I have massive student loans and the job and money outlook are not so good. Oh God what am I going to do?

Not to mention I neglected every other damn aspect of my life in hopes that I could build a successful career. So I have no dating life, don’t hang out with friends, no outside interests. I’m an empty shell of a human being. What am I going to do?
How massive is massive?

What is your degree in and how are you searching? Are you limiting yourself to dream careers or to a single location?

moar info pleeze.

I agree with Islander. Give us that info and then we will cast judgement on you.

Thank you for the advice but it wouldn’t be enough to pay my loans and I’d be miserable in the miliary.

I’m of the opinion that anyone who says they’d be miserable in the military is the type of person who needs the experience the military provides.

But I’ve grown very accustomed to enjoying the use of all my limbs. Although, the thought of securing an undue hardship discharge of my student loans is tempting.

I assume you have a 4 year diploma?
Then you are a hop, skip and a jump away from being an officer.

Now, I don’t have a military background, but I have family members that are in the military. Here is the secret: When joining choose your profession wisely. My brother in law is in the Navy and he does telco work. He is in no more danger of getting his limbs blown off then I am.
I have a cousin that graduated from Annapolis (someday she might be giving orders to my brother-in-law) she can LITERALLY do whatever she wants in the military – the world is her oyster.

The thing is, when you say, ‘I like my limbs’ you are being an ass. About any field you can imagine is represented in some way, shape or form within the military. People that join the armed services and choose there profession wisely benefit from it.

Take my cousin, the girl is waaaaaaaaaayyyy too smart to be disposing bombs or going house to house. The lady graduated in the top 100 with honors from her class at Annapolis. She has a picture of Joe Biden handing her her diploma.
How many of you sport a picture of the Vice President of the US handing you your college diploma?

Do you honestly believe the military is going to waste that sort of smarts on a position where she could get killed or maimed?

That lady has an exciting life ahead of her.

You have got to be one of those elitist snobby liberal types. To put down the hard working people in our armed forces and then to be like, ‘Oh I know I accumulated this debt – but you don’t actually expect me to pay it now!’.

Fuck you. You could have gone to a cheaper school. You chose this route. Deal with it.
woe is you

go buy some powerball tickets

I have many friends who were in the military. Not only do they still have their limbs, they’re also extremely hard workers who have no difficulty finding employment because the employers know they’re going to be dependable.

And never mind the fact that front line infantry isn’t the only job in the armed forces. My backup plan had I not gotten into grad school was to do supply for the Navy as an officer.
Not to bandwagon on the military topic … but I enlisted in the Navy, & not as an officer. With my high test scores & mechanical aptitude I was slotted to be an aviation electrician. I was stoked. Unfortunately a health problem had me discharged during boot camp but still … as an enlisted person with enough brains in your head you’re quite eligible for jobs far from any sort of front line action.

If you’re nothing but curious go to a recruitment office (Of your preferred branch – maybe start with Air Force) & ask to take the ASVAB to see if you get a good score. Good score = more/better jobs available. & yes, with a degree you should inquire about enlisting as an officer.

Who is moderating this subforum?

Do these sorts of responses belong in here when someone is sincerely asking for help? Perhaps the TS was not aware of the range of careers available to military personnel — their post about not wanting to lose their limbs was innocuous enough.
TS, I agree that more info would be helpful. From your description though, you must know that you are hardly alone in your situation and are not as hopeless as you might feel right now.

You said something that was assanine, you got called on it.
Stop crying. Life goes on.

You may think it’s asinine that when the TS hears "join the military", he/she immediately thinks of dangerous scenarios, but from my experience many people think that way. What I don’t understand is how you interpreted what he/she said as ‘putting down’ people in the military.

The TS also hasn’t said anything to suggest he/she thinks their debt shouldn’t be their responsibility.
After a decade of war against people who stuff C4 inside of trashcans and dead animals, it seems reasonable for the TS to be concerned about getting blown in half. Obviously the TS is pretty young, so maybe they shouldn’t get bashed (too much) for being inappropriately flippant. There are lots of jobs in the military and various civilian gov’t agencies that don’t involve poking roadkill with a stick to see if it blows up.

There are two things that stand out to me in regards to the TS’ original post:

1. The TS has no experience owing money to a bank and has no idea what’s actually involved with paying it off. It is a stringent obligation, to be sure, but it’s not automatically a disaster waiting to happen, otherwise nobody would bother with loans.

2. The TS hasn’t yet realized that if work were simple, fun, and easy, people would do it for free, and therefore every paying job in existence will have some component that will be complex, boring, and difficult. Most people get to enjoy their work from time to time, but on-balance nobody feels their lives are better because of having to get up to work in the morning. That’s what off-hours are for.
[quote=2397;140482801]

For one, we don’t know the TS is a graduate or not. We are assuming so because… just because. Maybe the stress is because they dropped out and they owe all that money all at once?
I kind of think that part of college loans is unfair. It should be a loan without regard to if you graduate or not. But that isn’t what this thread is about.

You would THINK that someone smart enough to get through 4 or 5 years of school and graduate would be smart enough to know that being a grunt on the front lines and loosing a limb is just a tiny part of the military experience. I mean, consider the air force and the coast guard for a second. Neither one of those branches even have grunts on the front lines. The Navy doesn’t really either (but I hear stories of them providing security in port and ending up doing grunt work that way).

Choosing a career in the military is vastly overshadowed with jobs that don’t put you on the front line. There are plenty of career choices that will get you out of the military and into a high paying job.

HOW CAN YOU NOT KNOW THESE THINGS?

I’ll tell you how. Because you don’t want to.
To have a knee jerk reaction of ‘I don’t want to loose a limb’ from someone with a 4 year degree is just another way of saying, ‘I hate the military.’.

As far as his/her debt goes. It is what it is. It is time for him/her/it to go and find a job. OH NO I CAN’T FIND A JOB THAT PAYS A BUNCH OF MONEY, I CAN’T AFFORD A $30,000 CAR, A $200,000 HOUSE AND A WHITE PICKET FENCE STRAIGHT OUT OF COLLEGE!

Deal with it. He accumulated this debt. He wasn’t held at gun point, he didn’t win some sort of anti-lottery. The college didn’t raise his rates 500% in the last semester.

There are choices.

I think the military is an excellent choice – especialy for someone with a college degree.
Some people are rolling the debt dice and sticking around college for another 2 – 4 years *cough*emfuser*cough*. I am not sure how smart that is… but if the economy improves you do end up with a doctorate or a second degree.

But crying about debt that you put on your own head and waiving around biases you have around the military isn’t helpful. You graduated, you are an adult. Deal with it.
The limb comment might be ignorant/flippant, but I still don’t think it necessarily reflects a negative view of people who do choose to serve.

When it comes to the debt, I don’t think the TS has any expectations of being able to escape it — I think the gist of that first post is that they are feeling overwhelmed. Since when is it unacceptable to vent your frustrations and seek advice about situations you may have created yourself?

And the TS’ post isn’t just about debt and the difficulty of finding a job. It’s about not having a relationship or even a circle of friends. And feeling otherwise unfulfilled. We probably need to know more about him/her before we can give advice about these issues, but I think we can be a lot more helpful than "Deal with it".

I have a lot of student loans too and the key for me was to get managable monthly payments. Massive and a lot are relative to the person speaking- you may have $100K or you may have $20K but if your income is not in line with what you thought it was going to be, this is going to be overwhelming for you.

Right now I think you should take things one at a time. First, call the student loan place and see if you can get the payments down to something you can afford. Mine are $160 a month and managable for me on my salary. There are a lot of options they have with payments.

For your social life, I would recommend joining one or a few Metup.com groups. If you hav an interest in something, there is a group for it. Or you can put in your age range, sex or city and fidn groups that way. Then go to the meetings, chat with people, participate and maybe you will find some new people to hang out with.

I have felt overwhelmed in my life before and in hindsight it is me trying to look at everything at the same time. It is easier if you take things one at a time.

I don’t know what field you’re in, but I know that in some feilds such as law and finance you can wrack up big loans and not find the jobs to cover the debt. If that is the case, maybe you can try to go into a different field, but use your education somehow to benefit you. Without knowing what you do I can’t say, but I bet if you google "careers for lawyers" or "alternate finance careers" or something like that, you can probably find ideas that will help you get a decent job.

I hope things work out for you and that you are able to find some way out of things.
Keep looking for jobs and talk to your student loan provider about a payment plan. They WANT you to be able to pay, they don’t want you to default, and you will find them pretty helpful.

I graduated with around 120K in student loan debt on top of credit card debt I foolishly racked up by signing up for every offer under the sun and still needed to buy a car, get an apartment, etc. Believe me, as bad as you feel it is, and as afraid as you are, someone has had it far worse and pulled through.

Visit the link in my signature and sign up. We’ll help you get your resume on the right track, figure out why you’re not getting work, and help you find something that’s a good fit. I’m not advertising for the sake of advertising, I legitimately think we can help and look forward to being able to do so.

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