Useless degrees are useless

[wilheldp_PE]

http://news.yahoo.com/1-2-graduates-jobless-underemployed-140300522.html

"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.

Seriously, what can you do with a creative writing degree other than be a writer? Even he admits that he doesn't know what he is looking for because his degree is utterly useless. The real reason that 1 in 2 college graduates are un- or under- employed is that they go to college for 4 years to earn a degree that doesn't make them any more marketable than a high school diploma. It has absolutely nothing to do with the job market or some mythical oppression by society.

 

[YMZ PE]

 

[YMZ PE]

In all seriousness I don't care what other people choose to major in, if they're paying for it themselves. What burns me is when people take out government loans to get useless degrees, then default on those loans and burden the rest of us when they can't get a decent job.

 

[RIP - VTEnviro]

What bothers me are the folks who get the loans and schoarlships and go back to their old high school job after graduating, depriving someone who could have used the opportunity in the first place.

 

[Capt Worley PE]

I knew a girl who was a dang super-genius when when was a kid that got a Masters or PhD in Ancient American Indian Studies.

She was cute, so maybe she was planning on marrying well.

 

[Supe]

Maybe there was a boom in non-profit museum curator positions at the time?

 

[Chucktown PE]

In all seriousness I don't care what other people choose to major in, if they're paying for it themselves. What burns me is when people take out government loans to get useless degrees, then default on those loans and burden the rest of us when they can't get a decent job.

The good news is that they can't default on those loans. Federally guaranteed student loans are not bankruptable or dischargable. It's similar to IRS debt as far as the consequences for not paying it.

 

[cdcengineer]

Yeah - a creative writing degree would not have flown with my Dad and older brother when i was choosing my major. I remember the old man saying something like, "You're not taking archaeology, it might be a fun and interesting job, but only rich kids get to play in the dirt. You gotta get a useful degree where you can get a job".

What he meant was, you gotta get a job and get out on your own. I was already living on my own at the time, but he never wanted me coming back.

 

[Dexman PE PMP]

...it might be a fun and interesting job, but only rich kids get to play in the dirt.

Does that mean I'm rich since I get to play in the dirt (construction management)?

 

[Dexman PE PMP]

IIRC, wasn't there a member here on eb.com who seemed to think all degrees were useless except his own?

 

[Capt Worley PE]

Yeah - a creative writing degree would not have flown with my Dad and older brother when i was choosing my major.

I thought about going in to advertising. I was advised by dad that i better get serious about picking a real major.

 

[csb]

I nearly quit engineering to try marketing, but luckily my schedule filled up before I could take that class. I later got an MBA, but remain grateful I got the engineering degree.

 

[Chucktown PE]

My wife was a marketing major in college. She found a good job after school but it seemed like a very easy major to me with very fluffy concepts. I always wondered what was so hard about it.

 

[snickerd3]

or there are those that have decent degrees and let them become useless. My BIL's wife went to a private college to get a teaching degree, music teacher, even though she couldn't play the piano...yet she never left working for the photo department at osco other than a year working as an assisstant at a daycare center. she never even looked for a music teacher position. Never used her expensive education, but let my BIL pay her student loan debt.

another example...a friend from college graduated with ChemE degree and didn't want to relocate to find a job...he still works at walmart...10 yrs later.

 

[Road Guy]

My wife's cousin went to Harvard, majored in archeology....

None the less she received dozens of six figure job offers (none of them with Indiana jones) but IBM, Microsoft, top shelf firms who for some reason like to hire the Harvard types.... While at a family function my father in law (life long big wheel at Gold Kist, he managed millions in dead chickens basically) overheard the new Harvard grad boasting of her job offers but said that she wasn't going to sell her soul to corporate America.. My FIL, the career businessman, the kind that didn't Expense mileage, meals while traveling, went to worl early, stayed late, weekends, ect.. ..leaned over to her and said "you may not like corporate America but who do you think pays for all those archeology digs?"

The look on her face was.... Priceless...

She worked at a SAT test prep place for a while, helping other 9 year olds learn to take the sat at an early age...

Her parents worked themselves to death almost literally to pay for her degree. She was living in a one room apartment with a lot of cats....her mom became a beer distributor, and ended up owning several medium size beer distributors in Texas, she has beer in trader joes, Costco (I dont know the names of them) but she basically handed the business over to her daughter to run, and yeepppp.. She ran it into the dirt, said it was to hard, occupied too much of her time..pissed off her moms contact with Costco and almost lost the ability to sell beer there...

Just fuckin ludicrous... Can you imagine how many times you have to bug someone to walk in off the street and get fucking Costco to sell your beer?

While her education level is higher than your average creative writer, I think she has a lot in common with the average bachelor of arts degree owner.. Success comes before work, only in the dictionary....

 

[YMZ PE]

^^ While I would like to feel bad for her parents, they're probably a big part of why she's as dysfunctional as she sounds.

 

[cdcengineer]

^ RG, that's Awesome..

 

[wilheldp_PE]

I think coming from a middle class family is the butter zone for future success. In poorer households, the parents usually don't give a shit about education or success for their children, so they breed lazy, welfare queens. In richer households, the children are spoiled rotten, handed high-priced education on a silver platter, and they expect success without work (a la RG's example above). Of course, these are broad generalizations with scores of exceptions, but I'd wager that it's accurate more often than not.

 

[Capt Worley PE]

I don't know, wil. My Dad came from a poor family, and he raised a cow to pay for college. He's the only one who finished college, but they've all (two brothers and two sisters) been extremely successful, mostly in the finance world.

Then again, that was the fifties.

Now, a vast majority of people, across the economic spectrum, don't care about education. They expect stuff to be handed to them. Witness RGs story. Witness generational welfare.

Oh, well. American idol is on.

 

[Road Guy]

Ive tried to tell her mom (my wifes Aunt) that I would be happy to take over their business for them!

Her dad was a pilot in Vietnam, flew B-52's, then flew for southwest for years, they werent "fatty rich" but were upple middle class...

I am just worried about the same thing in my kids as well.. my parents were teachers in avery rural county in Georgia, I think after 30 years my mom retired making $38K, Dad a little higher but not much.. we werent dirt poor but for example when I was in middle school my dad still drove a 60's VW Van (with star wars curtains).. it always made me work harder at whatever I was doing, but if I hadnt joined the army out of high school I would have probably been a typical college fuck up at the University of Georgia (where i was headed before I decided to kill people for a living)

I try and make my kids mow the grass, do chores around the house, there good with that as long as they get a little coin in exchange, but I dont see much "desire" to maybe mow the grass and go back and look for strips of grass that were missed.....its like they have no problem doing the work, but dont have much internal motivation to do it "well"...