Frayed Prospects, Despite a Degree

Post by chantech » Sat, Jul 20, 2013, 6:29 PM UTC

ebiester wrote: post #20

chantech wrote: post #3

Article took way too long to get to the crux of the problem: 1. Choose your majors carefully and plan your career early - A degree in communications doesn't really make you employable. . 2. These people aren't willing to relocate to a less than desirable area to get that first opportunity

So, let's say that you're getting poor grades in pre-med. You're already 30,000 in debt. Is it better to continue in a degree where you have no chance of further advancement (no medical school will take you), drop out and have absolutely no career leads and a pile of debt, or get a second rate degree? This is the problem -- we've raised the bar for failure so high because of the cost of going to college. We've made i…

Post by reader5000 » Sat, Jul 20, 2013, 7:26 PM UTC

chantech wrote: post #21

ebiester wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, let's say that you're getting poor grades in pre-med. You're already 30,000 in debt. Is it better to continue in a degree where you have no chance of further advancement (no medical school will take you), drop out and have absolutely no career leads and a pile of debt, or get a second rate degree? This is the problem -- we've raised the bar for failure so high because of the cost of going to college. We've made i…

Sunk costs are sunk costs. You quit and move on to something that doesn't incur more debt. One option is joining the military where you can get real-world experience and they'll pay a significant portion of future education. Another is taking base courses at a significantly cheaper community college until you understand what you want to do and whether you have the natural ability for it. The core problem is taking on…

Post by mangala » Sat, Jul 20, 2013, 7:54 PM UTC

reader5000 wrote: post #24

nostrademons wrote: post #13

I think the key here is "without taking advantage of other opportunities". If you're unemployed for a couple years and you don't do anything, then you're signaling something very important to an employer: passivity. A fresh grad with no experience has no experience, but there's also no information to indicate that they won't be a good employee. A two-year unemployed worker has no experience and has two years worth of…

If you run a 100,000 user website, why acquire a degree in the first place?

Post by yummyfajitas » Sat, Jul 20, 2013, 8:43 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #12

cliveowen wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would be with you if goods production somehow halted and we weren't able to get our hand on those very goods: less workers->less production->scarcity->unsatisfied demand->soaring prices that simply isn't happening. It seems to me that organizations that previously employed tens thousands of workers are now doing just fine with way less than that.

I'm not saying that there aren't efficiency improvements happening. The economy is clearly producing as much as it did before with fewer workers. But efficiency improvements reduce production costs, which, in a competitive market, tends to be reflected as reduced prices. But when prices go down, quantity demanded goes up, so efficiency improvements tend to result in more overall production. I.e. the fact that compani…

Post by potatolicious » Sat, Jul 20, 2013, 9:13 PM UTC

peterlongnguyen wrote: post #28

lsc wrote: post #18

>But the end result was disheartening: Mr. Wells was told, he said, that company policy required him to have at least two years of experience in the field before he could be hired. The interesting bit here is that it's a transparent, obvious lie. If it were the truth, he wouldn't have gotten the interview in the first place. I mean, his lack of experience undoubtedly hurt him, but if you get the interview, (and if a…

Sounds like it might be a sit-down-for-coffee styled chat, as opposed to anything formal.