I graduated (BA Geography, but focused on programming and GIS. Take your math and science, liberal arts majors. Trust me) during the pandemic and got a very competitive internship with the NNSA doing some research, data cleaning, and GIS stuff. Immediately after I got a remote $50,000/year contract working maybe 20 hours a week as clinical research staff (chart review, some basic data analysis and visualization, data entry, occasionally help out QA with an audit) for a cancer research hospital. According to my coworkers , the pay is shit for the high-cost area the hospital is located, but they didn't adjust for cost of living, so I was pretty cheesed.

My 2 year contract is just about up and I'm honestly shitting bricks. My BF is still in school and my sister is a barista. I have a healthy savings, but we're planning on moving by the end of next year and I'm so stressed that whatever I get here is going to drain it. I was headhunted for a similar job in the area for.....$18 an hour (ofc they wanted 2+ years of experience and a bunch of other shit).

Job market is a big reason the boo and I are moving.