Got Women's Studies on your transcript?

A long, long, time ago, I began my undergraduate degree...okay well, maybe not that long ago (1998). In 2003 I GRADUATED from Drew with my Women's Studies BA (honors) oh, yeah! Earlier that year, in a move that can only be described as guided procrastination, I was told that an MA would be a good continuation of my education (but to me, it sounded like "go...go..go...to grad school, you won't have to find a job now!" So, on I went, to the most prestigious graduate program in Women's & Gender Studies I could find (within a 50 mile radius) where I studied like a crazy-woman...learning theory...watching my student loans increase...and increase...oh....and increase! Then, I had to find a job...with a couple of degrees in a field/area/subject/interdiscipline (okay, I doubt that last one's a word), I set off to find a job...

A few months later... a conversation I had engaged in, over and over again, with other MA students in WGS replayed too frequently in my memory. We contemplated how we'd never have jobs after graduation, how we'd start organizations together, or how maybe we'd have to be big sell-outs just to pay for our student loans and get a right-wing book deal....thankfully the last one hasn't yet come to fruition to my knowledge! But, the first theme of this conversation was sadly correct, the part about never finding a job.

Now that it's a few (and a half) months later (yeah, interdiscipline is no more a word than a "few and a half" is a phrase...after all of those parenthetical opposite day-ish titles...I'm making up my own lexicon folks!) and I was offered jobs that (minus a publishing contract) I would make a killer income, yet add to my already problematic insomnia. Faced with an ethical dilemma (but eased significantly by my partner with an income), I turned down the six figures to pursue...oh lord...I'm not even saying what I want to do...it'll sound like the feminist equivalent of Talladega Nights!