How To Make A Career (Money) With Your Academic Degree

Making a career is complicated for most people when they don't have professional education. People on the academic path find it hard to make a career because they do not know how to use and apply the knowledge that they have acquired. But it is possible to make a career from your academic degree. Here is how.

How To Make A Career (Money) With Your Academic Degree

Academic degrees are not professional or skill-based so it can be really difficult to convince anyone that you can make something out of them. This kind of degree is always seen as knowledge which is meant to enhance your personal intelligence and not as knowledge which can be applied to help others. Take for example; History or even Geography from which lots of people graduate. It is difficult to get a job with this kind of degree because it is mostly knowledge you get from it and not skills. Other fields which face this difficulty are language degrees - French, English, Spanish, German etc. Those who take courses in these usually find themselves changing or moving to a more professional field later because it is hard to make it a skill.

In this post, we will find out how to make your academic degree worth it. We will also find out how to present your degree to possible employers with conviction.

Why is it difficult to get a job or make a career with an academic degree or education?

Here is why:

- You hardly acquire professional skills from academic education. Academic education is a theory so it's difficult to learn a skill from it. Whenever you are going for a job interview, your employer wants to know what you can do for him/her which is your skills. Having knowledge without skills makes it difficult to get a job.

- You don't have practical sessions like internships or outdoor studies. This makes academic degrees full of theory. Fieldwork and internships contribute to making your degree more practical. The absence of these makes it void of reality.

- The teachers are not professionals in the domain, they are just trained teachers. They teach just what they learn because they are not applying their knowledge to the industry of the subject they teach.

Those are the reasons why it's hard to get a job with academic degrees. Most academic degree holders turn out to be teachers and they still have to go out to get teaching skills in order to teach most of the time466*. For those who studied languages, they can translate and those doing history or archaeology can work in heritage preservation but there is still a need to add a skill to this knowledge.

Let's look into the differences between the two degrees.

Difference between academic and professional degrees

- Academic degrees don't have practical sessions but professional degrees do. Professional degrees have internships in real enterprises or practicals in labs where the student can learn more and apply his theoretical knowledge.

- Academic degrees provide general knowledge while professional degrees prepare you for a job. Academic degrees provide general knowledge and facts from old till present about a subject. A professional degree makes sure that you have the ability to carry out a specific task or job within a profession.

To go further let's know if it's necessary to have an academic degree.

Is it necessary to pursue an academic education given that professional education seems more beneficial?

Yes, Academic courses are still worth it because society still needs thinkers. Most thinkers in society come from academic courses. Their research works add to the discoveries of the world and help in the advancement of society. They can predict the future with the use of their research findings.

These courses are still very relevant to society.

How do I make a career with my academic degree? How do I make money with my academic education?

So to make money from your academic degree, you need to become the great thinker that you are. You have to do the following:

- Ask yourself if there are any skills you have acquired in the cause of studying for that degree

- Weigh your options: find out the possible things you can do with the degree

- Find out what others are doing with the same degree as you. Go to LinkedIn and other social media and find out from the profiles of those who are in the same domain as you what they do and apply their knowledge.

- Further your studies and specialize: go for a master's or a doctorate degree if possible to gain more specific knowledge.

- Find complementary knowledge or skills: find a skill or knowledge that you can add to what you already know so that you can be better and more professional. Which skills or other fields complement your present field?

Skills you can acquire from an academic degree

-  Research skills 

- Writing skills
- Better and sharp thinking

How to present your academic degree on your CV

While developing your CV, it is important to highlight the specific skills you acquired from your studies.

Also, highlight the key lessons which are relevant to your domain or field of study and give details that you master in those details.

Say what you can do with your knowledge as well. What can you possibly use your knowledge to do for your employer?

How Can I start a business in my field of study?

Yes, you can start a business if you are an academic degree holder. And if you want to do start a business in your domain or field of study, it's also possible. It needs some thinking and research to find the best idea for business specific to your domain.

Always find out what others are doing already by asking friends or mentors and searching on the internet. Think of how useful your course is to society. How useful is history, geography, archaeology, English or sociology to society? This question will guide you to get better ideas that you can use for a business.

Take a look at the following examples:

Examples of jobs or businesses you can start with academic degrees

Here are some examples of ideas you can use to be an entrepreneur in various academic fields.

History

Start/open a library
Start/open a museum
Start/open a History School
Consulting

Geography

A school
A radio station to report the weather and other Geography related subjects in an area
An environmental consultant/planner
Land surveyor
Cartography centre
Risk management centre
Town/urban planning agency
Community management (NGO)
Recycling agency
Tourism officer
Transport planning

Biology

Nature conservation officer
Soil analyst
Zoologist
Botanist
Science writer
Massage therapist

Archaeology

Preservation of historic sites
Museums/gallery
Archivist
Research institute
Conservation
Heritage management
Tourism Officer

English (and other languages)

Freelance Editor (books and other documents)
Writer
Publisher
English/language school

If your field is not mentioned above, you can search on Google for the possible things you can do with your degree.

Making a career from your academic degree requires research and sharp thinking. It also requires that you keep on improving yourself and your knowledge every day.