I am a full-time Ph. D. student, in my very late thirties. I am presently very underemployed and underpaid as a part-time private music instructor. As a result I am having to rely on my mother for nearly half of my financial support, which is extremely hard for me to cope with — I feel at this point in our lives the situation should be reversed.

She has chosen not to retire in order to help support me. I cannot get health insurance through my current employer due to a “pre-existing condition.” I have student coverage through my university but it is woefully inadequate — I exhausted my limit for prescription drug coverage in the first six weeks of this year. I have been searching for a full-time job with benefits for over a year now but have so far been unsuccessful.

This despite my having had a 4.0 GPA in my master’s program and having a 3.9 GPA to date in my doctoral program, and being a member of national honor societies in both music and education. It’s hard to tell if my lack of success in finding a “real” job is due to being considered “not a good fit” for those positions I have applied for, or if I’m simply “overqualified.”