I'm in a bad situation. I'm motivated primarily at the moment of trying to get a job. I'm graduated from a top 50 flagship school about 2 years ago. At the time I got a double major of Economics and Mathematics. I really screwed up my GPA by lumping all my math courses at the last minute (taking 3 - 4 of them at the same time), I barely squeeked through (I couldn't take longer cause of funding/family issues). Anyways, prior to pursuing the mathematics portion of my degree, I had a 3.4 - 3.5, afterwards I had about a 2.8. My Economics major GPA is still relatively untouched, it's around a 3.4 after screwing up my second IO course in the midst of trying to juggle the math stuff. My Math GPA is around 2.7 (I failed a bunch of courses I didn't need but took with teh thought of doing well and improving the look of my transcript -big mistake).
So that has really screwed up my life thus far, i took a year and a half off to get my head together. I took the GRE, and recieved a 1500 (the only marginal bright spot of my life so far). I'm studying for subject exams right now but that's not the real issue. I've been trying to find a job recently and have found that I am locked out of the job market. As an entry level applicant, most jobs want a 3.0 GPA (and i've tried everyone gov't/private/everyone), and as someone whod osn't have this, I can't get into most jobs. Unfortunatly, most Grad schools also require a 3.0 GPA, and thus i'm locked out of those as well.
So, I hope the answer to my problems isn't that I'm going to essentially be relegated to washing dishes and working retail for the rest of my life (what I've been doing to survive thus far). I'm quite good at what I studied, and I know I could get at least a 3.5+ if i paced myself in math. My real intrest is in Economics, but I know that I don't even ahve a shot without addressing the math defencies.
So I'm wondering if given the goal of eventually going back to school (to pursue a masters to get a job; with maybe after establishing a means of survival of perhaps also pusruing a PhD), what people here would recommend I should do to work towards those goals.
I'd like to find a job in my area... but the economy is so depressed at this moment I find even being accepted into a grad program would be more likelly then that... which is very discouraging.
So the way I see it is 1. Need a real job to pay for further education
2. Need further education to get a real job.
I need help....