I’m an engineering student at a fairly prestigious university, and as seniors my friends and I are all making postgrad plans. It’s a mix between going to grad school, finance/consulting, startups, or and traditional engineering jobs (Ford, Apple, SpaceX, Lockheed, etc.)
I’ve noticed a pretty disgusting trend where people are get shamed for pursuing lifestyles that are not high on clout/prestige/money. I have a handful of classmates going to work at nonprofits/organizing, and a few who want to go teach middle/high school science. They’ve all been told by parents professors and peers that they are wasting their education, that they wasted a spot at the university by not pursuing something “important,” that their jobs will be useless. The worst I’ve seen is the brutal shaming that got thrown at a grad student for deciding to become a full-time parent after finishing their Masters. They didn’t have to, they chose to because they wanted more time with their kids, and they were told their education had been a waste of time and money.
Everyone is so obsessed with us being “productive” members of society (aka people who make lots of money for rich people) that’s it’s somehow become incomprehensible that a well-educated person might pick another lifestyle or pursuit that they actually enjoy and care about. If you don’t want to work a traditional job then don’t.