There are many people who are just okay in their subject matter yet find jobs. Some people with low skills also make a lot of money. I know I’ve worked with some.
I’d guess most people are just ok in their field, not outstanding in any way.
I believe there are high paying jobs in every field. The question is, are kids focused on that particular job? It’s often a matter of being flexible and focused on wanting a good salary in conjunction with the work. And not letting oneself seek the perfect job as opposed to similar work at a decent pay.
Seems like a lot of kids only want to do one thing and keep the framework really narrow. I think many parents try to expand their kids chosen paths by pointing out what’s obvious to an adult but might not be obvious to a younger person.
I’d have no issue with my kids going into 98% of fields. I’d try to advise them when moving around in their early careers to look at long term skills and salary as well as the job. There’s a trade off in everything. IMO, it’s more often that some kids have inflexible ideas about work and want to only work for certain companies, have a certain title, etc. They don’t see that life is a maze. You can get there but it’s often a circuitous path.
I’ve been an adjunct for years at a large research flagship located right smack dab in one of the most liberal cities in the country, had a kid just graduate from Wesleyan a few years back and have one at Brown right now. There can be a lot of political correctness. That’s not new. But you seem to think it’s a much bigger problem than do I, so we’ll just have to agree to disagree.
We probably needed a public reminder that nobody is promised, or should expect, to be comfortable all the time on college campuses.
My observation is that people at the political extremes have lots of ideas but often lack the understanding of the side effects if they actually do succeed.
In contrast, someone designing a bridge doesn’t get the privilege of wishful thinking. The design must absolutely be correct.
This thread has been veering perilously close to becoming overtly politicized. Let’s remember the title of the post please. I am setting this on slow mode and will be reviewing parts of the thread.
ETA: I’ve hidden or edited several posts. If your post was hidden, it may be because it was a response to another hidden post, which is an option that appears when we hide things.
I would just like to point out that very few working-class or FGLI students at four-year colleges are privileged with having parents who can give them meaningful career advice. These kids are relying heavily on school contacts, whatever pathways have been hewn by previous alum and when all else fails - further study.
Don’t forget the internet. When I was in college no such resource existed. While parental advice is best IMHO (as a parent :)), there are forums like CC which offer so much. Perhaps much more than most parents could ever provide.
I only had one friend whose parents advised them when it came to college (They were all engineers, and it turned out she didn’t like engineering after a few years). But otherwise, parents generally kept out of it. Not sure if parental advice is over rated. It really seemed non-existent then and seems to be pervasive now.
I do believe that many parents today help their kids get their first job. IMO, that’s what’s missing for low SES or First gens. That’s an important boost.
Not in my world. In our experience, the STEM parents got their kids jobs much like any other field. Some even got really good internships in high school. Not sure why you think it doesn’t happen in STEM fields. Many parents who are in STEM, steer their kids in that direction from an early age. For kids who weren’t technical or didn’t have the background, many got 1st job in marketing, sales or related fields.
The parental or other pre-existing connections will not get the entry-level person a job where the interview process includes some screening for skills relevant to the job, unlike where the job is basically doled out as office-political patronage or similar without regard to skills relevant to the job.
However, it may get the entry-level person a back door chance to apply to the job and get to the interview when some other entry-level person may not even know that the job opening exists or have to go through the front door process of being screened out by the HR recruiting.
Huh, interesting. I don’t have enough experience to comment on jobs post-graduation, but I know many STEM students (both on the high school and college level) who had help from their parents in obtaining internships, summer jobs and even some term-time ones in STEM and engineering fields.
I guess that I assumed that the rates of parents helping their kids find entry-level positions after graduation is more or less the same across most fields. I also assumed in all fields that it amounts to more of a networking thing for job interviews and the like than handing a job to a kid without qualifications.
That’s what I meant by parental (or other types of) guidance. That guidance is helpful, but I have rarely seen anyone hired for a highly technical job because of parental relationship in a public or a successful private company.
Nepotism does exist, but it’s rarer in most fields of STEM.
Getting to the interview through the back door of connections (parental or otherwise) is somewhat more than guidance, even though the applicant still has to earn the job from there (unlike with jobs that can be handed out as patronage).
However, other possible parental advantages could fall under the heading of guidance. For example, a parent in or familiar with a particular type of job or industry may be able to tell the kid where some of the jobs are, what jobs tend to be the better ones, etc., where such information may not be that widely known to the general population of job seekers (who may be mostly applying to the same highly competitive jobs while others have a lack of applicants because not many know about them).
^^I agree with this, but as I’ve mentioned many times before on this site, living in close proximity to Stanford, I know Stanford employees and alums (I’m not one), who definitely have helped their kids get some nice placements at Stanford as well as other companies around here.
Now, both my kids are in STEM, but they both used Indeed to get their current jobs. I offered some advice, both solicited and unsolicited, but otherwise, my “pull” is/was a big ZERO.
