I wasn’t FGLI, but my parents and nearby family were not particularly knowledgeable about the college or post-college employment process – a very different group from typical members of this forum. This had a variety of negative influences. For example, I was an engineering major, but did not do an internship during college. The problem wasn’t that I couldn’t get an internship. I had no idea that it was common for engineering students to apply for internships, so I didn’t apply to any. However, I did apply to a job at area tech company with in biking distance of campus, which I worked at during the school year. The latter was more consistent with my father who was the first in his family to attend college. At the strong discouragement of his family, he attended college, largely in an effort to follow attractive women from his HS class. He also worked during the school year (to pay for college since no support from family) and did not pursue internships.
There are a variety of factors that influence post-graduate employment and career following college. Major often has a strong influence on career options/path. Family/community/friends background/connections also often has a important influence. Many other factors also have an influence.
I’m sure FGLI students are more likely to struggle than the average Ivy+ type grad, but this does not mean every FLGI who pursues humanities will be homeless like the Dartmouth grad. This is an extreme outlier. Many also have great outcomes. More relevant is to look at typical outcomes. Typical outcomes are very different for grads with different majors. I haven’t seen outcomes sorted by FGLI for different majors, so that is mostly speculation and anecdotes. What little information is available suggests Ivy+ grades from lower income families tend to average much lower early career income post grad than students from higher income families, but it’s unclear how much of that relates to their FGLI background vs different major/career goals. For example, maybe FGLI kids are far less likely to favor Wall Street investment banking than the average HYP… kid, and are far more likely to favor jobs that permit living closer to family.
I remember skimming Paying for the Party when it first came out. It is an illuminating case study in how just being hardworking and motivated is not enough for FGLI students to propel themselves to a successful career. FGLI students at IU-Bloomington saw their wealthy classmates effortlessly glide into careers in marketing, advertising, journalism, fashion merchandising, and event planning and thought that they could do the same. What they didn’t realize (until it was too late!) was that these wealthy peers had parental connections to get their foot in the door.
One could argue the same thing about humanities majors at T20 schools — wealthy students can slide into jobs at elite finance, consulting, tech, and public policy places due to parental and social connections. Non-wealthy students cannot. Reminds me of this article I read:
My “big time” connections have rarely come through for me, but I have had some of the most random connections pay off, including a friend of a friend who was a secretary at the company that hired me. All she did was get my resume onto the pile, but I had no idea this firm was even looking for someone before I networked my way to her.
If you are an aggressive networker, you can build your own connections.
I see several suggestions here that unless students are from backgrounds where their families are familiar with the college experience and are coaching/driving them to pursue internships or network, then the students will miss out on opportunities. This might have rung true in the past, but in every school visit we attended with our son, the presenter highlighted the number of kids who had internships, the various support services on campus to find internships or jobs (especially for organizations catering to under-represented groups), and how applying to internships was expected and part of the program. Based on our campus visits, it appeared that schools were doing everything in their power to match students with jobs, especially under-represented students. Did I miss something?
Yes, this. Many young adults, including my own, had no parental connections in their field for internships or jobs, but simply aggressively applied and over time, forged their own networks.
This is going to be a wildly unpopular opinion on here, but I personally think we’re in the middle of a “cultural recession” where much of the books, music, art, theatre, and other entertainment is not particularly original or creative. I attribute this in large part because the arts are now dominated by the children of the wealthy, which reduces ideological and creative diversity in art mediums.
I know CC will disagree with me on this, but go on any art/music/literary/cultural forum and they’ll general agree with me. Nowhere is this stronger than the arts scene in my city, where the (few) artists from lower-income backgrounds tend to agree with me.
Maybe this is true of colleges particularly dedicated to career placement (ie: Northeastern or Drexel), but DD found her career office at an Ivy largely useless. It was overwhelmingly staffed by failed academics who needed an “alt-ac” job. Based on what my friends’ kids and DD’s friends from other school say, this appears to be a common experience.
Don’t see anyone “sliding” into these types of jobs. Connections are worthless unless your GPA is over 3.6+ with relevant classes. Connections and a T20 college may make it easier to get past the first screen, assuming you are qualified, but the “gentlemen C” student’s best prospects are a family business. In fact, at least in finance and consulting, there are special programs that hire URMs/other disadvantaged classes for internships earlier (frosh and sophomore summers). The linked article was not about the advantage of connections of the wealthy but the cushions/safety nets they enjoy which allows them to pursue “glamorous” but not high paying jobs with much lower risk.
Wow! What city are you in? And is your exposure to art, music, theater, and literature limited to just your own city?
As I wrote previously, I know many in the arts who do NOT come from wealth. That aside, you are saying no originality??? No creativity? I follow theater a lot as my kid is in that field (she also has a career in the music field). Do you not find Hamilton original or creative? The Best Musical Tony last night went to A Strange Loop, totally breaking new barriers, as did Fun Home several years back. I’m biased, but my own kid’s original musical staged this year is quite original and creative. In a major publication, she was called “visionary.” There are also many innovative and creative rising music artists today. There are even many lists of such artists out there. My own kid even, who is also a singer-songwriter artist with a major record label, made one of these lists. New creative, innovative, and original artists are out there. Maybe you haven’t been exposed to them.
My wife and I have an interesting take on FGLI students from the other side of the desk, the side offering jobs. She ran a business for 20 years in the Chicago area, and hired many newly minted college grads because she had to train employees in her very specialized industry. Early on, she interviewed kids from Northwestern, and was flabbergasted at their level of entitlement and lack of self awareness. It was not uncommon for recent grads with no work experience to ask in the first interview when they would get their first raise and how long until they would become management. She made the mistake of hiring an NU grad, who after working for a year at age 23 asked my wife when she would join the senior management team. My wife calmly outlined the education and experience of the management team (masters degrees in business and/or finance, more than 10 years rising corporate ladders) and asked the employee if she thought her one year in an entry level job and BA degree in History was comparable. After that, she stopped interviewing students from NU.
Then she discovered DePaul, a commuter school where many students were FG (not sure about LI), often from recent immigrant families. Since her business had clients all over the world, hiring people who spoke two or three languages was a huge plus. DePaul was also focused on preparing students for jobs and they worked hard to cultivate contacts with Chicago area businesses. I would guess more than half the employees from her firm were hired out of DePaul, and many stayed with her for over 15 years. They all had practical, job focused majors, like accounting or finance, and most worked while in school. They all were thankful for the jobs, promotions, and bonuses, and they all worked their tails off. The kids from NU could learn something from the DePaul students.
More often than not that will be a bridge too far to cross. Not sure why the next step for FGLI should be intergenerational wealth. How about financial stability? How about just simply building some wealth without it being intergenerational? To me looking at small steps rather than large leaps makes more sense. If you reach intergenerational wealth, great. Just not sure that should be the goal.
Saying that there is no creativity in the arts is like saying that there is no creativity in the human race. People have been “creating” since they lived in caves. It’s not hard to find great arts anywhere you look.
It’s optional to go to career services, no one is forcing you. But another factor can be the attitude of certain academics in humanities subjects, with some of S’s professors actively characterizing capitalism and working in the private sector as bad, and encouraging public service (by which they mean low paid public sector or non-profit jobs). His friend who took a job with a FAANG company had to hide that (from professors and many fellow students) and pretend she was doing Teach For America instead.
And some students are their own worst enemies, it amused me to note that a bunch of them formed a “union” which filed complaints against any professors who gave difficult assignments, with the (very few) compulsory quantitative courses being the main target. These students’ favorite was the Marxist professor who didn’t believe in grading so gave everyone an automatic A.
I know people who do well enough in those industries to live in HCOL areas. TV especially behind the scenes.
None of them are FGLI and none have parents in the industry. What they did have was parental support to graduate debt free (ok dark ages?) and help while they labored at the bottom doing NBC page type jobs. Even if they didn’t get monetary help after college, I believe it can make a difference if there is a safety net - even if it’s something like being able to go home for a month or two to regroup or the occasional vacation with parents or the dinner out.
It’s difficult to separate between cause and effect. For example, did SNL hire them because they worked at Harvard Lampoon? Or do kids who are really interested in writing comedy both choose to write comedy at their college (such as Lampoon) and write comedy for SNL?
Looking up he most recent season’s new writer hires as listed on Wikipedia, I see a wide variety of backgrounds. As an example, the first 5 in alphabetical order are below. I don’t see much pattern in terms of colleges attended or whether they worked at Lampoon or similar newspaper during college. Drama/theater was a common major, but there are many exceptions. Instead they appear to be hired largely on experience. All I looked up had been working for many years prior to be hired, often more than a decade. This work experience varied, but involved successfully writing popular comedy. As a general rule, the more relevant experience you have, the less what happened during college matters.
Baker – Comedian/Actress/Writer who attended Emory
DiCenzo – Started writing for The Onion → Tonight show → SNL, Attended Boston U
Domineau – Sketch Actor/Writer, Attended Chicago and NYU
English – Stand up comedian/actor/writer who attended Central Michigan
Higgens (J) – Son of writer Higgens (S), SNL appears to have hired his 3-person sketch comedy group, 2 of which were sons of SNL alumni
Our son applied to engineering schools, so the experience may have been different from humanities students. Purdue touted it’s coop/internship office and bragged that over 70% of their students graduated with coop experience. MSU highlighted the number of their engineers who gained experience in the automotive industry before graduating.
I would argue that in this day and age (with ossifying wealth inequality) that intergenerational wealth is quite similar to financial stability. For example, a key cornerstone of financial stability is buying a house (which can be converted to intergenerational wealth), but rising house prices will prevent many (arguably most) of Gen Z from achieving this.
In a major publication, she was called “visionary.” There are also many innovative and creative rising music artists today. There are even many lists of such artists out there. My own kid even, who is also a singer-songwriter artist with a major record label, made one of these lists. New creative, innovative, and original artists are out there. Maybe you haven’t been exposed to them.