Contributor: City Girl
I speak of the Bachelor's degree, of course. That piece of paper you shell out thousands of dollars for and spend four years (or more, sometimes less if you're my roommate) working towards, writing papers on such topics as "the role of cross dressing in Jacobean drama" (which is clearly going to help you survive in The Real World [the place, not the show]) only to realize that during that whole long process you never really learned how to land a job. Clearly I also never learned how to avoid writing run-on sentences. It could just be that my personal BA was in Theater, which can land you careers in the gamut of waiting tables all the way to high end retail (my own, personal journey to hell). But noting that I am not the only post-college graduate adrift in a sea of WTF-ness (as we at The Lost Year like to say) I am going to jump to the conclusion that in the current day Real World the once well-respected BA now means approximately jack. True, I was raised to know that I was going to college. It was never really a question in my upbringing, and for that I consider myself lucky. I'm not delusional enough to think that earning a college degree does not make a difference in life, and those of us who have the familial support and the drive to obtain one are fortunate indeed, but I am also not delusional enough to think that having a BA means The Real World (the place, not the show) is going to receive you with open arms and give you the keys to your office or give you the lead in a Broadway show. True, you have to work non-stop for what you really want, but when did holding a BA cease to have the power that it once did? Sometime between my parents' generation and mine, I guess. Now they (the parentals) want me to go for my MA (I'm not against it, I enjoy being well educated) but the truth is that work experience is beginning to mean more and more and earning degrees is beginning to mean less and less.
Was that enough rambling and parenthesis for you??? I know MY head hurts.
The above was essentially my thought process on Friday as I was working my temp job for a PR firm that had recently been bought out. They had to severely downsize and lost a lot of their space, so they had box after box after box of files that had to be recorded, organized, and archived. And then moved. Note: I am just a tiny person. I am not built for heavy lifting, and my back was aching by the end of the day.
Oh goody, a day of hell that requires no more brain power than how to hold a pen and write down a file name, plus the challenge of alphabetizing, all in the name of $100 to add to the $75 my internship is giving me per week. Don't get me wrong, I love my internship. I'm very happy I have made the switch to PR, and I am learning a lot. But none of it...NONE of it...is anything that my four years of college prepared me for. I know so much useless information, but at the end of this internship I will be thanking my lucky stars if I land a job that's paying me $23 grand a year plus health insurance.
I can blame myself for not having the drive or motivation to a) go to better than a state school, b) go to a career counselor who could teach me how to find a real job, or c) pick a better path (we're back to THAT again) from the get-go, so come college graduation I would know what jobs to pursue...but I would rather lay the blame on our effed up educational system.
Moral of the story, a BA (especially if it's not in exactly the field you plan on working in for the rest of your life) pretty much means you're qualified to answer phones, ring a cash register, or say "tall or grande?"...sad but true.
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2 comments:
City Girl, I am in complete agreement. Being in school teaches you how to be in school, and not much else. You only truly learn how to function in the Real World (the place, not the show) once you're actually out in it.
My boyfriend and I have talked quite a bit about the educational system here, and how it could stand some vast improvements. Hell, he doesn't even have his bachelor's degree and he makes three times as much money as I do. And probably always will. That may be partly due to the nature of his field, but I still think it says something.
Ooh, sounds like another prompt! How did your education help you? But more importantly, how did it fail you?
Technical training in college does produce fairly immediate results. I can remember rooming with engineers in college who were making $20 -something bucks and hour doing co-op work for a company that would hire them when they were done with school and I was selling gum and smokes at the student union for $3.35 an hour.
My lost year involved waiting tables and then taking a management job in the restaurant, and moving to their corporate office where I managed training, front of the house service issues, and HR stuff. Then I moved over to banking in a coporate training role. My BA in History and Political Philosophy (yep, I went for the money making dual major) has served me well - in the long run. I sit next to people who have accounting degrees, law degrees, English, HR, MIS, marketing.
I got my senior thesis out yesterday and have been re-reading "Tacitus and the Lack of Religion in Agricola." Compelling stuff, to be sure, if you are a student of Roman history and historiography, but not much use in the Real World.
What has been useful was the critical thinking I was taught, the ability to focus on short and long term objectives, and the value of hard work.
I know that I didn't break much of a sweat in many classes, but many days at work are like that: doing the mundane work of a survey course and looking forward to something more interesting.
Entry level jobs, when attacked with an earnest sincerity to get the job done, showing up on time, etc., can help you advance into more meaningful opportunities.
My suggestion is to find some company that does work that interests you, and get your foot in the door. Prove yourself, and then good things will happen.
It may sound trite, but there it is, from someone whose experiences may not be too dissimilar from your own, even if they are separated by 15-20 years or so.
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