Confession
My parents dropped a massive financial bomb on me and I’m in shock. I have fewer than three weeks before I’m forced to take out loans for basic rent. I have no savings. No runway. No income lined up. To be clear, they’ve always been financially opaque, have refused to tell me anything about their finances even when I explicitly asked until late last month, constantly reassured me that everything was taken care of, and then dropped this on me with zero warning. The meager amount I made last summer went into investments and what remains isn’t even enough to cover two months of rent. I also don’t get financial aid because of a complicated family situation. In other words, no help is coming. Now I don’t think / know how I can fund a graduate degree. I don’t even know how much in loans I would have to take simply to be alive for another year. Does anyone even get outside scholarships? So many people apply...
I’ve been crying every day for the past week, waking up with migraines, and feel like throwing up even thinking about the future.
I really, really don’t want to work in tech or live in the bay area. But the other thing I’d do, consulting, feels like a dead end for slightly better professional upside / long term optionality - the pay is so much worse, the work feels empty, the exit options and skills trained at the junior level are questionable considering evolving AI capabilities, there’s no guarantee I’ll get MBB, I don’t think we’re really an east coast target, I feel drained by constant corporate politics, many of the consultants I’ve met sound unhappy, and now I’ll also be set back by another $100k if I get an MBA after two years in consulting. It’s all around a terrible situation. I was already struggling to come up with a plan for the next step because it’s been impossible for me to envision a viable life where I’m remotely happy.
I don’t know if misery is a normal sacrifice everyone makes early career to build leverage or a sign I’m wasting my life on the completely wrong track. The thing that gets me isn’t that the work might be hard, it’s that it feels meaningless, and so does my life by extension.
How do I know if I should take a prestige cut for a lesser known company (not tech) in something I’m more likely to enjoy in a better city at the risk of a more limited network for my first job? How career defining-risky is not landing a top name shop as a new grad? How do I know if I should prioritize income and minimal hours for a few years while pursuing what fulfills me as a 5-9? Graduate ASAP? I’ve realized that corporate ladder climbing kind of kills me unless the comp / adrenaline / people make it feel worth it. I feel like I’ll secretly dislike every job I do until I finally give myself permission to do the impractical, creative thing, but I currently lack the funds to do a poorly comped fellowship or another degree.
The absolute last thing I want to do is take a mid dead end job I don’t like to pay the bills instead of buying time and the skills to land something better. I feel like the financial stress is warping how I’m making major life decisions and I’m terrified I’ll do something I permanently regret. I feel weird talking to anyone about this irl, so any advice is appreciated :,(