<p>
Interesting that you would choose that as your analogy, but you’re right. People used to defend slavery much as they do other issues today. They weren’t bad people, they just had a different viewpoint on the world than we typically do now.</p>
<p>I got a job fresh out of college making over 50k a year.
In a recession. </p>
<p>I studied art. </p>
<p>But I also learned how to think, communicate, and problem solve. That’s why I have a job. </p>
<p>Like someone said before, college isn’t just about a degree or specific career related study, it’s about learning how to think critically. Someone can go to vocational school and have the talent to fix cars, but my god, what a better society we would have if they could do both that and have a broad base of knowledge and the tools to think.</p>
<p>It’s been stated oh so many times on here, but Napoleon is onto something. A college graduate might have a single major, but a one-trick pony from a skillset standpoint–almost regardless of the major–will be at a disadvantage in the job market UNLESS he/she possesses great communication skills, somewhat verbally but especially written, and finally has the confidence to take responsibility for actions around them & work through problems.</p>
<p>A real ‘can-do’ attitude goes a long way. I’m in my mid-fifties and am working for a big corporation after 30-some years of owning my own business & being employed by very small companies. And what I’ve noticed is that while many of the ‘youngsters’ around me (anyone under 30–the OPPOSITE of who we were told NOT to trust in the late 60’s! :)) can Excel & PowerPoint me under the table, when it comes time to take care of sticky problems, they’re nowhere to be found or have deflected their screw-ups elsewhere, and think nothing of it. That doesn’t fly well with me. Taking ownership & responsibility for a problem, and following up on it promptly until at least a temporary solution is reached, is what clients want, really what they crave.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Substitute ‘help’ for ‘make a difference’ and re-evaluate.</p>
<p>The difference with overseas is that (a) they limit how many foreign workers they hire (in many tech environments it’s not uncommon to see a third of the US workforce being foreign born - in our subsidiary in Germany it’s more like 2 out of 120) and (b) they limit how much they outsource and where.</p>
<p>Our German subsidiary deals with Europe of course and they outsource to our Eastern Europe buddies slightly east of Germany. The workforce is extremely stable, extremely talented, and quite expensive but boy do they produce. And of course, if push comes to shove, the Germans rely on the alternative low cost site (US of A). They rarely use our China or India facility which, let’s just say, is experiencing more turnover than a Walmart…</p>
<p>As gravenewworld mentioned, this is like England. Well, this is like other countries in Europe that pioneered outsourcing and the like, and ended up with high unemployment and nothing to produce, relying instead on tourism and the like. I had front row seats to the economic carnage when I grew up there decades ago, and I’m seeing it again here. Same play, different actors. Needless to say, my daughters are both wielding EU passports (like me) so we have one more option if things continue to deteriorate… Assuming I can survive more than a month at a time on German food :-)</p>
<p>To be successful in any field it is necessary to love what you do, so that you will invest the time and effort to be among the best in that field. There is nothing magical about STEM, but professional jobs there tend to be highly paid for those who do them well. You can increase your chances of finding work by acquiring not only expertise in your field, but also highly transferable skills as well such as good communications skills(both speaking and writing), knowledge of leadership and team work methods, and analytical reasoning skills such as statistics, and computer modeling. Another path to success is the combine skills that are traditionally in separate fields; even in a highly competitive field like biology, knowledge of computing or stats can put you into a different category of grads.</p>
<p>in re. comment 61: actually, people who defended slavery WERE bad people. especially when you take into consideration the perspective of the enslaved. hello???</p>
<p>
Well that’s certainly one point of view.</p>
<p>It’s not <em>reaaaaally</em> like Europe/England though. The United States is an entirely different animal. Even in our sorry economic state we have more going for us than service, super-technical and niche industries. </p>
<p>Ironically, we have millions of immigrants flocking to our country from Latin America who are looking for work, we have untapped oil reserves (and other energies if oil’s not your thing), we have great swaths of fertile land and a huge domestic market where Europe is fractured and individual countries have long histories of hating each other (very little trust between them). With a decent safety net and the reduction of minimum wage (you can see I’m catering to both sides here) there really shouldn’t be any reason to have the problems we have if we were’t trying to play the world’s policeman.</p>
<p>On topic, like many have said, college graduates feel too entitled and I feel as though not even needs to go to 4-year university. The problem is grown out of elitism and the fear of disappointing one’s parents (“Go to school. You don’t want to grow up to be a garbage man, Billy.”) and a culture of anti-intellectualism (Jersey Shore etc.) coupled with a willingness to swap R&D for a focus on service industry that chokes the spirit of innovation and risk that made America so great. Also worth commenting on is the cancer otherwise known as crony-capitalism that’s ruining the capitalist drive for everyone. (Steve Jobs, however much of an ******* he may be, was an innovator deserving of the money he made and someone to be celebrated by capitalists. The average investment banker who games the system with a $4 billion dollar fund he inherited from his granddaddy for his personal gain? Not so much.)</p>
<p>Finally, the “jump ship” attitude leaves me, a high-school senior who intends to to go into STEM, a little disillusioned. The Germany example nearly had me rolling. You honestly think that the jobs prospects, pay and benefits for an American expat living in Germany are going to be better than they are here!? Not to be a sniveling brat, but even in my sleepy Midwestern town I have “heard tell” of the economic crisis in Europe. Combine that with xenophobia on behalf of the country you’re immigrating to (and that’ll be true anywhere) and realize that you’re not being realistic. </p>
<p>Yes, the economy is bad, worthy of the paradigm shift people are calling for, but the old USA isn’t down for the count just yet. We don’t need to be making Europe comparisons just yet. This 18-year-old will bust his ass looking for work (or creating it) and go down with the ship before occupying wall street or something so useless. Once more, you’re not going to solve the problem by decreasing STEM majors. That’s just absurd. </p>
<p>Peace.</p>
<p>VERY well-stated, wiscongene!!!</p>
<p>Last time I looked, the unemployment rate by education level was approximately this:</p>
<p>High school dropout: 16%
High school diploma: 9% or 10%
Associate’s degree: 8%
Bachelor’s degree: 4.5%</p>
<p>These are rough numbers, from memory, but if you do some research, you’ll find these are within a half percent or so.</p>
<p>yes it has been over sold. I tried to go to school. I was doing great, and I had passed all my psychology courses. I then realized “hay! I have never been to school before. i am extremely behind! i am a frecin gypsy! … shi$” I then droped out, and I started working. Then I got laid off so many times my head began to hurt “16x’s”. then the bill came for 10k with sallie mae. I thought “WOW! that’s a lot of money! omg!” I am still setting up a new way to pay it off currently. I have had to learn to set things up for me in various citys. The city i am in isn’t my first by far it’s more like my 15th. The truth is here in America it is hard to settle down anywhere espically now. Trust me I have been setting up my roots in various city’s since my mother blew her brains out. She was working two jobs after her divorce with my step dad “age 8”, and couldn’t pay the rent as well as feed us three. So, then the system came along, and split us up, and refused to let me have contact with my father. The state saw it as “a step back in my development as a young adult” now being 25 and a gypsy with a lot of trades I have to say “absolutely!” I am a maintenance techncian with a certificate from jobcorps. I have a C.N.A license which I am working on. I also had my carpenters license. I have worked in retail so much I get disgusted at the sound of a cash register. So, yes absoulutely school is over sold. Also I see a civil war headed to America not just because of your own people getting sick and feed up with all the injustices that happen to them, but by the fact that America is sending their troops home. It’s a welcoming ground for extremist, and if I was a C.I.A agent I’d be focusing on defence espically right now. This is when terroist attacks are high due to well…rage. So much for unity…If anything this war let America know just how
divided it’s people really are. How sick and feed up of the levels of wealth there is. How the rich just mock the poor, and starve them of what’s really theirs. For example look at any way we as Americans do buisness. I can get more money as a contractor then the actual worker who performs the work. you don’t reap what you sew here. </p>
<p>school is by far a huge rip off though. I see a lot of people that go out and get trades that well in reality do them no good. I know a good accountant that is now a great roofer. The list goes on and on and on. The School house rip off targets youngs kids, and then in the end it’s nothing short of less then history repeating itself. Good old fashioned slavery. You are now not free t ever to leave the country.</p>
<p>For example I can’t even join the Peace corps with so much as one small debt left behind. Even if I wanted to give my life to charity America won’t allow it. instead they slap on the cuffs in a more bearucratic way. I can’t even go to another country no longer then what my temporary visa allows. In order to give up citizen ship you have to be free of all debts. </p>
<p>Lately I have been camping out by the lake as usual. I had gotten harrashed by cops that are not even in their jurisdiction. It’s not your regular harashment when you get a rock thrown at you several times. yes-i had gotten four rocks thrown at me by cops. I know the were cops, because of the cop cars, and badges. </p>
<p>How about this injustice: I lost my job due to my age, and was told I was losing my job directly because of my age. The new Management company “wanted someone around their own age range”</p>
<p>how about this injustisce: I lost another job due to my sex. I had gotten hired on by a nursing home, but i had to under go testing by an older evaluater to test my knowledge of alzheimers disease. I passed my test, and then the un-thinkable happened the evaluater said to me “you passed your test, however I don’t think men make good care providers. I just don’t think you’d fit in here.”</p>
<p>how about this injustice: a man loses his job at Walmart while being on Vacation</p>
<p>how about this injustice: I was working at an aerospace corporation when then next I came in only to be told I was let go. When I asked why was I let go? I was told this “because the boss said you just don’t belong here” It wasn’t because I didn’t do my job good. Infact everyday I had to correct them of their mistakes. </p>
<p>I had gotten hired on as a correctional officer, and I was five days from graduation. I was then called into the back, and was told I was let go. When asked why- the warden frowned and said "because a student called in and said you were acting funny. Thank god for German Americans…? the big red one. seriously.</p>
<p>how about this injustice
how about this injustice
how about this injustice
how about this injustice</p>
<p>gypsy’s and jews were killed by hitler.
even hitler thought what he was doing was correct</p>
<p>once the federal government realizes how much profit their is to be made from student loans you might just think they’d hurry up and buy out everyone to turn a profit in the long run.</p>
<p>This thread might be the most depressing thing I’ve ever read.</p>
<p>Great plumbers, exceptional millworkers, carpenters, welders…those are hard to find… </p>
<p>Eh, not at all true… All our millworking and welding/manufacturing has pretty much been sent overseas… My husband has been a welder for ten years, passes every weld test easily and has seen his income shrink drastically. He used to make $25 an hour fresh out of vocational school but now with ten years of experience he makes $9 an hour. But, don’t worry, the CEO earns another several million… I would have been happy working my warehouse job for the rest of my life. They laid me off after I was making $12 an hour and after 60 days offered me my job back for $7.21 an hour after I’d worked for them 7 years. </p>
<p>Fact of the matter is that there is no middle class anymore and the wealthy are richer than ever. The rest of us just have starvation and homelessness to look forward to and no way to change it. I’m back in school for a real degree this time and I pity anyone that doesn’t have the brains to pull it off because I only see 3rd world level poverty in their future. Our country doesn’t feel like the people who work at McDonalds deserve to earn enough to afford basic housing and food.</p>
<p>How do you feel about moving to North Dakota?</p>
<p>Wiscongene, I’m afraid I will have to disagree. If you’re a HS senior you have seen little of the world financial crisis, let alone the world. People like me, at 52, have seen a lot more of both.</p>
<p>My birth country’s economy was reduced to rubble by the sheer refusal of my compatriots to do any kind of undignified work (which, surprisingly enough, many of them did when they immigrated to the US of A :-)) and the equally sheer refusal to buy anything produced domestically as it was ‘not good enough’. We managed to outsource the sole remaining money maker industry we had, and all we had left at the end was tourism.</p>
<p>The US is, in my view, in the same futile path. A few differences exist but by and large the similarities are striking, especially to those of us who saw it happen back there. People in the US can’t be convinced to give up their cheap imported stuff, can’t be bothered to work ‘hard’ (in the sense of doing something productive versus running yet another franchise that will likely fail in a couple years) and can’t be bothered to pay what is needed to keep the government out of the red. Everybody expects everybody else to pick up the pace and pretty soon we’re toast.</p>
<p>I wish I was wrong but don’t think so.</p>
<p>don’t play the age card. i’m 37 and i agree with wiscongene. if you’re so convinced that america’s on its way to total collapse, then why are you still here??</p>
<p>at 18, he may not have a lot of life experience, but he also doesn’t have a stale, sad, pessimistic, counter-productive view of the world either. imagine if every teenager had your outlook? we’d be doomed for sure!</p>
<p>Wiscongene------I wish there were more 18 year olds who could articulate their thoughts in the way you did in post #69.</p>
<p>I’m not sure whether or not this has been mentioned yet, but it seems to me that the reason a lot of college grads aren’t getting hired (and this is just what I’ve heard from my bosses) is because they are coming out of college with degrees but have never held down a job before. While having a degree (STEM or not) is great, it doesn’t seem to mean squat if you haven’t proven that you can show up on time or work well with others (as having work/internship experience could show). </p>
<p>I know a lot of people who are my age who are barely working minimum wage jobs because no one will hire them. I’m 20, have only a 5 year work history (no degree yet) and got an interview for pretty much every position I applied for this summer/fall. Of the interviews I ended up having, I was offered a job at all but one of them. I even have an interview tomorrow to work with the state for over $12/hour- that’s almost as much as my parents make in this terrible economy. I also have bosses that love me and write awesome recs because I work hard and am reliable. Apply for these positions (even supposed entry-level positions) without any work experience and it’s VERY unlikely that you’ll get an interview. It’s frustrating and a terrible cycle, but it is what it is. Oh yes, and I am majoring in Residential College in the Arts and Humanities with another degree in anthropology. </p>
<p>Instead of trying to force teenagers to go to college and major in STEM, or before they waste tens of thousands of dollars on an education, they should have to prove that they understand what a college education means- ie that they’re there to learn and succeed in the world, not just get a piece of paper. I wish we could force students to have a job/internship either before college or very early on in college so that they have a work history once they graduate. A degree just seems so useless without any kind of work history.</p>
<p>Roman is right…without internships and interesting on campus involvement there are no jobs for the new grads.</p>