Old Time Radio at OTRCat!

Monday, April 23, 2012

Grads not being given management positions upon graduation. Film at 11.





Yahoo News




















1 in 2 new graduates are jobless or underemployed

Hyping college as the Golden Ticket is yet another way for the Government to enslave you. The high cost of college practically makes student loans a requirement, and the Givement kindly offers student loans that can have you on the hook for decades after. 

These kids have not been taught critical thinking (or even The Way Things Work), and so do not realise that after their 4+ years of "hard work in college", upon graduation, they have arrived at the coveted "Entry Level" in the marketplace. 

This quote slew me. People do not hear what they are saying as they speak!

"I don't even know what I'm looking for," says Michael Bledsoe, who described months of fruitless job searches as he served customers at a Seattle coffeehouse. The 23-year-old graduated in 2010 with a creative writing degree.

Initially hopeful that his college education would create opportunities, Bledsoe languished for three months before finally taking a job as a barista, a position he has held for the last two years. In the beginning he sent three or four resumes day. But, Bledsoe said, employers questioned his lack of experience or the practical worth of his major. Now he sends a resume once every two weeks or so.

Bledsoe, currently making just above minimum wage, says he got financial help from his parents to help pay off student loans. He is now mulling whether to go to graduate school, seeing few other options to advance his career. "There is not much out there, it seems," he said.
 

 (I know this sounds like I'm on my front porch shaking my cane, but, referencing the picture at the top of the article, I'm sorry, the piercings and the gauges don't help, either, unless you want to remain a Starbucks barista. Not being prejudiced - I know and love some delightful Illustrated People - but I also know how the business world works and thinks.) This jobs climate is not the time to make it any harder for people to look beyond the superficial and see your glowing personal worth.

ADDENDUM:

Just to be clear, a liberal arts major ostensibly exists to teach one HOW to think; in practise, it exists to make you interesting to talk with at parties. English major?  PAH hahahahahahahaha. You want extra foam?

 

6 comments:

Doom said...

Have you spoken with some of the young graduates, or soon to be graduates? When I was in school, just a few years back, I couldn't believe these people had made it through any type of education. Further, most of them like our poor hero had zero clue about what they were going to do.

One of my friends was getting his masters, and thought he was going on to a ph.d. in physics. I can't say it was me, though I may have played a part. After getting a masters he cut and ran. His choices would have been academia or... well, that was probably it. Of course, he is doing minimum wage (part time I think) work for... the government. *sigh*

I'm trying to talk him into working up his computer skills and tackling computer security but I think he is burned out. He has a native, and extensive, self-learned set of computer skills. He just sits, and types stuff from an old web site to a new one, content, I guess? Argh! If I had his health I'd be ripping my area of the world up, inventing, producing, doing... I hate that.

The Aardvark said...

Mercy.

Hard science has some value out there. Now, creative writing, womyn's studies, ethnic studies, political science...learn how to make espresso, baby.

Doom said...

Not so much, not when you get past undergraduate, unless your company sends you for something they (and presumably the industry) needs/demands. Graduate school is often a dead end into academics if you aren't very sure about what you are doing. I think he realized he wasn't liberal enough to ever make it in academics (which I think was his goal). Oh, that is the other thing. You have to be a complete totalitarian liberal to get anywhere in academia. He saw the writing on the wall... a bit late, but.

And, no, jobs are drying up for physicists, hard. They were always... a bit odd, never actually physicists, more like math majors (the solid maths). Just... an addition to design teams and such, back-up, support. Those jobs just aren't there anymore. At least according to him and some of his friends who rolled before him and got in before the doors slammed shut.

Sad, too. He is sharp. We had more than many nights of chat, chat with scotch, about women (he is woefully unschooled there, did my best though), life, religion, and of course scotch (he did school me there). heh

The Aardvark said...

Ahhh, I am surprised about the physics, 'cos I didn't factor in the liberal bent of academe. Sadness.

Jay said...

About a year 'n a half ago, I was availing myself of the ATM in the lobby of the student union of the college I janitor at. CNN had a story of a teabagger protest on. As I walked past one girl said to another: "Why don't they like paying taxes?" Sigh .....

I was about to say "It's because they work for a living." but I bit my toungue instead.

The town the college is located in is a small rural burg. All they need to do is walk a few blocks on any point of the compass & start asking questions. The answers may not be of the eloquence they're used to in poly sci but they'd get an earfull.

TheWayfarer said...

Creative Writing? And the dumbass couldn't grok the obvious of applying for a newspaper/online magazine columnist or writing a book!? WTF, over!?!?
Cognative dissonance claims another victim...LOL!!!