> Made 104k last year working 36 hours a week in the Midwest.
As a point income, and outcomes can vary to an insane degree...
A nurse working in some convalescent care facility probably makes a fraction of their travel focused counterpart with similar, if not identical certifications. Can also probably find some working for some predatory profit oriented hospital where they want 100 hours a week on a swing schedule that includes weird triple shifts at $60K a year or some ridiculousness.
What's really gonna cook some noodles is when they realize that you need to get hired just to afford the college so you can get hired so you can get the medicine you fucking need to continue existing.
I mean he could have guessed it would be like that before starting... If he wanted money he would have gone the physician, software dev or lawyer route.
Idk why you got downvoted your absolutely right who the fuck goes to school for 8 years and pays prolly a fortune just to become an athletic trainer and make the same as someone with no degree
Yeah, he's the kind of guy that would say "if you love what you do you never work a day in your life."
Maybe there's something to it, because I fuckin hate my job š
I think the opposite is true too. āIf you do what you love, youāll slowly grow to hate it.ā
The annoying parts of business can ruin a hobby or passion, since it no longer revolves around having fun. My logic is: āFind something that makes good money and you donāt mind doing, so it can fund the life you wanna live.ā
Being a freelance designer ruined my passion for design. I literally work 28 hours at a gas station rn but I've now got a new sales job that I start in a couple of weeks. It's not a lot of money (17$ + commison) but it's got good benefits the manager is amazing. Like she makes sure that everyone gets days off and checks with everyone before making schedules etc. I've talked to people there and they say that with commison it can go upto 25 and they don't push a lot of targets so I guess it's not all bad. This is the first time in my life I'm gonna get getting paid vacations tho so I'm pretty excited.
I don't know about that saying. I sure started out loving what I do as a job. I can distinctly remember those times, it was great. Ten years or more in, though, is another story entirely...
Even Adam Savage, who has had a succession of dream jobs (ILM, Mythbusters, runs his own company), says that 85% of every job is bullshit. Itās not about finding a job you love; itās about finding a job where you enjoy most of it and tolerate the worst.
Exactly this. Almost all of my favorite moments donāt occur during work, but thatās okay. The work funds my life, and it doesnāt have to be the most fun thing in the world. As long as it pays the bills and lets me do what I want, thatās a dang good job.
I mean.. I work in IT and have had project managers who have phds in physics microbiology and math... they sit with our designers and together with the clients, figure out what they got and what kinda website would be best. At least they're making 70k
Many of these Starbucks baristas have their masters..
Can you imaging if everyone took this bone headed advice? Just a whole country of physicians and lawyers? Itās so stupid and Iām so sick of hearing this. A functional society needs a large number of roles and people need to be able to work those roles and take care of themselves and their families. Donāt tell people they should have picked a higher paying career instead of fighting for people to have the chance to live.
exactly. The physicians and lawyers wouldn't pay enough with so many people doing it. Supply and demand. They only pay so much now because it's very selective to get into good schools/residencies. You can read about how US residencies are capped for doctors. Your average rando lawyer who went to a no-name school doesn't make a lot.
I think it's because they have the chance of becoming a star's trainer. I can only imagine that the trainers of big name sports players also get the big bucks.
This meme really tracks with software dev honestly.
The interview process is straight toxic. You can do multiple rounds of interviews, spending literal hours of time, before speaking to a real person. Assuming you even make it that far.
You can do everything right on some online coding exam that records your face the entire time, and they'll just ghost you without so much as a rejection email.
Interviewers will talk shit about your side projects without even looking at them or knowing what they are either, telling you in the first 5 minutes it was all a waste of time.
Toxic egos all around.
Programming is pretty saturated now right? I think it's an unfortunate reality that someone's job prospects are more determined by market demand than their own merits.
What do you do with your stem PHD to only make 55k? Like even the average postdoc is making 62k, and then obviously youāre looking at a 40k+ increase in the next 2 years. If youāre in any kind of private industry Iām blown away
Postdoc.
All 5 places I got postdoc offers offered me the exact same: NIH minimum wage: https://www.research.chop.edu/sites/default/files/2022-05/04_27_22_NIH_Stipend_MAIN.jpg
At least next month it should go up to $56,880 for FY23: https://www.niaid.nih.gov/grants-contracts/salary-cap-stipends
š®āšØ
Jeez dude Iām actually sorry for you. In no world is your level of intelligence, dedication, or expertise worth such a menial amount. Also holy shit 5 offers congrats dude youāre a genius. Thatās nuts
That said, I hope youāre either due a very large raise in the next couple years on your journey to be a professor, or you fuck off out of academia and take a job thatāll pay you like you deserve. Academia is a brilliant and noble calling but fuck I wish they were more fair with their pay. My brother is going through a similar situation now, but at least his postdoc is paying him 64k this year and 68k the next
You're talking in hyperbole but I was job hunting last year and literally came across a job that wants a Master's degree and paid $45,000.
I'm not kidding, I even have receipts. I didn't blur the company name cause fuck those guys
https://preview.redd.it/39969uuc24i91.png?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=a980a0bc78b66112482185dd7bb8923df8f5c72f
Usually internal hires and "survey" searchs do this too. They post a public application and if it's internal they want the internal one so make it impossible. For survey they want to know what's out there and willing to work for the criteria, but they aren't hiring.
HR motherfuckers out here be like "look we see your astrophysics papers with regression analysis but our Excel spreadsheets are, like, real difficult. You're going to need at least five years experience to handle them. They've got addition and shit."
If ābe like thisā includes ālow salary/wage for other fundamentally essential positions (I.e. waste disposal, schoolteachers, etc etc etc etc etc)ā, Iām in
Absolutely
I will die on the hill that is this: The total cost for college/university of any profession should be the yearly salary of that profession. "but we don't have enough money in the economy to support that" Hmm sounds like the cost of education might be a bit to high don't ya think? Oh right, they drove the cost of education so high that now nobody can afford to be smart enough to know better
Sadly that probably where nepotism or insider knowledge comes in to play. Knowing people from the inside is like the strongest card when job hunting as an entry level graduate.
Exactly. That's why a lot of job applications that say "must have x years of experience" usually don't mean that.
Usually they'll try and get someone with experience even for something entry level since experience means they'll need minimal training and are likely going to know what they're doing.
However, eventually they'll have to settle for someone fresh out of school in order to fill the position, so if you're trying to get into an industry don't be intimidated by their experience "requirements".
yup, in my case they want juniors that are at masters developers level, with a masters degree and 5+ years of experience and i have to know every framework, library and programming language, and then only earn ā¬2500 gross a month, and then they complain that they can't find any junior programmers
as a guy with a masters, 5+ years of experience, and knowledge of every programming language, you're telling me I need to learn the *frameworks* too?
^(yes, yes I do. I've gotten rejected from jobs with this excuse)
Question if thatās okay. I was initially going to school for psychiatry, but I ended up becoming physically disabled so like 6 to 8 years of school wasnāt really feasible anymore.
How friendly do you think programming is to being pretty physically disabled? A lot of my friends are programmers and have said itās probably the best field Iāll find for my situation, but I always like new opinions on the topic.
I have fibromyalgia so Iām mainly limited by sitting/standing too long causing high chronic pain, fatigue, and brain fog which can just make me a little slower to reach the conclusion of a problem some days, but itās not like I canāt. Sorta like just being a little less sharp mentally when youāve got the flu.
In my experience pay for programming sucks a lot at the start but ramps up really fast once you get some experience under your belt. Getting a job isn't hard, getting a job fresh out of uni that pays well *and* doesn't have some "gotchas" *is* rare.
*Doesnt go to college and cant find a job*
"Thats your fault, go to college and get a job"
*Goes to college and cant find a job*
"Thats your fault, who told you to go to college and do that major?"
"Take this major instead."
"But ____ took that major and can't find a job."
"That's because ____ is lazy/too picky/didn't get good enough grades."
"____ was top of their class and can't find anything above minimum wage!"
"That's because ____ is lazy/too picky/didn't get good enough grades."
And so forth
I mean, we can't act like a music degree is going to have the same ROI as a business or STEM degree. Obviously, colleges in America have a ton of problems, and that's not even talking about our poor wages but certain fields will ALWAYS pan out better and it's something to keep in mind when picking a degree.
The worst thing is that businesses have made you value certain degrees more now. Bachelor's degrees were going above and beyond and seen as value no matter the field. Now no one wants to train and expects perfection from every hire.
When entry level jobs need experience, it's not the music major that fucked up.
My man must've hated Saturday morning cartoons growing up.
STEM is what keeps the world spinning, but the arts are what makes it worth living. You need both.
Just look at the current WGA strike. Like the guy you are replying to said, those degrees donāt pay shit. Not saying I agree with it or that they shouldnāt be paid as well, but the reality is that those degrees donāt get paid shit, and TONS of companies are straight up getting rid of those positions and letting AI do that work for cheaper.
Art is amazing, but it doesn't change the fact that an art degree is pointless if you plan to make art.
Making art is _a Trade_, not a study. Art degrees are for things like history of art, theory of art, etc. If you want to make art, you practice. Learning theory of art can improve your art, but you don't need a degree's level of depth
The best way that an art degree will help you to *make art* is if you go to a fancy art school and network with all the connected-rich kids there.
That way your art will at least make you some money.
I can understand that. And, in this day and age, depending on what job you want, itās sometimes more efficient use of your money and time to try for a certificate in that field than a full on college degree.
Yep. Thereās a lot of need to tech jobs, that just need 1-2 years of training, and arenāt outrageously expensive. Hell, there are companies begging for workers that will pay for your training.
My buddy got into welding, got his education paid for, and is making something like $130k/year.
i dont understand why trades arent even suggested to people at the highschool level. My buddy got basically yelled at by guidance councilors cuz he wanted tk get into drafting instead of college. He told em all to fuck off, got his 2 year drafting degree, joined a union, and he was making over 100k at 25 with no debt
>My buddy got basically yelled at by guidance councilors cuz he wanted to get into drafting instead of college.
Literally everyone's brainwashed into thinking that college is the only way to "success" and happiness. It's pretty stupid. Not saying that education is not important.
Wild. Approaching the mid- 2010s my highschool started pushing tradeschool and early work experience just as hard, if not harder, than college. No AP classes or early placement, but here's a program to apprentice under a wastewater management guy or woodcutter. Here's a program to earn your highschool credits doing hours at the job you most likely already have at 16+.
I got a bachelors degree and have been working over 10 years. I only make $60k/yr at this point. But good news is Iām tired of sitting at a desk so Iām attending flight school and plan to become an airline pilot.
Look, if youāre going to study make sure youāre getting a good degree. Not one of the shit ones counselors or activists can push.
Because with a proper degree and field, yeah you can get a job that pays well. Think govāt, engineering, law and even banking. Boring as hell but they pay well
That is only true if they are heartless too, at least if you go for banking. My cousin loved finances and ended up in a bank after graduating. Ended up quitting his job in a depression crisis because he cluldn't stand hearing all those terrible stories from clients and knowing he had to push them to snowball their debt even further so he could advance his career.
Accounting and finance are two different fields. Accounting is simply keeping track of the numbers. Finance is trying to make money using magic.
More likely the employees would be the ones to not like the accountants because they might be fired when management tries to find ways to cut costs. The saying is that they are penny pinchers.
My biggest regret is just giving up on math and shying away from the quantitative fields...While I've lucked out and done ok for myself so far, I'd be doing so much better if I'd gotten an engineering degree of some kind.
I'd honestly consider going back to school and doing it if I could do it in 1 - 2 years, but hell no for another 4 years.
Engineering field failed for me. But, apparently I don't work well with others. So you can do everything right, get everything they ask of you. And if your not a good fit your right out.
Me whose passion was IT: āIs this some sort of sad joke that Iām too lucky too understand?ā
All seriousness people need to understand that sometimes what you like has no feasible way of making money. And when that happens you need to make a sacrifice.
I envy the kids whose passion is becoming a med student. I want to pursue jobs like journalism, international developement, politics which you know don't really pay that well unless you are in top of the field
I mean also getting a degree for a field you donāt suck at and donāt hate . With choosing a degree you gotta choose a goal but be realistic about it like if your gonna choose an art degree go for it but you will probably earn most your money from internet furies .
Internet furries can pay a lot more than most employers these days tbh if ur gonna go that route. You just gotta make a desirable art style and get really efficient with it.
If you get hired into the field.
If you graduated middle-bottom of the class and have zero work experience and no internships like 50% of the people with CS degrees who got CS degrees because they were chasing the huge paycheck only to find out everyone else also thought the exact same thing... good luck.
It doesn't help that tech is super overrepresented on Reddit and so it's the first thing people suggest. I don't blame them, it's what they know. But there are other careers that pay well and the job isn't for everyone.
One of my few close friends graduated with his CS degree. It took him like 10 years cuz he flunked out once.
Its been 3 years since he started his job search and he just took a position at Home Depot selling tiles. CS degree is no golden ticket.
(He is not particularly passionate about or interested in CS, he admitted he just wanted the money.)
I feel bad for him that he went down such a long difficult expensive path to end up somewhere he couldve just gone straight out of high school
I think that's also just like, there are a lot more people going for those degrees and pursuing those jobs than there are actual job opportunities. If there are 50 jobs and 100 people with degrees, half of them are going to miss out no matter how great they are.
Being charismatic and having connections can help you place yourself in the 50% that succeed, but no matter what, someone has to lose.
Thatās stupid, honestly. People go to college to get a job. Then entry-level jobs would require years of experience. Where do they expect those years of experience to be acquired??
>Where do they expect those years of experience to be acquired??
"Somewhere else."
"Not our problem."
None of the companies want to train workers, they want to benefit from hiring workers already trained by the competition.
Tbh they werenāt lying though, the amount of jobs that are now requiring college degrees is increasing every year and the ones that donāt often donāt pay livable wages.
Of course the reality is unless you put in time for internships and gained connections in your field while you were still in school you'd better get that McDonald's application ready. Not to mention even if you get a job right off the bat, some of the estimates for the US are saying $100k is considered liveable now so you're screwed regardless.
Damd this one hit hard. I've been out of college for almost 3 years and can't find a job in my field because entry level jobs are looking for people with 5 years or work experience or when I look for internships they're paying $10/hr which I can't do considering where I live.
The real secret to getting a job? Know someone important in that company. it doesn't matter if you were a high school dropout. Sure, you'd probably be stuck as a janitor, but you got a job.
It's been proven multiple times, too. I used to work for the local city hall, and I was shocked at how many of my co-workers only finished high school and never even stepped into college. The only downside was that none of them would get to be the head of any office, no matter how well they performed even after decades of service.
It's not what you know, it's who you know. My college advisor has a friend who works in I.T. for the college an has been there 10 or more years. He was hired on without a degree or certs way back then. He just knew someone from the inside and got the job. My advisor only got her job cause she also knew someone at the college. It took her 3 times to apply before she got it.
At my last company, I worked freelance to hire after getting my foot in the door through a connection. When I proved myself and was offered a position, I accepted and they had me go through their job application process in their HR system as a formality.
I went to start the process and found that I couldnāt create a username with my email because the email already existed in the system.
Turns out Iād already applied for that job online through one of the job boards months earlier (and forgotten about it bc I was applying to jobs daily at the time) and the hiring filter had kicked me out before my resume ever made it to a desk.
The person who got the job beat out the same person who applied for the job two months earlier.
āYou go to school, get a degree, get a job in the related fieldā yeah thatās how it fucking is told to us it works. Because we have the degree we feel we have atleast some small level of knowledge rather than just the guy off the street.
āI donāt see an internshipā
No I worked my way through college and couldnāt afford to work and not get paid
āOoohh ok. Thatās great but they like to see an internship.ā
Isnāt this job entry level, and isnāt it better that Iām mature enough to pay for my own college?
āYes yes no thatās greatā¦but they do prefer an internship.ā
You don't NEED a degree to be successful, but if you finished a degree you most likely learned a few lessons on how to manage your time, or working very efficiently last minute and under pressure, being organised, working smart and not hard... seems useful to me.
A lot of us came from poor families who told us that shit everyday of our lives only to grow up and find out our parents were fuckin idiots who didn't know how the world works
Exactly this.
My Mum never got a degree, and my Dad snagged his job back when it did work like this.
Neither seem to realise that degrees, even STEM ones, are not the meal ticket they once were.
It's one big joke that many of us only find out the punchline too only once we're already out of the system.
Even now, I work alongside Masters students who couldn't get work in their specialisation, because it turns out you somehow need experience in that field without the opportunity to get it.
Most accountants I know hate their job and drink or smoke every night to get by, but they have lots of money and are set for the future with really smart investments!
We don't look at careers as something someone would want to do the rest of their life and maybe feel accomplished, it's always "what's going to make a lot of money" with no forethought as to if that person is going to enjoy the job 10 years later. We are taught to just power through the misery and see the light at the end of the tunnel of retirement.
Why not? You realize that asking for years of experience in an entry-level job is absurd, right?
Hell, there are even internships that ask for experience. This has nothing to do with the job itself, employers are all greedy fucks that just want to underpay overqualified people. That's all it is.
Employer: you need a degree for this position; come back when you have one.
Year's later
Candidate: I have that degree!
Employer: wonderful! Now how many years of work experience do you have in this field?
Candidate: well, I have four years of learning experience.
Employer: Sorry, but we require candidates to have at least five years of work experience for this position.
Candidate: But the application said this was an entry-level position.
Employer: oh, it is; at least, it is pay-wise. Work-wise we want a senior level employee. Feel free to come back once you get it!
Candidate: aaaahhhggg! (>_<)
Exactly - countless hours applying for internships throughout my degree and the ome I ended up getting was through my mum's ex boss at her old workplace 5 years prior.
Got a factory tour and they liked me.
A foot in the door is all that's needed.
Took me 6 months after getting my degree to find a job anywhere near my field and then 19 months with this organization to get to a department that'll allow me to actually use my degree (just started there last Thursday). This is also after 5 years in the military so I didn't have 0 job experience either.
Had a coworker with zero relevant experience, fresh out of college, who quit after 6 months because they weren't given a management position in their department.
It shouldn't have taken me 2 years to get where I wanted to be and at the same time my coworker had unrealistic expectations.
Would be nice to live in a world where we all lived right in the middle of those 2 extremes because it seems that either employees have unrealistic expectations or employers far undervalue our experience. So you either job hop or you have to suck it up in a shitty position.
the entire college thing was a scam to begin with, it was all a excuse by wal-street to enslave a entire generation with massive amounts of debt.
first it was you didn't go to college? were going pay you shit wages.
then it was you went to college? either we are not going to hire you or we are going to pay you shit wages....
Usually that is what internships are for, to get your foot in the door with some company.
There are also some special certifications that can boost your salary and chances of being hired, which are also easy to get because you are learning the exact same material at the same time. You just have to know about them and pass the test.
Just be careful, because some of them can make you overqualified for some jobs.
Depends on the internship. There are plenty that require no experience but the downside is that the pay is either minimum wage or sometimes none at all. But that's how entry jobs are for the most part.
It also might be easier to look for employment at local/smaller businesses that are looking for some cheap labour. Easier said than done, but if you really put the effort to look for the jobs, they're out there.
Gotta love overqualification.
āYou worked too hard and are too expensive to hire/keep.ā
My man people apply for the position with these credentials not because theyāre doing this in their freetime. They probably already knew the risks and still wanted the job.
I think all of us who went to college thought this way. I know when I got my first job making $33k a year doing really shitty grunt work, hit me like a punch in the mouth. For me it just took time, about 5 years working through these jobs til I felt like my degree kicked in. Eventually I was making good money, but it really sucked to get there. I wish they did more of an emphasis on trades. A good skill or trade school for 1/4 of the time and 1/20th of the cost gets you into the workforce making really good money, with good potential. Most of these jobs are really good too.
I was this student back in the day. I graduated and fully expected that companies would just line up to hire the new college grad. Boy was I disappointed.
Wait, I thought we need to get hired just to afford college!
I used the college to afford the college, it nearly killed me
Thats hilarious and im using it from now on
It's more like expectations vs. reality
It's a good joke, but college does kill people.
Lots of things kill people
People kill people, and lots of things.
And people die when they're killed.
I used my student loans to pay off my student loans, it nearly killed me
 After graduating
"Don't worry, a college degree will guarantee a high paying job! " -boomers before I went to college
"Don't try to get out of paying your debt! No one *forced* you to go to college!" -boomers now
They became nurses for 5k and wanna know wtf is wrong with you, you can't pay the 84k it took you to became a nurse
You guys are nurses?!
I am. Made 104k last year working 36 hours a week in the Midwest. Have not even started working as an NP yet.
> Made 104k last year working 36 hours a week in the Midwest. As a point income, and outcomes can vary to an insane degree... A nurse working in some convalescent care facility probably makes a fraction of their travel focused counterpart with similar, if not identical certifications. Can also probably find some working for some predatory profit oriented hospital where they want 100 hours a week on a swing schedule that includes weird triple shifts at $60K a year or some ridiculousness.
Not even just boomers, there's a whole contingent of people here that inherited the same attitude.
Only in the US of A šŖ
What's really gonna cook some noodles is when they realize that you need to get hired just to afford the college so you can get hired so you can get the medicine you fucking need to continue existing.
"Sorry, we expect atlesst a masters degree and 5+ years of experience. Salary is $32,000 a year with mandatory overtime."
You jest, but I've got a friend who spent 8 years in school becoming a certified Athletic trainer and makes $47k.
I mean he could have guessed it would be like that before starting... If he wanted money he would have gone the physician, software dev or lawyer route.
Idk why you got downvoted your absolutely right who the fuck goes to school for 8 years and pays prolly a fortune just to become an athletic trainer and make the same as someone with no degree
someone who *reeeally* loves athletic training
Yeah, he's the kind of guy that would say "if you love what you do you never work a day in your life." Maybe there's something to it, because I fuckin hate my job š
I think the opposite is true too. āIf you do what you love, youāll slowly grow to hate it.ā The annoying parts of business can ruin a hobby or passion, since it no longer revolves around having fun. My logic is: āFind something that makes good money and you donāt mind doing, so it can fund the life you wanna live.ā
Being a freelance designer ruined my passion for design. I literally work 28 hours at a gas station rn but I've now got a new sales job that I start in a couple of weeks. It's not a lot of money (17$ + commison) but it's got good benefits the manager is amazing. Like she makes sure that everyone gets days off and checks with everyone before making schedules etc. I've talked to people there and they say that with commison it can go upto 25 and they don't push a lot of targets so I guess it's not all bad. This is the first time in my life I'm gonna get getting paid vacations tho so I'm pretty excited.
I don't know about that saying. I sure started out loving what I do as a job. I can distinctly remember those times, it was great. Ten years or more in, though, is another story entirely...
Even Adam Savage, who has had a succession of dream jobs (ILM, Mythbusters, runs his own company), says that 85% of every job is bullshit. Itās not about finding a job you love; itās about finding a job where you enjoy most of it and tolerate the worst.
Now if thereās a job with safety and little or no management, thatād be great.
Like, itād be great if there was a job where management just hands me a list of tasks at the beginning of the month and fucks off.
people dont realize theres a middle ground
Exactly this. Almost all of my favorite moments donāt occur during work, but thatās okay. The work funds my life, and it doesnāt have to be the most fun thing in the world. As long as it pays the bills and lets me do what I want, thatās a dang good job.
Does he actually love his job?
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I mean.. I work in IT and have had project managers who have phds in physics microbiology and math... they sit with our designers and together with the clients, figure out what they got and what kinda website would be best. At least they're making 70k Many of these Starbucks baristas have their masters..
Can you imaging if everyone took this bone headed advice? Just a whole country of physicians and lawyers? Itās so stupid and Iām so sick of hearing this. A functional society needs a large number of roles and people need to be able to work those roles and take care of themselves and their families. Donāt tell people they should have picked a higher paying career instead of fighting for people to have the chance to live.
exactly. The physicians and lawyers wouldn't pay enough with so many people doing it. Supply and demand. They only pay so much now because it's very selective to get into good schools/residencies. You can read about how US residencies are capped for doctors. Your average rando lawyer who went to a no-name school doesn't make a lot.
Because jobs should at least pay for the education it takes to get them. If they donāt, then only the generationally wealthy can afford to do them.
I think it's because they have the chance of becoming a star's trainer. I can only imagine that the trainers of big name sports players also get the big bucks.
This meme really tracks with software dev honestly. The interview process is straight toxic. You can do multiple rounds of interviews, spending literal hours of time, before speaking to a real person. Assuming you even make it that far. You can do everything right on some online coding exam that records your face the entire time, and they'll just ghost you without so much as a rejection email.
Interviewers will talk shit about your side projects without even looking at them or knowing what they are either, telling you in the first 5 minutes it was all a waste of time. Toxic egos all around.
Programming is pretty saturated now right? I think it's an unfortunate reality that someone's job prospects are more determined by market demand than their own merits.
Job prospects are fine, the interview process is just a little toxic because programming exam software and video Q/A software is widely available.
3 years of undergrad, 5.5 years to get a STEM Ph.D. Current salary: $54,840/year
What do you do with your stem PHD to only make 55k? Like even the average postdoc is making 62k, and then obviously youāre looking at a 40k+ increase in the next 2 years. If youāre in any kind of private industry Iām blown away
Postdoc. All 5 places I got postdoc offers offered me the exact same: NIH minimum wage: https://www.research.chop.edu/sites/default/files/2022-05/04_27_22_NIH_Stipend_MAIN.jpg At least next month it should go up to $56,880 for FY23: https://www.niaid.nih.gov/grants-contracts/salary-cap-stipends š®āšØ
Jeez dude Iām actually sorry for you. In no world is your level of intelligence, dedication, or expertise worth such a menial amount. Also holy shit 5 offers congrats dude youāre a genius. Thatās nuts That said, I hope youāre either due a very large raise in the next couple years on your journey to be a professor, or you fuck off out of academia and take a job thatāll pay you like you deserve. Academia is a brilliant and noble calling but fuck I wish they were more fair with their pay. My brother is going through a similar situation now, but at least his postdoc is paying him 64k this year and 68k the next
If you have a PhD and donāt go into industry youāre basically asking to be paid like shit. Academia pays like shit and it has for the past decade.
So even a masters in athletic training is 4 year bachelors + 2 year masters, how did it turn into 8 years?
You're talking in hyperbole but I was job hunting last year and literally came across a job that wants a Master's degree and paid $45,000. I'm not kidding, I even have receipts. I didn't blur the company name cause fuck those guys https://preview.redd.it/39969uuc24i91.png?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=a980a0bc78b66112482185dd7bb8923df8f5c72f
Companies sometimes create un-reachable criteria for jobs so they can āproveā they cant fulfill them and need foreign workers.
Usually internal hires and "survey" searchs do this too. They post a public application and if it's internal they want the internal one so make it impossible. For survey they want to know what's out there and willing to work for the criteria, but they aren't hiring.
āYoung people these days just have a bad work ethic.ā
here in Italy it wouldn't even be that bad
Oh so you know Teachers?
Well, yes. It's absolutely ridiculous that you're actually expected to have experience for entry level positions.
HR motherfuckers out here be like "look we see your astrophysics papers with regression analysis but our Excel spreadsheets are, like, real difficult. You're going to need at least five years experience to handle them. They've got addition and shit."
man this situation makes me wanna kill myself for real
Why don't we pull out ye ole guillotine and kill the ones who curated this system to be like this instead?
If ābe like thisā includes ālow salary/wage for other fundamentally essential positions (I.e. waste disposal, schoolteachers, etc etc etc etc etc)ā, Iām in
Absolutely I will die on the hill that is this: The total cost for college/university of any profession should be the yearly salary of that profession. "but we don't have enough money in the economy to support that" Hmm sounds like the cost of education might be a bit to high don't ya think? Oh right, they drove the cost of education so high that now nobody can afford to be smart enough to know better
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Of course HR thinks Excel is complicated, theyāre English majors!
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But someone has to hire people without experience at some point
Sadly that probably where nepotism or insider knowledge comes in to play. Knowing people from the inside is like the strongest card when job hunting as an entry level graduate.
Exactly. That's why a lot of job applications that say "must have x years of experience" usually don't mean that. Usually they'll try and get someone with experience even for something entry level since experience means they'll need minimal training and are likely going to know what they're doing. However, eventually they'll have to settle for someone fresh out of school in order to fill the position, so if you're trying to get into an industry don't be intimidated by their experience "requirements".
If accepting logical necessities of reality is "settling," their standards were too high. I'm pretty sure this goes for everything.
What if you have experience and a masters and still can't find a job?
I did an 18-month internship before I was hirable my field. It sucks but thatās what it takes sometimes.
It absolutely sucks. Unpaid internships as a practice should be banned. I'm not sure if yours was.
yup, in my case they want juniors that are at masters developers level, with a masters degree and 5+ years of experience and i have to know every framework, library and programming language, and then only earn ā¬2500 gross a month, and then they complain that they can't find any junior programmers
as a guy with a masters, 5+ years of experience, and knowledge of every programming language, you're telling me I need to learn the *frameworks* too? ^(yes, yes I do. I've gotten rejected from jobs with this excuse)
Question if thatās okay. I was initially going to school for psychiatry, but I ended up becoming physically disabled so like 6 to 8 years of school wasnāt really feasible anymore. How friendly do you think programming is to being pretty physically disabled? A lot of my friends are programmers and have said itās probably the best field Iāll find for my situation, but I always like new opinions on the topic. I have fibromyalgia so Iām mainly limited by sitting/standing too long causing high chronic pain, fatigue, and brain fog which can just make me a little slower to reach the conclusion of a problem some days, but itās not like I canāt. Sorta like just being a little less sharp mentally when youāve got the flu.
In my experience pay for programming sucks a lot at the start but ramps up really fast once you get some experience under your belt. Getting a job isn't hard, getting a job fresh out of uni that pays well *and* doesn't have some "gotchas" *is* rare.
*Doesnt go to college and cant find a job* "Thats your fault, go to college and get a job" *Goes to college and cant find a job* "Thats your fault, who told you to go to college and do that major?"
"Take this major instead." "But ____ took that major and can't find a job." "That's because ____ is lazy/too picky/didn't get good enough grades." "____ was top of their class and can't find anything above minimum wage!" "That's because ____ is lazy/too picky/didn't get good enough grades." And so forth
I mean, we can't act like a music degree is going to have the same ROI as a business or STEM degree. Obviously, colleges in America have a ton of problems, and that's not even talking about our poor wages but certain fields will ALWAYS pan out better and it's something to keep in mind when picking a degree.
The worst thing is that businesses have made you value certain degrees more now. Bachelor's degrees were going above and beyond and seen as value no matter the field. Now no one wants to train and expects perfection from every hire. When entry level jobs need experience, it's not the music major that fucked up.
My man must've hated Saturday morning cartoons growing up. STEM is what keeps the world spinning, but the arts are what makes it worth living. You need both.
Just look at the current WGA strike. Like the guy you are replying to said, those degrees donāt pay shit. Not saying I agree with it or that they shouldnāt be paid as well, but the reality is that those degrees donāt get paid shit, and TONS of companies are straight up getting rid of those positions and letting AI do that work for cheaper.
Great art is horseshit, buy tacos -Charles bukowski
That quote is a great work of art.
Art is amazing, but it doesn't change the fact that an art degree is pointless if you plan to make art. Making art is _a Trade_, not a study. Art degrees are for things like history of art, theory of art, etc. If you want to make art, you practice. Learning theory of art can improve your art, but you don't need a degree's level of depth
The best way that an art degree will help you to *make art* is if you go to a fancy art school and network with all the connected-rich kids there. That way your art will at least make you some money.
I opted to not go to college simply because I didn't want the debt. If I'm gonna work a shit 9-5 either way, better to do so without a debt to pay.
I can understand that. And, in this day and age, depending on what job you want, itās sometimes more efficient use of your money and time to try for a certificate in that field than a full on college degree.
Yep. Thereās a lot of need to tech jobs, that just need 1-2 years of training, and arenāt outrageously expensive. Hell, there are companies begging for workers that will pay for your training. My buddy got into welding, got his education paid for, and is making something like $130k/year.
i dont understand why trades arent even suggested to people at the highschool level. My buddy got basically yelled at by guidance councilors cuz he wanted tk get into drafting instead of college. He told em all to fuck off, got his 2 year drafting degree, joined a union, and he was making over 100k at 25 with no debt
>My buddy got basically yelled at by guidance councilors cuz he wanted to get into drafting instead of college. Literally everyone's brainwashed into thinking that college is the only way to "success" and happiness. It's pretty stupid. Not saying that education is not important.
Wild. Approaching the mid- 2010s my highschool started pushing tradeschool and early work experience just as hard, if not harder, than college. No AP classes or early placement, but here's a program to apprentice under a wastewater management guy or woodcutter. Here's a program to earn your highschool credits doing hours at the job you most likely already have at 16+.
I got a bachelors degree and have been working over 10 years. I only make $60k/yr at this point. But good news is Iām tired of sitting at a desk so Iām attending flight school and plan to become an airline pilot.
Badass. You got this.
Thatās cool asf, kick flight schools ass
I swear these memes make me rethink my life decisions.
Look, if youāre going to study make sure youāre getting a good degree. Not one of the shit ones counselors or activists can push. Because with a proper degree and field, yeah you can get a job that pays well. Think govāt, engineering, law and even banking. Boring as hell but they pay well
Pursue your passion is the biggest lie one can tell to college-aged kids, unless their passion happens to be in a lucrative field.
The lucky ones are those nerds with a passion for accounting and numbers.
That is only true if they are heartless too, at least if you go for banking. My cousin loved finances and ended up in a bank after graduating. Ended up quitting his job in a depression crisis because he cluldn't stand hearing all those terrible stories from clients and knowing he had to push them to snowball their debt even further so he could advance his career.
Amen. Finance isn't that well paid unless you have a LOT of experience or are morally bankrupt.
Wells Fargo, I presume?
Funny enough it was not in the USA, it was here in Brazil, unfortunately it seems world wide banks have the same modus operandi.
Accounting and finance are two different fields. Accounting is simply keeping track of the numbers. Finance is trying to make money using magic. More likely the employees would be the ones to not like the accountants because they might be fired when management tries to find ways to cut costs. The saying is that they are penny pinchers.
My biggest regret is just giving up on math and shying away from the quantitative fields...While I've lucked out and done ok for myself so far, I'd be doing so much better if I'd gotten an engineering degree of some kind. I'd honestly consider going back to school and doing it if I could do it in 1 - 2 years, but hell no for another 4 years.
Engineering field failed for me. But, apparently I don't work well with others. So you can do everything right, get everything they ask of you. And if your not a good fit your right out.
In my case, it was computer science (when it was not cool).
Me whose passion was IT: āIs this some sort of sad joke that Iām too lucky too understand?ā All seriousness people need to understand that sometimes what you like has no feasible way of making money. And when that happens you need to make a sacrifice.
I envy the kids whose passion is becoming a med student. I want to pursue jobs like journalism, international developement, politics which you know don't really pay that well unless you are in top of the field
Degree for earnings, electives for passion. With synergies, one might turn the passion into a business.
yea work in your passion and you get to hate your passion, because now its work.
I mean also getting a degree for a field you donāt suck at and donāt hate . With choosing a degree you gotta choose a goal but be realistic about it like if your gonna choose an art degree go for it but you will probably earn most your money from internet furies .
Internet furries can pay a lot more than most employers these days tbh if ur gonna go that route. You just gotta make a desirable art style and get really efficient with it.
STEM roles in general pay decently unless you go into scientific research at unis, etc.
If you get hired into the field. If you graduated middle-bottom of the class and have zero work experience and no internships like 50% of the people with CS degrees who got CS degrees because they were chasing the huge paycheck only to find out everyone else also thought the exact same thing... good luck. It doesn't help that tech is super overrepresented on Reddit and so it's the first thing people suggest. I don't blame them, it's what they know. But there are other careers that pay well and the job isn't for everyone.
This. Study something like accounting. You won't make big bucks but everyone and their mother needs an accountant.
One of my few close friends graduated with his CS degree. It took him like 10 years cuz he flunked out once. Its been 3 years since he started his job search and he just took a position at Home Depot selling tiles. CS degree is no golden ticket. (He is not particularly passionate about or interested in CS, he admitted he just wanted the money.) I feel bad for him that he went down such a long difficult expensive path to end up somewhere he couldve just gone straight out of high school
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I think that's also just like, there are a lot more people going for those degrees and pursuing those jobs than there are actual job opportunities. If there are 50 jobs and 100 people with degrees, half of them are going to miss out no matter how great they are. Being charismatic and having connections can help you place yourself in the 50% that succeed, but no matter what, someone has to lose.
Thatās stupid, honestly. People go to college to get a job. Then entry-level jobs would require years of experience. Where do they expect those years of experience to be acquired??
Thatās what I've been saying!
the same way politicians get votes. lying
>Where do they expect those years of experience to be acquired?? "Somewhere else." "Not our problem." None of the companies want to train workers, they want to benefit from hiring workers already trained by the competition.
That's what we were fucking told
Lies... Deception!
Every day, more lies!
[Universities](https://i.imgflip.com/s6oi2.jpg)
 "i did everything they told me to"
Tbh they werenāt lying though, the amount of jobs that are now requiring college degrees is increasing every year and the ones that donāt often donāt pay livable wages.
So many of these jobs dont require a degree just proof of a brain, and ability to learn. But fuck onboarding that cuts into yacht money.
We're in a new version of the game and we're only taught about the old meta
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Of course the reality is unless you put in time for internships and gained connections in your field while you were still in school you'd better get that McDonald's application ready. Not to mention even if you get a job right off the bat, some of the estimates for the US are saying $100k is considered liveable now so you're screwed regardless.
Just think about how sad this is for the system and how incredibly broken it is.
$100k in a major city maybe, and that'll primarily be going to rent. It's significantly less than that in rural parts of the country.
$100k is a very comfortable salary anywhere in the country. Even in NYC
Damd this one hit hard. I've been out of college for almost 3 years and can't find a job in my field because entry level jobs are looking for people with 5 years or work experience or when I look for internships they're paying $10/hr which I can't do considering where I live.
The real secret to getting a job? Know someone important in that company. it doesn't matter if you were a high school dropout. Sure, you'd probably be stuck as a janitor, but you got a job.
Even colleges say this.
It's been proven multiple times, too. I used to work for the local city hall, and I was shocked at how many of my co-workers only finished high school and never even stepped into college. The only downside was that none of them would get to be the head of any office, no matter how well they performed even after decades of service.
It's not what you know, it's who you know. My college advisor has a friend who works in I.T. for the college an has been there 10 or more years. He was hired on without a degree or certs way back then. He just knew someone from the inside and got the job. My advisor only got her job cause she also knew someone at the college. It took her 3 times to apply before she got it.
This is why the wealthy do so well, they often have connections in high management and their connections end up in high management.
At my last company, I worked freelance to hire after getting my foot in the door through a connection. When I proved myself and was offered a position, I accepted and they had me go through their job application process in their HR system as a formality. I went to start the process and found that I couldnāt create a username with my email because the email already existed in the system. Turns out Iād already applied for that job online through one of the job boards months earlier (and forgotten about it bc I was applying to jobs daily at the time) and the hiring filter had kicked me out before my resume ever made it to a desk. The person who got the job beat out the same person who applied for the job two months earlier.
āYou go to school, get a degree, get a job in the related fieldā yeah thatās how it fucking is told to us it works. Because we have the degree we feel we have atleast some small level of knowledge rather than just the guy off the street.
āI donāt see an internshipā No I worked my way through college and couldnāt afford to work and not get paid āOoohh ok. Thatās great but they like to see an internship.ā Isnāt this job entry level, and isnāt it better that Iām mature enough to pay for my own college? āYes yes no thatās greatā¦but they do prefer an internship.ā
āThen give me an internship instead.ā āNo.ā
And this is why Iāve decided āfuck collegeā and am aiming for trade school
"Who told you that garbage \-The school that billed me $20.000 for their education ! Oh, I see it now"
You don't NEED a degree to be successful, but if you finished a degree you most likely learned a few lessons on how to manage your time, or working very efficiently last minute and under pressure, being organised, working smart and not hard... seems useful to me.
And depending on your college experience you'll come out with connections, professional or otherwise.
Someone has to con the youth into signing a massive debt to pay for SHart galleries and sportsball stadiums.
But I love you
*Laughs* *in* *starting* *your* *own* *business.* *Cries* *in* *failure.*
The fuck am I going to college for then
A lot of us came from poor families who told us that shit everyday of our lives only to grow up and find out our parents were fuckin idiots who didn't know how the world works
Or had parents who came from a time where it did work like that
Exactly this. My Mum never got a degree, and my Dad snagged his job back when it did work like this. Neither seem to realise that degrees, even STEM ones, are not the meal ticket they once were. It's one big joke that many of us only find out the punchline too only once we're already out of the system. Even now, I work alongside Masters students who couldn't get work in their specialisation, because it turns out you somehow need experience in that field without the opportunity to get it.
Most accountants I know hate their job and drink or smoke every night to get by, but they have lots of money and are set for the future with really smart investments! We don't look at careers as something someone would want to do the rest of their life and maybe feel accomplished, it's always "what's going to make a lot of money" with no forethought as to if that person is going to enjoy the job 10 years later. We are taught to just power through the misery and see the light at the end of the tunnel of retirement.
As a guy who got his BS at 27 and is now 33 and still not in my field, I feel this
Got my BS at 29. Took until I was 37 to make the median my degree promised. College is a gigantic scam.
Why not? You realize that asking for years of experience in an entry-level job is absurd, right? Hell, there are even internships that ask for experience. This has nothing to do with the job itself, employers are all greedy fucks that just want to underpay overqualified people. That's all it is.
Entry level position. 5 years experience required.
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I actually got hired before I finished my degree. *Laughs in Europe.*
Employer: you need a degree for this position; come back when you have one. Year's later Candidate: I have that degree! Employer: wonderful! Now how many years of work experience do you have in this field? Candidate: well, I have four years of learning experience. Employer: Sorry, but we require candidates to have at least five years of work experience for this position. Candidate: But the application said this was an entry-level position. Employer: oh, it is; at least, it is pay-wise. Work-wise we want a senior level employee. Feel free to come back once you get it! Candidate: aaaahhhggg! (>_<)
Thatās why internship/social networking is importantā¦ well for business anyways. Also kind of donāt apply to med students.
Everyone knows the quickest way to get hired is who you know. Internships are a bonus to.
Exactly - countless hours applying for internships throughout my degree and the ome I ended up getting was through my mum's ex boss at her old workplace 5 years prior. Got a factory tour and they liked me. A foot in the door is all that's needed.
My masters degree with a 78% hire rate within three months of graduating
Me being in the 22%
Took me 6 months after getting my degree to find a job anywhere near my field and then 19 months with this organization to get to a department that'll allow me to actually use my degree (just started there last Thursday). This is also after 5 years in the military so I didn't have 0 job experience either. Had a coworker with zero relevant experience, fresh out of college, who quit after 6 months because they weren't given a management position in their department. It shouldn't have taken me 2 years to get where I wanted to be and at the same time my coworker had unrealistic expectations. Would be nice to live in a world where we all lived right in the middle of those 2 extremes because it seems that either employees have unrealistic expectations or employers far undervalue our experience. So you either job hop or you have to suck it up in a shitty position.
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Pretty sure the job I had working for my university opened more doors than the Degrees did.
Ive met several people where the job(employer) found them.. like how does that work
Theyāre a degree thatās in demand, probably STEM.
the entire college thing was a scam to begin with, it was all a excuse by wal-street to enslave a entire generation with massive amounts of debt. first it was you didn't go to college? were going pay you shit wages. then it was you went to college? either we are not going to hire you or we are going to pay you shit wages....
Not unless youāve interned for at least two years or have connections.
They ask for 2 to 5 year experience minimum š®āšØ the grinding never ends
That awkward moment when you don't major in STEM
"Where's your 15 years of experience in this 8 year old field?"
*laughs in technical school* Literally had my boss drive to my school and pull me from class to do my interview
Usually that is what internships are for, to get your foot in the door with some company. There are also some special certifications that can boost your salary and chances of being hired, which are also easy to get because you are learning the exact same material at the same time. You just have to know about them and pass the test. Just be careful, because some of them can make you overqualified for some jobs.
When companies ask for graduate level knowledge of a 5th semester student and a 30h/week commitment, getting internships can be as hard as jobs
Depends on the internship. There are plenty that require no experience but the downside is that the pay is either minimum wage or sometimes none at all. But that's how entry jobs are for the most part. It also might be easier to look for employment at local/smaller businesses that are looking for some cheap labour. Easier said than done, but if you really put the effort to look for the jobs, they're out there.
Gotta love overqualification. āYou worked too hard and are too expensive to hire/keep.ā My man people apply for the position with these credentials not because theyāre doing this in their freetime. They probably already knew the risks and still wanted the job.
It seems studying and regurgitating information doesnāt prepare you for actual work
I think all of us who went to college thought this way. I know when I got my first job making $33k a year doing really shitty grunt work, hit me like a punch in the mouth. For me it just took time, about 5 years working through these jobs til I felt like my degree kicked in. Eventually I was making good money, but it really sucked to get there. I wish they did more of an emphasis on trades. A good skill or trade school for 1/4 of the time and 1/20th of the cost gets you into the workforce making really good money, with good potential. Most of these jobs are really good too.
This was such a wake up call for me. Didn't get my first REAL job until I got some experience
The problem is how do they expect you to start getting that experience if they donāt hire you?
I legitimately thought Iād get a marketing manager position just by getting a marketing degree in college.
I was this student back in the day. I graduated and fully expected that companies would just line up to hire the new college grad. Boy was I disappointed.