You cleaned up. Salary: $24,000 (plus benefits) 

You had such a great time in college, you forgot to go to class junior year. When you woke up the next year, you had some catching up to do on your degree. After graduation, you were shooting to work with public libraries.

"Just a guess, but I think he said your fly is down." Salary: $60,000 

You're a translator. Right now, you're making sure communication is easy between two branches of a company: one in America, one in China. You have good days but also some boring ones where there's nothing to do but make Noam Chomsky memes in the copy machine. You're still holding out hope you'll get called up to the big leagues: politics.

It's alive! Salary: $70,000 

You work at a large tech company that pours cash into developing a program that understands and responds intelligently to people. Your co-workers are programmers, and you work together to get a response for "Do I call my mother enough?" or "Phone! Bring me Thai food!" It's super rewarding. The pay is average.

"I wrote the book on this subject...now buy it for class." Salary: $90,000 

You really loved school. You loved it so much that you stuck around until you were that teacher who changes three pages in the textbook every year and makes everybody buy the latest version. Hey, you've earned it.

The world's linguist. Salary: $250,000

You're everywhere. You're writing books, fighting the man, standing up for education, and taking names. A blockbuster biopic in the works.