Don't be a chef. If you insist on being a chef, don't go to culinary school. It's a waste of time and nothing you learn translates into real world kitchen knowledge. If you only plan to work in a restaurant, don't go to culinary school. The only reason you would go is connections to higher end places. Those places usually go to people with actual professional experience though. Don't be fooled into thinking that just because it's fine dining that they'll treat you better. I've worked in fine dining and in fast casual. They both pay like s**t and offer no benefits. In fact, fine dining actually pays less a lot of the time because of their stupid contracts. You're basically there for the "honor" of working there. Last time I worked fine dining I almost committed suicide in the walk-in. They knew and sent me home instead of calling a 5150. Thankfully, someone was home to stop me from hurting myself. There's corporate, but it's boring as s**t and it's typically just as bad as a mom and pop. I know from experience. They have HR, but who do you go to when it's the HR person that's sexually harassing you or berating you?

There's so much I hate about this industry now. The drugs, the drinking, the sexual harassment, the discrimination, the pay, the lack of benefits, the hours, ect. Oh God, the hours. They'll either work you just under fulltime so they don't have to provide benefits, or if you're salary you're worked like 60+ a week and they'll find a way to not pay you overtime. They always find a way to screw you out of your overtime, or even your lunch break. I've lost count of the amount of times I've worked through my lunch break. Oh, and you're not allowed to make your own food until after you clock out for your lunch break. You better hope there isn't a sudden rush, because your food will be used for an order. Sometimes I would get no food because of this.

I'm not even going to get started on being a cook during covid. It was horrible. It wasn't what made me quit though. What made me throw in the towel was after covid. I was excited to go back to work, but then I saw what every restaurant was offering. No increase in pay, no increase in benefits, and worse hours and workload because of the labor shortage. I just didn't see the point. If a f*****g apocalypse isn't going to change anything, then nothing will. I decided a little over a month ago that I'm done. I'm going back to school to get a real degree and a real job. Remember, for every Thomas Keller, there's a thousand lowly line cooks destroying their bodies just to barely scrape by.

TL;DR: Don't be a chef or a cook. It sucks.

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Karl Baxter

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A terrible profession - treated like c**p, working in hot humid conditions up to 14 hrs a day in an atmosphere of casual violence. A non-unionised industry with too much scab labour and one that relies on excessive drugs and alcohol to keep up with the pressure. 6 years in the industry turned me into a raving borderline alcoholic and pill head. Took years to adjust to office work and regular hours - just insane.

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This one may be obvious,
Acting.
This is more, people who want to be famous in Hollywood, but live in a different country, and study acting at a regular university.
While you’re spending 4 years studying theatre, you’re Missing out on auditions! Missing out on getting a showreel. Missing out of real life experiences.
It’s great to have training, but nobody asks you what university you attended in an audition. Most famous actors were plucked off the street or had never done acting before. It’s purely about having ‘the look’ the director wants.

The only reason to study theatre is if you want to do Broadway (still might be the same with film) or you want to teach acting. OR you go to an exclusive school that has regular scouts or great connections.

And now with social media, it’s nothing about talent, all about how many insta/tiktok followers you have! So being good at your craft means jack s**t now.
Source: the amount of times I’ve been asked how many Instagram followers I have at an audition. Didn’t get the part because I don’t have followers. It’s ridiculous.

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Trap: structural engineering, the stress/responsibility is not worth the pay (if you design something and it falls down its on you). The expected hours are awful, so that you can deliver projects on time. Plus you're expected to do a lot of the drawing work yourself now rather than having a draughtsperson covering that for you.


No necessarily lucrative, but surprisingly enjoyable; Pizza Delivery driver, clear expectations and instructions;
1. I expect you to take this order to this address,
2. tell me when you're on your way back,
3. come back,
4. Rinse and repeat.

Nice plus is that most people are happy to see you too. The tips haven't been great while I've been doing it, but I get to listen to my audiobooks and the roads are usually quite quiet while I'm doing it

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Ansi

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But the math in structural engineering is FUN! 😃👍

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Trap: the video game industry: sexual harassment / exploitation of female workers because theyre "not real gamers and only got in for their looks"(happened to me). Tons of expected overtime especially when you get close to release date, and they can treat workers like s**t because they know how many people are dying to get into the field. My shitty old company in particular replaced a quarter of their production staff with unpaid interns (esports events company).

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The Trap: Art students of any sort. I got a bachelor+masters but it dont mean s**t cause the paper itself is worthless, and in most artschools you're basically *guaranteed* to get your paper. There's no "nah you're not good enough to achieve it". You just do. You're almost buying it at this point. Unless you're actually super talented and worked your a*s off to have a high skill level and are constantly working and posting, you might as well use your diploma as toilet paper. Its not easy either, you dont just..."draw" like 95% of the people think and become famous.

The Pro of it: Furry porn. Just draw furry porn. You dont even need to be really good as long as you accept a wide berth of fetish stuff to draw. It pays insanely well, and i've seen artists quit better jobs to settle for this instead because of how much easier, less stressful and carefree drawing inflation diaper cubs was. I myself am currently debating to take up my markers again and just start doing furry stuff on the side for the extra pocket change.

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JK Rowling

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2 years ago

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There's a joke in the art community about how simply adding the four letters 'NSFW' to your profile immediately gets you tons of commission requests.

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Before Covid I was making £500 a day chasing rodents out of restaurants. You need some basic DIY skills and common sense.

There’s probably a lot more pay if you go self-employed and are good at marketing.

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Overlooked: Water Treatment Field

Very lucrative field considering literally every person and business uses it. Requirements for becoming a treatment operator differ by state but typically require taking some classes and getting a license then on job training. Many places will hire you as an OIT (operator in training) and pay for your classes while you learn the system. Starting pay in my area in AR is $15/hr with yearly increases. If I could go back I would’ve started after high school instead of going to college.

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Overlooked: Mining engineer. Basically worldwide there aren’t enough graduates in this field given the current boom. In Australia we were basically poaching all the grads from overseas that we could, though obviously COVID has put a brake on that presently.

Coal mining is slowly dying worldwide both for environmental and economic reasons so I would recommend going to an university /mining school that focuses more on metalliferous mining. I’ve never worked in coal but my impression was it’s generally technically boring anyway.

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JK Rowling

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Due to worldwide measures taken by governments, more kids are being nice rather than naughty by the year. So Santa, as the largest global purchaser of coal, is slowly buying less and less.

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My friend is a vet tech. You go to school because you want to help animals. You come out starting at $13 an hour but you can make significantly more testing on animals. What a fukd up choice to have to make.

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Read a lot of the comments. Here's the actual situation,

1. Every bit of education you get, can be useful. It just may not be useful in the way you expected.

2. Education costs way too much. At the rate we pay for education, the results *need* to set a really high bar.

3. Not all jobs are in *your* area.

That said,

3. Every field has a skill distribution. Getting a degree puts you on that distribution, and not an outlier (on the low skill end). But every skill has a demand. You can imagine this distribution being like a normal curve, where the top, let's say 80% get jobs reliably in one field, or 1% in another.

Some examples might be, if you want to be a professional flautist, you need to be in the 0.1% skill distribution. If you want to be a professional artist, maybe 5-20% depending what you are working on. For technical fields, today, if you have any skill in that field, even if it's not formal training, you can be successful, so it's basically 95-100%. For engineering I would estimate 80-90%, if you have an engineering degree, it's hard not to just sort of get a job, since people are calling you all the time like "hey, do you like money?" For liberal arts (which by the way, the idea that lots of people get liberal arts degrees because they are easy and then can't find employment is a myth. People just don't get liberal arts degrees, it's something like 0.5-1% of grads having only that degree). It's probably like 20%. Prepare to starbucks.

Some conclusions from the above,

1. Trade schools are quite viable due to 2) above. They are much cheaper and still lucrative, and per 3) the skill distribution is such that there is a high demand. This makes it low risk (for now).

2. If you pick something with a high skill distribution, be prepared to work hard to make it happen. If you want to be in the NFL, you need to be in the top 1% of 1%. That's just the way it is, that's the nature of the situation.

3. Finding the skill distribution, really understanding it, for a given area, and understanding the sub-fields within an area (eg, areas of law for a lawyer) is an acquired skill itself. The govt can provide some insight, and it's not an exact science.

4. Just because your field of choice has a low skill distribution, doesn't mean you shouldn't try to be the best in your field. For earnings and security measures.

I've done a lot of thinking about job markets and this is the perspective I have. However you want to visualize it, that's up to you. Eventually this is the way I will describe it to my son, hopefully with some contextual understanding of the skill fields.

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Having your own business. Any business. The change of failure is way higher than people think and changes are you’re working 100 hours a day for less than minimum wage.

Source: have had my own business. Have friends and family who still do. They all work their asses of just to barely keep afloat. Meanwhile, I have a ‘normal’ job, work less and earn more.

Also, ‘yeah but as ‘entrepreneur’ at least you have a lot of freedom’-line is utter c**p. No, you don’t; clients/customers dictate your schedule, because you need the business and the money.

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Tenacious Squirrel

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I have heard from people in this situation that they barely ever turn down work, because they have no guaranteed income, thus never take time off and become totally burnt out. I’m sure once you’re established it’s better/possibly lucrative, but not knowing whether you are covering your outgoings/bills and even if you are, whether you will next month and so on, must be stressful.

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Drug dealing. You're roped in with the old "you'll make tonnes of cash doing basically nothing", but nobody ever tells you that you'll never be able to spend that cash and you'll be spending most of your life trying to stop both law enforcement and other criminals taking it from you - and then eventually, they will, along with probably your life or your freedom.

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Brobro McDuderson

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2 years ago

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Who grows up thinking “ya know what, I wanna be a drug dealer?”

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You can go to 4 years of college, take a $300+ exam, spend thousands on applying to and interviewing at medical schools, get accepted, go through 4 years of medical school (average student debt: $200,000), then never practice medicine or receive a physician salary because you didn’t match into a residency program. You still have to pay off all that debt though!
Edit: Here’s an article about how students that attended Caribbean med schools are struggling:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/29/health/caribbean-medical-school.html
Edit 2: Another NYT article on doctors not matching.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/19/health/medical-school-residency-doctors.html

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May light defeat the darkness

May light defeat the darkness

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With most of the family physicians and specialists in Canada retiring and this, guess who receives the end of the stick? It’s the public. 😔

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Sales is super overlooked, but one of the most lucrative career paths available. For instance, I work selling mattresses at a retail location, and consistently earn over six figures.

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Hill Branda

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6 figures a year for selling mattresses? INDEED website says US mattress store managers can expect to make between 34K and 40K, tops.

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Higher academia, especially in the Anglo-Sphere. For many decades, the idea of furthering one’s education was promoted and culturally instilled on generations.

At the same time, the price of higher education rose and rose.

I went to university in Germany, so my education was completely free, but I’ve been teaching Medicine and English at a very prominent German university for 3 semesters and am planning to give it up to teach at a kindergarten.

Myself and people in my position at a university are working 60-70h weeks for little more than minimum wage. (German minimum wage is the equivalent of $12) I can’t even imagine doing that while also being *in debt* to a university.

While I get frustrated with the rise in anti-intellectualism and “I went to the university of life” attitude compounded by the false belief that people with degrees look down on those who don’t (false from my experience at least), I gotta say: if you want a job that pays well and doesn’t follow you home; avoiding university is perfectly valid.

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Trap: architect. Source:architect

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Scientist feels like an expensive, low paying trap unless you are truly passionate about research.

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Susie Elle

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The more passionate you are the higher-up you get, but also the more of your life you have to dedicate to science. Once that professorship comes into view, you live at the faculty. I know people who almost can't not work (which is partially due to their passion as well, not pure from the demand of the job)

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Trap: specialised masters in international relations or other extremely niche public service roles when you don't have work experience. Unless you're already employed in a role that requires those skills they are really only for academics yet they advertise as helping you get into international public service.

Source: hire for an extremely competitive grad program for a government agency that includes lots of international travel. We will hire the undergrad who has stories of conflict resolution delivering pizzas to crackheads over a specialised masters whose examples all involve group assignments. Most of our hires come from internal sources too so your chances are overwhelmingly better if you work in our call centre for 6months then apply instead of doing a specialised masters.

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Unexpectedly lucrative, Linemen our electrical grid is 60 years outta date and always in need of replacement $1500 will get you in linemen school and decent references to companies hiring. The local pay is good but the traveling pay is amazing along with 401k and solid benefits.

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Dental tech . They are pumping thousands of those out of those day time television career colleges. There’s not even that many dentists. I’d say a good career is nursing. But one can find out pretty f*****g quick they hate it. And there’s not enough schools for the all the people that want to be one .

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Hoodoo

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Dental Hygienists in the US make more money than techs & assistants BUT most work in small businesses that aren't required to provide health ins or sick leave, let alone vacay. You generally work 1-3 days/ week in more than one office & dentists are notoriously difficult to work with- you're fortunate if you find a sane one as turnover in these offices is low ( understandably.) Do yourself a favor & DON'T.

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Honestly, half these answers aren't traps. You just didn't look around you. Take psychology for example. I knew a woman who had a psych degree, making $12 an hour at the same job I had, while I had no degree. Additionally, while talking to one of the ex-heads of HR for FedEx while on a plane, she explained that in most cases a masters + experience is required to successfully use a degree in psychology, especially if you want to enter HR or the like.

Additionally, the professions that are being listed as unexpectedly lucrative, aren't unexpectedly so. Plumbers can make a boat load of money if they play their cards right, same with machinists and other trade skills. It isn't that it's unexpectedly lucrative, it's that you were taught, or at the very least convinced yourself, that going to college for a useless degree is worth more than going to trade school.

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Just a ray of f'ing sunshine

Just a ray of f'ing sunshine

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You made the same as someone with a degree in psychology without a degree, but you also didn't have the student loans to pay back. That makes that $12 an hour into so much less over all.

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Trap: Police Officer.

Lucrative: Police Officer.

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Ogre Juan Canolli

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Trap : Getting Shot---Lucrative : Bribes ?

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Trap:lawyer

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From what I’ve heard, anything with a PhD. Academia, medicine, etc underpays for the overall debt required and/or pushes burnout in order to ladder climb.

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I don't have any evidence but I feel like multi-language jobs are often overlooked. I don't know if language programs at colleges are oversaturated, but it seems to me being able to read/write/speak 4+ languages may be a highly employable skill.

Also when I took intro geology it seems like there are lots of jobs out there for skilled geologists but not that many people to fill those positions.

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DeB.

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I speak three languages including English. I speak the wrong languages.

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Trap: graphic design

Surprisingly lucrative: plumber, HVAC, electrician, diesel mechanic, machinist

Source: my family.

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iseefractals

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Yup. All the blue collar skilled labor jobs. Jobs that take 9-18 months to train, often while being paid while you learn, which have a base pay of $20-25/hr and top out at $59-$80hr, that three generations of kids have been taught to view with scorn. There are 7 million unfilled, SKILLED labor jobs in the US, and these jobs have been operating at a deficit for decades. Add to your list, welding, carpentry, masonry, sanitation, factory workers. Low bar for entry, degree's aren't required and yet these things are actual work, that require effort. Somehow it's better to work for minimum wage and complain about being underpaid.

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Teaching. I was told “there’s a high demand” for teachers when I was in college, and when I finally found a job, the hiring admin told me I was going to teach a class I had zero experience/schooling in. I wasn’t about to decline my first real teaching job so I said yes.

At that time, my wife and I had just had our first son, so I declined the teacher induction program (basically where the district provides you a “mentor” to help you learn as you go, but this translates to essentially even MORE paperwork and essays as a first year teacher... so I said no thank you).

Fast forward to February, I get called into admins office and I’m told they are not renewing my contract (basically I am now fired, tho I did nothing wrong or illegal...) they did not give a reason for letting me go at the time. The only silver lining was I was allowed to finish the school year and complete my initial contract. All the work, prep, refining, meetings, student followup, discipline issues, all of it was just gone in an instant. Huge waste of time if you don’t have proper support at your school and admin lets the kids get away with all kinds of s**t. That being said, I hope to hear back from a new school in about 3 days, fingers crossed it’s better than before!

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Not unexpectedly lucrative but overlooked.

Mining Engineering.

Last year Australia graduated only 23 of them.

The industry is screaming for them. A graduate job is sitting at 110k then the sky is the limit.

I'm currently 220k AUD and having an interview about an expat job for 250k USD after tax.

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Susie Elle

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My two cents; it's overlooked because people associate it with the environmental impact that mining almost always has (I believe). On the other hand, if nobody enters the field then mining also can't grow in terms of said impact.

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Sometimes I think my philosophy degree. But then it weirdly became super handy when I entered business. You never know, I think these days its more about finding ways to apply your knowledge AND be creative.

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Trap: Video Game developer. Lot of people who get Computer Science degrees love playing video games and have a fantasy of being a designer / programming for any of the big game studios. Insane market saturation combined who crazy deadlines. Source: Am software engineer, seen many friends try this path, all failed.

Overlooked: AC technician. AC broke and I called the repair guy. 18 year old kid, 2 weeks out of high school showed up. Said they are completely booked 2 weeks in advance. Company charged me $200 for 90 minutes of work, kid said he brings in 45 an hour. Paid off his car and 0 debt at 18.

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Grass taxonomists are almost entirely unheard of, and very well paid.

Edit: Holy s**t, I Googled it and it's even crazier than you think. No wonder they're well paid; you need them m**o's since grass is in like, everything we eat. I just found out that sugar cane, bamboo, corn, oat, wheat, rice, barley, and rye are all in sub-families of grass.

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BEACH GOOSE

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What's the sensored word?

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Math/Stats degrees make it easier to get financial support through scholarships sinse there isnt much competition and you don't have to pay for your PhD plus you get a stipend. Pretty great if you are good at critical thinking. From there you can go into various well paying fields

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Carol Emory

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Especially since the jobs can include working for places like NASA and Tech companies. More math in those jobs than you would think.

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Don't get a psychology degree. Barely anyone gets to be a psychologist after the first degree they get (it's like 2% of bachelors level grads) and plenty of those who do wish they hadn't. Where I am it's a bachelors, honours and then masters to become a psychologist, all for a traumatic job where the starting pay is s**t and the pay ceiling is low when you take the entry requirements into account.

80% of psychology grads wind up working in H.R. Most of the rest wind up in mental health jobs where the median turnover is 18 months due to burn out. There are better ways to spend 6+ years and f**k knows how much money, and that's if you succeed.

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