If fashion merchandising is so easy, then why doesn’t everyone do it? It takes skills - a different set of skills. I grew up being exposed to the fashion industry. It’s no “easier” than any other industry, you know.
If fashion merchandising offers jobs to people who major in it, why did only the people whose parents were wealthy and could support them after college get those jobs?
What jobs were they? One of my college friends started in sales at a major department store and retired as their too national buyer. There is more than one way into that business.
Any jobs in the field.
If they couldn’t find jobs selling clothes, it doesn’t sound like they looked hard enough. What did they end up doing?
“If fashion merchandising offers jobs to people who major in it, why did only the people whose parents were wealthy and could support them after college get those jobs?”
That’s changing the goalposts. I wasn’t saying that fashion mdsing was a plentiful-job market (I don’t know one way or the other). I was responding to the accusation that it’s “easy.” Well, really? How good would you be as a fashion merchandiser for Ralph Lauren, CF? Would you be successful at it and would it come easily to you? It’s just a different set of skills, that’s all.
“What jobs were they? One of my college friends started in sales at a major department store and retired as their too national buyer. There is more than one way into that business.”
Of course. And lots of money to be made, too. But typical CC snobbery - it’s somehow inferior to, I don’t know, engineering or something. The engineer who designs the Macy’s building - oh, he’s so valuable, but not the people without whom there wouldn’t be a Macy’s in the first place. (No particular love for Macy’s, just an example).
I didn’t say the jobs are easy. I said the courses are easy. The jobs require what Paying for the Party refers to as “performing femininity,” something I have little ability in. Performing femeninity is a valuable skill employers will pay for, but not an academic skill. Indiana has no business running a finishing school.
Don’t blame IU. Blame yourself and all of us.
The number of kids going to 4 year college has massively and expensively swelled. Everybody has to go to college!!!
But the number of kids that are really suited for and interested in a traditional 4 year college BA has not increased very much. Those kids go to college because they have to – the consequences of not going are dire.
If it was considered OK (socially and for employment) for a middle class kid to just get a 2 year CC associates degree, then huge numbers of today’s college students would do that instead (and at a much lower expense). But since it is not OK, the kids are stuck spending a lot of money and time to go to college.
When they get there, they have to major in something. No surprise that business is, by far, the number one major at U.S. colleges.
Kids in the U.S. need more education than high school. But they really don’t need all the college we all currently pay for.
Perhaps Indiana has “no business” running a school that prepares people for jobs that you, personally, don’t have abilities in, because you’re the arbiter of worthwhile skills.
42 Bay wrote: [quote] What jobs were they? One of my college friends started in sales at a major department store and retired as their too national buyer. There is more than one way into that business.
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I loved working retail in high school and during college breaks. Women were able to earn a living wage at locally owned department stores as sales clerks and if they had a college degree and interest could become buyers over time. Where I grew up these local, family owned, upscale department stores are all gone. The chain mall department stores have deteriorated to the point of non-recognition. A very few, very expensive stores still do exist, but it isn’t like when I graduated from college in the late 70s.
For a long time, I thought all this was just my imagination but I’ve read several books about this phenomenon the last few years. These stores couldn’t compete with the inexpensive clothes at Walmart and Target. In the early nineties, dressmakers I knew closed up shop because not enough women were willing to spend more than $20 for a dress to keep them in business full-time.
So, I think retail opportunities are not as great as they were 30 years ago. Also, we all know stores like Gap and Abercrombie hire a certain look for their sale’s staff. Even if someone has the right look and gets the job, will that person be able to be self supporting and pay off student debt? I am sure there are still opportunities for self supporting jobs at the very high end department stores, but those jobs will probably be extremely competitive.
If there aren’t enough jobs available for everyone graduating in that major, it would seem to me the individuals advising college students in those majors need to make that clear. That doesn’t mean “crushing their dreams” and not allowing them to major in that subject. It just means making sure they understand the reality of the situation. They need to know their professors, the college, can’t get them the jobs they want.
Their professors should be able to tell students how much competition they will face for those jobs, and if those jobs even still exist. And discuss whether the professor believes those jobs will exist 10 and 15 years from now. Anything else is irresponsible imho.
I don’t see how this should be different than an advisor in pre-med talking realities of the situation with students. We take it for granted everyone who wants to be a doctor won’t get into med school. This is sad, but reality. Some dreams get crushed. Let’s limit the damage as much as we can.
There are jobs in retail beyond the sales floor. Merchandising. Advertising. Promotion. Buying. Line-building. Logistics management. Inventory management. Operations. Why, it’s almost like a real company! This isn’t just prep for the cashier’s desk.
Fine. Why aren’t those graduates getting jobs in their fields? What is going on there?
adding: I was responding to Bay’s “work your way up” post.
PG: It’s not really about retail. It’s not about class warfare. It’s about kids taking out loans for college with the expectation they get jobs that provide them at least a middle class lifestyle. We take for granted this is some sort of norm. For some students this seems not to be happening. What is going wrong?
It’s a rough economy for everybody these days. Look, my upper middle class kids with all their social capital and what-not can’t get jobs either. They just have a softer cushion on which to fall. Truly I’m sympathetic, but I just don’t think there are any job guarantees these days, I confess to thinking these days that I should have pushed my kids to pre-professional fields so they’d have jobs when I see kids at “lesser” schools being assured jobs. And mine are economics and history/American studies majors so it’s hardly as though they were taking “useless” majors.
Yes it is a very difficult economy. Majoring in fashion merchandising or tourism seems different to me than majoring in economics or history. I am not surprised those students would have an expectation there were jobs for them in those fields. If there are not jobs for them, their professors need to tell them that. imho.
What advising did your kids get? What is the next step? Do they have particular kinds of jobs in mind. Lots of kids take a year off to do graduate school applications, when they have the soft cushion.
Thanks for reading the book. I am going to try and download it today. Big project - the downloading, not the reading.
Neither are interested in graduate school - it feels like just kicking the can down the road to them. The next step is simply continuing to look for jobs - if they don’t have them come graduation time, they can move back home and continue to look.
PG: Good luck to your kids on their job searches. I know from experience how very stressful all that is, for parents as well as graduates.
Thank you! Very kind of you. Now back to the price of sex at USC …
Here is what IU says about careers in Apparel Merchandising:
http://design.iub.edu/rdmg/careerOp.shtml
I also googled such jobs and did see some openings on monster jobs and others, but I have no idea how legit those job search sites are, however.