charmcitysking wrote:It's kinda funny, because a lot of the jobs i've held down in my working life have been a trade of some sort. I've worked as a carpenter apprentice, a mason apprentice, a butcher apprentice, and even as a farmhand for a few summers. The irony is that I decided to go back to college because I was sick of all that shit and wanted an easier life, then I use my education to find out I could well need all of those skills and more just to survive! lol
Good advice all around. There is quite a multitude of areas and issues PO encompasses. So many ways to look at it...
At least you have some “real work” experience and haven't spent the totality of your adult life in school or slinging burgers and fries.
I don't want to be a Debbie Downer, but majoring in history is risky. I say that as someone with a master's in American history and who got half way through a Ph.D. in historical geography before realizing that I was on the wrong path. Making a living in the history field is like trying to make a living as an artist or writer. People do it, but it ain't gonna be easy. You really have to have a passion for it. After 10 years I had lost the passion and wanted to do something else, spurred along by the lack of job prospects.
If you're hellbent on history, I'd suggest focusing your future studies on something vaguely practical, the history of agriculture, for example, or the Great Depression. I mostly did regional environmental history. I wrote half a dissertation on the historical ecology of a sub-region in Oregon; wish I had done something on the history of farming instead, I might have finished it. I found my interests moving more and more towards horticulture, got tired of the abstraction of historical research and spending all day staring at a computer or with my nose in a book. Been doing horticultural work for 6 years now and generally find the work far more rewarding.
There are no easy answers, particularly on the internets where nobody knows the details of your situation. Won't stop us from giving you unsolicited advice, of course, but take it all with a grain of salt.
BTW, in case you didn't know, John_A is one our many resident trolls, take his advice with a bag of salt.
A garden will make your rations go further.