Got a BA in History and, like many historians, shuffled into teaching for my first five years out of college. The pandemic really did a number on my life and I had a lot of friends and family pass away from various things, so I left teaching so I could take some time off to reshuffle my life. When the dust cleared, I’d moved cities twice and found a job that I thrived in, helping develop technology to use during natural disasters. But the work culture was intense, very long days, constantly being on-call, extreme micromanagement from above, and basically being expected to just eat, sleep, and breathe work. That aspect of it wasn’t for me, so I resigned.
But I’m sort of wondering what to do next without just going back to teaching, which I don’t want to do. I want to continue working towards finding solutions for issues surrounding natural disasters or environmental challenges, without necessarily being in the tech sector either (for context, I’m a hard worker, but I also paint and write on the side, and I hadn’t gotten to do either in months by the time I left). I want to really weigh my options before jumping into something where I’ll be continuing to learn new skills while honing what I’ve already learned. Is it worth it to go back to school at this point? I’ve debated going back for environmental science or urban planning, or possibly even law school for policy, as these essentially would get me part of where I feel like I’m going. But I’m just looking for input from anyone who might have faced similar changes before.