1. The Environment

Don’t be one of those saps holding a clipboard, asking passersby if they have a minute for the environment. They don’t! Pro Tip: be a 21st century change agent and make bank by working in corporate sustainability. Because nothing helps the environment like continued economic growth. Just be sure to recycle all that green money in your local bars, restaurants, and coffee shops, where everyone will love hearing about your work.

 

2. Journalism*

Oscar Wilde famously said that “In America the president governs for four years, and journalism governs forever and ever.” Talk about job security!

 

3. Gun Control

In lieu of rewriting the founding document, guys can mow down the ladies on Tinder by mentioning their failed efforts to ban assault rifles.

 

4. Politics

Put your academic understanding of American government to good use! While we can’t offer you much in the way of pay and expect you to work long hours in uncomfortable clothes on a never-ending series of moot points, we can give you access to hundreds of other people your age who are willing to fuck you and gossip about it.

 

5. Health Care

Aw, sorry, you’re a few years too late. We do, however, encourage you to direct your grandchildren towards this field the next time the country undergoes a major overhaul of how we fund the insurance and pharmaceutical industries. If you just can’t give this one up, we suggest you go to law school and then spend a lifetime working your way up to Max Baucus.

 

6. Campaign Finance Reform

There are only nine positions in this field and they’ve all been filled.

 

7. Education

Due to a cruel clerical error, you didn’t get into TFA. And you’re certainly not going to become a teacher for sub-TFA wages. So you come to Washington and get an office job with one or another organization concerned with reforming the educational system in one or another way. Just don’t try to talk about it at a party or in a bar—no one wants to hear about the achievement gap while they’re drinking.

 

8. Labor

As if! Of course we don’t expect nascent knowledge workers to throw away all that sweet upward mobility for a field with shitty pay that hasn’t even been cool since the 70s. Norma who?

 

NOTE: As of press time, gay rights, gender equality, racial justice , and urban/housing reform cannot be classified as lost causes. And they’re all hip! Go work in those.

*Journalism only considered a lost cause if you’re moving to Washington to do it for money