Nothing!
That’s the plain truth that is sidestepped in all of the discussions around this issue.
Aside from some educational vendors, no one is looking for a teaching degree on your resume.
If you really want to explore your options outside of teaching you have to change your mindset.
Identify your personal skills and accomplishments and construct a narrative that makes you an attractive potential employee in whatever industry you are targeting. Then you should be able to deploy a two minute pitch on command to sell yourself.
Often when teachers ask what they can do with a teaching degree they are directed to the same handful of careers. Take a look at this top search result on Google. I would not consider many of these careers high paying. Though, depending on where you teach they could be massive improvements. They still create another problem.
While suggestions like instructional designer are common, think about this for a moment. Crowding the same handful of careers means that there is an exodus of burnt out teachers entering a field. That means saturation, more competition and lower pay.
Go to any forum and ask the question, what can I do with a teaching degree and you always see the same answers over and over.
There is another way. Every teacher is different and it's foolish to give one size fits all advice. Often, going off the beaten path presents the most lucrative opportunities.
I suspect many teachers posting on forums are looking for easy answers.
I was one of them.
In my humble opinion, the only and best answer is the hard one. The answer is, it depends! This is not a cop out. I promise! I have practical advice just bear with me for a moment.
Every teacher has his or her own skill set, interests and, most importantly, life circumstances. If you have a lot of debt or are taking care of a family your options are obviously different from someone younger with no debt and living with their parents.
So, here is the best and ONLY advice you need.
This is the most invaluable resource at your disposal, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics Website.
It has reliable information for researching potential careers. Not only does it have detailed descriptions of careers, but it also describes what requirements you need to break in. Most importantly it has information on occupational outlooks so you know what the potential demand is for that career. High demand means higher pay. You can also see wages by area.
Often teachers from all over the USA and Canada are looking for advice. But within these countries there are huge differences. A rural teacher in Mississippi or West Virginia is going to have a completely different set of circumstances from an urban teacher in Chicago or New York City. Not to mention other differences I have outlined above.
This is in no way the easy answer. But it is the most honest and useful one. I hope it helps.
Addendum: Networking
Adding to the advice above, I strongly suggest that once you have narrowed down some career choices you interview real people working in those fields to get a feel for what the job is really like. Don’t invest time and resources into a career based solely on online research.
If you don’t know anyone in your personal network in that career then you should take to LinkedIn and send a message to people who have the job and ask if they mind answering some questions and giving advice. This may seem awkward but most people are happy to talk about themselves and love to give advice.
If you do settle on taking that path then the people you reached out to may be able to help you land a job. It’s who you know after all.
If you found this article useful consider checking out my “How to Escape Teaching” e-book with over sixty pages of advice and research on how to break into another more satisfying career.