Did you use your college degree?

[Quantum]

I graduated with a liberal arts degree, Humanities, but before switching I studied Physics. And now I write software manuals. So I suppose I am using what I studied.

How about you?

[Graeme]

My first degree was a major in the history and philosphy of science with a minor in pure mathematics. I then got a graduate diploma in computer science and a job with a major international telecommunications company.

I'm now working with my 8th tech company in 20 years...

[Krazykiwi]

Every day. I have degrees in CS, Psychology and Pedagogik (which my diploma in English calls "Education" but that makes it sound like I'm qualified to be a teacher, and I'm most definitely not - I studied the philosophy and theory of education, thinks like knowledge management/sharing and communities of practice).

And that makes me sound like the eternal student, I'm hardly that either, at least not by choice! I just spent a good deal of time trailing a corporate spouse around countries I wasn't allowed to work in, but that would let me take college courses.

I am currently working with machine learning, speech to text natural language parsing, and predictive text and smart spelling correction tech, which actually nicely combines all three pretty much every day, although the extent varies. It's also not even close to as interesting as it sounds, unfortunately.

[Leonie]

Yep! I have a Bachelor of Applied Science (Physiotherapy) and I currently work three days a week as a physiotherapist.

[Ian]

I studied pure mathematics, and outside of pure research and teaching I don't see much practical application for analytical topology or transfinite set theory. In other words, no.

However, I always understood that for most people the point of a degree wasn't the subject itself, but the disciplines of rigorous thinking, which can be applied in all kinds of ways.

[Nik]

I do, but I'm the only one from our company in the uni. 3 out of 3 of them switched to something else post graduation...

[Scott]

Yes and no. I studied chemistry in college and received a B.A. instead of a B.S. degree, because my goal all along was to go to dental school. (I needed, I think, one more 300 level course and a 300 level research study to get the B.S., I had done all the math, physics and even German in order to get it but then realized that I needed two more bio courses to meet the prerequisites of one of the dental schools I was applying to, so I took the 8 hours of bio my senior year instead of the two chem courses...)

I don't work in chemistry, never did save one summer in a quality control lab, but the degree got me into dental school handily. So it was useful, even though I don't work in it and last year learned that I have forgotten most of what I studied as I tried to help my son with high school chemistry... :-(

[Scout]

Definitely. BA in English, Masters in Education, and I taught English for 30 years. Would probably be rare these days.