Hello everyone, God willing, by the end of December I should be graduated. It took a lot of hard work and sacrifice to get here and I am very proud of my achievement. However, I am also terrified. My degree is in Theology and Philosophy, and before anyone says “well you should have went STEM dumbass” I TRIED. When I first embarked on this journey I took STEM classes and even entertained going into the trades, but something about that subject never engaged my interest. Somewhere along the way I discovered that I love liberal arts, in particular Theology and Philosophy. I made a decision that a degree was better than no degree and fully committed ti studying a field I throughly love and enjoy. I have a 3.8 GPA (my high-school GPA was like a 1.3 I barely graduated and no big university would take me. Had to go through community College then back door my way via transfer) and nearly every professor would give me a great letter of recommendation if I asked them too. I'm frankly just uncertain about what to do next, there's a large part of me that had assumed that I would never make it this far. The next natural step for me is to attend seminary, get a Masters of Divinity, then try to get hired on by a church. But to be frank, religion and specifically my brand of it us dying out. Each year the church I attend seems to shrink in membership. Many churches are closing. In fact, my Pastor's wife is the main bread winner of their home and his church Salary (about $40k with no benefits) is purely supplemental. There a few churches that have already shown an interest in hiring me, as it is actually very difficult to find young people who even want the job anymore. I don't want to have a religious discussion here and that aspect should be irrelevant to what I am asking here. I've become highly qualified for a field that is frankly dying. However, I never started down this path with the intention of becoming a Pastor or working for a church, it's just an area I loved and seemed to be naturally gifted. Going to college has lead to me being skilled with numerous other talents. In fact, I currently work in sales and typically rank top 5 in the region consistently (there's a probably around 100 employees in my region). I do great with customers. I speak clearly and intelligently without coming off as a dick. Yet, I worry about sales becoming automated, I also wonder if the skills I have now would be a good fit for going into law (arguing, public speaking, research, so on and so forth). Yet, there are Pastor gigs that pay 6 figures a year with full benefits, I just need the education/experience for a church to deem me worth that.
Basically, I am just looking for ideas and suggestions. I really don't care for anyone to tell me what I should have done, I can earnestly say I did the best that I could with the hand I was dealt. With the state of the economy I am even more unsure about what to do next as everything seems so chaotic. My main concern is finding a career that is rewarding financially and mentally.