I'm beginning to think I spent five years and a boatload of money getting an engineering degree that I don't even really want to use. Looking at my finances, rent arrangement, and all that I'm a very good spot for being 6 months into post-college work, enough that I could afford to make some sort of a switch be it job or industry in another 6 months even if that means taking a substantial pay cut. I really just want to work on the administrative side of things for a non-profit cultural based organization, preferable one that values social equity. Could be a cultural space, art/music gallery, etc etc or working for a university even. It seems a lot more personally fulfilling to me and I'm going to start volunteering at a couple of places which kleinbl00 and rinx might already know once January rolls around. One of them has recommended I apply to an internship opening that they have, which is related to fundraising / event management / organizational development which are things that I've developed a passion and competency in over the past few years. However, it would require 10-15 hours a week in the evenings after work-work or on weekends, which would be on top of my 45 hour a week job...and having a relationship and social life...I would love to apply at least even if seems like a whole extra thing to try and make work. It would be a great way to get a foot in the door and see if, yes, this is a transition I actually want to make looking forward, and would help pad my resume should I go in that direction. I already have two resumes, one for engineering and industry, and the other for more humanities based jobs. The latter is a lot more interesting to me. It's a tough decision to make but my mind is not at all in one direction and I don't think it will be any time soon. At least I'm going home for a little over a week for the holidays, that will be nice.
Fuck the humanities resume. People love engineers. We're the sort who solve problems, independent of the specific challenge. Look, for example, at the statistics on medical school admissions. Engineers have among the highest rate of acceptance of any background. Problem solving is a valuable skill, and one that is transferable. I take a slight issue with thenewgreen's assertion. I use my engineering skills almost daily; it was the industry I didn't care for. If you want a change, make a change. I took a $30,000 pay cut to leave my engineering job, and now I make twice what I did as an entry level engineer. It was worth the gamble, but maybe that was dumb luck. I don't know. High risk, high reward. One thing I've learned, however, is that people respect boldness. It takes confidence in yourself to take a leap of faith, and hedging and sticking your toe in will only undermine your confidence in yourself.
I'm beginning to think I spent five years and a boatload of money getting an engineering degree that I don't even really want to use.
b_b did the same thing. You're in good company.
Stop thinking small. You got an engineering degree because the problems appealed to you and you found yourself in a position where the problems are suddenly trivial. That does not mean that there are no non-trivial problems. Engineering is science applied through math. We have the science to save the world yet people still die by the millions of cholera and shit. Look at the NGO space. There's plenty that can be done to save the world and lots of it is being done by philanthropic labs in Seattle, paid for with Gates, Allen & MacCaw money. You have an engineering degree. The code forbids you from interning anymore. You walk the fuck up to places and say "I have an engineering degree and am willing to slum it because I believe in what you're doing. Pay me as much as you can afford so that neither of us feels insulted."
Why do you want to work for a nonprofit in particular? You can do good without making it your 9 - 5 job. In fact, for many people, you can do more good making a boatload elsewhere then using that money to effect change. So in terms of positives for the world, you can do good regardless of where you work. Given that, what will make you happiest spending your time? Why does the nonprofit industry appeal to you? I think lots of people think they will find meaningful work and that will take away the drudgery of a job being a job. In my experience, nonprofits are the opposite. It's more paperwork, bureaucracy, and oversight, and so many BS hoops to jump through just to make a small change. I'm not saying there aren't great nonprofits to work for, I just would be careful you aren't romanticizing them. If your only goal is to do good, you can do that anyway. If your goal is a job with more meaning, that makes sense, but I wouldn't say you can't find an engineering job that does that too. To me, the work your doing (engineering vs administration) is a separate issue from the goals of the company. You can do engineering at a nonprofit, and you can do administration at a for profit.
Having worked at a nonprofit that recently sold its tech arm to a corporation, some anecdata: * The workload is indeed much lighter as a corporate employee. I have rarely had to work more than 8 hours in a day, and have not yet had to work all night on anything. They pay reliably; I have not had to delay getting a paycheck or been asked to skip one because money was tight. Indeed, they really want me to let them buy me books and pay for me to take classes. * There was much less bullshit as a non-profit. As a non-profit, so long as the tasks that needed to be done got done, no one cared if you wanted to start work at midnight and sleep through business hours, and "no" was an acceptable answer to invitations to meetings; "fuck that" was an acceptable response to bad ideas, no matter whose bad ideas they were. No one was required to humiliate themselves with mandatory team-building ritual things. While it was rare to have nothing to do, I never felt obliged to pretend to be busy when I wasn't. No one gave the impression they got some kind of sexual thrill out of being able to declare things "mandatory." Very little was mandatory, other than the work. There was no paperwork other than opening and closing tickets. I would have preferred to keep the heavier workload and occasionally unreliable pay and avoided the other stuff.