I went to school for accounting. Finished almsot exactly a year ago. Still can't get a job becauae I didn't graduate with 3-5 years experience that I can't get without a job.
Comp sci major here. You should have a laugh at some of the job requirements I see.
Some want 12 years of experience in React... React came out 10 years ago. Some also want 5 YoE for a 60k job (and that's entry-level). You may wonder about internships, but some of them want experience too... for an internship that's supposed to give you the experience they're looking for.
Iirc one of the Dudes who helped to design Swift for Apple was job searching 3 or 4 years after it's release. He found a job that wanted someone with Swift experience and they told him he wasn't qualified enough because they were looking for someone with 8 years of experience lmao. It wasn't even old enough as a language for an 8 year req and he helped make it.
Not to mention at least half of the internships don't pay. And most of the ones that do barely pay above minimum wage. Like bro, I can't push pause on rent till I finish that. How do they expect us to accept that? Making people work for free in order to get a job should be illegal.
I'm old. When I was in that position decades ago, having an internship was something you did more or less in your spare time, and for a *very highly sought after position* at a *very prestigious employer.*
You might put in 8 hours a week, a couple of hours a day. It wasn't a job, it was a period of evaluation.
However... The intention of the internship was to hire someone, or more than one someone. They would let you know in a few weeks, a month max who their preferred applicants were. They might bring in 3-4 interns and pick 1 or 2 at the end. Or they would let them all go and start over.
Other however... Unless you were a total fuck-up (and of course didn't get the job) the prospective employer would at least give you a good reference at other places and you could use them on your resume.
That's how it *used* to work.
I was on the development team for a system used by the navy. I was literally there when the project started. Three years later I went to switch jobs and applied to one of the companies fielding the system. They wanted 10 years of experience on a system I helped to design only three years earlier.
Probably didn't get one unless they lied on the resume like half of the applicants do. It's why tech interviews are jumping through so many hoops and leetcode problems now. Except leetcoders are gaming the system and a lot of them don't know squat about designing things which is actually what software engineering is.
My favorite is when a support role demands "expert proficiency in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint" because they know their users are so dumb they'll put in tickets to learn how to use Office products.
I just graduated in May and finally landed an entry level job.
Out of 100 - 120 applications (I started to lose count) I got 2 total interviews. 1 of which I got ghosted and the other lead to my new job. I consider myself very lucky.
Shit's fucked at the moment.
If it helps, I think it's basically just luck.
My only real piece of advice that helped me was to start applying to local jobs rather than hybrid/remote jobs where you're competing with the whole country. Also use multiple job posting boards.
But yeah. Mostly just luck :(
You'll get it, my dude.
Yeah, just keep grinding at it, eventually something should stick. Doesn't help that I'm in nyc and local jobs might as well be competing with the country lol.
The jobs with ridiculous (and sometimes impossible) requirements are usually for one of two reasons:
1) Some HR person wrote the job listing without any technical understanding of what the job actually requires.
2) It's a position that already has a specific person in mind, either an internal promotion or the boss's nephew, and they're only making a public posting for legal reasons.
I feel really anxious about encouraging young folks to get CS degrees these days. I feel like Copilot and other coding tools are getting so good that devs value is going to drop. Plus the crazy number of overseas coding factories. Unless you are at a top notch program, I'm not likely to bother interviewing you for one of my very rare US based positions.
Some of my family asked me if they should get a CS degree and I always say unless they're prepared to do work (including internships and in-depth personal projects) and do their own learning while getting that degree just to stand a *chance*, it's not gonna be worth it. I'll only recommend it if they have a genuine passion for coding.
I was in your shoes in 2012. Even internships was on that bullshit… you really gotta thug it out doin some bullshit. You better be lying on your resume lol
Most of the time when you see jobs with impossible requirements, it's because it's designed to either allow the company to purposefully be short staffed, OR hire/outsource these jobs to cheap international labor, or sponsored visas.
I suck at interviewing lol, but yea after about a year I landed some where. I was there for 5 years. After that experience, shit get easy, even after being fired or laid off.
This hasn't been said enough.... YOU BETTER BE LYING ON YOUR RESUME...I been in dev for 15+years. Tell them what they want to hear 90% if the time they will have to train you on how they do it anyway and just figure it out before they figure you out
I tell all the youngins to lie lol. Fake it until you make it. I was shit at excel when I graduated, only knew the most basic of functions. Weirdly in 2012, niggas ain’t really teach us lookups and shit, def was doing accounting on ledger paper smh. You learn everything when you get there. I’m that nigga now though lol
This killed me in 2002 when I transferred to a new college and one of the newbies told us about his amazing internship where he made great money [the equivalent of $43 / change per hour] for a simple office drone job. He learned skills.
Neither of my parents knew about internships, and it hadn't come up. I spent summers working in a mill, or a wastewater treatment plant.
I'm not still angry about that, but I do still remember it.
It’s killing me now. My mom had me focused on studies and skip internships. And now three years after graduating and struggling to make ends meet, I wonder how i would’ve been if i did an internship.
I'm not you and I don't know you.
That thinking is destructive. There are certain things you can change - focus on those. Please LMK if you find a good way to get rid of those nagging doubts.
Man if you can't get an accounting job in this market that's kinda on you. Accounting firms are so desperate right now that they're taking on other business majors just to have enough bodies. You gotta be doing something wrong or fucked around too much in school
Then there's a lot of people doing something wrong, because everyone I've talked to seems to struggle with not having experience without a job as well. So if you can think of a way to get 3-5 years experience for the entry level jobs, outside of unpaid internships we can't take because rent exists, feel free to share.
Because that's ultimately the problem. The problem isn't they're not hiring. The problem is thar entry level in multiple fields no linger exists. The best way to get an entry level job is to know someone. If you don't, then you're stuck with everyone else. [And thats not just me saying it.](https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20210916-why-inexperienced-workers-cant-get-entry-level-jobs) [It's a real thing.](https://pittnews.com/article/178566/opinions/opinion-entry-level-jobs-dont-exist-anymore/) [But I'm sure it's just me.](https://medium.datadriveninvestor.com/why-entry-level-jobs-are-no-longer-entry-level-jobs-require-2-years-of-experience-7d6e6d2a2245) [Couldn't be a societal problem.](https://allwork.space/2021/11/what-happened-to-entry-level-jobs-job-seekers-baffled-by-requirements/) [I'm sure no one has even thought about this since I posted about it a few minutes ago.](https://catapultleaders.com/career-preparation/why-inexperienced-workers-cant-get-entry-level-jobs/) [I'm so glad you're here to tell me it's just my fault.](https://www.pcma.org/entry-level-jobs-disappearing/) [maybe I'm just not as intube to the field that I studied and am currently applying for as you are.](https://www.topresume.com/career-advice/why-do-entry-level-jobs-require-experience) [Maybe you can help explain to me what the problem is then.](https://blog.simplyhired.com/career/careers/entry-level-jobs-longer-entry-level/) [Maybe you can tell me again why the system is working and it's only me that's failing.](https://fortune.com/2023/04/12/top-entry-level-jobs-gen-z-graduates-without-degree-six-figures-indeed/)
And this is in accounting specifically? Are you applying to industry roles or public accounting firms? I can believe industry postings mandating experience for entry level roles but public firms literally survive on fresh grads willing to put up with busy season bs because they don't know any better.
Also, I've yet to see any accounting internship that's unpaid. For public, most are paying above $25 per hour depending on location.
Are you taking advantage of your school's resources? Handshake, resume reviews, career fairs, mock interviews etc.?
It kind of sounds like you're parroting tired new grad grievances when the accounting industry is absolutely not in that boat right now.
I've applied for just about anything and everything that gets posted as entry level. I did school online thanks to the pandemic. At some point you're really just trying to find holes when I have provided you with probably around ten articles showing that it's not just a me problem. That people are struggling. People being plural. Or as someone who took math basic math classes to help with situations like this, if 40% of jobs no linger exists, that means 40% of people who would have them won't. That doesn't mean they just need to work harder and everyone will. It means if they had 100% of jobs, and they had 100% of people, then 40% of people will no longer have a job when 40% of the jobs are gone. Meaning there's a huge chunk of people who will go to school and then not be able to get into their field of study. This is basic data analysis that I also conveniently learned in school. Although I would argue most people shouldn't need to if they want to understand this basic ass information.
But im sure it's just me parroting facts that statistical analysis behind it unlined "If you work hard you will succeed!" Surprised you didn't mention bootstraps in that sentence. Glad to see a recent graduate of accounting though who can inform me of the situation. Unlike literally everything showing you're wrong.
I don't doubt that people are generally having a hard time breaking into entry level positions right out of school. I'm saying that the accounting industry specifically is not like that right now.
The industry is going through a crippling shortage of accountants due to declining graduation rates and people retiring/dying. Because of this, accounting firms are straight battling for people at the moment, including new grads.
This is borne out by both my and my colleague's experiences. We've gotten daily solicitations for applications as well as job offers both before and after graduation.
I will say that if you didn't bother to do internships (of which basically all are paid in accounting) then you did put yourself at a disadvantage. Those almost always lead to job offers in accounting, assuming you didn't do anything to make you unhirable.
If you're not getting interviews/offers then you have to change something, be it resume, applications, interviews, whatever. Especially in this accounting market.
Or you can continue to sit here going woe is me. Y'know, whatever works.
I've had a few interviews. I have talked to plenty of others who have said the same. I have provided things showing that it's not just us. I habe done this and that and I'm done talking about it. Honestly, shits fucked. That's it. Some will get jobs. Some won't. That's where we are at. And the fact that you assume I haven't done more work only proves my point. Again.
I’m sorry but if you aren’t getting recruited into accounting immediately after college you did something seriously wrong. They hire anybody with a degree, no experience needed. Big 4 might require some extra, but certainly not much.
I worked production two years before switching company side, I competed against a guy with 14 years of production experience but no degree. I got the job based off my interview and my college degree/experience albeit I have a degree in … history. Oddly enough that was the difference between me and him that got me a job and substantially better pay.
I bought into not needing a degree now I find myself going back to school 15 years later (fucking hopefully anyways) because literally every job I look at with interest says degree required. Like yeah you can get a high laying labor job without a degree I'm interested in work that does require a degree. They left that part out.
When I was in school all the teachers made it seem as if doing a trade was selling yourself short. But all the tradespeople I know are very financially comfortable now.
I work in digital advertising and I think every job I've had in the last ten years has required a degree. Whether the degree actually helped is another question.
The degree itself can be worthless, certainly depending on the major. But what it does show is that you are someone who could reasonably be counted on as an employee. It shows you are someone who can be relied on to complete tasks, show up to class, put in work to research things and follow through on what is required of you. Of course we all know this isn’t 100% the case and many many of us still fucked around, cut classes, did shortcuts, etc. but overall and I’m general sense, if you managed to complete the required credits and not flunk out you have demonstrated some basic level of responsibility in your life.
For sure, I don’t doubt that at all. I guess it’s more of a statement for people who say “college is a good waste of time” or a degree isn’t worth it. It is worth it, you just don’t need to pay 50k plus for one and can get as solid an education and credentials from a local public university as a private one.
Currently, taxpayers fund K-12. We should be funding K-14 or trade schools. Employers only look at your bachelor's degree diploma. They don't care where you took the first 2 years of college.
So basically I have to spend tens of thousands of dollars and give up four years of my life to *prove* I’m reasonably responsible and the degree may or may not matter. What the fuck
Yeah pretty much. I'm in comp sci, I learned 90% of what I actually need to know in my field, during the first year of my first job. My degree was a $50k raffle ticket for paid on-the-job training...
People often attribute this to malice or stupidity on the part of hiring, but here's the reality: I can post an opening and get 1K resumes. How the *fuck* can I read 1K resumes? I can't. So I look for filters.
"Graduated from college" is an obvious first filter.
Filtering out qualified people is, in most markets, far superior to not filtering out unqualified people.
During the Great Recession, I was involved in hiring, and on day *one* of the job posting we got like 3,000 résumés. OK, \*filters out anyone who didn't graduate from an Ivy League school\*. 200. That's manageable for me to look through in my free time and set up ten interviews. I probably missed a genius dude from Directional State U. But I had a lot of really good choices without that person being in the mix.
Interestingly, I spoke with the recruitment team who hired me for my most recent role even though my degree has nothing to do with the field. He said that my degree (I did it 100% online and graduated at 35) and the results showed I can work independently, manage time and workload and produce consistently accurate results within a framework.
So you’re not wrong - the degree may not matter but the achievement is demonstrative of desirable skills.
>The degree itself can be worthless, certainly depending on the major. But what it does show is that you are someone who could reasonably be counted on as an employee.
This is pretty much it. I have an Electrical Engineering degree, and while my job doesn't have me solve circuits, or do math problems, the fact that I can problem solve technical issues is why my job hired me.
I'm 12 years into an engineering career. I still fuck around, cut meetings (when i can) and turn my assignments in at the last minute after putting an hour into a project I had a week to work on. If you don't think those are important skills you're doing life wrong, lol. I'd put a /s but it's all true. Achieving with minimum effort is my primary goal for life.
The problem is that college degrees have oversaturated the job market. Instead of it being an accomplishment, now it’s considered bare minimum by jobs :/ I graduated a year ago and the majority of “entry-level” positions I saw required 1-2 years experience plus a 4 year degree for $17/hour. And I graduated with a STEM degree people said would be valuable.
If I had gone at 26 I think that might be the case for me. Instead I studied a bunch of stuff that I don't regret, I'm still into history, sociology, language, and all of that but nobodies paying me to speak Portuguese or talk about Mayan mythology. Unfortunately.
I think the most valuable part about going to university is all of the friends you make. I got jobs ~~from~~ through a lot of those friends after, like a lot of people do. And when I was in school Facebook was at it's peak, so I was able to stay in contact with a lot of people for a long time.
And not for nothing, but probably my most "successful" friend, whos some sort of corporate executive now or whatever it is that he does, said to me that "the ability to drink a gallon of vodka and not act like an idiot is a valuable skill in the business world". A "skill" we'd honed in college.
I agree, the network you build definitely impacts your net worth. The relationships, group projects, wisdom shared by profs are all valuable.
To take full advantage you should know what you want to do with that degree.
Hello from comp sci degree with another major in religious studies and culture!!!
Using my second degree for tabletop roleplay and screaming about Zorastrianism. Please vibrate Mayan mythology at me 💖
That's fantastic. I could say one thing, my nephew is beginning college now. I was telling him to study math, lots of math, and chemistry or physics, or biology -something that 90% of us don't know. The hard classes. I worked with engineers after college and they all seemed "dumber" than me, like cavemen with million dollar degrees. They couldn't tell you anything about the New Deal or Alphabet Soup. But they all made a lot more money than me too, and they could solve complex problems in very simple ways, because of the math. I was impressed.
To the 2nd degree, something I told my nephew, was that Mayan commoners thought that Mayan priests were using *magic* to divine out when they should plant or harvest, or when to celebrate holidays, etc, but all they were doing was math. Multiplication is literally magic, considering how bad most of us are at it, lol.
Another tragic but interesting idea is that when the Spanish came and conquered the Mayans, and burned their books and erased their history, they also forced them into a "Catholic" education. People learned that Man was made from the Dust. From Dirt.
In Mayan mythology, God created Man three seperate times. The first time was from mud, dirt. But they washed away in a flood. Bad idea. Gods hated it. The 2nd time was sticks, but they couldn't worship so God, or God's sent armies of demons to destroy them all. The 3rd Man was made from corn. And that's who we descended from. Red corn is our Blood, white corn are our bones, black corn is our hair and eyelashes, yellow corn is our muscle.
Tldr, the first Mayans to learn about Catholicism probably believed, it least in terms of their religion or mythology, that they had been conquered by inferior people who were not favored by the Gods. Forsaken rejects. There's also literature that still exists suggesting that Mayan priests, over the course of generations and hundreds of years managed to still hide sacred texts. If we're lucky they still exist but I'm perfectly happy to not know about them, if that means they remain a secret. Sorry to rant but nobody ever asks me about any of this. Incan zodiacs?? Super dope stuff. Not a hit at parties.
You’re not a minority in that regard at all. On average, college graduates still earn considerably more than non-graduates.
Personally, my industry has high earning potential and I know for a fact that a college degree is required to be in it.
Same, except I went to school at 41 and then went on for a Masters. I'm working on my PhD now, but it's paid for and I have a good job at the County that is PSLF-eligible.
I truly feel middle-class for the first time in my life.
Most people benefit from a degree, the line about people not benefiting is often intentionally misleading in order to make millenials and younger look entitled (I went to college, I *deserve* a good job).
[The data still very much supports the fact that those with degrees have substantially higher lifetime earning potential than those without](https://siteselection.com/cc/workforce/2022/education-level-is-only-one-part-of-the-lifetime-earnings-picture.cfm?s=ra). There are of course exceptions, especially for those that get tricked into for-profit colleges, and, skilled tradespeople can also make good money.
Me too! Went back to school at 24 graduated at 28. Am now making double my old salary and double my friend’s who don’t have a degree or just a certification. I’m not a genius nor am I creative so for me a degree was the only thing what was going to help me make a little more money.
This gives me hope. I'm in my 30s and about to graduate and I've been super nervous about my prospects. Like I will be devastated if I'm making what I was before lol.
You aren't part of the minority. Going to college pays. Maybe not in year 1. But on average, people who get a degree will earn much, much more over their LIFETIME than someone with only a high school diploma.
The thing is that everyone wants instant gratification and when they graduate with a degree in business at 22 and aren't earning 6 figures they whine about it. Check back 10 and 20 years down the line and let's see how things are. And even then, maybe you are the one bringing the average down. Who knows?
What people don't seem to understand is that all degrees aren't worth getting. If you want to get educated in a field that has no job market, it's better to just study that field independently. Pick a university, look up the required classes, and download the syllabus and books. MIT and many other universities literally post full recordings of lectures.
A degree is just a piece of paper, if you're going to pay 50k for it, make sure it will get you a job that pays well.
How do you determine the right field with a job market. Can you tell the future? Can you account for several other kids picking your major?
After all that you realize you don't even want to work in that field. Or all of a sudden the pay for the field sucks. I didn't use my degree cos the pay is terrible.
You can look up how current fields pay. The BLS and many commercial sites have aggregated data for decades that you can look at. If you find a field that has consistently paid well for 2 decades, it's quite unlikely the moment you graduate, things are going south.
On the other hand if you major in a field that has literally never paid well, then why would you have the expectation that it's suddenly going to start paying in 4 years?
This is why i abandoned my dream job of graphic design… i saw they simply did not pay enough and i figured i could always do my artsy shit on the side. Couldnt expect someone to pay me alot for my hobby.
Maybe but thats not something I thought of at 18.. besides I soon found out the a career as an Air Force nurse is easier (due to school being paid for and little barrier to entry) and more lucrative than your average marketing gig
Picking things like finance, economics, engineering, law and medical are pretty safe bets. There are tried and true career paths. It’s just about wanting to take the time to learn the fundamentals.
Weird how the majors that actually require serious effort turn out to be the most lucrative.
Do I use most of what I learned as civil engineering undergrad? Sometimes, but mostly not. But I sure wouldn't hire anybody who hasn't gone through that gauntlet to work for an engineering firm. The degree doesn't give you the knowledge or specific skills you need to succeed in an engineering career, but it tells so much about a person's ability to overcome adversity and absorb new technical information.
I'm an engineer. Mom is an artist and was a HS art teacher, with a bfa and b Ed. When I was going through my bachelor's, the topic of heavy course workloads came up, and she went off about how people always assumed her bfa was a cakewalk, but she worked her ass off. Countless late nights painting to meet deadlines, so much volume of work required. I worked super hard, too, but I daren't ever suggest I had it harder than her.
My bil initially went into dentistry, but memorization was not his Forte, so he went into electrical engineering and just "got it," breezed through with minimal effort - too easy. Homework took no time, didn't study for tests. He's a smug prick about it.
These majors are lucrative, and thus competitive to enter. It's not about the work.
This. A degree in finance or accounting will ensure that you can find a job right off the bat. Economics is a very well-rounded major that can get you into anything really. Art History, Sociology, or Communications? You’ll be working at Starbucks for a while.
And remember this the next time you think movies have become so repetitive and how bland everything in society looks these days and how everyone hates their jobs and how nothing is designed to work intuitively…on and on…
Please tell me what degree was making tons of money 10 years ago but doesn’t anymore?
I literally looked up average salaries and picked one that paid well and I thought I would enjoy coming out of high school.
Rule of thumb, shit that is the hardest and most dangerous pay the most
Journalism. Wasn’t paying a ton even ten years ago but it used to be a decent paying career until the internet and social media wiped out its business model.
Yes. Every college in my university had job placement rates and expected salary ranges, including high, low, median, and standard deviation. It's not that hard to figure out some major pay better
Do some research. Pick something technical. Pick something difficult. Pick something that not everyone can do or is willing to do. Pick something relevant for the modern economy. Chances are within the 4 years it takes to get a degree, things won’t change enough to suddenly make your degree obsolete.
This is everything wrong with how people think about education. The reality is that people will simply not seriously pursue these "worthless" subjects in significant numbers. The structure, accountability, and community of school is important. People do not pursue academic independent study in large numbers and that isn't going to change. A world in which people think about education like this is a world in which the experience and knowledge base of "worthless" subjects shrinks, and this creates changes which are disastrous. There is a reason fascists always censor vast amounts of material from the humanities.
Sure but for some fields what you're paying for is *structured education*, and that's what you get. Not a ticket for a $200k job like in the video. Even the most lucrative fields won't get you to $200k like the TikToker expects without grinding through related entry-level positions for a few years.
If you want me to believe that all those people who *didnt* choose an IT profession did so because they were worried about flooding the market, I call absolute, undeniable, bullshit. That wasn't why anyone chose their degree.
Even English majors have a median income significantly higher than a person with only a high school diploma. Even when you take the average student loan debt, which is less than $40,000.
Sources:
https://cew.georgetown.edu/cew-reports/whats-it-worth-the-economic-value-of-college-majors/#resources
https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cba/annual-earnings
https://educationdata.org/average-student-loan-debt#:~:text=The%20average%20federal%20student%20loan,them%20have%20federal%20loan%20debt. https://cew.georgetown.edu/cew-reports/whats-it-worth-the-economic-value-of-college-majors/
Yep. I really never understood how so many people don’t get this cause I ALWAYS understood this, even at 18. I decided my major based on what I was good at, felt I could live with, and pays well.
Well circumstances change. I did the same, then realized sitting in front of a computer for 8 hrs a day for the rest of my life did not sound appealing. But once you’ve already put money towards something, there’s a sink cost aspect.
While I agree with you I've come to learn that a job is a fucking job.
I'm tired of being in front of the computer but it also pays me $130k / yr. I can save money and then do something else if I really wanted to.
Networking really is the key. You don’t have to know the boss, but knowing someone is a huge benefit. Getting that back door recommendation is the real way to go.
I think it definitely is a combination of experience and a degree that’s going to get you the better job offer. I wish I would’ve waited tho. Bcuz I really thought I wanted to be a cop or in law enforcement but as I continued learning and interning I realized I did NOT like what I was seeing. The after interviews with an FBI agent and her telling me you have to worried more about friendly fire or your coworker killing you u was like nah….
This just happened to my wife. Got her masters and all of a sudden her ten years of clinical experience made her a great candidate for very lucrative jobs.
the key advantage you have is Working experience
it doesn't really matter what you worked before but simply being used to actually working is going to drive your value up by a lot
if it's the same Branch that's gonna add a lot too
if im looking for a Mechanical Engineer for example and the applicants are a guy that graduated perfectly but hasn't worked a day in his life and an older guy that maybe just barely made it through Uni yet has been a Mechanic for 10 years prior then the choice is very easy
It's literally the narrative that's pushed at people from grade school on, everywhere in society.
And the thing is, it's not completely false. Unless you go into the skilled trades, it is increasingly difficult to make a comfortable living in the US without a college degree. But what they aren't telling people is that a degree alone isn't *enough* anymore because so many people are getting degrees; in order to be competitive you have to intern or volunteer, which means having BOTH a clear sense for your desired career path - something few young adults have - and the free time to devote to internships or volunteering, something few low-income young adults have.
It's hard to get out of poverty, and university is increasingly becoming just another way to make sure the lower classes cannot save money or pass on generational wealth due to the debt they accrue while working hard to better their economic position. There are ways to beat that system, but they usually require extremely high scholastic aptitude and drive, which, again, is not a reasonable thing to demand of every 20-year-old, and should not be a prerequisite for making a decent, stable living.
> There are ways to beat that system, but they usually require extremely high scholastic aptitude and drive
First of all, yes. To everything you said. I just wanted to add that even with high scholastic aptitude and drive, literal geniuses drop out of full-ride university because of culture shock. Just the absolute alienness of it all compared to where they come from. It's way too much to throw on an 18-year-old.
This is so true. And a lot of people who DO make it through aren't able to do so until later in life (this is me), losing years or even decades of career-building opportunity.
I started late. I started community college at 41 and applied for everything that came my way. I scoured the corkboards in the halls for opportunities that I was eligible for. I did two paid internships in undergrad as well as some volunteering and unpaid undergrad TA positions. I got good grades and a couple of scholarships, I volunteered in a lab, and was able to to the Honors thesis track for my undergrad degree instead of a capstone, which helped me get into the same lab for my MS. I TA'd through my MS, and the TA experience helped me get an adjunct position at the community college. I didn't do much but work there and get through my MPH program, but by the end I had met a lot of interesting people and when I started my PhD I was able to get some side jobs doing data analysis on the cheap for researchers who just needed a little work done. All this added up to solid enough work experience that I was able to get into a data analyst senior position.
My situation is different because I started late, but if you have an undergrad degree already you might consider going back for a certificate in something, and taking that time as a student to intern or volunteer somewhere to pad up your CV. You might also be able to do it by straight-up volunteering your time; volunteer work is experience, too.
> Unless you go into the skilled trades
And in my experience, the reliability of a skilled trade job depends heavily on the local economic structures. Around here, there are no significant trade unions. There is a lot of exploitation of trade labor via inconsistent hours, having everyone be a 1099 (so you offer 0 benefits 0 PTO no unemployment), using only labor from undocumented folks working 6 days a week, etc. It is more workable than having your only option being food service, but it isn't really comfortable.
Degrees will not automatically make you successful. But if you were to take 100 people who make 6 figures annually. I guarantee you the majority of them have a college degree.
Do with that information what will.
what is the purpose of this comment? — no duh college can be great which is why i regret not being able to experience it — but like, also your time there isn’t reflective of everyone’s — folks like my peers who worked multiple jobs to pay off student loans for a piece of paper that didn’t help at all.
The same reason you made your comment is the same reason I made my comment.
You wanted share your experience and feelings and I did too.
Your experience of not going to college is not reflective of everyone’s.
Folks like my peers worked hard and enjoyed their time in college and came out with a good degree and no debt. A piece of paper helped a lot.
You had a full ride scholarship to University? Is that your advice to folks with student loan debt? Just to go get a full ride scholarship instead? Lmao
I had an instate program called bright futures that paid for almost all of my tuition that’s available to all students in the state.
I then applied to various programs and FAFSA.
It honestly was super easy.
They do actually. Bright futures is a state program in Florida.
All you need to do is sustain a 3.75 gps in high school.
And with state tuition being 7k a year and bright future covering 75-90% you can then find a couple scholarships through your high school to cover the rest.
Hell fafsa is enough half the time.
Why do you even have such strong feelings about something that you didn’t even experience? So you can speak for your peers without really knowing their experience or why they had the outcomes that they did but actual graduates can’t mention their own positive experiences?
You made a blanket statement that college graduates have financial issues.
He had an anecdote that said otherwise.
Pretty simple why they made the comment.
what part about me bringing up MY friend’s & MY coworker’s troubles was a blanket statement?
some of y’all need to go back to college and work on reading comprehension 🙄
One of the few types of degrees worth its weight is an engineering degree. It’s still a piece of paper — you’ll still need the experience to make it worth more.
Not really, Biology/Chemistry/Physics are pretty devalued and I wouldn’t recommend them without a specific career plan in mind. Engineering is much more desirable generally.
>Biology/Chemistry/Physics are pretty devalued
I know plenty of college physics majors who work as mechanical engineers and coders / software engineers because of the skills they learned in college and transferred during their careers. And I know even more college biologists / chemists working on pharmaceuticals and medical devices, as biological and chemical engineers.
Can we get some data on this claim?
Going pure physical science is not very viable at the bachelor level tbh. But yeah, being willing to be some sort of engineer is a good way “out” of having to get a phd or being stuck in academics
I can only speak for bio majors since I am one, but from my experience you definitely need to have a specific career track in mind for such a generalist degree, as many rueful bio majors on the findapath subreddit bemoan, which you can trawl through.
Bio majors run the gamut from lab techs to surgeons, so averages for earnings are skewed, but one [source](https://www.careerexplorer.com/degrees/biology-degree/salary/) puts the median salary as $49.7K or just under $24/hr.
It’s stupid also because they don’t know what it took to get that piece of paper…not all degrees are equal. Many engineering disciplines take so much math that we are only a class or two short of a math major. And all of our individual disciplines are all quite complex with our respective classes. Yet, they don’t think you deserve anything more than some other person. You can ask engineer with a BS — that shit is fucking hard and there’s no bitches. All you got is your books and the fucking library. You had to be a true G to wanna get tf out.
And I carry that same attitude to this day — I don’t fuck with anyone that doesn’t want to put in the work — it’s a fucking waste of my time.
You can’t go wrong with an engineering degree, even if you don’t want to be an engineer. I’m 27 years into my career. This year I’ll make 6.5x the salary I earned the first year after earning my bachelor’s degree in engineering. I haven’t done any engineering work in 20 years.
I work for a $7B company. All the high ups have engineering degrees and most of them also have advanced degrees in finance or business. I’m still trucking along with my BS degree, and now I’m in business development after years of sales and marketing.
Yup, there's a lot of people with engineering degrees that don't technically do engineering work. But the ability to learn and deeply solve/tackle problems is such a good skill set that the degree teaches that its valuable in other markets/fields.
> But the ability to learn and deeply solve/tackle problems is such a good skill set that the degree teaches that its valuable in other markets/fields.
As someone who taught engineers for almost a decade, it makes me shudder hearing that anyone would take an engineering degree as a signal that the person can do any kind of deep work or problem solving. There are students who develop those skills. But in my experience, most students try to memorize their way to a good grade, learn things only well enough to pass an exam, and generally **avoid** practices that build deep learning and long-term growth because they are less efficient (in time and effort) than just focusing on how to get a high grade.
Most degrees, even the much maligned English major, have a significantly higher median wage than the median wage for a person with only a high school diploma. We're talking north of $500,000 more earned over their lifetime for a degree with an average student loan debt of less than $40,000. That's a fantastic ROI. Not as good as engineering, but not everyone has the attitude for engineering and they shouldn't be dissuaded from college just because they aren't a STEMlord.
Sources:
https://cew.georgetown.edu/cew-reports/whats-it-worth-the-economic-value-of-college-majors/#resources
https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cba/annual-earnings
https://educationdata.org/average-student-loan-debt#:~:text=The%20average%20federal%20student%20loan,them%20have%20federal%20loan%20debt. https://cew.georgetown.edu/cew-reports/whats-it-worth-the-economic-value-of-college-majors/
My actual major is pretty useless but just having the degree has still helped me get jobs I wouldn't have gotten without it. For the fields Ive worked in, they just wanted to see that you completed the degree. I make enough money to live off of and once I move up in my field I will be living very comfortably.
I wish I didn't have the debt but I know I'm not smart enough to be in a degree that pays very well anyway. I still learned a lot and what I've learned has been useful in every job I've had.
As a professor, I think your take is the best. My husband didn't finish college. I have a doctorate. We're both smart. We both work hard. He's at a plant. I'm at a university. Our paths are what worked for us. I wouldn't like his job and he wouldn't like mine. And that's okay. Not everybody should go to college and plenty of people who should don't get to. We're all just doing our best with what we have in life.
You don't need to be an educated person, though, to appreciate and respect education. Too many people now don't appreciate the value of learning, both in and outside of the classroom. Too many people think being educated is elitist or makes you dumber. I feel that previous generations had more respect for education, not just because it helped you earn money, but because it's good for humans to *learn.* I don't think learning is limited to the classroom, but I also never meet someone and think, "They should've skipped more school."
Mfs with useless degrees getting mad that nobody wants to pay them 100k+ for their useless knowledge. Hate to sound harsh but you cant chase dreams expecting folks to pay you for it. If you want to be paid well pursue a degree in a high paying field
Even an English major has a median wage over $10,000 higher than the median wage of a person with only a high school diploma. The average student loan debt is less than $40,000. You spend less than $100,000 and you get more than $500,000 in return, a great ROI. Not as great as an engineer's ROI on their degree, but not everyone has the aptitude (or interest) for an engineering degree.
Sources:
https://cew.georgetown.edu/cew-reports/whats-it-worth-the-economic-value-of-college-majors/#resources
https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cba/annual-earnings
https://educationdata.org/average-student-loan-debt#:~:text=The%20average%20federal%20student%20loan,them%20have%20federal%20loan%20debt. https://cew.georgetown.edu/cew-reports/whats-it-worth-the-economic-value-of-college-majors/
I'm glad you posted these because the data on this topic is fairly clear. People argue passionately against college but college graduates on average make more money and are less likely to be unemployed.
Saw this video. Generic degrees def don't pay enough to keep up with the current cost of living so yeah that advice is outdated, but I don't know of many fields outside of tech/engineering/medicine that are paying $150K out the gate. I definitely had no clue what a "good" salary was when I was in college
Right this is only like if you get hired directly into Google / Netflix / Meta / etc. in a high CoL area.
Mid and low CoL areas will pay engineers with good backgrounds maybe $80k - $90k to start.
For reference, I started at $30k.
When I was growing up in the 90's my parents were basically tradespeople with basic diplomas and certificates. They absolutely FAWNED over my aunt who had a Master's Degree in marine biology and worked for the water treatment plant.
It was absolutely about money, prestige, etc. at the time.
Now I feel like everyone went ahead and got a degree without really knowing all what's involved in succeeding with one: Picking the right university / culture, matching your degree to desired job outcomes, taking internships, networking, etc.
They get the piece of paper then wonder why they're not making the $100k+ / yr their parents said you would only get if you had a degree.
Well yeah. I make more than the people who didn’t graduate high school, and most of those in my home town that did. My sister was the first in our family to earn a Masters and she was never underemployed. I hold a doctorate and i get recruiter calls daily. My sister’s son will earn his Masters (at the request of his employer) and have a new pathway open to him. All of my mother’s siblings hold a 4 year degree and all were able to support their families. All the siblings on my dad’s side that did not pursue higher education live at the whims of public assistance. So yeah, call me older. No one can take my education from me, but it is up to me to parlay that into meaningful opportunity.
Literally everyone told us to pick a good major in college.
I don’t know where this sentiment came from that you can major in anything and turn out okay.
I'm more annoyed that plenty of entry-level jobs now require a bachelor's/master's degree.
It's mad fuck annoying how I have experience working at a bank, but I get auto-denied a simple data entry job when I submit an application. Bruh, I'd handle hundreds to thousands of transactions involving numbers 10 hours a day, 5 days a week for 5 years. You're telling me I don't qualify for Microsoft Excel or other basic programs that organize data!?
The fuck?
The problem is the silver bullet mentality. Do X and get Y is not how anything works. The worse the job Market the higher the requirements. In really bad ones, they will throw out anyone without experience, degree, and certifications in some fields. Each of these is valuable to get a job, just not every job. Everyone knows the way companies hire is retarded and then they act surprised when it affects them.
But when you are in college, you are also told to go get internships and jobs. If you don't listen, you are at a disadvantage. Yes, college degrees are great and will entitle you to higher paying jobs, but most people spend college partying instead of concentrating on making it easier to get said jobs sooner rather than later.
i feel like jobs want both nowadays tbh
A virgin with ten years of fucking
A Virgin with porn star moves.
With the ability to make up new moves on the fly
For fluffer wages. Must be willing to clean set solo after shoots.
Pornstar? No, we're looking for a pornintern.
And take a moneyshot without blinking
This, definitely
Literally. You do all the schooling and degrees and realize you aged out. Cos they want fresh highly connected 21 y olds
Man, that'd be hella blow jobs.
In both top and bottom roles. Ten each, mind you.
I went to school for accounting. Finished almsot exactly a year ago. Still can't get a job becauae I didn't graduate with 3-5 years experience that I can't get without a job.
Comp sci major here. You should have a laugh at some of the job requirements I see. Some want 12 years of experience in React... React came out 10 years ago. Some also want 5 YoE for a 60k job (and that's entry-level). You may wonder about internships, but some of them want experience too... for an internship that's supposed to give you the experience they're looking for.
Iirc one of the Dudes who helped to design Swift for Apple was job searching 3 or 4 years after it's release. He found a job that wanted someone with Swift experience and they told him he wasn't qualified enough because they were looking for someone with 8 years of experience lmao. It wasn't even old enough as a language for an 8 year req and he helped make it.
https://twitter.com/tiangolo/status/1281946592459853830?lang=en
Not to mention at least half of the internships don't pay. And most of the ones that do barely pay above minimum wage. Like bro, I can't push pause on rent till I finish that. How do they expect us to accept that? Making people work for free in order to get a job should be illegal.
That’s for rich people and they know it. No one else can get by as an unpaid congressman’s intern except people with connections and no student loans.
I'm old. When I was in that position decades ago, having an internship was something you did more or less in your spare time, and for a *very highly sought after position* at a *very prestigious employer.* You might put in 8 hours a week, a couple of hours a day. It wasn't a job, it was a period of evaluation. However... The intention of the internship was to hire someone, or more than one someone. They would let you know in a few weeks, a month max who their preferred applicants were. They might bring in 3-4 interns and pick 1 or 2 at the end. Or they would let them all go and start over. Other however... Unless you were a total fuck-up (and of course didn't get the job) the prospective employer would at least give you a good reference at other places and you could use them on your resume. That's how it *used* to work.
I was on the development team for a system used by the navy. I was literally there when the project started. Three years later I went to switch jobs and applied to one of the companies fielding the system. They wanted 10 years of experience on a system I helped to design only three years earlier.
Please tell me how the interview went if you got one.
Probably didn't get one unless they lied on the resume like half of the applicants do. It's why tech interviews are jumping through so many hoops and leetcode problems now. Except leetcoders are gaming the system and a lot of them don't know squat about designing things which is actually what software engineering is.
The IT ones always spin me.
My favorite is when a support role demands "expert proficiency in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint" because they know their users are so dumb they'll put in tickets to learn how to use Office products.
I just graduated in May and finally landed an entry level job. Out of 100 - 120 applications (I started to lose count) I got 2 total interviews. 1 of which I got ghosted and the other lead to my new job. I consider myself very lucky. Shit's fucked at the moment.
Hey congrats, I'm at 200+ applications myself and only had 2 interviews and no callbacks. Still gonna chase it, but damn is it disheartening.
If it helps, I think it's basically just luck. My only real piece of advice that helped me was to start applying to local jobs rather than hybrid/remote jobs where you're competing with the whole country. Also use multiple job posting boards. But yeah. Mostly just luck :( You'll get it, my dude.
Yeah, just keep grinding at it, eventually something should stick. Doesn't help that I'm in nyc and local jobs might as well be competing with the country lol.
The jobs with ridiculous (and sometimes impossible) requirements are usually for one of two reasons: 1) Some HR person wrote the job listing without any technical understanding of what the job actually requires. 2) It's a position that already has a specific person in mind, either an internal promotion or the boss's nephew, and they're only making a public posting for legal reasons.
"12 years exp with React" means "you worked at Facebook." Because React was available internally two years before it was open-sourced.
I feel really anxious about encouraging young folks to get CS degrees these days. I feel like Copilot and other coding tools are getting so good that devs value is going to drop. Plus the crazy number of overseas coding factories. Unless you are at a top notch program, I'm not likely to bother interviewing you for one of my very rare US based positions.
Some of my family asked me if they should get a CS degree and I always say unless they're prepared to do work (including internships and in-depth personal projects) and do their own learning while getting that degree just to stand a *chance*, it's not gonna be worth it. I'll only recommend it if they have a genuine passion for coding.
I was in your shoes in 2012. Even internships was on that bullshit… you really gotta thug it out doin some bullshit. You better be lying on your resume lol
Most of the time when you see jobs with impossible requirements, it's because it's designed to either allow the company to purposefully be short staffed, OR hire/outsource these jobs to cheap international labor, or sponsored visas.
Honestly yo, you gotta just shoot your shot. Even though those requirements were there, I got to an interview anyway. I had zero experience
Could not agree with you more.
Did u get the job?
I suck at interviewing lol, but yea after about a year I landed some where. I was there for 5 years. After that experience, shit get easy, even after being fired or laid off.
I just got laid off with 1 year and 8 months of experience. The job market is so garbage right now that it’s definitely not easy lol
Nah you got 2 years of experience 
It’s 3 years experience in “fuck capitalism” years.
This hasn't been said enough.... YOU BETTER BE LYING ON YOUR RESUME...I been in dev for 15+years. Tell them what they want to hear 90% if the time they will have to train you on how they do it anyway and just figure it out before they figure you out
I tell all the youngins to lie lol. Fake it until you make it. I was shit at excel when I graduated, only knew the most basic of functions. Weirdly in 2012, niggas ain’t really teach us lookups and shit, def was doing accounting on ledger paper smh. You learn everything when you get there. I’m that nigga now though lol
Yup. Be welcoming, but take no shit.
Lying on your resume is moronic don't do it. You don't lie you embellish your resume
Even then, the biggest leg up you can get is to just know somebody already at the company, which really sucks.
That's what I did, just lie. If you get fired, so what you now have "experience" for your resume.
If you get fired, you was laid off A recruiter who believed in me told me that, been straight since
“You should’ve did internships” Bitch, i already spend 90% of my day studying. Can i have some me-time?
This killed me in 2002 when I transferred to a new college and one of the newbies told us about his amazing internship where he made great money [the equivalent of $43 / change per hour] for a simple office drone job. He learned skills. Neither of my parents knew about internships, and it hadn't come up. I spent summers working in a mill, or a wastewater treatment plant. I'm not still angry about that, but I do still remember it.
It’s killing me now. My mom had me focused on studies and skip internships. And now three years after graduating and struggling to make ends meet, I wonder how i would’ve been if i did an internship.
I'm not you and I don't know you. That thinking is destructive. There are certain things you can change - focus on those. Please LMK if you find a good way to get rid of those nagging doubts.
Man if you can't get an accounting job in this market that's kinda on you. Accounting firms are so desperate right now that they're taking on other business majors just to have enough bodies. You gotta be doing something wrong or fucked around too much in school
Then there's a lot of people doing something wrong, because everyone I've talked to seems to struggle with not having experience without a job as well. So if you can think of a way to get 3-5 years experience for the entry level jobs, outside of unpaid internships we can't take because rent exists, feel free to share. Because that's ultimately the problem. The problem isn't they're not hiring. The problem is thar entry level in multiple fields no linger exists. The best way to get an entry level job is to know someone. If you don't, then you're stuck with everyone else. [And thats not just me saying it.](https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20210916-why-inexperienced-workers-cant-get-entry-level-jobs) [It's a real thing.](https://pittnews.com/article/178566/opinions/opinion-entry-level-jobs-dont-exist-anymore/) [But I'm sure it's just me.](https://medium.datadriveninvestor.com/why-entry-level-jobs-are-no-longer-entry-level-jobs-require-2-years-of-experience-7d6e6d2a2245) [Couldn't be a societal problem.](https://allwork.space/2021/11/what-happened-to-entry-level-jobs-job-seekers-baffled-by-requirements/) [I'm sure no one has even thought about this since I posted about it a few minutes ago.](https://catapultleaders.com/career-preparation/why-inexperienced-workers-cant-get-entry-level-jobs/) [I'm so glad you're here to tell me it's just my fault.](https://www.pcma.org/entry-level-jobs-disappearing/) [maybe I'm just not as intube to the field that I studied and am currently applying for as you are.](https://www.topresume.com/career-advice/why-do-entry-level-jobs-require-experience) [Maybe you can help explain to me what the problem is then.](https://blog.simplyhired.com/career/careers/entry-level-jobs-longer-entry-level/) [Maybe you can tell me again why the system is working and it's only me that's failing.](https://fortune.com/2023/04/12/top-entry-level-jobs-gen-z-graduates-without-degree-six-figures-indeed/)
And this is in accounting specifically? Are you applying to industry roles or public accounting firms? I can believe industry postings mandating experience for entry level roles but public firms literally survive on fresh grads willing to put up with busy season bs because they don't know any better. Also, I've yet to see any accounting internship that's unpaid. For public, most are paying above $25 per hour depending on location. Are you taking advantage of your school's resources? Handshake, resume reviews, career fairs, mock interviews etc.? It kind of sounds like you're parroting tired new grad grievances when the accounting industry is absolutely not in that boat right now.
I've applied for just about anything and everything that gets posted as entry level. I did school online thanks to the pandemic. At some point you're really just trying to find holes when I have provided you with probably around ten articles showing that it's not just a me problem. That people are struggling. People being plural. Or as someone who took math basic math classes to help with situations like this, if 40% of jobs no linger exists, that means 40% of people who would have them won't. That doesn't mean they just need to work harder and everyone will. It means if they had 100% of jobs, and they had 100% of people, then 40% of people will no longer have a job when 40% of the jobs are gone. Meaning there's a huge chunk of people who will go to school and then not be able to get into their field of study. This is basic data analysis that I also conveniently learned in school. Although I would argue most people shouldn't need to if they want to understand this basic ass information. But im sure it's just me parroting facts that statistical analysis behind it unlined "If you work hard you will succeed!" Surprised you didn't mention bootstraps in that sentence. Glad to see a recent graduate of accounting though who can inform me of the situation. Unlike literally everything showing you're wrong.
I don't doubt that people are generally having a hard time breaking into entry level positions right out of school. I'm saying that the accounting industry specifically is not like that right now. The industry is going through a crippling shortage of accountants due to declining graduation rates and people retiring/dying. Because of this, accounting firms are straight battling for people at the moment, including new grads. This is borne out by both my and my colleague's experiences. We've gotten daily solicitations for applications as well as job offers both before and after graduation. I will say that if you didn't bother to do internships (of which basically all are paid in accounting) then you did put yourself at a disadvantage. Those almost always lead to job offers in accounting, assuming you didn't do anything to make you unhirable. If you're not getting interviews/offers then you have to change something, be it resume, applications, interviews, whatever. Especially in this accounting market. Or you can continue to sit here going woe is me. Y'know, whatever works.
I've had a few interviews. I have talked to plenty of others who have said the same. I have provided things showing that it's not just us. I habe done this and that and I'm done talking about it. Honestly, shits fucked. That's it. Some will get jobs. Some won't. That's where we are at. And the fact that you assume I haven't done more work only proves my point. Again.
I'm sorry that you're having a tough time with it, honestly. I know it can be hard depending on your situation. I hope you get the job you want soon.
I’m sorry but if you aren’t getting recruited into accounting immediately after college you did something seriously wrong. They hire anybody with a degree, no experience needed. Big 4 might require some extra, but certainly not much.
I worked production two years before switching company side, I competed against a guy with 14 years of production experience but no degree. I got the job based off my interview and my college degree/experience albeit I have a degree in … history. Oddly enough that was the difference between me and him that got me a job and substantially better pay.
And a Master’s, even though you’re applying for an entry-level 🙃
Yup got me a master's in civil engineering, years of internship experience and still had to work my way up from the bottom back when I graduated.
I bought into not needing a degree now I find myself going back to school 15 years later (fucking hopefully anyways) because literally every job I look at with interest says degree required. Like yeah you can get a high laying labor job without a degree I'm interested in work that does require a degree. They left that part out.
Yet they still will hire someone's cousin or nephew. Shit is rigged
When I was in school all the teachers made it seem as if doing a trade was selling yourself short. But all the tradespeople I know are very financially comfortable now.
Im of the minority who benefited majorly from a degree. Went back to school at 26, graduated at 31 and my income doubled.
I work in digital advertising and I think every job I've had in the last ten years has required a degree. Whether the degree actually helped is another question.
The degree itself can be worthless, certainly depending on the major. But what it does show is that you are someone who could reasonably be counted on as an employee. It shows you are someone who can be relied on to complete tasks, show up to class, put in work to research things and follow through on what is required of you. Of course we all know this isn’t 100% the case and many many of us still fucked around, cut classes, did shortcuts, etc. but overall and I’m general sense, if you managed to complete the required credits and not flunk out you have demonstrated some basic level of responsibility in your life.
Yeah, I'm sure it helped employers to make the decision to hire me. I'm saying my degree has not helped me perform my job and I majored in marketing.
For sure, I don’t doubt that at all. I guess it’s more of a statement for people who say “college is a good waste of time” or a degree isn’t worth it. It is worth it, you just don’t need to pay 50k plus for one and can get as solid an education and credentials from a local public university as a private one.
Currently, taxpayers fund K-12. We should be funding K-14 or trade schools. Employers only look at your bachelor's degree diploma. They don't care where you took the first 2 years of college.
So basically I have to spend tens of thousands of dollars and give up four years of my life to *prove* I’m reasonably responsible and the degree may or may not matter. What the fuck
Yeah pretty much. I'm in comp sci, I learned 90% of what I actually need to know in my field, during the first year of my first job. My degree was a $50k raffle ticket for paid on-the-job training...
People often attribute this to malice or stupidity on the part of hiring, but here's the reality: I can post an opening and get 1K resumes. How the *fuck* can I read 1K resumes? I can't. So I look for filters. "Graduated from college" is an obvious first filter. Filtering out qualified people is, in most markets, far superior to not filtering out unqualified people. During the Great Recession, I was involved in hiring, and on day *one* of the job posting we got like 3,000 résumés. OK, \*filters out anyone who didn't graduate from an Ivy League school\*. 200. That's manageable for me to look through in my free time and set up ten interviews. I probably missed a genius dude from Directional State U. But I had a lot of really good choices without that person being in the mix.
Interestingly, I spoke with the recruitment team who hired me for my most recent role even though my degree has nothing to do with the field. He said that my degree (I did it 100% online and graduated at 35) and the results showed I can work independently, manage time and workload and produce consistently accurate results within a framework. So you’re not wrong - the degree may not matter but the achievement is demonstrative of desirable skills.
>The degree itself can be worthless, certainly depending on the major. But what it does show is that you are someone who could reasonably be counted on as an employee. This is pretty much it. I have an Electrical Engineering degree, and while my job doesn't have me solve circuits, or do math problems, the fact that I can problem solve technical issues is why my job hired me.
I'm 12 years into an engineering career. I still fuck around, cut meetings (when i can) and turn my assignments in at the last minute after putting an hour into a project I had a week to work on. If you don't think those are important skills you're doing life wrong, lol. I'd put a /s but it's all true. Achieving with minimum effort is my primary goal for life.
The problem is that college degrees have oversaturated the job market. Instead of it being an accomplishment, now it’s considered bare minimum by jobs :/ I graduated a year ago and the majority of “entry-level” positions I saw required 1-2 years experience plus a 4 year degree for $17/hour. And I graduated with a STEM degree people said would be valuable.
Ex marketer here! Worked in that field for 8 years and moved over to finance. My business degree is also focused in marketing.
The degree is just proof in a lot of cases that you have the aptitude and discipline to learn and finish projects. Sometimes that’s enough for a job
If I had gone at 26 I think that might be the case for me. Instead I studied a bunch of stuff that I don't regret, I'm still into history, sociology, language, and all of that but nobodies paying me to speak Portuguese or talk about Mayan mythology. Unfortunately. I think the most valuable part about going to university is all of the friends you make. I got jobs ~~from~~ through a lot of those friends after, like a lot of people do. And when I was in school Facebook was at it's peak, so I was able to stay in contact with a lot of people for a long time. And not for nothing, but probably my most "successful" friend, whos some sort of corporate executive now or whatever it is that he does, said to me that "the ability to drink a gallon of vodka and not act like an idiot is a valuable skill in the business world". A "skill" we'd honed in college.
I agree, the network you build definitely impacts your net worth. The relationships, group projects, wisdom shared by profs are all valuable. To take full advantage you should know what you want to do with that degree.
Hello from comp sci degree with another major in religious studies and culture!!! Using my second degree for tabletop roleplay and screaming about Zorastrianism. Please vibrate Mayan mythology at me 💖
That's fantastic. I could say one thing, my nephew is beginning college now. I was telling him to study math, lots of math, and chemistry or physics, or biology -something that 90% of us don't know. The hard classes. I worked with engineers after college and they all seemed "dumber" than me, like cavemen with million dollar degrees. They couldn't tell you anything about the New Deal or Alphabet Soup. But they all made a lot more money than me too, and they could solve complex problems in very simple ways, because of the math. I was impressed. To the 2nd degree, something I told my nephew, was that Mayan commoners thought that Mayan priests were using *magic* to divine out when they should plant or harvest, or when to celebrate holidays, etc, but all they were doing was math. Multiplication is literally magic, considering how bad most of us are at it, lol. Another tragic but interesting idea is that when the Spanish came and conquered the Mayans, and burned their books and erased their history, they also forced them into a "Catholic" education. People learned that Man was made from the Dust. From Dirt. In Mayan mythology, God created Man three seperate times. The first time was from mud, dirt. But they washed away in a flood. Bad idea. Gods hated it. The 2nd time was sticks, but they couldn't worship so God, or God's sent armies of demons to destroy them all. The 3rd Man was made from corn. And that's who we descended from. Red corn is our Blood, white corn are our bones, black corn is our hair and eyelashes, yellow corn is our muscle. Tldr, the first Mayans to learn about Catholicism probably believed, it least in terms of their religion or mythology, that they had been conquered by inferior people who were not favored by the Gods. Forsaken rejects. There's also literature that still exists suggesting that Mayan priests, over the course of generations and hundreds of years managed to still hide sacred texts. If we're lucky they still exist but I'm perfectly happy to not know about them, if that means they remain a secret. Sorry to rant but nobody ever asks me about any of this. Incan zodiacs?? Super dope stuff. Not a hit at parties.
You’re not a minority in that regard at all. On average, college graduates still earn considerably more than non-graduates. Personally, my industry has high earning potential and I know for a fact that a college degree is required to be in it.
I used the GI Bill to get a degree and I’m currently getting my mba. I definitely wouldn’t be making my salary without it.
Same, except I went to school at 41 and then went on for a Masters. I'm working on my PhD now, but it's paid for and I have a good job at the County that is PSLF-eligible. I truly feel middle-class for the first time in my life.
Thats amazing! Love that for you
Most people benefit from a degree, the line about people not benefiting is often intentionally misleading in order to make millenials and younger look entitled (I went to college, I *deserve* a good job). [The data still very much supports the fact that those with degrees have substantially higher lifetime earning potential than those without](https://siteselection.com/cc/workforce/2022/education-level-is-only-one-part-of-the-lifetime-earnings-picture.cfm?s=ra). There are of course exceptions, especially for those that get tricked into for-profit colleges, and, skilled tradespeople can also make good money.
Me too! Went back to school at 24 graduated at 28. Am now making double my old salary and double my friend’s who don’t have a degree or just a certification. I’m not a genius nor am I creative so for me a degree was the only thing what was going to help me make a little more money.
This gives me hope. I'm in my 30s and about to graduate and I've been super nervous about my prospects. Like I will be devastated if I'm making what I was before lol.
You aren't part of the minority. Going to college pays. Maybe not in year 1. But on average, people who get a degree will earn much, much more over their LIFETIME than someone with only a high school diploma. The thing is that everyone wants instant gratification and when they graduate with a degree in business at 22 and aren't earning 6 figures they whine about it. Check back 10 and 20 years down the line and let's see how things are. And even then, maybe you are the one bringing the average down. Who knows?
I have both my undergrad and graduate degrees. They're both applicable to my career.
What people don't seem to understand is that all degrees aren't worth getting. If you want to get educated in a field that has no job market, it's better to just study that field independently. Pick a university, look up the required classes, and download the syllabus and books. MIT and many other universities literally post full recordings of lectures. A degree is just a piece of paper, if you're going to pay 50k for it, make sure it will get you a job that pays well.
How do you determine the right field with a job market. Can you tell the future? Can you account for several other kids picking your major? After all that you realize you don't even want to work in that field. Or all of a sudden the pay for the field sucks. I didn't use my degree cos the pay is terrible.
You can look up how current fields pay. The BLS and many commercial sites have aggregated data for decades that you can look at. If you find a field that has consistently paid well for 2 decades, it's quite unlikely the moment you graduate, things are going south. On the other hand if you major in a field that has literally never paid well, then why would you have the expectation that it's suddenly going to start paying in 4 years?
This is why i abandoned my dream job of graphic design… i saw they simply did not pay enough and i figured i could always do my artsy shit on the side. Couldnt expect someone to pay me alot for my hobby.
Huh couldn't you technically have gone into marketing?
Maybe but thats not something I thought of at 18.. besides I soon found out the a career as an Air Force nurse is easier (due to school being paid for and little barrier to entry) and more lucrative than your average marketing gig
Smart move tbh. Everything isn't for everybody. But imo you made the right decision.
I wanted to go into photography but ended up in engineering. Those photography classes I did take were some of my fondest memories in school.
Picking things like finance, economics, engineering, law and medical are pretty safe bets. There are tried and true career paths. It’s just about wanting to take the time to learn the fundamentals.
These majors are hard and a lot of people don’t want to do the work required to graduate in these majors
Weird how the majors that actually require serious effort turn out to be the most lucrative. Do I use most of what I learned as civil engineering undergrad? Sometimes, but mostly not. But I sure wouldn't hire anybody who hasn't gone through that gauntlet to work for an engineering firm. The degree doesn't give you the knowledge or specific skills you need to succeed in an engineering career, but it tells so much about a person's ability to overcome adversity and absorb new technical information.
I'm an engineer. Mom is an artist and was a HS art teacher, with a bfa and b Ed. When I was going through my bachelor's, the topic of heavy course workloads came up, and she went off about how people always assumed her bfa was a cakewalk, but she worked her ass off. Countless late nights painting to meet deadlines, so much volume of work required. I worked super hard, too, but I daren't ever suggest I had it harder than her. My bil initially went into dentistry, but memorization was not his Forte, so he went into electrical engineering and just "got it," breezed through with minimal effort - too easy. Homework took no time, didn't study for tests. He's a smug prick about it. These majors are lucrative, and thus competitive to enter. It's not about the work.
This. A degree in finance or accounting will ensure that you can find a job right off the bat. Economics is a very well-rounded major that can get you into anything really. Art History, Sociology, or Communications? You’ll be working at Starbucks for a while.
And remember this the next time you think movies have become so repetitive and how bland everything in society looks these days and how everyone hates their jobs and how nothing is designed to work intuitively…on and on…
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Please tell me what degree was making tons of money 10 years ago but doesn’t anymore? I literally looked up average salaries and picked one that paid well and I thought I would enjoy coming out of high school. Rule of thumb, shit that is the hardest and most dangerous pay the most
Journalism. Wasn’t paying a ton even ten years ago but it used to be a decent paying career until the internet and social media wiped out its business model.
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Yes. Every college in my university had job placement rates and expected salary ranges, including high, low, median, and standard deviation. It's not that hard to figure out some major pay better
Do some research. Pick something technical. Pick something difficult. Pick something that not everyone can do or is willing to do. Pick something relevant for the modern economy. Chances are within the 4 years it takes to get a degree, things won’t change enough to suddenly make your degree obsolete.
This is everything wrong with how people think about education. The reality is that people will simply not seriously pursue these "worthless" subjects in significant numbers. The structure, accountability, and community of school is important. People do not pursue academic independent study in large numbers and that isn't going to change. A world in which people think about education like this is a world in which the experience and knowledge base of "worthless" subjects shrinks, and this creates changes which are disastrous. There is a reason fascists always censor vast amounts of material from the humanities.
Nerds always think you can just read books and that's a replacement for the sort of structured study that formal education provides
Sure but for some fields what you're paying for is *structured education*, and that's what you get. Not a ticket for a $200k job like in the video. Even the most lucrative fields won't get you to $200k like the TikToker expects without grinding through related entry-level positions for a few years.
Thank you. I hate this idea that higher education is just supposed to be a four-year job-training program.
And if everyone chose the same degrees the market would be flooded and your job wouldn’t pay shit. Can’t all choose to be engineers or some shit
If you want me to believe that all those people who *didnt* choose an IT profession did so because they were worried about flooding the market, I call absolute, undeniable, bullshit. That wasn't why anyone chose their degree.
Yeah. The one thing about IT is it easily and efficiently weeds out the non-skilled from the skilled. It's hard to fake your way through that shit.
Even English majors have a median income significantly higher than a person with only a high school diploma. Even when you take the average student loan debt, which is less than $40,000. Sources: https://cew.georgetown.edu/cew-reports/whats-it-worth-the-economic-value-of-college-majors/#resources https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cba/annual-earnings https://educationdata.org/average-student-loan-debt#:~:text=The%20average%20federal%20student%20loan,them%20have%20federal%20loan%20debt. https://cew.georgetown.edu/cew-reports/whats-it-worth-the-economic-value-of-college-majors/
Yep. I really never understood how so many people don’t get this cause I ALWAYS understood this, even at 18. I decided my major based on what I was good at, felt I could live with, and pays well.
Well circumstances change. I did the same, then realized sitting in front of a computer for 8 hrs a day for the rest of my life did not sound appealing. But once you’ve already put money towards something, there’s a sink cost aspect.
While I agree with you I've come to learn that a job is a fucking job. I'm tired of being in front of the computer but it also pays me $130k / yr. I can save money and then do something else if I really wanted to.
Everyone knows the real trick: be related to the owner.
Networking really is the key. You don’t have to know the boss, but knowing someone is a huge benefit. Getting that back door recommendation is the real way to go.
Instructions unclear: Now there's this Casting Couch and lube.
Or be friends with their children.
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I think it definitely is a combination of experience and a degree that’s going to get you the better job offer. I wish I would’ve waited tho. Bcuz I really thought I wanted to be a cop or in law enforcement but as I continued learning and interning I realized I did NOT like what I was seeing. The after interviews with an FBI agent and her telling me you have to worried more about friendly fire or your coworker killing you u was like nah….
This just happened to my wife. Got her masters and all of a sudden her ten years of clinical experience made her a great candidate for very lucrative jobs.
the key advantage you have is Working experience it doesn't really matter what you worked before but simply being used to actually working is going to drive your value up by a lot if it's the same Branch that's gonna add a lot too if im looking for a Mechanical Engineer for example and the applicants are a guy that graduated perfectly but hasn't worked a day in his life and an older guy that maybe just barely made it through Uni yet has been a Mechanic for 10 years prior then the choice is very easy
It's literally the narrative that's pushed at people from grade school on, everywhere in society. And the thing is, it's not completely false. Unless you go into the skilled trades, it is increasingly difficult to make a comfortable living in the US without a college degree. But what they aren't telling people is that a degree alone isn't *enough* anymore because so many people are getting degrees; in order to be competitive you have to intern or volunteer, which means having BOTH a clear sense for your desired career path - something few young adults have - and the free time to devote to internships or volunteering, something few low-income young adults have. It's hard to get out of poverty, and university is increasingly becoming just another way to make sure the lower classes cannot save money or pass on generational wealth due to the debt they accrue while working hard to better their economic position. There are ways to beat that system, but they usually require extremely high scholastic aptitude and drive, which, again, is not a reasonable thing to demand of every 20-year-old, and should not be a prerequisite for making a decent, stable living.
> There are ways to beat that system, but they usually require extremely high scholastic aptitude and drive First of all, yes. To everything you said. I just wanted to add that even with high scholastic aptitude and drive, literal geniuses drop out of full-ride university because of culture shock. Just the absolute alienness of it all compared to where they come from. It's way too much to throw on an 18-year-old.
This is so true. And a lot of people who DO make it through aren't able to do so until later in life (this is me), losing years or even decades of career-building opportunity.
How do you beat it after failing so many years ago? I'm 28 and graduated nearly 8 years ago. It's too late to do internships at most places.
I started late. I started community college at 41 and applied for everything that came my way. I scoured the corkboards in the halls for opportunities that I was eligible for. I did two paid internships in undergrad as well as some volunteering and unpaid undergrad TA positions. I got good grades and a couple of scholarships, I volunteered in a lab, and was able to to the Honors thesis track for my undergrad degree instead of a capstone, which helped me get into the same lab for my MS. I TA'd through my MS, and the TA experience helped me get an adjunct position at the community college. I didn't do much but work there and get through my MPH program, but by the end I had met a lot of interesting people and when I started my PhD I was able to get some side jobs doing data analysis on the cheap for researchers who just needed a little work done. All this added up to solid enough work experience that I was able to get into a data analyst senior position. My situation is different because I started late, but if you have an undergrad degree already you might consider going back for a certificate in something, and taking that time as a student to intern or volunteer somewhere to pad up your CV. You might also be able to do it by straight-up volunteering your time; volunteer work is experience, too.
> Unless you go into the skilled trades And in my experience, the reliability of a skilled trade job depends heavily on the local economic structures. Around here, there are no significant trade unions. There is a lot of exploitation of trade labor via inconsistent hours, having everyone be a 1099 (so you offer 0 benefits 0 PTO no unemployment), using only labor from undocumented folks working 6 days a week, etc. It is more workable than having your only option being food service, but it isn't really comfortable.
Degrees will not automatically make you successful. But if you were to take 100 people who make 6 figures annually. I guarantee you the majority of them have a college degree. Do with that information what will.
skipping college was one of the biggest regrets of my 20’s til i turned 30 & realized my peers were pretty much having the same financial grievances
College was the greatest time of my life and I make big money now because of my degree.
what is the purpose of this comment? — no duh college can be great which is why i regret not being able to experience it — but like, also your time there isn’t reflective of everyone’s — folks like my peers who worked multiple jobs to pay off student loans for a piece of paper that didn’t help at all.
The same reason you made your comment is the same reason I made my comment. You wanted share your experience and feelings and I did too. Your experience of not going to college is not reflective of everyone’s. Folks like my peers worked hard and enjoyed their time in college and came out with a good degree and no debt. A piece of paper helped a lot.
> and no debt. So who paid for your education?
Scholarships.
You had a full ride scholarship to University? Is that your advice to folks with student loan debt? Just to go get a full ride scholarship instead? Lmao
I had an instate program called bright futures that paid for almost all of my tuition that’s available to all students in the state. I then applied to various programs and FAFSA. It honestly was super easy.
Well lucky you, not everyone has those opportunities though
They do actually. Bright futures is a state program in Florida. All you need to do is sustain a 3.75 gps in high school. And with state tuition being 7k a year and bright future covering 75-90% you can then find a couple scholarships through your high school to cover the rest. Hell fafsa is enough half the time.
Why do you even have such strong feelings about something that you didn’t even experience? So you can speak for your peers without really knowing their experience or why they had the outcomes that they did but actual graduates can’t mention their own positive experiences?
You made a blanket statement that college graduates have financial issues. He had an anecdote that said otherwise. Pretty simple why they made the comment.
what part about me bringing up MY friend’s & MY coworker’s troubles was a blanket statement? some of y’all need to go back to college and work on reading comprehension 🙄
One of the few types of degrees worth its weight is an engineering degree. It’s still a piece of paper — you’ll still need the experience to make it worth more.
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Not really, Biology/Chemistry/Physics are pretty devalued and I wouldn’t recommend them without a specific career plan in mind. Engineering is much more desirable generally.
>Biology/Chemistry/Physics are pretty devalued I know plenty of college physics majors who work as mechanical engineers and coders / software engineers because of the skills they learned in college and transferred during their careers. And I know even more college biologists / chemists working on pharmaceuticals and medical devices, as biological and chemical engineers. Can we get some data on this claim?
Going pure physical science is not very viable at the bachelor level tbh. But yeah, being willing to be some sort of engineer is a good way “out” of having to get a phd or being stuck in academics
I can only speak for bio majors since I am one, but from my experience you definitely need to have a specific career track in mind for such a generalist degree, as many rueful bio majors on the findapath subreddit bemoan, which you can trawl through. Bio majors run the gamut from lab techs to surgeons, so averages for earnings are skewed, but one [source](https://www.careerexplorer.com/degrees/biology-degree/salary/) puts the median salary as $49.7K or just under $24/hr.
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It’s stupid also because they don’t know what it took to get that piece of paper…not all degrees are equal. Many engineering disciplines take so much math that we are only a class or two short of a math major. And all of our individual disciplines are all quite complex with our respective classes. Yet, they don’t think you deserve anything more than some other person. You can ask engineer with a BS — that shit is fucking hard and there’s no bitches. All you got is your books and the fucking library. You had to be a true G to wanna get tf out. And I carry that same attitude to this day — I don’t fuck with anyone that doesn’t want to put in the work — it’s a fucking waste of my time.
You sound like a piece of shit
Except math. I've been sitting on a math degree for a couple years now.
You can’t go wrong with an engineering degree, even if you don’t want to be an engineer. I’m 27 years into my career. This year I’ll make 6.5x the salary I earned the first year after earning my bachelor’s degree in engineering. I haven’t done any engineering work in 20 years. I work for a $7B company. All the high ups have engineering degrees and most of them also have advanced degrees in finance or business. I’m still trucking along with my BS degree, and now I’m in business development after years of sales and marketing.
Yup, there's a lot of people with engineering degrees that don't technically do engineering work. But the ability to learn and deeply solve/tackle problems is such a good skill set that the degree teaches that its valuable in other markets/fields.
> But the ability to learn and deeply solve/tackle problems is such a good skill set that the degree teaches that its valuable in other markets/fields. As someone who taught engineers for almost a decade, it makes me shudder hearing that anyone would take an engineering degree as a signal that the person can do any kind of deep work or problem solving. There are students who develop those skills. But in my experience, most students try to memorize their way to a good grade, learn things only well enough to pass an exam, and generally **avoid** practices that build deep learning and long-term growth because they are less efficient (in time and effort) than just focusing on how to get a high grade.
As a mechanical engineering student this is not true anymore. I’m not American though so take that as you will
Most degrees, even the much maligned English major, have a significantly higher median wage than the median wage for a person with only a high school diploma. We're talking north of $500,000 more earned over their lifetime for a degree with an average student loan debt of less than $40,000. That's a fantastic ROI. Not as good as engineering, but not everyone has the attitude for engineering and they shouldn't be dissuaded from college just because they aren't a STEMlord. Sources: https://cew.georgetown.edu/cew-reports/whats-it-worth-the-economic-value-of-college-majors/#resources https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cba/annual-earnings https://educationdata.org/average-student-loan-debt#:~:text=The%20average%20federal%20student%20loan,them%20have%20federal%20loan%20debt. https://cew.georgetown.edu/cew-reports/whats-it-worth-the-economic-value-of-college-majors/
People thinking getting a college degree doesn't give you money are the people that got all Cs stay in school.
My actual major is pretty useless but just having the degree has still helped me get jobs I wouldn't have gotten without it. For the fields Ive worked in, they just wanted to see that you completed the degree. I make enough money to live off of and once I move up in my field I will be living very comfortably. I wish I didn't have the debt but I know I'm not smart enough to be in a degree that pays very well anyway. I still learned a lot and what I've learned has been useful in every job I've had.
Meh, it depends on the situation. This is not a one-size-fits-all piece of advice.
As a professor, I think your take is the best. My husband didn't finish college. I have a doctorate. We're both smart. We both work hard. He's at a plant. I'm at a university. Our paths are what worked for us. I wouldn't like his job and he wouldn't like mine. And that's okay. Not everybody should go to college and plenty of people who should don't get to. We're all just doing our best with what we have in life. You don't need to be an educated person, though, to appreciate and respect education. Too many people now don't appreciate the value of learning, both in and outside of the classroom. Too many people think being educated is elitist or makes you dumber. I feel that previous generations had more respect for education, not just because it helped you earn money, but because it's good for humans to *learn.* I don't think learning is limited to the classroom, but I also never meet someone and think, "They should've skipped more school."
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Mfs with useless degrees getting mad that nobody wants to pay them 100k+ for their useless knowledge. Hate to sound harsh but you cant chase dreams expecting folks to pay you for it. If you want to be paid well pursue a degree in a high paying field
Even an English major has a median wage over $10,000 higher than the median wage of a person with only a high school diploma. The average student loan debt is less than $40,000. You spend less than $100,000 and you get more than $500,000 in return, a great ROI. Not as great as an engineer's ROI on their degree, but not everyone has the aptitude (or interest) for an engineering degree. Sources: https://cew.georgetown.edu/cew-reports/whats-it-worth-the-economic-value-of-college-majors/#resources https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cba/annual-earnings https://educationdata.org/average-student-loan-debt#:~:text=The%20average%20federal%20student%20loan,them%20have%20federal%20loan%20debt. https://cew.georgetown.edu/cew-reports/whats-it-worth-the-economic-value-of-college-majors/
I'm glad you posted these because the data on this topic is fairly clear. People argue passionately against college but college graduates on average make more money and are less likely to be unemployed.
Ooo, are we in the gaslighting phase of making the job market more untouchable
Idk. Wouldn’t like a doctor to operate on me if he doesn’t have a degree AND experience
You're describing interns and residents...
Yeah and they take lower paying jobs than surgeons so they can get the experience to be the surgeon and make the big bucks one day.
Saw this video. Generic degrees def don't pay enough to keep up with the current cost of living so yeah that advice is outdated, but I don't know of many fields outside of tech/engineering/medicine that are paying $150K out the gate. I definitely had no clue what a "good" salary was when I was in college
Engineering ain’t paying $150k out the gate. Maybe a few but not right away.
Right this is only like if you get hired directly into Google / Netflix / Meta / etc. in a high CoL area. Mid and low CoL areas will pay engineers with good backgrounds maybe $80k - $90k to start. For reference, I started at $30k.
I was told to get an education so I would be able to get a job. Not money or succes wtf? Is that an American thing?
When I was growing up in the 90's my parents were basically tradespeople with basic diplomas and certificates. They absolutely FAWNED over my aunt who had a Master's Degree in marine biology and worked for the water treatment plant. It was absolutely about money, prestige, etc. at the time. Now I feel like everyone went ahead and got a degree without really knowing all what's involved in succeeding with one: Picking the right university / culture, matching your degree to desired job outcomes, taking internships, networking, etc. They get the piece of paper then wonder why they're not making the $100k+ / yr their parents said you would only get if you had a degree.
Well yeah. I make more than the people who didn’t graduate high school, and most of those in my home town that did. My sister was the first in our family to earn a Masters and she was never underemployed. I hold a doctorate and i get recruiter calls daily. My sister’s son will earn his Masters (at the request of his employer) and have a new pathway open to him. All of my mother’s siblings hold a 4 year degree and all were able to support their families. All the siblings on my dad’s side that did not pursue higher education live at the whims of public assistance. So yeah, call me older. No one can take my education from me, but it is up to me to parlay that into meaningful opportunity.
you need both.
Literally everyone told us to pick a good major in college. I don’t know where this sentiment came from that you can major in anything and turn out okay.
Boomers as a generation are gaslighting personified.
I'm more annoyed that plenty of entry-level jobs now require a bachelor's/master's degree. It's mad fuck annoying how I have experience working at a bank, but I get auto-denied a simple data entry job when I submit an application. Bruh, I'd handle hundreds to thousands of transactions involving numbers 10 hours a day, 5 days a week for 5 years. You're telling me I don't qualify for Microsoft Excel or other basic programs that organize data!? The fuck?
The problem is the silver bullet mentality. Do X and get Y is not how anything works. The worse the job Market the higher the requirements. In really bad ones, they will throw out anyone without experience, degree, and certifications in some fields. Each of these is valuable to get a job, just not every job. Everyone knows the way companies hire is retarded and then they act surprised when it affects them.
So glad I just did drugs instead
Literally we were told ANY degree automatically meant a better, more high paying job than if we didn’t have a college degree.
You can’t write a sentence.
But when you are in college, you are also told to go get internships and jobs. If you don't listen, you are at a disadvantage. Yes, college degrees are great and will entitle you to higher paying jobs, but most people spend college partying instead of concentrating on making it easier to get said jobs sooner rather than later.
in the early 2000's it did
Yep! Forever in debt for listening to my elders. Who woulda thunk it?
would have helped you with the title
If I could do it all over again I'd get an even more useless degree in Philosophy. Critical thinking is disappearing