Lemmy, I have completed tens of modules across several different universities. I have been course-hopping for long enough that I’d have a bachelors degree by now had I found and stayed on a course that suited me. I can’t be asked to commit to one and study it for yet another 3 years before I get a degree*. Yet I feel like all of the effort that I have expended up to this point will go unacknowledged, just because it was spread across several unis and doesn’t fall into any of their pre-defined study plans. I am a person driven by short bouts of intense curiosity of the type that dives down Wikipedia rabbitholes**. I want to do a highly qualified job but am failing to fit in to the rigid framework that academia sets you. I have several Master’s theses that I’d start researching tomorrow if the system let me. Yet without so much as a bachelor’s I might as well go work in a supermarket. How do I move on from here?
*Perhaps it’s also because I’m now in my early 20s and finally want to have some time to explore.
**I am a logical thinker and predominantly interested in STEM topics.
Start your own business, based on what you like to do AND on what some people around you need.
Become really good at it, and you will find people who will pay you to do it for them.
Do the best you can, and enjoy doing it, even if you don’t get so much money at first.
Eventually, as your reputation grows, so will your income, but it doesn’t really matter how long it takes because you are enjoying yourself already.
As we die, the question isn’t “how much money I had?”, but instead “how many of those days were worth living?”