A few years ago, when ChatGPT was just becoming available, there was a lot of buzz about it, and one of my clients shouted the loudest. He called me one afternoon and told me that paying freelance writers like me was a thing of the past because this new technology could do in five minutes what all his freelancers did in a month.
— You should have chosen another profession – he said. A few months later he fired me.
I've been thinking about this conversation a lot lately, especially after seven months of unsuccessfully looking for a job. Countless hours spent filling out applications resulted in ten interviews and zero job offers.
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It makes me wonder if, at 45, I've already dropped out of the workforce. What if my skills have become irrelevant, maybe it's time to go back to school?
How did I get to this point of doubt?
A few months ago, I interviewed for an administrative position at a state university. In addition to the salary and additional benefits, future employers indicated that the job would provide the opportunity to complete six hours of classes at the university each semester after the end of the trial period. With this arrangement, I could complete a 36-hour master's degree in two years. It didn't seem like a bad idea, assuming I was accepted into college.
But my post-undergraduate plan never included a master's degree. I wanted to work with words and I managed to achieve this with only a bachelor's degree. For over 20 years, my bachelor's degree has served me well in both my main job and additional activities.
I treated postgraduate studies as another long-term financial burden that would never pay off.
Still, the idea of a master's degree always made sense. Many of my friends and colleagues have at least one master's degree, and over the years, none of them have complained about a lack of work or opportunities. My wife went back to night school in her thirties for two years to become a teacher, so maybe a similar path would be good for me too.
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I doubt another degree will help
Honestly, wanting to go back to college has less to do with being the first step in a plan to revitalize my midlife career than it is more of a need to find something that would ease my fears and uncertainty about the current job market.
Maybe going back to school would help me doubly: it would reduce my anxiety and allow me to expand my skills.
But as the last two years have shown, higher education and job training do not make anyone immune to downsizing or job loss in the current economy. I know this because too many of my friends and colleagues have been affected by the current situation. DOGE affected some of them, tariffs affected others, and their education and experience did not matter much.
Looks like my old client was wrong. We all should have chosen a different career.
I'm moving on
Ultimately, I think the decision to pursue further education works best when someone has a plan or a desire to expand their current skill set. I'm not sure I'm that person.
Going back to graduate school probably won't solve my long-standing unemployment problem.
But I still think about it. I should make a decision soon though, because now I'm starting to see ads on my feed encouraging me to join the Peace Corps. And this can make it difficult to pick up your children from school.
The above text is a translation from American edition of Business Insider
