If this comment seems a bit rant-y, I’m sorry! Please don’t bother reading it if you aren’t in the mood to read a rant. Writing this helped me clear my head and feel better about myself. There’s something therapeutic about writing, sometimes; consider this as two parts EA journal, and one part invitation to give me advice.
I have an ugh field regarding applying for jobs (although I suppose that maybe it doesn’t officially count as an ugh field anymore, now that I’m aware of it). I’m generally able to work myself up to applying to a job or internship when I have enough time to—at its worst, the process generally involves me taking 1-2 hours to think about how unintelligent and useless I am, after which I am able to sit down and go through the process of actually applying to the position in question.
I am in a position where I could either do a summer internship and then go to graduate school, or go directly into the workforce. If I don’t end up with any good job offers in industry, I’ll just default to going to grad school in STEM (I know which field within STEM I’d be going to grad school in, but I don’t want to mention it here, as I’d like to remain as anonymous as possible for now).
My feelings about what type of career I’d like to have have been affected by my inability to believe in myself; I could see myself taking a worse job than I would otherwise be able to obtain in order to done with the stressful process of searching for jobs.
I’m not at all passionate about my STEM field—I only majored in STEM because I wanted to make enough to be able to both live comfortably and have enough wealth to donate to EA causes. Actually, I would have been fine with being a starving artist type, since the fun-ness of doing humanities work would have made up for the relatively lower salary I would have made if I had majored in a humanities field. Majoring in a STEM field will probably allow me to donate more to EA organizations than I would have been able to otherwise, so that’s a plus.
Also, I’m not sure how to tie this in, but: the parent I lived with while growing up was very successful professionally, and this makes me feel far more uncomfortable than I would otherwise be about not being more talented than I am. They never accorded me much status, and (at least in part due to my desire to please them) I ended up taking their terrible advice not to go into computer science, which, in retrospect, seems to me to have a somewhat higher reward-to-effort-spent payoff than some of the other sciences. I don’t particularly care for CS any more or less than I care for other STEM subjects; it’s just that the payoff for studying CS is higher. Oh well.
I can totally sympathize. Job seeking sucks, especially if you’re not feeling like an awesome person who everyone would obviously want to employ. I also know from experience that telling you you’re awesome (I don’t know you, but you’re probably awesome) doesn’t necessarily make you feel that way.
I am not a career counselor, but this is the advice I would give you:
Don’t go to grad school unless you’re really sure you want to. Grad school is a really crummy job, and the payoff in terms of career capital is dubious. Most other jobs you can get are better than grad school, even if they’re not in your field.
It’s not too late for a career change. You sound not excited to enter CS, but if you decided that was your best option, coding bootcamps are a thing, and they seem pretty good at turning STEM oriented people into employable coders. There are a lot of other places you could go, and a lot of jobs that don’t have much more qualification than some college degree.
Earning to give is not the only EA career option. If it won’t make you happy, you’ll probably just get burnt out on it and maybe resent EA for making you feel like you had to do that. http://www.benkuhn.net/career-ideas has a list of career ideas that aren’t earning to give, and it’s extremely incomplete.
Also don’t feel like you have to be passionate about the first job you take (or the second or the third). If you don’t know what you want to do, you try things until something works. I also think that a lot of people start jobs that they don’t feel passionate about, and then grow passionate about them over time, so not feeling like there’s anything exciting for you right now doesn’t mean that you’ll never have a job you’re excited about.
Lots of people graduate without a job or a plan. As long as you have some savings or someone you can stay with for a while, waiting until you’re out of school and have time and space to think about your life is a totally reasonable plan.
I’m happy to talk more or help you brainstorm ideas besides grad school or industry in something your not excited over PM if you think that will help.
Even if your goal is to do as much good as possible, you might do better in a field that really motivates you than in a field that typically produces high salaries but that doesn’t interest you much. I also dislike applying for jobs—usually because the jobs I apply for are often jobs that I don’t want. However, I like applying for jobs that I do want and that I think I’m qualified for. If you don’t feel qualified for jobs in your field then I don’t know what to say other than (1) maybe you are qualified but you just have a negatively biased self-image, (2) you can make yourself qualified by learning more and picking up new skills, and (3) figure out what you are qualified and motivated to do and go do that instead.
My best answer to “inability to believe in oneself” (and almost everything else) is rigorous organization. Track your time, set yourself at least daily, weekly, and monthly goals, develop routines (e.g. a morning routine), exercise regularly, set an alarm even on days that you don’t have plans, etc. I started this about five weeks ago and saw extreme results almost overnight.
It sounds like you might benefit from working on believing in yourself more :) Have you considered trying counselling? CBT might be particularly well suited. (Sorry if this comment sounds patronising, it’s difficult to get tone right on these things.)
In terms of concrete career advice, it would be helpful to know what industries you might go into know, and whether grad school would lead to promising careers or higher earnings.
Whatever you choose to do, good luck! Bear in mind that if you donate to effective charities you’ll be doing an unusual amount of good, which very much means that you’re not a “failure”.
Really sorry to hear that you feel like that. I’m glad you find writing about it therapeutic. One thing you can try—it’s worked for me—is to write down a “toolbox” of things (such as writing) that allow you to feel better about yourself when you’re feeling bad.
This could even include taking 1-2 hours to criticize yourself—if that’s what works for you. But having other options might help. Writing them down somewhere visible can help too.
The reason I’m bringing this up is that—for me at least—the mindframe you describe isn’t helpful for making big decisions, or even for applying to jobs. So I think that knowing when you’re at your best and knowing some things you can try to help you return to that state, is great.
Also really sorry to hear that you’re feeling low status on account of a successful role-model. I’ve felt that one too, although for me it wasn’t a parent but rather other members of the EA community who I saw as having accomplished more than I had. I’d love if there was some neat package of advice I could give here, but the only way out I know of involves a lot of grit—gradually learning to compare yourself to your own standards and finding success spirals.
It’s really sweet and amazing that you’re not blaming anyone in the community for making you feel this way—I know it’s not anyone’s intention to get you to choose a career you’re not at all passionate about for EA reasons, but some of the advice can sometimes sound a bit like that.
Also bear in mind that the career advice from 80,000 Hours isn’t to get it right first time, but to allow yourself room to explore and find new directions. Some high-profile EAs have done exactly that, doing a career u-turn when they discover some other path that for them is more effective or more satisfying. So it may be that there’s a fun, fulfilling career out there for you—that’s effective in helping others—and that lies outside of STEM. Or maybe your current field is right for you after all, and you just need to find the right people to make it exciting for you.
Good luck, and thanks so much for opening up. I’m sure what you’re saying resonates with a lot of people.
I also have had negative experiences with career search stuff (more around making decisions). My suggestion, that I’m also going to try, is find someone else who you can help support you through the career search process, who you can talk over decisions with, get to look over applications, maybe help talk you through the time you spend feeling useless before applying. This could also help keep you from settling with an inferior job, if you have to justify it to someone else.
I would also suggest, from experience, to avoid committing to a job at a time when you feel really down about yourself—I’ve done that before, and it would have been better to just wait. At least try to wait a few days, talk to some people about it, etc.
(Also, there’s a facebook group for EAs to help each other with personal issues, and it’s the sort of place where you can post this stuff and get advice—messages are only visible to group members. Message me if you’re interested and not already in it, and I can add you)
If this comment seems a bit rant-y, I’m sorry! Please don’t bother reading it if you aren’t in the mood to read a rant. Writing this helped me clear my head and feel better about myself. There’s something therapeutic about writing, sometimes; consider this as two parts EA journal, and one part invitation to give me advice.
I have an ugh field regarding applying for jobs (although I suppose that maybe it doesn’t officially count as an ugh field anymore, now that I’m aware of it). I’m generally able to work myself up to applying to a job or internship when I have enough time to—at its worst, the process generally involves me taking 1-2 hours to think about how unintelligent and useless I am, after which I am able to sit down and go through the process of actually applying to the position in question.
I am in a position where I could either do a summer internship and then go to graduate school, or go directly into the workforce. If I don’t end up with any good job offers in industry, I’ll just default to going to grad school in STEM (I know which field within STEM I’d be going to grad school in, but I don’t want to mention it here, as I’d like to remain as anonymous as possible for now).
My feelings about what type of career I’d like to have have been affected by my inability to believe in myself; I could see myself taking a worse job than I would otherwise be able to obtain in order to done with the stressful process of searching for jobs.
I’m not at all passionate about my STEM field—I only majored in STEM because I wanted to make enough to be able to both live comfortably and have enough wealth to donate to EA causes. Actually, I would have been fine with being a starving artist type, since the fun-ness of doing humanities work would have made up for the relatively lower salary I would have made if I had majored in a humanities field. Majoring in a STEM field will probably allow me to donate more to EA organizations than I would have been able to otherwise, so that’s a plus.
Also, I’m not sure how to tie this in, but: the parent I lived with while growing up was very successful professionally, and this makes me feel far more uncomfortable than I would otherwise be about not being more talented than I am. They never accorded me much status, and (at least in part due to my desire to please them) I ended up taking their terrible advice not to go into computer science, which, in retrospect, seems to me to have a somewhat higher reward-to-effort-spent payoff than some of the other sciences. I don’t particularly care for CS any more or less than I care for other STEM subjects; it’s just that the payoff for studying CS is higher. Oh well.
Thanks for reading :)
I can totally sympathize. Job seeking sucks, especially if you’re not feeling like an awesome person who everyone would obviously want to employ. I also know from experience that telling you you’re awesome (I don’t know you, but you’re probably awesome) doesn’t necessarily make you feel that way.
I am not a career counselor, but this is the advice I would give you:
Don’t go to grad school unless you’re really sure you want to. Grad school is a really crummy job, and the payoff in terms of career capital is dubious. Most other jobs you can get are better than grad school, even if they’re not in your field.
It’s not too late for a career change. You sound not excited to enter CS, but if you decided that was your best option, coding bootcamps are a thing, and they seem pretty good at turning STEM oriented people into employable coders. There are a lot of other places you could go, and a lot of jobs that don’t have much more qualification than some college degree.
Earning to give is not the only EA career option. If it won’t make you happy, you’ll probably just get burnt out on it and maybe resent EA for making you feel like you had to do that. http://www.benkuhn.net/career-ideas has a list of career ideas that aren’t earning to give, and it’s extremely incomplete.
Also don’t feel like you have to be passionate about the first job you take (or the second or the third). If you don’t know what you want to do, you try things until something works. I also think that a lot of people start jobs that they don’t feel passionate about, and then grow passionate about them over time, so not feeling like there’s anything exciting for you right now doesn’t mean that you’ll never have a job you’re excited about.
Lots of people graduate without a job or a plan. As long as you have some savings or someone you can stay with for a while, waiting until you’re out of school and have time and space to think about your life is a totally reasonable plan.
I’m happy to talk more or help you brainstorm ideas besides grad school or industry in something your not excited over PM if you think that will help.
hugs and good luck!
Even if your goal is to do as much good as possible, you might do better in a field that really motivates you than in a field that typically produces high salaries but that doesn’t interest you much. I also dislike applying for jobs—usually because the jobs I apply for are often jobs that I don’t want. However, I like applying for jobs that I do want and that I think I’m qualified for. If you don’t feel qualified for jobs in your field then I don’t know what to say other than (1) maybe you are qualified but you just have a negatively biased self-image, (2) you can make yourself qualified by learning more and picking up new skills, and (3) figure out what you are qualified and motivated to do and go do that instead.
My best answer to “inability to believe in oneself” (and almost everything else) is rigorous organization. Track your time, set yourself at least daily, weekly, and monthly goals, develop routines (e.g. a morning routine), exercise regularly, set an alarm even on days that you don’t have plans, etc. I started this about five weeks ago and saw extreme results almost overnight.
It sounds like you might benefit from working on believing in yourself more :) Have you considered trying counselling? CBT might be particularly well suited. (Sorry if this comment sounds patronising, it’s difficult to get tone right on these things.)
In terms of concrete career advice, it would be helpful to know what industries you might go into know, and whether grad school would lead to promising careers or higher earnings.
Whatever you choose to do, good luck! Bear in mind that if you donate to effective charities you’ll be doing an unusual amount of good, which very much means that you’re not a “failure”.
Giles, Ruthie, and Tom,
Thank you all for the encouragement and advice. Yay! :)
Hi Anonymous,
Really sorry to hear that you feel like that. I’m glad you find writing about it therapeutic. One thing you can try—it’s worked for me—is to write down a “toolbox” of things (such as writing) that allow you to feel better about yourself when you’re feeling bad.
This could even include taking 1-2 hours to criticize yourself—if that’s what works for you. But having other options might help. Writing them down somewhere visible can help too.
The reason I’m bringing this up is that—for me at least—the mindframe you describe isn’t helpful for making big decisions, or even for applying to jobs. So I think that knowing when you’re at your best and knowing some things you can try to help you return to that state, is great.
Also really sorry to hear that you’re feeling low status on account of a successful role-model. I’ve felt that one too, although for me it wasn’t a parent but rather other members of the EA community who I saw as having accomplished more than I had. I’d love if there was some neat package of advice I could give here, but the only way out I know of involves a lot of grit—gradually learning to compare yourself to your own standards and finding success spirals.
It’s really sweet and amazing that you’re not blaming anyone in the community for making you feel this way—I know it’s not anyone’s intention to get you to choose a career you’re not at all passionate about for EA reasons, but some of the advice can sometimes sound a bit like that.
Also bear in mind that the career advice from 80,000 Hours isn’t to get it right first time, but to allow yourself room to explore and find new directions. Some high-profile EAs have done exactly that, doing a career u-turn when they discover some other path that for them is more effective or more satisfying. So it may be that there’s a fun, fulfilling career out there for you—that’s effective in helping others—and that lies outside of STEM. Or maybe your current field is right for you after all, and you just need to find the right people to make it exciting for you.
Good luck, and thanks so much for opening up. I’m sure what you’re saying resonates with a lot of people.
I also have had negative experiences with career search stuff (more around making decisions). My suggestion, that I’m also going to try, is find someone else who you can help support you through the career search process, who you can talk over decisions with, get to look over applications, maybe help talk you through the time you spend feeling useless before applying. This could also help keep you from settling with an inferior job, if you have to justify it to someone else.
I would also suggest, from experience, to avoid committing to a job at a time when you feel really down about yourself—I’ve done that before, and it would have been better to just wait. At least try to wait a few days, talk to some people about it, etc.
(Also, there’s a facebook group for EAs to help each other with personal issues, and it’s the sort of place where you can post this stuff and get advice—messages are only visible to group members. Message me if you’re interested and not already in it, and I can add you)