WooHoo! (Joins in dance. Ignores sidestep for the moment)

IMO, versatility of style is a wonderful thing to develop. While I hope I'm someday a popular enough author to write nothing but fiction, I think it only makes me a better writer to be able to write everything from fundraising brochures to formal business correspondence to magazine articles, all in their appropriate styles. It'll increase your awareness of voice, and help you make your own a carefully honed tool rather than a blunt instinctive weapon.

Hmmm. The best example I can think of is C.J. Cherryh's fiction. Read The Tree of Swords and Jewels, dense and lyrically written, lots of words, lots of images, compound, even run-on sentences, layer on layer of words embroidering this incredible tapestry of a fable. Then read Merchanter's Luck. Same author, still fiction. But one is fable, the other is terse, spare, hardscrabble tech. There are as many fragments as sentences, the prose is almost telepathic. Stylistically they are poles apart. Still, from the same mind. And I'm sure that were she to write nonfiction (she may have done, I'm just unaware of it), it would be as different again. Versatility is a great thing, intrinsically. But it can also help a lot with the bill paying.

which refers to 1989 as "recent studies"

Yeah, that caught my eye, but only because of what I do for a living. We very emphatically refer to things published only in the current year and 1 year prior as "recent."

My college didn't offer journalism. It considers journalism a trade.

Actually -- and I say this as someone with a B.A. in journalism -- I've always thought that in a lot of ways it IS a trade.

I'm glad to know that some people have found and are doing something that they like for a living. I've heard all the statistics on how often people change jobs and industries within their lifetime and I can only hope I'm lucky enough to find what I want to do for the majority of my life and actually like/love it at the same time.

(This is coming out of the fact that neither of my bosses are at the office, I'm bored, I don't want to do filing, and I feel trapped by the job that I have.)

I have a career that I adore, and it's even in the same field as both of my degrees. Also, the stats for folks with Theatre degrees who work in theatre are very low. They are very low for even working in a field related to theatre, so I consider myself so fortunate.

I'm glad to know that some people have found and are doing something that they like for a living.

Eh, I have a job doing something I'm fairly good at and that doesn't (usually) want me to hide beneath my desk. There's a chance I may get to go off and have one of my dream jobs, but that depends on some outside forces I have no control over.

The sort of mental space I'm in right now, the degree I'm working on is for something I'd be interested in doing, but I can't say for sure that it's the thing that I'm most interested in doing. But I can't really point at anything else and say, "I'd rather be doing that," either. So I'm sticking with it for now, and trying out some other stuff in what free time I have, since I'm pretty sure that, once I find a good balance, I'll be fine with keeping math as what I "do" and then doing other stuff as hobbies or whatever.

the stats for folks with Theatre degrees who work in theatre are very low. They are very low for even working in a field related to theatre

Yep. Got 2 degrees in Theatre. I work as a researcher in publishing. Go figure.

My degree was in music. It started out as an education degree (I didn't like the program where I was going to school but it was too late to change - it would have taken me more than 4 years to complete and I wasn't willing to do that), then it went to performance (the department screwed me over) and finally graduated with just a general degree. I know I want to something with the degree but I don't know what's out there or even where to start. (Did I mention the councillers know jack shit about anything besides the obvious, general career fields?)

Sorry, still a little bitter and directionless at the moment, hence the rant.

If anyone has any advice on where I can look for more information I would appreciate a heads up.

Broadly speaking, I'm doing something I love (writing), but day-to-day that means doing something I merely like (all my business writing--the resumes, the grants, brochures, etc.) because I'm not yet making money from the part I actually love (my fiction, and to a lesser degree magazine work).

Am I doing the right thing? I certainly think so. Would I go back to my old job or something similar? Only if that were the only way for DH and me to pay the rent and put food on the table. Is it easy? No. It's much harder than going to a regular job and magically getting a regular paycheck automatically deposited into my account on the 10th and 25th of every month. But so far I think it's worth it.