<p>When I was a pre-teen I was told all it took was a great education. Now people with amazing educations flip at McD's right out of college. I think the way of the world is to take control and think outside the box and do nothing traditional. If everyone is doing it, you will never stand out. Don't conform, create.</p>
<p>Just my thoughts on the subject :-) Take tjem with a grain of salt and don't hate just becuase....</p>
<p>Yes it is true that a great education won’t always land you a job and that taking control and thinking outside the box is the way to go. However, if it were that easy to create the next Microsoft or Apple, wouldn’t everyone be doing it? It’s definitely not easy and that’s why most people can’t do it. But if you can, more power to you.</p>
<p>The job market certainly has become pretty competitive recently, although I do think it is manageable for those that really want to do well. Just anecdotally, I know lots of seniors/masters students that have frankly been really lazy in their job search. Many don’t even start their job search till they get back from Christmas vacation (when the biggest hiring season for students graduating is in the fall).</p>
<p>Also, I get the impression that many students think that by virtue of going to a school as highly ranked as Stanford/Harvard/Yale/etc that they are going to more or less be handed a job, which is definitely not the case. Students still need to be competitive grades wise and put in their time to find a good job for them. Of my friends that have honestly done that, I think basically all of them have jobs.</p>
<p>Sometimes thinking outside the box leads to living inside of one.</p>
<p>But I’d reframe the OP’s point more positively this way: conventional thinking leads to conventional results. You want to stand out without being too weird to be accessible. You always get further by figuring out what you can do for X, Y, and Z than focusing on what they can do for you.</p>
<p>It’s not just people who go to the Ivies who think they’ll be handed one. Basically anyone with a college degree thinks they deserve a job. I’m in my mid twenties and all my college aged friends tell me that all the time…b/c that’s how my generation was raised…just go to college, get a degree, and you’ll be fine…unfortunately, that isn’t true…</p>
<p>That’s true, but it’s not within everyone’s ability to create something radically new and innovative. Actually, it’s not really even so much about ability, as creativity and probably a good deal of luck are huge factors.</p>
<p>Beyond that, the key is to provide a service that others cannot or will not. Your job is a service. Look into knowledge based degrees. Engineering/science/medicine majors require smarts and considerable hard work, things that many people either do not possess or are not willing to invest the necessary effort into. Just ask yourself - can the major i’m getting into be done by anybody with minimal effort? If so, expect it to be very difficult to find a job or make a decent salary with that degree. Flipping burgers can be done by anybody. So can the more wasteful liberal arts degrees. It’s no surprise that those people are often the ones you find at Micky D’s, even in a good economy.</p>
<p>Sophia: I think what you said is an absolute truth for someone during their college career, when there tends to be less responsibility overall…at the very least you tried something and even if you fail, as long as you learned from your mistakes you become much more valuable to employers than your peers in most cases…I must also add that TheDad put it perfectly</p>