My degree is useless in the sense that I realized it was wrong for me as a career path very close to graduation. It would also have paid badly. I got extremely lucky landing a random ass job in a very physically demanding role. It fucked up my body. I got lucky transitioning out of that role into an entirely different but decent field closer to family. (A couple "placeholder" jobs in there for about 2 years just to maintain insurance for my wife.)

I don't know that a different degree would have mattered for me. Hindsight being what it is; I do think pursuing electrical engineering and the trade would have made the most sense for me. but I didnt even know i had any aptitude for that, just never exposed to it. Pushing 40 (weird to say.) So the days of weathering an apprenticeship are behind me from a temperment perspective.

The first job covered housing so I basically paid off student loans immediately, funded my IRAs for a few years, one year with a loan (dont ever do this, btw.) This let me also live off of my "base 40" and save 65 hours of overtime per week for 7.5 years.

I say all of this to get to my point; We bought a house last year and the amount of effort, toil, literally body breaking work that I did to get here is not the American Dream I bought into as a young man.

All of this considered, luck should not be the key factor of success in a functioning, equitable society.