If I could count a number of times anyone majoring in the humanities has heard this one, I'd bet it would be around five to ten times a week. It's not always direct. A lot of times we read articles about the top 10 highest paying jobs in America, which is ironically written by someone who probably majored in the humanities, and we are never high on the list. The engineers take first place, and with good reason.

Even in high school, I knew that I would never make a lot of money in my future career. I wanted the real college experience, the experience of going to a competitive school where I could do the research and writing that I had always wanted to do. Unfortunately, choosing a liberal arts college where tuition is roughly $50,000 per year did not impress anyone very much. Most of my friends and family told me I was making a big mistake. Then I declared my majors in English and French, and that just added salt to the wound.

Several recent college graduates are scrambling to find some sort of job, living as unemployed, or taking a gap year. Some, of course, have good connections and got a job right out of school or are pursuing a master's in grad school. There's nothing, however, that tells us exactly what to do. There is no clear path, saying, "Success this way."

Our parent's generation tells us that we should all be doctors, pharmacists, nurses, dentists, etc. Our generation values engineers and researchers as well as marketing analysts, and so on. As for the rest of us, humanities get pushed to the wayside and labeled as, "impractical." I get the comment, "Well at least you can teach," quite a bit. Whenever I ask professors for advice, they point at grad school, but that is not the most financially promising endeavor, for someone who will most likely be $40,000 in debt upon receiving her diploma.

So where do we go once we graduate and there aren't professors and students who are supporting our academic passions? We go back to our parents and crash on their couches, only to hear, "I told you so. You should have been a nurse."

In a lot of ways, I know we'll never get a quick solution to these answers as long as we are always going after money. We are in such a frenzy to establish ourselves as young professionals, or just to be able to pay rent, that we don't often feel we have the time or resources to benefit a larger community of people. I know a lot of friends who are pursuing degrees in engineering, and they are dying to be hired by the huge billion dollar oil manufacturing companies or multimillion dollar corporations because that way they will be assured of a nice paycheck.

In our fear, we don't see the repercussions of our actions, the fact that joining these companies, or corporations can have repercussions on communities at large. What does it say that we are so willing to work for companies who stomp all over the environment and poorer countries just to have our paycheck? When did we get so desperate, or has it always been this way?

Granted, this is me, a highly privileged student who is studying at a renowned institution of higher education, where I don't worry about paying bills or where my next meal is coming from, so paychecks right now seem rather arbitrary. However, it is not hard to see that in our haste to make money, we are pushed into an ethical dilemma by the people who have always defined success for us as making the highest salary.

In pursuing what I view as my "calling" I have to accept that I will never be taken seriously by a large part of our country, those who equate success with wealth. Everyone does it, even without knowing it. They believe humanities majors are wasting their potential. I suppose what a lot of people don't see is that humanities majors are merely choosing to value intellect and humanity over material self-interest. We still want to make money of course. We're not a bunch of martyrs. Yet, we know that there is something a lot more important than financial security in each of our lives.