r/careerguidance

I work in product analytics at a mid-size fintech firm and had my end-of-year review two weeks ago. My direct manager gave me glowing feedback and said I exceeded all my targets. But then he dropped the bad news: the executive team decided to freeze all performance bonuses across product and engineering this cycle because of "macroeconomic uncertainty and shrinking margins." My target bonus was supposed to be 12% of my base salary ($11,500), which I had already factored into paying off my student loans. It sucked, but everyone on the team assumed the comapny was genuinely hurting, so we just swallowed it and moved on.

Fast forward to yesterday. Our quarterly earnings report went live and leadership held a public investor call. Turns out not only did the company beat revenue estimates by 18%, but Q4 was literally the most profitable quarter in the firm's history. To make matters worse, our VP sent out a congratulatory email celebrating the "record breaking performance" while casually ignoring the fact that the entire floor got their bonuses wiped out. When I quietly asked my manager about the discrepancy today, he looked super uncomfortable, mumbled something about cash reserves, and told me not to rock the boat if I value my job.

I feel completely lied to and honestly pretty insulted. Im not trying to get fired, but working 50+ hours a week through Q4 crunch just to be told there's no money while the C-suite pats themselves on the back feels disgusting. Is there any professional way to push back on this, or should I just keep my head down, update my resume, and bounce as soon as I get another offer?

Hi all, I’m doing some research on my own time on how small and mid-sized U.S. businesses (fewer than 500 employees) adopt AI, how they decide whether it's worth it, and what it means for their teams. This poll asks employees how they'd feel without it.

I’m hoping to reach 100 responses. If you’re not sure you fit the group (for example, your company has 500+ employees), please still vote, and mention it in the comments so I can keep the analysis honest. I’ll post the results here when the poll closes. (I am hoping in about a month, kindly reshare to increase the reach, thanks)

What I mean by AI: any AI tool you ask or tell to do a task for you, such as:

• AI buttons inside apps you already use or AI features in your CRM (Salesforce, Hubspot etc.) or support tools
• Designing graphics, images or videos (Canva Magic Design, Adobe Firefly, Photoshop Generative Fill, Midjourney etc.)
• Writing, summarizing or translating (ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, Claude etc.)
• Analyzing data or building spreadsheets and reports (e.g. Copilot in Excel, Gemini in Sheets etc.)
• Taking meeting notes or transcribing calls (e.g. Zoom or Teams AI summaries, Otter etc.)
• Writing or fixing code (e.g. GitHub Copilot, Cursor etc.)

It does not mean things that run quietly in the background, like spam filters, search results or autocorrect.

Step 1, vote: If your employer stopped allowing any form of these AI tools use at work, including AI features inside apps you already use, how would it affect your work?

- Much harder

- A bit harder

- No difference

- Easier

- I don’t use AI at work: not allowed

- I don’t use AI at work: my choice

Step 2, comment (optional): why did you pick that answer? If you can, add your type of role, roughly how big your company is (no names), and the task it would affect most.

I'll share a summary of the results here when the poll closes.

I just spent four weeks going through a rigorous five-round interview loop for a Senior Operations Specialist role at a mid-sized tech firm. The job posting explicitly listed the salary band as $110,000 to $125,000. During the initial recruiter screen, I gave my target number as $115,000, and the recruiter literally confirmed on the call that my number fell squarely within their budget. The rest of the interviews went amazing, the VP of Ops told me during the final round that my case study presentation was top tier, and yesterday HR finally sent over the official written offer.

I opened the PDF and the base salary is listed at $92,000. When I immediately hopped on a quick call with the recruiter to clarify what happened, she gave me a rambling explanation about internal equity and said that because my background is slightly shy of their arbitrary "7-year benchmark" for this title, compensation committee capped me at the low end of their internal grade band. She kept emphasizing that the benefits and 401k match are great, and hinted that there is "plenty of room for promotion after six months", which we all know usually means absolutely nothing once you sign.

I feel pretty insulted considering they knew my exact years of experience from my resume on day one, and they waited until round five to pull this bait and switch. The tricky part is that I am currently employed but very eager to leave my current role due to endless leadership churn. Do I stand firm and counter at the original $115,000 and risk them rescinding, or do I try to meet them in the middle at $105,000 with a written 6-month review clause? Anyone who has successfully negotiated after a heavy lowball like this, I could really use your advice on how to phrase the counter without sounding combative.

About a year and a half ago, I found out I was likely near the very bottom of the pay band for my role (Sales Manager, 10 years with the company, 5 years in the role). At the time, I had just finished as one of only a few managers out of about 14 who hit goal in a down year.

I wrote a professional email to my VP laying out why I thought I deserved an adjustment based on performance and market equity. I also raised the issue of trust and integrity in the way I even found out. When we met to discuss it, he looked me in the eye and told me flat out that my information was wrong and that I was simply mistaken about where I sat on the pay scale. He got visibly emotional, talked about how critical mutual trust was between us, and promised he’d push for the highest possible merit raise for me at the next cycle since he couldn't get an off-cycle raise approved right then. I took him at his word, assumed my info was bad, and put my head down and worked. We’ve had a great relationship and dynamic this last year and a half.

Fast forward to this year. I got a top rating and a decent merit increase at my next review. Performance has been great. Two weeks ago, I had a meeting with my VP and our Chief Sales Officer about a future VP role for me, and the feedback was overwhelmingly positive. No promises made, but that’s not the way things work in my company and I didn’t expect one.

Two days ago, I was in my VP's office for our most recent one-on-one. I was the top-performing manager to goal in his entire org for the quarter. While we were talking, he accidentally shared the wrong monitor. On the screen was a spreadsheet listing the exact salaries for all 10-11 managers reporting to him.
Turns out I'm second from the absolute bottom.
There are only two managers who make less than me, by about $3k. (We’re all six-figures.) One has been here for three years, the other for about one year. The next person above me makes $6k-$7k more with less tenure. The rest of the team makes significantly more than I do.

When I pointed out what was on his screen, he realized the mistake, made a joke by waving his hands to make me forget what I saw, and I told him it wasn't that easy. That was the end of the discussion.

I'm dealing with two issues here. One is the pay equity, which sucks after five years of consistently out-producing people making way more than me. But the much bigger issue is that my VP blatantly lied to my face 18 months ago while giving me a whole speech about trust and integrity. He could have told me pay was confidential or that my band was set based on when I was hired, but he chose to lie.
At this point, I don't see how I can ever trust him again or keep working under him.

I'm trying to figure out how to play this. My options seem to be:

1. Go directly to the Chief Sales Officer, explain what happened, and ask to be moved to a different reporting line in the company.
2. Confront my VP directly about the lie and the breach of trust. I am not that sure I am interested in repair.
3. Take it to HR.
4. Keep quiet, start interviewing elsewhere, and either leave or use an outside offer to force a raise/move internally.

How would you all handle this situation? What advice do you have for me? I do recognize that there is no decision to make while I’m angry and seeing red. I have my regularly scheduled therapy appointment next week lol.

Thanks!

Throwaway because coworkers know my main.

I'm 31, and I've been working for six years at a mid-size logistics company. I started in dispatch at $41k, and now I'm an operations coordinator at $63k. I've never missed a deadline.

Three months ago we hired a new guy for the same role as me. Why trained him? Why, me, of course. In trying to do a good job, I taught him all the weird workarounds in our systems and policies that aren't written down anywhere. Nice guy, honestly. No beef with him.

Last week he left his offer letter on the shared printer and I saw what he was making. I went to my manager. She didn't deny it. Said the market changed, they had to pay to fill the seat, and she'd "get you an adjustment in Q1 next year."

Here's where it gets hard. Two years ago my dad was dying and I was basically useless for four months. Late, distracted, gone half the week. HR wanted me on a PIP. My manager went to bat for me, moved my shifts around, and covered my work herself sometimes. I'm pretty sure she put her own neck out and that I wouldn't have a job without her.

Yesterday a recruiter I'd been half ignoring came back with an offer. $81k, hybrid, similar work. They want an answer by Friday.

Part of me says I should take it because it's just business and I'm not really enjoying having trained someone the company values more than me. But the angel on my shoulder is telling me I'm walking out on the one person who didn't let me fall when I could have. Negotiating doesn't feel like I'm honoring that effort either.

Has anyone been in my shoes? What did you do, and did you regret how it turned out?

Tl;dr trained a new hire who makes $14k more than me. Manager saved my job when my dad was dying. Have an $81k offer that expires Friday. Loyalty or money?

I’ve been working for a relatively new company (let’s call them BT) for about a month (company is 3 months old) - for 10 hours per week. So far, it’s been a good experience, and I see a lot of potential for growth.

Recently, I received an offer from another company (let’s call them SM) for a full-time position. The hourly rate is slightly lower, but I’d be working 40 hours per week, so obviously the overall income would be significantly higher.

The downsides - I’d have to work from 4 PM to midnight, and I’d also need to commute to the office.

I’m currently finishing university and have two exams to prepare for, so I need at least an hour or two each day to study and keep up with my lectures.

After thinking about it, I decided to decline the full time offer. However, they told me that they were impressed by me and asked if there is a specific arrangement or schedule they could offer that would make me reconsider joining them.

Now I’m not sure what to do.

Would it make sense to propose working around 20 hours per week, potentially with only one or two days in the office and the remaining hours remotely? That way, I could increase my income while keeping my current job and still have time for university.

Any advice is genuinely appreciated!

Hi everyone,

I am an engineer currently working at a small company for two and a half years now.There is not much innovation at the company where I work at and since the start I have been struggling with boredom. Throughout my career I always struggled with this but I always have been able to cope by looking for my own sideprojects by automating workflows via code/scripts. Now with the arrival of agentic ai I have been able to do this on an unprecedented scale and speed. The problem is the company doesnt recognise my work and doesnt want to pay for my AI account . This was fine at first as it kept me busy and honestly is probably the reason I have managed to stay that long. But I am not seeing any return from management. For example I made a tool to calculate vemtilation groups through mollier diagrama so that my collegues can do it themselves and export them to put in our offers. My manager and collegues use this every day. Same for library tools for 3D drawings,Automatic duct drawing, automatic price calculations and offer generation effectively saving 100's of hours every month. At the start of the project I tried to get our IT guy in so we could integrate some with our erp and engineering software. However I was met with a very negative response because the guy apparently was angry because I already worked on it without consulting him first (the company has the culture that everyone wants to protect his job). So i kept working from my side.Now that I ask for the claude account to be paid by my work I am met with : why do you need it and you have to see with the IT guy. This + other stuff happening has opened my eyes and made me realise I need to leave.

Would i be wrong to remove the software I made when I leave? I made it with my own account and sometimes even in my free time.

Thank you in advance!

Earlier this year, I was passed over for a promotion because my manager felt I needed to demonstrate more consistency, ownership, and initiative.
I was disappointed but accepted the feedback and started working on those areas. We’ve had several development conversations since then, and my manager has acknowledged improvements.

At this point, I’d already accepted that a promotion wasn’t happening this year. I was focused on improving in my current role and continuing to grow.
Then recently, my manager told me that my performance was actually falling below expectations for my current position and warned that I could be placed on a formal PIP if things don’t improve.

This was the first time I’d heard that my current performance was considered unacceptable.
I’m honestly struggling to process it. For months, I thought we were discussing gaps between my current level and the next one. Now I’m being told I’m not consistently meeting expectations at the level I’m already at.

I’m frustrated because some of the feedback feels subjective, and responsibilities within the team haven’t always been clearly defined. At the same time, I recognize that I may have genuine blind spots and areas where I need to improve.
I’ve asked to work with my manager on a concrete improvement plan, but I’m worried that the decision about my future may already be made.

Has anyone experienced a similar shift in feedback? Were you able to recover, or did you end up leaving? What would you do in my position?
I’m especially interested in hearing from managers who’ve handled situations like this.

I almost didn’t even get an interview, but someone else canceled and they called me back and asked if I would like to jump on one right away, and I did. That seemed to go really well and one week later I got the phone call they offered me the higher end of the range, which is 29 an hour plus overtime. This job is attractive to me because it’s remote and includes a lot of travel that I’m interested in. Not the best pay in the world i know but i need work now and it seems there is room to grow.

Am I in no position to negotiate a bit higher after I already verbally said yes, especially when I was already a second choice candidate for the original interview?

so my gf and I moved to a new city a year ago and she’s been having a really hard time finding a job here.

she graduated with a degree in graphic design, and she has a Portfolio as well as some freelance work under her belt belt.

Every night, she cries in bed and says she feels behjnd in life and stuck. She’s 24 years old and currently works as a babysitter.

I feel terrible watching her cry and feel down on herself about this, because I don’t know How I can help.

She Applies on LinkedIn and most of the job listings are old, don’t reply to her, or reject her.

it doesn’t help that the entry-level job market in general (especially creative jobs) is taking a massive hit from AI and agents.

At this point, she Is not picky about where she works, but she says she would like to work in a creative position.

I suggested UX design, product design, packaging, or social media (since she has experience making content for a professional page)

how might she actually land a position or at least an interview for some of these positions?

what can she do?

she would love to connect with people in the industry or recruiters for advice.

I’m genuinely tired of asking for advice about opportunities and seeing the same response over and over again.
Someone asks how to get a job? “The job market is extremely competitive.”
Someone asks about internships? “Internships are ridiculously competitive nowadays.”
Someone asks about PhDs or academia? “You need an outstanding profile. It’s incredibly competitive.”
Volunteering? Competitive. Graduate schemes? Competitive. Entry-level positions? Somehow, even those are competitive.
So what the hell ISN’T competitive anymore?
Genuine question: what is someone supposed to do, then? Not everyone can have publications, prestigious internships, exceptional grades, years of experience, and a dozen extracurricular achievements before they’re even given a chance to start their career.
I understand that competition exists. I’m not expecting opportunities to be handed to me. But when the answer to practically every question is just “it’s too competitive,” that doesn’t actually help anyone.
Are there genuinely any fields, career paths, or opportunities where an ordinary person with a reasonable background can still get started without having to be in the top 1% of applicants?
I’m interested in anything: tech, trades, academia, public sector, volunteering, or completely different career paths. I’m not looking for a shortcut or an easy life. I want to know where realistic opportunities still exist.

Me: Mid‑career professional in a research/knowledge‑services role at a public institution. PhD (public policy). 20+ years in. Salary: $114k. I stayed because the schedule was good, the work was meaningful, and I got to be present for my kids’ lives. I don’t regret that trade‑off.

But the last two weeks have made me realize I may need to future‑proof myself.

1. We aren’t backfilling a junior position; the remaining staff is expected to absorb the workload. When I started, our team was much larger. Now it’s down to two of us.
2. My institution just posted a Data Scientist position with a $100k–$125k starting range.

Qualifications for the DS role:

• Bachelor’s degree in a quantitative field
• 5+ years of data‑analysis experience
• Applied statistics (regression, hypothesis testing, research design)
• NLP/LLM experience
• Python + R
• SQL
• Tableau/Power BI
• Ability to explain technical methods to non‑technical audiences

So someone with a bachelor’s degree (plus experience) is going to walk in and make almost what I make or more.

I’m late to the game, but I’m trying to catch up. This fall I enrolled in:

• Intro to Applied Data Science Techniques
• Machine Learning I
• Artificial Intelligence Awareness

I’m stumbling through Python (my background is BASIC from high school), and a lot of the coursework feels like Canvas discussion‑board busywork. I don’t feel like this is getting me where I need to be fast enough.

I’m not worried about losing my job tomorrow, but I’m 49, and I’m trying to figure out the last 20 years of my career. I see the writing on the wall, and I’m probably 2–3 years late to this party.

Any advice would be appreciated.

I worked as a senior environmental data specialist for five years and genuinely loved the work. I had deep focus, solved complex technical modeling problems, and felt energized at the end of the day.

Last spring, my director offered me the team lead and manager role. At the time, it felt like the obvious next step everyone strives for, so I accepted. I gave it a full twelve-month commitment, but I have come to the realization that people managment simply does not fit my personality. My entire week has become a blur of performance check-ins, administrative approvals, and endless status meetings. I haven't done actual deep analytical work in months, and Sunday evenings fill me with dread.

My company is reasonably healthy and leadership likes me, so this isn't about escaping a toxic culture.

Has anyone successfully transitioned back from management to an individual contributor role internally? How did you frame that conversation without signaling that you "failed"?

Long story short I left my old job 2 weeks ago that I had been with for 2 years for a new one as it was a more interesting product and I was feeling uninspired in my old one. I left on good terms, but was honest in why I was leaving.

I have now started the new job and chaotic is putting it nicely. I started a week early as they really wanted me to come along to a convention, pitching it as a good opportunity for me to meet overseas team mates and get to know the culture.

Instead, on day 2, 3 and 4 of my employment it has been me working 12+ hour days at the convention in the back packing orders. I have also been put on front staff answering extremely in depth questions when I haven’t even done my orientation yet or been up skilled on the company.

The culture is you are not allowed to say no to anything (even if they say ‘up to you!’ And you get a passive aggressive response if you choose the ‘no’ answer). My job role is also different to what was advertised and I was told a team mate was let go after a few months as he ‘hadn’t met his targets’, despite only being with the company a few months!

I have spoken to other employees who said working until midnight is not an anomaly, it is the norm. As is weekend work. As is working while on vacation.

I have realised I made a giant mistake. While my last job was a bit boring, we were encouraged to take the time back when we had to have night meetings with overseas employees and vacation time was respected. The workload was also very manageable and busy periods were only occasionally and not the norm.

Technically I am still employed by the other company and am on annual leave. I also know they can’t backfill the role until next year, so my role is open and I have a good relationship with my team.

Would it be terrible to reach out to my old manager, explain this job wasn’t what I expected and ask for my job back?

I started a new job about a month ago in Talent Acquisition + People/HRBP at a retail company. I came into it really hopeful. I genuinely thought this could be a positive change for me professionally.
But right now, I feel completely overwhelmed.
The person training me previously had my role and was promoted, so I’m taking over from her. She isn’t my manager, but she knows the role very well and has been responsible for most of my onboarding, so her opinion has ended up carrying a huge amount of weight.
There also seems to be a staffing/structure issue in the department. Different people are covering different areas, and there isn’t really one clear person setting overall expectations and priorities. Because of that, she has naturally become my main reference point for what “good” looks like.
The onboarding was an enormous amount of information in a very short period of time. I have ADHD, and I know I can struggle with processing and retaining huge amounts of information, especially when I’m also trying very hard to make a good impression.
And I think that’s where things have started going wrong.
I feel like I’m constantly being evaluated.
If I ask something I’ve already been told, I’m told I should have remembered or taken better notes. If I don’t ask and make a mistake, obviously that’s a problem too. If I take time to make sure something is correct, I worry I’m being seen as slow. If I act independently, I’m scared of making the wrong decision.
I’ve been told things like I should gather all the information I already have before asking questions, that I’m not listening or taking things down, and that if I freeze, things simply don’t get done.
I understand the underlying point. I’m new, but I’m also an experienced professional. I need to become autonomous, and I absolutely have things to improve.
But emotionally, something has happened that really worries me: I’m becoming scared of making mistakes.
At one point I actually froze for around three days over an Excel/data issue because I was terrified of publishing something incorrectly.
And I know this is not sustainable.
I know perfection doesn’t exist. I know people make mistakes. I know sometimes you have to make a reasonable decision with incomplete information and move on.
But when you’re constantly worried that every mistake might become another example of why you’re not autonomous, don’t listen properly or don’t retain information, it becomes really difficult to just… work.
Today I completely broke down and cried to a colleague because I felt like I couldn’t take it anymore. And afterwards I kept thinking about something she said: maybe I should also ask myself whether this is actually the kind of environment or way of working I want.
That question hit me hard because I’ve had difficulties in different jobs before. So I’m also trying to be honest with myself: is there a pattern here that I need to work on?
Maybe I struggle too much with ambiguity. Maybe I put too much pressure on myself. Maybe criticism hits me harder than it should. Maybe I need to learn how to tolerate being wrong without feeling like it means I’m incompetent.
I really want to learn how to do that.
So I’m especially interested in hearing from people with ADHD:
How do you stop criticism from consuming you?
How do you deal with ambiguity without freezing?
How do you stop perfectionism becoming paralysis?
How do you remind yourself that making a mistake doesn’t mean you’re bad at your job?
And there’s another thing I’m seriously considering: having an uncomfortable conversation with the person training me.
Not a confrontation. More something like: “I understand your feedback and I know I need to improve, but I’ve noticed that I’m becoming increasingly afraid of making mistakes, and that’s actually making it harder for me to become autonomous. I need clearer and more concrete feedback about what you want me to do differently.”
Would you have that conversation?
I’m not looking for people to tell me to quit or report her. I’m genuinely trying to understand how to handle this, especially with ADHD, without losing confidence in myself.
Because I don’t want my entire professional self-worth to depend on whether one person thinks I’m good enough.
I want to learn the job, develop my own judgement, accept that I will make mistakes, and eventually feel like myself again at work.
If you’ve been through something similar, what actually helped you?

I currently work in finance at a research institution and am on trajectory to become a manager within the next few years if I want the opportunity.

Obviously being a manager would come with increased pay and responsibilities but is it all worth it in the end?

I currently work 40 hours a week with rarely any overtime and have a really amazing WLB and holiday schedule.

I’ve seen how much more time and stress my manager has to put in and how many hats she has to wear to do her job.

Of course I would make more money and it’d be a big step up in my career but is this all worth the trade off? I don’t work for a mega corp and there is no pressure to promote if I don’t want to. I could retire from my same position in 30 years if I wanted to.

I make ~$150k in the Bay Area and managers start around ~$180k with more room to grow. If I stay in my role I wouldn’t expect too much more, other than COL adjustments each year.

Did anyone step into a middle manager role and regret their decision?

I need advice on two job opportunities that I have offers.

There's a position that pays me to become a CNA but then has a year contract for working with them exclusively after there are opportunities for an RN path with the same year contract. Very good deal overall, but I've been interested in engineering, education wise. However, it's hard to turn down experience in the medical field. That I could use the pay to save for College

The other is part-time in a hybrid remote position that I have experience in. That I could balance whilst taking classes.

Both pay decently the same. I'm just asking for a second opinion on which one would benefit long-term

TLDR: CNA/RN and save money or Hybrid remote + part-time devoted to classes

One of my coworkers did a major screw up a few weeks ago and since then he's been doing a mentorship with our direct boss and one other senior employee.

It seems really fun, he has learning targets and a guidebook too, has to do these pretty presentations. I have been dying of jealousy, it seems like a really great opportunity to improve at the job.

Why did he get rewarded for making a mistake? I mean I like him but he practically cost us a contract and the head of the company had to intervene to save the client. Is it something I'm doing wrong? I make a lot of effort but didn't get the opportunity :( Is it because he's older or do they just see more potential in him than in me?

Is it a no-no to ask for a mentorship? The senior employee joked that if said coworker needed any help, he could just ask me since he already knew everything they were teaching him, so I think at least he doesn't think I'm a total idiot.

First, I want to apologize if there are any writing mistakes. English is not my first language.

I recently started university in the degree I "wanted" which is Physics. But instead of felling motivated, I just want to stay in my home and never return.

I'm not afraid of failing with the grades and nothing similar, I just fell empty. I have always love both exacts sciences and history so I said that I would study physics or maths and then history as a short of pasional degree to have but not make a living of it. Grades of my previous schools proves that nines, tens and my "first-class honours" being in history with a essays abour Spanish anarchism which the teacher called "university level".

However, despite liking physics I don't see my place there and I might choose the wrong degree or path, in general. Every time I enter the classroom, I can only think: "F*ck, 4 or more years of this for doing what I want." The atmosphere at my university doesn't help to making me fell better, non of my friends are with me and everyone in my class seems that they already know each other for years. Always, when a class ends they all go to the hallways to talk during the 10 minutes reccess and I end up alone in the class in my site. I have problems with starting a conversation and big groups of people, stress me. I don't want to talk with any of them I don't care, I only want to go home. I haven't spoke a single word ouside "hello" and "thanks" so I case I never return to class they won't notice it. For now, I have only spoken to the two I was assing to make the practices of programmation.

And teachers... well, those who teach us the physic subject are one young arrogant and egocentric and a old teacher that teaches like it's the 1980's and doesn't care a bit about us(once the bottle of one of the student fell to floor by mistake. He gave us a small talk that the noise disrupts the class.). The other are fine, not bad teachers that only read a presentation but not the best.

I fell scare to leave the degree so early, maybe I just struggle to adapt, and saying it to my family or even my small group of friends. I have always been those students of top grades so they might expect more about me. And maybe also scare a bit to admit for me, I have always had curiosity for physics and maths as history but it seems that studying physics or math may not be my thing, I don't want to work on those fields for now.

What I love about them was that I learnt and research what I was curious at that moment. No presure, no deadline for exams or assigments nor missing something and not understanding rest of the temary. I love the theory but I can't stand doing over and over thousands of the same problem with some silly variation. The university might be too squared and elitist to me and I think it only wants to check all the things of a list to give the title than making the students truly learn. I truly fear that if I change to history instead the same thing happends.

I usually don't have difficulty studying, I quickly pick up things and exams have never stressed me. But now, I don't even want to go to it no matter if I get a 0.

I have think of picking a job that's only 8 hours and not carring to home any "homework" or "studying for an exam" to home to be worried about, and in my free time writing small essays of history and trying to publish them and learn by myself how to do them. If there was a way to get a degree by my own without going to university. But I'm just lost in my mental mental dilemmas and scare that this may became dangerous to my mental health.

Maybe someone has pass trought something similar and might help me with this.

I am a 25 year old female, I have a 4 month old daughter, I currently work part time in retail. I’m trying to decide what kind of education I want to pursue. All of my experience since 12 is cooking, cleaning, and retail.

I only have a high school diploma (not even sure what my gpa was), I hated school and never thought about going to college but now I want to do something that will make me good money in a couple years (or less if that’s an option) but I’m willing to put in the work for a good paying career.

Any suggestions as to a trade or certifications? I have no idea where to even start. I’m wanting to do online schooling but probably could figure out how to do hybrid if necessary and worth it.

Edit: preferably no jobs that could be taken over by AI.