I'm not sure if I've come to the right place to seek advice for this particular issue, but maybe there are some women here who have been in a similar position in the past.
I'm 22 and I graduated from a good public university last May with a degree in Global Health and Medical Anthropology. I didn't have a job lined up upon graduation and I spent almost my entire summer stressing about it. I wasn't yet ready to leave my college town (it has a lot to offer) and eventually I landed on a full-time job working in fundraising (development) for the university.
Fast forward to now - I've been working this job for about 7 months, but I'm miserable. At first it was exciting, then it just became something that was bearable, now I absolutely loathe it. I'm the youngest one so I don't have any friends there, and the job is primarily just data entry and I find zero purpose in my daily work. It's not stressful and I'm getting an okay entry level salary (around 37k + benefits) but I'm only 22, I feel like I should be challenging myself.
So I really, really, really want to quit. The issue is that I have no back up plan. Call me a privileged millennial, but no part of me wants to be working a full time job yet if that's inevitably what I'm going to end up doing for the rest of my life anyway. I sort of want to do something non-traditional. I'm still trying to figure out what it is that I truly want to do, and I'm not going to do that by staying at this job.
Is it horrible if I give up this job to scale it back and maybe work part-time while volunteering? I think I'm interested in perhaps working in the healthcare field in some capacity, so I was thinking about volunteering at the university hospital.
I was also considering doing this year-long english teaching program abroad that one of my friends is currently doing. I mean, this seems like a pretty ideal time to do something like that.
But I don't know. Will I have a tough time finding another job if I straight up quit this and just try to find my way? I guess I should note that I'm living at home right now so I'm not paying rent. But if I were to quit this job in a couple months I'd have around $5-6k saved up. Plus my mom is willing to help me out.
I'm also thinking about going back to school..... I really love being in an academic environment and I want to still be learning, not doing some menial data entry at a job I don't care about. The problem is I'm not sure exactly what type of grad program I'm interested in.
Clearly I'm all over the place right now. But I just don't know what to do. I'm so unhappy right now. I only have a couple friends left here, and most of them will either be graduating from their grad programs or moving elsewhere for work in the next couple of months, so I have to find some way to make new friends (which is why I wanted to do a grad program partially).
Essentially, I can't find meaning anywhere in my life right now. I don't know what to do.
If you can give me any advice, I'd be incredibly appreciative.