I graduated 3 years ago in a similar situation and this helped me Hunter S. Thompson’s Letter on Finding Your Purpose and Living a Meaningful Life https://fs.blog/hunter-s-thompson-to-hume-logan/
Ask HN: I'm an MIT senior and still unemployed – and so are most of my friends
191–200 of 247 posts
Re: Ask HN: I'm an MIT senior and still unemployed – and so are most of my friends
#192Earlier quoted context omitted.
This makes a lot of sense to me. The stats basically say that "if you start out underemployed, you stay underemployed for a long time", but my guess is the causation isn't necessarily as it's implied (or, indeed, as I implied it in my first comment). That is, I think it's likely that a lot of people who start out unemployed are just comparatively less motivated, less aggressive, "go-with-the-flow"-type people. These…
> The advice in this article was to hold out as long as possible for a desirable job, which meant a ton of networking, taking internships if possible, and also possibly additional schooling. Emphasis on the next actions to take. Being in a graduating cohort affords you certain opportunities -- internships, career fairs, faculty-connected networking. Post-graduation, and especially post-college, people don't have thes…
Re: Ask HN: I'm an MIT senior and still unemployed – and so are most of my friends
#193Earlier quoted context omitted.
Levels.fyi has L5 at Amazon making $150k base, $220k TC. You might not be Jeff Dean or Andrej Karpathy but there's only two of them. None of us are. That's not remotely subhuman failure. https://www.levels.fyi/companies/amazon/salaries/systems-dev...
I make more than $220k now but OP 100% makes closer to $800K+ He definitely doesn't think people like me are human.
Re: Ask HN: I'm an MIT senior and still unemployed – and so are most of my friends
#194So I suggest that you stay in school, take a Masters degree and try to enter the market at a better time!
Don't go any further than a Master's. Here's why:
Philip Greenspun has provided the following graph at the URL titled "Career Guide for Engineers and Computer Scientists" at https://philip.greenspun.com/careers/
THIS IS YOUR EDUCATION, THIS IS YOUR SALARY
!
$50K!
! **
! ** *
$40K! ** * Any Questions?
! ** *
! ***** *
$30K! **** *
! **** *
! ***** *
$20K! ***** *
! ***** *
! *** *
$10K! *** *
!** *
! *
0
+--------+----------+-----------+------------+---------+--*--------->
no high some Bachelor's Master's Doctor
high school college Degree Degree of
school diploma Philosophy
diplomaRe: Ask HN: I'm an MIT senior and still unemployed – and so are most of my friends
#195Re: Ask HN: I'm an MIT senior and still unemployed – and so are most of my friends
#196Re: Ask HN: I'm an MIT senior and still unemployed – and so are most of my friends
#197Re: Ask HN: I'm an MIT senior and still unemployed – and so are most of my friends
#198Earlier quoted context omitted.
Did they actually tell you that? I highly doubt it. You've created a preconception that I guarantee is not accurate at all. You have multiple people here saying it's bullshit, and we're not lying or trolling or anything like that. I replied somewhere else but I want to reiterate - why would you even want approval from people who dehumanize others on the basis of TC? It's like being upset Martin Shkreli doesn't want t…
It’s not just TC though. TC is an imperfect proxy for ability and class. If I’m just permanently in the underclass - unable to be compared to you people - it’s obvious that y’all wouldn’t even see me as human. I have no accomplishments, nothing to be proud of. Freshmen at MIT have more potential and prior accomplishments than I do.
Re: Ask HN: I'm an MIT senior and still unemployed – and so are most of my friends
#199Earlier quoted context omitted.
+1 to this. If I go look at social media the job market is ending. But if I look at the signals around me there's plenty of opportunities. Also consider taking something below (or even much below) expectations. It's much easier to work your way up with connections than it is to get in the door with no references.
What signals are you seeing? The ones I've seen aren't good. I see some jobs in companies with shitty pay or shitty culture (my bar is not high). It dies look like the past 6 months have been better than the previous year or so. But overall, it looks pretty dim. I'm getting PIP'd soon. I am expecting that I will likely lose my job. If that happens, I'm expecting that I will end up as a Walmart greeter. As someone wit…
That's an interesting hypothesis.
I've seen many people suggest just the opposite- pretending to have a mild disability when filling in the form so that they get the boost from companies which use recruiting software that prioritizes diversity and inclusiveness in candidate pool.
Federal contractors are explicitly required to "take affirmative action to recruit, hire, promote and retain" people with disabilities, with a target of at least 7% of their employees be from that group. https://www.dol.gov/agencies/odep/program-areas/employers/fe...
Re: Ask HN: I'm an MIT senior and still unemployed – and so are most of my friends
#200Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's a bit of a charcacture of Course 6 at MIT. Course 10 is chemical engineering and plenty of them go into industry at all the major oil companies. Lots of MIT students go into aerospace and defense (Lincoln Labs is directly federally funded) and MIT holds a yearly Soldier Design Competition that also helps students go for SBIRs. Raytheon is a big hirer of course 2 (MechE) MIT grads.
That's only true of the ones on ROTC or similar military related programs, everyone else goes straight to Wall Street, big tech, or MBB or med school. At the annual Fall job fair, 80% of students queue up to less than 10% of employers. Most companies never show up because it's simply not worth the cost and time to try to recruit spoiled brats of MIT