ai to flag stuff that's running out of spec.

First of all you are not dumb, just because you are bad in school. School often sucks for people as it's way too standardized and cannot take into account the needs of all students. The fact that you are thinking that hard about it shows that you are quite a smart person. Also language barrier often makes things more complecated.

Now a question you have to ask yourself, do you really like going to collage that much? Or are you there because of social preasure and the fear of not making it in life if you don't get a collage?

Once you can honestly answer that question ask you this: is there focational programs in the country you are at? If so, what trades can you see yourself working at? Are there trade schools on that specific field, to keep climbing the leader? How difficult is it to start your own business once you are experienced in that trade?

If you are unsure about all these question, maybe look for a career counselor, so they can help you find something you can do.

In anycase, good luck and stay strong and remeber you are so much more worth than just a career choice.

IMO degrees are overrated for all but people like doctors etc. Learning on the job always worked fine for me and at one point I was managing a division of over 40 people. These days I went back to my more "passion" career as freelance and couldn't be happier. I plan on finishing my days as a woodworker (because we all know I ain't getting retirement).

I drive an 18-wheeler for work. The industry's been pretty good to me, although it's taken me several years and plenty of companies for me to find a place where I comfortably fit.

There's money to be made here, though, especially if you're willing to specialize. By which I mean, pull a more complicated trailer than a standard "dry van". Flatbeds, tankers, stepdecks, automotive haulers. Removable goosenecks for oversize freight. The list goes on.

If you want to also go home every night, there's foodservice, beer/soda distributors, or less-than-truckload companies like ABF or Old Dominion. Some of these companies are even unionized.

Should you decide to go this route, don't get your CDL through a trucking company, and dear fucking god, don't lease a truck through them either. Go to a standalone school. Companies will try to recruit you there before you even come close to graduating.

Air traffic controller. A shit ton of money for a shit ton of days off and holidays.

My highest degree is from the aviation school so it’s kinda useless outside of aviation.

Same for my pilots friends, none of them went to university/college but rather straight to flying school after the mandatory diploma you pass at around eighteen (Baccalauréat in France).

It is great but the downside is that if we want to change careers we can only become business owners (aka, create our own jobs) because nobody wants us and we don’t accept their "real world" shitty work conditions.

I was a graphic designer and department manager for many years. But, the work I there did went far beyond that into product design, and I also had to understand both the offset printing process, and screen printing pretty well. I also set up the shop's first network, because I was the only one who had a clue how to do it.

My first "real" job just out of high school was office machine repair tech, I have a high mechanical aptitude and took apart my toys and put them back together starting when I was a young kid.

A side story: When I was very young, I got both a mechanical toy helicopter that rolled around on the floor with spinning blades and flashing lights, and a tool set. The first thing I did was take apart the helicopter. But, I couldn't put it back together. It was years later that I realized my dad put it back together and saved it to give to me the next Christmas. When, I did exactly the same thing. He said I did that three times before I was able to put it back together again.

I've failed to some degree at every sales job I've tried. I tried more than once because of the potential earnings lure, but I just don't much like talking to random people.

If you're a foreign student and not fully fluent in English, see if you can find some resources at your university to help. I would expect a UK university to have something. If you have a guidance counselor or a student resource center, those would be good places to start asking.

Taking a long time on homework or missing a deadline due to unclearly written direction in a language you're not fully comfortable with doesn't make you bad at university.

If you judge a fish by how well it can climb a tree, it will spend its whole life thinking it is dumb. You are not dumb, other issues aside.

Youre on Lemmy and know what a UI is. Youll be fine.

Find something in network security or sysadmin. Or engineering of some sort. If you can compute, youll be sought after. People are idiots with computers now.

Currently work for an organization helping people on centrelink / workforce benefits get a job.

I've managed pubs, nightclubs and restaurants. Been a dishy and wait person.

Managed a warehouse for consumer pc parts, with the same mob I did marketing and procurment dealing with some big international brands and local distributors.

Worked for a government body (think motor registry but broader) assisting people with forms, really just helping them get across the line before they enter the queue.

Climbed towers and installed mobile equipment / antennas replacing the analog mobile network (3g installs). Installed police cameras in back of their vans along with police radio installs with the same rigging mob.

Highest qualification I have is year 12, some certificates for safe work / working at heights and some hospo related tickets. Nothing special, just a string of random jobs.

you be surprised people who have degrees basically are in jobs that is for people without degrees. not everyone with a degree will get a job in thier field, for multiple reasons.

Purchasing/procurement remotely for a very large manufacturing company.

Not having a degree isn't as prohibitive as people make it out to be. The biggest difference is the time it takes: most of my colleagues are 10-15 years younger than me. They got to get real desk jobs straight out of college, while I spent a long time working in warehouses and doing logistics. So in the long run, they'll probably earn more money than me and they were able to start saving for retirement sooner, but I've gotten more varied experiences, better anecdotes, and I'm not steeped in debt. Worthwhile trade to me.

Officially I don't have a job title, but I'm a technical manager/supervisor in an offshore seismic survey company. I plan, build, and support systems that combine robotics and IT, intended for offshore use.

I didn't even finish high school, by the way.

I used to teach middle school, now I wait tables.

Pharmacy auditor. Started out in retail pharmacy in a state where pharmacy technicians don't need formal education (using on the job training instead). Actually started in the retail front end until they needed someone to help back there. Worked my way around the pharmacy, floated in multiple stores for a bit, moved to Long Term Care for a while before landing a work from home job.

Agree. Go do a trade. You will have money and work most of the time.

And have you considered you may have learning difficulty? There’s strategy, resources and assistive tech now to help with it if it’s the case. Use it, learning and an education gives you choices.

what do you do?

No degree: ran out of cash and spent a decade settling the loans.

I learned a little Linux in college, and I found it's done me well, since. Better and better jobs, and now I'm in a unionized I.T role with a pension. I'll be 90 before I can collect, but the people are nice. I'm also working a side gig, one where I could be fired on the spot but there's always 3 months of I.T work in the hopper .. and has been for 24 years. So that's nice.

I went to University for Electrical Engineering, switched to Computer Science after a semester and then dropped out after 5 more semesters. I had about half of the required credits after those 5 semesters, so I guess I was on track to graduate after studying for 5 years (which isn't bad considering my University's reputation for being so hard that the town opened a second easier University just for the dropouts, but I was still not very happy and really wanted to do real work)

So I got myself into an apprenticeship program to become a Programmer. There was a special one in my town that got you there in just 1.5 years instead of the 3 years that are the norm for apprenticeships here in Germany (again, University so hard they have an entire sector of special programs for dropouts). Just one day of school per week, the rest is spent at an actual company doing actual work. Finished that one with ease, got hired by the company that I did the apprenticeship with and have been working there for over 3 years by now.

I'm now in the job market for the first time because I want to work for a different company, and I'm seeing that I absolutely did the right thing. Because fresh graduates who only studied but never worked are absolutely flooding the market and no company wants them right now. I had a pretty interesting conversation with a hiring manager for a company I'm considering a few days ago, and they said that most applicants they get are either fresh graduates who are asking for insane salaries without any relevant skills to back it up, notorious job-hoppers who spend like 6 months per company and never get deeper skills and vibe-coders. It's insanely hard to find normal people with relevant hands-on knowledge because those people are staying with their existing companies.

Anyways, what I want to get at is that if you just want to work in a specific field that you're passionate about, there's a chance that you can just go and do that. Ofc I don't know your country's market situation or work system, but I bet as long as it is not something highly regulated like Doctor or Lawyer, there could be genuinely good alternative paths into it. And once you have a job in an industry and prove yourself, your academic success kinda stops mattering.

Job title: Cloud implementation specialist.

Actual job: Network Engineer

I have no clue how they go to that title.....

Project manager. (i can hear you all rolling your eyes, and i agree with you....)

My cousin got an apprenticeship with ibew and became a worker for the city power grid

I left school at 16, which in the UK means I only have the most basic set of exam results. A friend also left with two grade Es only.

We're both doing well, but it did mean a lot of work. For my friend, he worked full time, plus ran his own business in his "spare time" ... it took off enough that he has a decent sustainable income. He has a good sense for business and a cast iron work ethic.

I took a different route, I did short-term "unskilled" work in order to have a tax trail, and made most of my money through other means.

After turning 30 I cleaned up my act, and found that what I'd been doing as hobbies, plus some of my unskilled work, meant I was suitable for a unique job that landed in my lap ... and I've been doing that ever since, working my way up to a good wage through experience and having a cool head in a crisis.

In short, there's no "you should do this exact job", it's more a case of keep doing something, be willing to be very flexible, treat every job in a professional manner, and just keep learning.

Currently a factory / site manager for a small food production plant, so plant maintenance, warehouse management, staff management, general IT, data analysis...

I have sat on both in house on external advisory boards, worked with scientists on research projects, been involved in technical trials (field trials) for disease diagnostic kits (lateral flow devices like the now [in]famous covid tests), driven heavy good trucks, line lead in plastics production, lab tech in plastics, and a few other things

I did my first year at uni and averaged flat C's and then went working. I have gained a few certs over the years where needed, but nothing above first/second year uni level.

I did like 1 semester at a community College and dropped out. I did tech support for web hosting companies for a little, moved to sales, realized im bad at sales but could understand servers etc better than sales guys so I became whats know as a sales engineer (the role has different titles at different companies, but its like the technical consultant that works with a sales rep to close deals) and did that for like 11 years. Now I do account mgmt for another tech company and make solid money.

I do regret ditching college but not for the degree as much as the overall experience.

Sales.

I worked retail and just worked my way up. I managed for awhile and I got all the way to Microsoft with no degree believe it or not. I stepped away from big tech for mental health reasons and found my way back to traditional retail sales and love it.

You don't sound stupid.

Mechanical Engineering Technician

Cry.