Is an Associate in Arts Degree worth anything career-wise if you don't transfer?

I got out of high school and started off renovating a couple of houses full-time for my friend's Dad, it wasn't serious and lasted about 5 months. I quickly realized that I couldn't keep doing it, and I didn't want to just jump into a low-wage job out of high school that I would never really move out of so I enrolled at a Community College. At first, I was going to get an associate in general education, but I switched my degree to an AA after a semester or two because the only career options that sounded good were being a teacher or musician ( I play the guitar and sing).

The advisors at this CC were pretty shit but I never really put much effort into finding things out myself ngl, the whole thing sort of felt like I was enrolling just to be working towards SOMETHING instead of jumping into a shitty job. Fast forward to now and I've decided I really don't wanna be a teacher, it really hit me when I went to get an auto inspection and saw my old history teacher working as a mechanic over the summer that a salary of around $35,000 was not shit, I also don't want to go through two more years of school while a lot of my friends are already moving out and getting their own apartments. I figured being a CC professor and the $50,000 salary that comes with it might be worth getting a bachelors until I figured out that you need a masters, which is beyond me because I swear I could teach those classes with zero formal education, it seems SO easy. Also learned I could make the same salary working full time for the damn post office which requires practically zero experience.

So is an AA worth anything other than transferring to obtain a bachelors? I assume the only perk is that it might look decent on your resume. I suppose even if I don't get anything out of it, one plus for me is that I'd be the first person in my entire family to earn a degree. At the same time though, my Dad is a general contractor and when the market isn't complete shit he can make like $60,000 in half a year and not do shit for the rest of the year if he wants to. I think I should've just gotten a technical degree and stuck with welding or something.

Submitted October 18, 2021 at 09:01PM by Zempshir https://ift.tt/2YZHP6l