I Need a Job!

Your profile doesn't mention your gender, but if you're female and in relatively good shape (but don't need to be a knockout), and you're in such dire financial straits, you might want to think about stripping. Seriously. Assume a low-ish figure of $250 a night and it will take you 40 nights to get to $10,000. Work four nights a week and you'll be done by the end of August. The pay is better on Fridays and Saturdays. (No, I've never been a stripper, but I have a friend who's done it for years as a second job. And please, hold the "exploitation" faux outrage: stripping is far less degrading than many shitty low-paying menial jobs. And stripping to pay your way through school is a time-honored tradition.)

5/8th through? That shouldn't be too late to change your degree if that's what you want to do. Heck, this is college; what better time to try new directions! Talk to an academic advisor. If you're worried about losing too many units from your current major, ask about any options for an interdisciplinary degree or using the English units toward a minor. You have my sympathies on the prereqs thing. That drove me mad too. Getting into a department that allows you to better tap into your strengths, skills, and intellectual drive may be your first step to restoring your scholarship/prospects for the future. In a program better suited to your interests, your grades and recommendations should improve and employers should find it easier to envision you as a member of their team. (I'm guessing that's where you're blowing the interviews. Job interviewing is all about sniffing out "fit": will this person mesh with our culture, personalities, vibe, etc? If you're inadvertantly giving signals that you don't care about what you do presently, they're probably assuming--rightly or wrongly--that's what you'll bring to their workplace too. Once you're doing what you love, it's amazing how others pick up on that and respond in kind.) Davidmsc's suggestion of tutoring is a good one. If finals haven't already passed, this is a great time to pick up cash from students desperate to make GPA cutoffs. Depending on degree of desperation and availability of competing tutors, you should be able too get $10-50/hr easily. Summer schoolers are also notoriously in need of tutoring, because schools try to cram an entire semester's worth of lectures into a few weeks and inevitably some students find that they need help understanding all that info being thrown at them. If it's too late for the college students' finals, get thee to the nearest private high schools. A relative of mine paid for his English PhD by doing test prep (SAT, GRE, etc.) tutoring. Thanks to the No Child Left Behind mandates, there are more parents and schools than ever in need of standardized testing tutors. You could probably make a good (cash) living on flexible hours.

Try and get into what's called Production Journalism. It'll combine your English abilities with your technical know how, and since the industry's in a state of flux as those paste-up-trained fellows start to retire and computers encroach ever-more, there's a vacuum for your type. Sadly, though, I think that not having a completed degree will be a hinderance in the US. It's not such a big deal in the UK, but it'll be difficult to get in from the US. Hoo, wasn't that a useless answer, sorry.

First two things that popped in my mind, upon reading of your skills: TUTORING OTHERS and offering TYPING or COPY-EDITING services to other students (or business). Best wishes.

Thanks all. Some good ideas here. For the record, I'm male, in decent shape but not ripped, so stripping isn't even an option, even if my girlfriend of nearly four years would allow it :). Part of the reason I asked is that I have a terrible record getting employed in traditional jobs. Whether it's my presentation, my lack of references, bad karma, or some combination, I usually don't get the job. Unless it's the job I don't want, like McDonald's, which allowed me to subsist for a few months though I ended up starving anyway. I know an English BA is a waste of money. I love the subject but the amount of crap I have to do to get to the course I like is discouraging. When I manage to sneak a course that I don't have prereqs for past my advisor, I get an A. Every time. When it's some stupid survey course I do very badly. It's too late to change my major now. I have another source of funding that covers a portion of my education, but it dispears when I turn 25. If I could change my major, I'd probably choose analytical philosophy. I've done some really great work in the few classes I've taken and have a knack for it. I guess I was hoping for an easy solution, something other than working my ass off and being miserable, but if that's what I gotta do, that's what I gotta do.

Try also talking to the administrators of the scholarship you've lost. They may be sympathetic and know of some other opportunities. I was in a very similar predicament once, and after some heartfelt discussion of what had happened, the director went back into the budget and managed to find a bit of scholarship money to send my way. It wasn't nearly enough to fill the gap, but it bought some time to pull together more money elsewhere. And remember that scholarship/grant dollars are much more valuable than salary dollars because of taxes. To replace $10k in grant money, you probably need more like $12k in earnings. So be sure you're exhausted every last possibility of getting a grant. (Hint: sometimes departments have their own discretionary funds. I got several smaller grants over the years from various academic and service departments that distributed their funds independent of the financial aid office. Friends in dire circumstances were able to get small no interest emergency loans the same way.)

...if you're female and in relatively good shape (but don't need to be a knockout), and you're in such dire financial straits, you might want to think about stripping. For 20something females in good health, another option is egg donation. The student newspaper usually has an ad or two, and I've seen several that claimed the "donor" would earn 10k in exchange for permitting herself to be shot full of ovary-stimulating hormones repeatedly and then undergo surgery to remove the eggs. Definitely not something that's right for everyone, but sounds like you're willing to entertain even the extreme options. A word of caution: don't go deeper into debt for an English degree. Get the degree, yes, because you love the subject and need the BA. But sadly an English degree has so little market value that it's very unlikely that it'll contribute toward loans repayment. Are you enrolling f/t right now? If so, seriously consider switching to p/t. You'll pay slightly more on a per-unit basis, but your annual bill will go down while you'll have more time for earning money for tuition et al. That also means you can be applying for permanent jobs (not just short-term gigs), hopefully ones with benefits (which on further raises the value of your earnings), which helps build up the work experience/references necessary to earn the even bigger salary you're going to need when all those loans go into repayment 6-9 mos after graduation.

I managed to hold down PT jobs and still got a honours degree at university. It isn't the most fun thing ever, but it's totally doable. Now that you don't have the scholarship pressure, you don't need an A++++ average all the time. I'd look into bursaries, and get to know the departmental secretary where you are. The one I knew (and bought a few beers) got me around $1000 in bursaries I didn't know existed. When you're the only applicant, hey, it's easy. I worked as a waitress. It ain't stripping money, but it's decent and the hours you work as a student are good for tips. I'd look into that as a part-time option. Don't bother with the student pubs those - those cheap jerks are lousy tippers. ;)

Pretty much ditto on everything (but the stripping) said above. One area to look into may be a newsreader for a clippings company, if there are any in your area. You read newspapers and take notes on _very_ specific topics. If you're in the DC area, there are probably plenty of organizations that need the service... even with the advent of digital news, there is plenty out there that's still print-only.