Degrees of unhappiness

In the news business, and especially in the newspaper business, each season brings a collection of evergreen story topics. January sees polar-bear swims and Martin Luther King day. In February, it's valentines and groundhogs. And so on.

We seem to be seeing a new summertime theme: College graduates utterly unprepared for the Real World, astounded that their sparkling new degrees, acquired through undeniable hard work and at appalling expense, have not translated into fulfilling yet lucrative positions.

Chronic financial instability weighs on philosophy major
[Scranton Times Tribune]
“I’ve been working since I was 15 and I still have nothing,” said Ms. Pollack, 28. “It seems like that’s always the situation, even when I have a job. I have no money because I’m giving it to everybody else.”

A student of philosophy, she is frustrated by the domineering hold the greenback has, but resigned to the task at hand — to find a way to make a livable income and one day rise above the stacks of bills to enjoy an existence free from worry over the smallest everyday expenses.

I've commented on this phenomenon before, of course. Instead of making fun of this newest example (I really don't have the heart), I'll just say what I've said before:

The blame lies with the student herself, and with her advisors. My own journalism school advisor told me that my intended minor subject (art) would not help me find a job, and all but made me change it to political science, a subject I hated then and hate now. (I didn't really want to be a reporter: I wanted to work in production. I wanted to make the newspaper look better.)

I would suggest that philosophy advisors, distateful as it may be (not to mention running counter to your self-interest), ask your students how they expect to make money with a degree in philosophy. You can't make 'em act on it, but you can at least put the question in their heads. They trust you, and they don't deserve to be rudely surprised the day after commencement.

Okay, here's a job you don't want

Photo found (and available a little larger) at The New Shelton Wet/Dry.

"The real world is really tough"

This year's "whiny college graduate unprepared for the job market" letter to the editor is in the Buffalo News.

Upon graduating, I was helplessly launched headfirst into the “real world,” equipped with a degree in history and $32,000 in student loans. Before ricocheting back home, I would learn two important lessons: 1) There are no well-paying — let alone paying — jobs for history majors. 2) The real world is really tough.

(That should be "there are no paying — let alone well-paying — jobs for history majors". That's how the "this, let alone that" structure is used: The first example is general, the second more specific. Otherwise it makes no sense. But then you're a history major, not a language major, aren't you?)

Desperate times called for desperate measures, and I had no intention of living in a society that was as unfair as this one. To seek a haven devoid of the ruthless 9-to-5 ebb and flow of contemporary America, I moved to Alaska.

As a liberal arts major, I dreamed of making a profound difference in people’s lives.

Doing what, exactly? What kind of life would you judge your history degree has prepared you for? What did you have in mind?

Instead, for a year, I lived in Coldfoot, a town north of the Arctic Circle that resembles a Soviet Gulag camp. My job as a tour guide for visitors...

This "Soviet Gulag camp" of a town has a tourism industry? Why, yes it does. It isn't the bustling metropolis Cicely is, but it has its charms -- apparently lost on Ken, here.

I've read this letter five or six times now, and it keeps getting funnier every time I read it. I just wish the paper had done a sidebar interview with his parents.

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See also:

• Life Lessons (Shawna Gale, the grad from Yale)
• Does this mean I come with course credit?

Does this mean I come with course credit?

Yes, I do check my page referrals. I find the most fascinating things that way. Jason Hsu has, among his many pages, one called The Truths of Education that mentions me in the context of Shauna Gale. You may remember my response to the Yale graduate who wrote a long letter to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution complaining that her degree wasn't helping her get a job. Jason points you at several other responses, then says:

Most of the people who responded had valid points but should have directed their anger towards the sales propaganda of the Educational Establishment.

I agree wholeheartedly. Ms Gale was badly misled by Yale's recruiters and her faculty advisors, who are in part responsible for her current predicament. Her high school (and earlier) advisors share some of the blame, as well, for not teaching her how to "shop" for a college. She wasn't stupid: It simply never occurred to her that Yale's interests weren't necessarily in her best interests. Schools do not (intentionally) teach students to be skeptical of the educational system itself. Ms Gale could have brought some healthy skepticism to the table herself: That she did not is probably her biggest mistake.

At the time, I said:

It is in Yale's -- any college's -- financial interest to keep you in school and continue paying tuition. Whether you're qualified for a job when you leave doesn't affect them at all. Perhaps you've seen those late-night commercials for training institutes promising you a lucrative future in dental hygiene. Compare and contrast with Yale's recruitment brochures.

Anyway, this The Truths of Education page (I'm flattered to be included) is a collection of articles and reports describing the many ways in which schools fail (some the school's fault, some the kids'), comprising a decent "buyer beware" for the college-bound student. Would that there were many more pages like it.

Life Lessons

My hometown newspaper printed an essay by recent Yale graduate Shawna Gale. The readers at Romenesco's MediaNews had plenty to say about it (as did the readers at Plastic.com, as did Moira Breen, Alice in TV Land and Neal Boortz), but somehow I can't resist taking my own shot.

Even a Yale pedigree could leave one unemployed
By SHAWNA GALE

I worked hard in junior high. I worked harder in high school.

I took home more straight A report cards than any kid in my class. I scored just shy of 1400 on my SATs.

1310 here, not far behind you. And I did it in the days before they recalibrated the scale.

I rode horses. I played tennis and basketball. I taught English as a second language.

I had no social life until I was 17.

How strange. Did you corral a wild horse? Did you play tennis and basketball alone? Did you teach English to an empty room? How could you possibly have done any of these things without interacting with other human beings?

Oh, I see. Those were not social activities. Those were merely boxes on a checklist, variables in an equation that was supposed to solve for some value for U greater than $100K/year. (That was a math joke, y'see... Never mind.)

But I got into Yale. Then I worked harder than I ever had.

You didn't say who paid for it. I'll draw no conclusions. If you earned the money yourself, congratulations. If your parents paid for it, tell them you love them.

I was sure the payoff would be a multitude of attractive, not to mention lucrative, job offers upon graduation. Then the bottom dropped out of the economy.

So far, my Yale degree has secured me an e-mail forwarding address and a lifetime of alumni dues notices. Not exactly what I expected.

I was an English major which, for most people, roughly translates into "I have no marketable skills." But that's not so. I have many valuable skills honed during my days with Dickens, my nights with Nabokov, those wee hours with Woolf.

First of all, you know I can read. And I don't mean read like "Hooked on Phonics" read. I can read long, wordy, small printed works with relative speed and what's more, I can remember what I have read and write long, wordy, papers about it without any trouble. I have developed impressive analytical skills. I am trained to think -- really think -- about everything I read. And I am accomplished at putting those thoughts on paper.

Surely someone who can read -- and not merely read, but read "wordy, small printed works" (like the back of a cereal box?) -- knows the difference between "valuable skills" and "marketable skills." Your confusion of the two, therefore, puzzles me, unless you are angling for a political career. I can't think in what other position the ability to deliberately obfuscate might be a "valuable skill". Law, perhaps.

I was similarly puzzled by the "impressive analytical skills" that nonetheless do not equip you to cope in a competitive world, the nature of which you might have deduced had you applied those skills to ongoing reports in any daily newspaper. I was puzzled, until I realized that the ability to analyze wordy works and put thoughts on paper about them does not translate into the ability to understand those wordy works, or the world they attempt to describe.

At what point did you decide what kind of work you wanted to do for a living? You neglected to mention it. And which of your faculty advisors told you that a major in English was the way to accomplish it? If I were looking for the point where It All Went Wrong, I'd start there.

So where does that all leave me? Unemployed.

You are spectacularly well qualified to teach English. It should be relatively short work for you to satisfy certification requirements: You could be in a classroom by September.

I have taken that Yale degree to marketing firms, publishing companies, advertising agencies, and it has not worked any magic. If I leave the degree behind, I am hired on the spot to wait tables for $10 to $20 an hour depending on tips (and since I have well-developed public relations skills from that internship with the Commission on Human Rights, I will get closer to $20 an hour).

Erase Yale from my past and with little trouble I land a retail position helping rich ladies whose most prized degree is their "Mrs." find handbags to match the only type of investment they know how to make: shoes. Take that degree off my wall and I easily obtain a position at a local Starbucks, serving up nonfat lattes to busy professionals and harried college kids who don't know that the degree they are currently working their butts off for will be worth less than their stainless steel coffee mugs.

So I can earn $0 an hour not working at a marketing firm with my Yale degree, or potentially earn a couple of hundred bucks a night serving up fajitas at Chili's.

I can forfeit a paycheck while not employed with a publishing company, or I can earn seven bucks an hour plus commission folding sweaters at that boutique down the street. I can be broke while the ad agencies keep sending me letters beginning with, "Thank you for submitting your r�sum�. . . ," but you get the picture.

Oh, yeah, I get the picture. Despite everything you're learning about the real-world market value of a degree in English from Yale, you still believe that Yale is right, the rest of the world is wrong, and anyone who can't see that obvious fact is not worth your valuable time.

Find the person at Yale who promised you a cushy job when you graduated and sue. I wouldn't give you such loony advice if I weren't fairly confident that nobody made any such promise. But really, that's the only response your education has prepared you to make.

It is in Yale's -- any college's -- financial interest to keep you in school and continue paying tuition. Whether you're qualified for a job when you leave doesn't affect them at all. Perhaps you've seen those late-night commercials for training institutes promising you a lucrative future in dental hygiene. Compare and contrast with Yale's recruitment brochures.

Will someone please tell me where I went wrong?

Well, here are some suggestions:

Whoever told you that working for a living was beneath you didn't do you any favors.

You can shop your resume in the daytime while slinging fajitas at night, you know. I daresay most of the the waitstaff at my local Chili's are not working their way up the ranks to deputy assistant shift supervisor -- they're just paying the bills.

You have spent the last seventeen years (I'm assuming kindergarten through grade twelve, plus four years of college) being told that school will prepare you for Life. Unfortunately, that's true, but you don't get the biggest lessons until after you graduate:

School is not like Real Life. Education doesn't end when you get your diploma. Now that you're safely away from the halls of ivy, you can start learning something useful. You've just completed the "theoretical" portion of your life's lessons. Now it's time to start on the "practical". If all goes well, this phase lasts the rest of your life.

Education is the key to your future. However, sometimes the future doesn't drive a BMW. Try that key in a second-hand Chevrolet.