Student Sues University Because She's Unemployable 1251
digitalhermit writes "A C student (not the programming language) has sued her former school because she has been unable to find a job in the three months since her graduation. Yup, some schools are degree mills, but this just seems... bizarre."
Depressing, but not uncommon (Score:5, Insightful)
As Thompson sees it, any reasonable employer would pounce on an applicant with her academic credentials, which include a 2.7 grade-point average and a solid attendance record. But Monroe's career-services department has put forth insufficient effort to help her secure employment, she claims.
"They're supposed to say, 'I got this student, her attendance is good, her GPA is all right -- can you interview this person?' They're not doing that," she said.
Words fail me (briefly).
The best thing to come out of this story is that Ms. Thompson has sent out a nice big red-flag warning to any potential employers not to touch her with a barge pole. After all, if she does this, you can pretty much guarantee she'll sue her employer the moment she gets passed over for a promotion (after all, she shows up for work most days and her last project wasn't a total disaster).
"It doesn't make any sense: They went to school for four years, and then they come out working at McDonald's and Payless. That's not what they planned."
It might not be what they planned, but it is the reality of the job market. The huge expansion in higher education, along with widespread dumbing down of course material and grade inflation, has created a market where many apparently middling graduates just aren't going to have a chance at getting a job that genuinely requires graduate skills. A lot of students who 20 years ago would have been considered middling (but would have gone on to get graduate-level jobs) are now clustered around the top of the class.
At the same time, the self-esteem and all-must-have-prizes philosophies that now pervade much of education have convinced everybody that they deserve to walk right into their dream job, just because they've done nothing more than show up for class and turn in assignments most of the time. The entitlement mentality is right out on show in this story. I do a fair bit of recruitment for my employer and I see plenty more applicants who seem to feel the same way. They don't get very far.
There is an unfortunate side to this. A lot of teens and their parents are still duped into believing that a degree will still lead to a guaranteed "good" job. There's plenty of material out there to counter-act this view and show that in many (possibly even now a majority) of cases, it's a waste of time and money. Unfortunately, this usually gets dismissed as right wing ranting (which I will no doubt get accused of in the replies to this post). The other unfortunate side is that some employers with vacancies that could be filled by a bright high-school graduate seem to feel the need to advertise for a graduate just to "keep up with the Jonses", though I've noticed a slight reversal of this trend recently.
I'd advise Ms. Thompson that with her achievements and attitude, she needs to lower her expectations. She mentions McDonalds sneeringly, but the fact is that they have a general corporate policy of promoting most of their talent internally. If she is as capable as she thinks she is and went to work there with the intention of proving herself (and the attitude to match), she could have a perfectly reasonable career. The same is true of any number of other employers that she probably considers below her social status. Of course, she won't.
Re:Depressing, but not uncommon (Score:5, Interesting)
"just because they've done nothing more than show up for class and turn in assignments most of the time."
That was what I did.
But then I have natural wit and charm, a willingness to admit I slacked off at university, plus I did computer science. Little miss entitlement got a "Bachelor of Business Administration" in "IT". What the hell does that even mean?
Re:Depressing, but not uncommon (Score:5, Insightful)
God, the sense of entitlement in the US is making me sick...
Why not apply to a place she'd fit right in? (Score:5, Funny)
> That she expects to earn a large amount of money by being immediately put into a "management" position and paid vast sums of money solely due to the fact that she is such a wonderful person and "deserves" to be a manager with a large salary.
What are you talking about? Any half-competent career services department should be able to see that anyone that lawsuit-happy who has that big of a sense of entitlement has a bright future at the RIAA (or any of the other MAFIAA franchises).
This is just a simple matter of matching up the person's personality and skill set to the right organization...
Re:Depressing, but not uncommon (Score:5, Insightful)
Uhm, did you try comparing that map of yours to the actual terrain ?
Yeah, unemployment is up here, in that part of europe with the highest education (Scandinavia), why we're at above 2% now, which is a lot more than the comfortable 0.8% we used to enjoy prior to the current crisis.
How high is your unemployment again ?
Re:Depressing, but not uncommon (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Depressing, but not uncommon (Score:5, Insightful)
Apart from the numerous indirect benefits from even pointless, menial employment, both to them as an individual and to society as a whole. People with a job, however mind-numbingly unproductive it may be, and even if it doesn't really benefit them financially any more than being on the dole, will generally feel better about themselves and so are likely to be healthier. This makes them less of a burden on society from the point of view of providing healthcare, and means they're more likely to play an active and positive role in the lives of their families and communities. They'll also be less likely to commit crime, and I don't really need to spell out to you the numerous benefits resulting from a reduction in crime rate.
At the end of the day, it's all coming out of taxes one way or another. I'd rather have happier, healthier, more active, more productive people doing worthless paper-shuffling in artificial non-jobs than those same people claiming all manner of benefits and feeling sorry for themselves. The difference in bottom-line cost probably isn't much.
Re:Depressing, but not uncommon (Score:4, Funny)
Wait... high/low education is related to terrain!? Then the people in the Netherlands must be quite dumb considering a large part of the country is below sea level.
Re:Depressing, but not uncommon (Score:4, Funny)
Well, they do enjoy wooden shoes. ;)
Re:Depressing, but not uncommon (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Depressing, but not uncommon (Score:4, Insightful)
Are you suggesting that the economy can always grow?
This sounds like a terrible idea. I don't want to spend my entire career job-hunting.
Re:Depressing, but not uncommon (Score:4, Insightful)
What they really mean is "my business or country will grow, while those people over there, uhhh, grow less."
Re:Depressing, but not uncommon (Score:4, Informative)
Econ 101? Here's Econ 102: It's far better for ordinary people to live in an economy with full employment and moderate-high inflation than suffer higher unemployment via the IS-LM [wikipedia.org] curve so that a few people with access to "capital" don't see it decline in value so quickly.
Let me say that again: inflation is a good thing so long as it's driven by wages.
That's why our economy in the United States took off like a rocket after World War II: sure, part of it was that everyone else was bombed out. But a larger factor was four years of sustained full employment at high wages had transferred quite a bit of wealth and created a robust middle that would only start to be systematically dismantled when Reagan took office.
Re:Depressing, but not uncommon (Score:5, Insightful)
Inflation does not reduce the value of the vast majority of wealth. Anybody with real wealth has it invested in assets which protect against inflation.
The only people who lose from inflation are people with a large percentage of their over all wealth in cash, which is to say poor people lose out from inflation.
Re:Depressing, but not uncommon (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow.
So, higher unemployment rates are good, because they enable management to keep a firm grip on the baseball bat they use on labor to keep them in line, fearful, docile and paid as little as possible. And low unemployment is bad, because labor would have some power in the relationship.
Boy, that sounds like utopia, sign me up. Not.
Re:Depressing, but not uncommon (Score:5, Insightful)
However strong unions result in the same employees abusing management. The business ends up overpaying for employees who have the same sense of entitlement and lack of willingness to work as the idiot in this article, which can have an enormously negative impact on the business & it's profitability.
(Hint: If the business can't survive because of over-inflated labor costs, you're going to be every bit as unemployed as if they had just kept salaries in check and fired the unqualified or non-contributing employees)
A little bit of balance goes a long way - it's too bad unions and management both tend towards the extremes.
Re:Depressing, but not uncommon (Score:5, Insightful)
"Yes. This is a very good thing.
Tell that to General Motors.
Yeah. Again, it is good that you can't do those sorts of things. It is good that you have to treat your employees as, you know, human beings.
No one said they're not being treated as human beings. But the fact is businesses are not bottomless pits of money. When the economy is hard, it's hard on businesses just as much as it is individuals. So sometimes *not* doing the extra little things is what is necessary for the business to stay afloat.
Your mentality is the one that human kind is struggling to dig out from under and is the cause of almost all the violence and hatred in the world.
No. No it's not. Let me tell you that there's a lot of people in a lot of countries whose lives would drastically improve given the conditions you're whining about.
Once again, look at the recession. Businesses can all fail(well, at least if they aren't bailed out). We are not trying to "dig out" from that mindset, we're trying to get people jobs at livable wages so they can survive. The frills are going to have to come later. You're part of the problem, not the solution.
You feel that just because you and an employer you are entitled to treat employees however badly you want. You do realize that when you pass down that pay cut the employee needs the money a LOT more than you do, right?
I beg to differ. First off, I treat my employees quite well (disclosure: I don't need too many, so it's not too hard to do so). But secondly, it's my money on the line every day. If I don't have money to take risks, the business doesn't grow. If the business doesn't grow, then no one is going to be making anything, because they'll all be out of the job.
I already give good benefits and wages that top my competitors by quite a bit. If I have to cut that back so the wages are only *slightly* beating my competitors, it's because I literally had to. Anyone that doesn't like it is free to leave.
You might be able to buy another yacht, but that is at the expense of your employees' kids' college money.
Yeah, because all business owners own Yachts. Get out of your dream world where we all make millions.
This mindset is psychopathy, plain and simple. All you see is your own greedy wants and the bottom line in a ledger book, but you are unable to see and feel the human cost of your decisions.
I'm incredibly aware of the human cost of my decisions. But sometimes those decisions are about making it so these people have a job at all a few months down the road. The "faceless corporation" isn't an accident. It's an intentional structure. Why? Because any business, in order to survive has to make decisions that few could make face to face.
I will be glad when the economy turns around and you can't randomly fire people for demanding fair treatment, or randomly cut pay by 20%.
It's not random you idiot. A stable business at it's heart is coldly logical. It's not a hostage situation. Businesses pay employees what they can and what they're worth. If you disagree about what the business can pay you, or what you're worth, leave.
If you're worth more, there will be demand. If not, the market has decided you're not worth more.
I would rather that you did these things on your own, that you would have a soul and a little bit of human decency, but I know that this is too much to ask. I will just be glad that you can be forced into treating people like humans, that is the way it should be.
No one's treating them like dogs.
I once thought exactly like you appear to be thinking here by the way. Then I had to run a business and got some perspective. It's not that it kills off your soul or anything, but you're responsible for something more than yourself. You're respons
Re:Depressing, but not uncommon (Score:5, Insightful)
I tend to like the Democrats largely because I believe that one of the things that does need to be funded is education. Oh yes, and I don't like wars.
But I believe in balance.
Put too much control in the hands general population who doesn't understand business, and the idiots will run business into the ground.
Put too much in the hands of business, and they will exploit the population.
It is quite simple (Score:4, Insightful)
People like to feel like they have options. They dislike feeling like they are stuck with one option, no matter how unpleasant it becomes.
So, employers like feeling like there is a large talent pool available to them. That way they know that when some worker isn't working out, they can just cut him lose and replace him. Having options gives them the ability to optimize their company's productivity and ultimately achieve good success.
When employers feel like they don't have options, they feel like they are being forced to accept expensive, lazy, and talentless workers. Having a team built out of such people will result in the employer's business failing, or a manager's own productivity metrics being shamefully low.
So, it is every bit as natural for employers to prefer a high-unemployment market as it is for workers to prefer a low-unemployment market.
Workers, after all, don't want to feel like they have no choice but to accept a terrible job where they work long hours doing work they hate for a barely-livable (or sub-livable) wage. They would prefer to feel like they can just quit their job if it starts to suck, and move on to a better one.
Each side sees the other one as the evil side. Employees see the employers as the over demanding cruel slave masters who don't care about the employee's livelihoods, and just want to exploit them. Employers see employees as lazy, unskilled, expensive freeloaders who have no devotion to the company (and hence the employer's livelihood) and are just there to make a buck. So, each side feels the need to protect itself from the other side, and prefers economic conditions that are favorable to that protection.
Where I work, both are simultaneously true. The account reps are looking at a very dry employment market, and are desperate to keep their jobs. So, management is leaning on them. They typically work 50 to 60 hour weeks.
However, the tech side is seeing a still relatively open employment market. Each member of our tech team has talent and certifications, and we all know we could find a better job if we need to. So we get an easy 40 hour work week. When management tries to lean on us, we get to choose whether or not we want to give extra. When we chose not to, management just accepts it, because it would be too hard for them to replace us.
Most people on slashdot are laborers, rather than managers, so most of the posts will maintain that it is objectively obvious that low unemployment is good, and that employers are evil exploitive bastards. I don't know if it is true or not, but I DO know that there are two very clear-and-distinct sides to this issue.
Re:Depressing, but not uncommon (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm going to go out on a limb and say that 2% unemployment is more healthy than 15% unemployment, because it means more people are being productive, so more wealth is being created than in the society with 15% unemployment (e.g. Detroit, MI). Also, assuming the companies paying "increasingly ridiculous" salaries are reasonably sane, they will only pay those salaries if it will help them increase their revenue or reduce their costs at least as much as the cost of the salary, so there's a limit to how much they are willing to pay.
Also, if you go from the assumption that a society in which people have good salaries, a good amount of time off, good health care, and so forth is better than a society where people work 60 or 70 hours a week for minimum wage and no benefits, you prefer the 2% unemployed society to the 15% unemployed society. It's a question of whether you think that people exist for the economy, or the economy exists for the people.
Re:Depressing, but not uncommon (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm going to go out on a limb and say that 2% unemployment is more healthy than 15% unemployment, because it means more people are being productive
No, it means more people receive a paycheck. Maybe in this case it means being more productive, too, but that is not adequately supported merely by the fact that they receive a paycheck.
Be careful of this type of reasoning, it's the same thing that's got the US into this education mess. First, they realized that people with HS diplomas are more successful, so they ensured that everyone could get a HS diploma by lowering the standards to essentially nothing (attendance, I suppose). Now, as should be no surprise, a HS diploma is worth close to nothing, so they are doing the same thing to college degrees.
With the lower standards, heavy subsidies, and lots of social encouragement, employers realize that a lot of people are graduating from college that aren't particularly desirable. Then, what, they'll only hire PhDs?
I think we'll see a point where smart people start to opt out of the education system sooner, merely because they don't want to wade through busywork (and spending money like crazy) until graduate school, where they can actually set themselves apart.
Re:Depressing, but not uncommon (Score:4, Insightful)
"In Socialist Europe, higher education causes unemployment!"
(Someone points out a European country with extensive higher education and very low unemployment.)
"But, but - unemployment is good for the economy! In Socialist Europe, higher education causes low unemployment and that's bad!"
Why, I can almost hear the sound of the back peddling.
the rate of inflation would be through the roof as employers paid increasingly ridiculous salaries to try to fill positions
If someone posted a statistic showing that it wasn't through the roof, I look forward to you back peddling to say how inflation is a good thing, and it's bad that inflation isn't through the roof in Scandinavian countries?
Re:Depressing, but not uncommon (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, unemployment is up here, in that part of europe with the highest education (Scandinavia), why we're at above 2% now, which is a lot more than the comfortable 0.8% we used to enjoy prior to the current crisis.
Apparently you have no connection with reality what so ever
Norway ~3%
Sweden ~9%
Denmark ~5%
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_unemployment_rate [wikipedia.org] How you get this to 2% for "Scandinavia" is beyond me. And remember that Norway has a fairly low unemployment due it that thing called oil.
Re:Depressing, but not uncommon (Score:4, Insightful)
You're absolutely correct. Unfortunately, so many people don't see it that way.
If you are laid off, and make your unemployment claim, you're on the books as "unemployed".
If your claim is denied, you fall off the books.
If your claim is accepted, you are "unemployed" for 6 (now 8) months.
At the end of your unemployment period, you are off the books, because you didn't want to work.
Lets consider myself and a few close friends, for a total of 14 people.
A couple years ago:
9 - Company employed
3 - Self employed (good income, comparable to full time employment)
1 - Unemployed - Medical disability
1 - Unemployed - Retired
Total considered in the official unemployment numbers, 0.
Today:
3 - Company employed
1 - Self employed, comparable to full time employment
1 - Self employed, borderline poverty
1 - Unemployed - Collecting benefits - seeking work
5 - Unemployed - Not able to collect benefits - seeking work
2 - Unemployed - Medical disability
1 - Unemployed - Retired
Total considered in the official unemployment numbers, 1.
A while back, the gainfully employed helped our friends that needed it, and we were all comfortable.
Now, even the employed are struggling, and the rest are pretty much out of luck. I fall into the group of 5, seeking work but not collecting benefits. I'm appealing the benefits decision, but I'd prefer to be working. Beyond the normal routes of job seeking, I ask absolutely everyone I know when I'm talking to them, "is your company hiring?". None of them are hiring. I send off my resume to everyone, "just in case".
Unfortunately, my example isn't the exception these days. None of us hope for it to get better any time soon. We recognize the truth, it's just going to get worse.
Re:Depressing, but not uncommon (Score:5, Informative)
Where are your 2% figures from?
Anyone wishing to actually do a proper comparison of unemployment and education should probably look at Eurostat's Unemployment rates of the population aged 25-64 by level of education [europa.eu] (at least for Europe).
And Now, The Vocational Gudance Counselor Sketch.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Counselor: Well I now have the results here of the interviews and the aptitude tests that you took last week, and from them we've built up a pretty clear picture of the sort of person that you are. And 1 think I can say, without fear of contradiction, that the ideal job for you is chartered accountancy.
Mr. Anchovy: But I am a chartered accountant.
Counselor: Jolly good. Well back to the office with you then.
University, despite it's commercial perversion in the years since 1980, is not a trade school.
Although a key to gainful, professional employment may be a classic liberal education, it does not therefore stand that the objective of this education is commercial marketability of graduates. Nor is the measure of education's success the commercial placement of these graduates.
The "liberal" in the term "Liberal Education" refers to it's breadth and fullness of development. This is as opposed to the vocational training of a specific skill-set, solely focused towards career placement.
I have not reviewed this plaintiff's transcript, but I would not be suprised to discover that she showed only cursory interest in those aspects of her education, which did not seem destined to provide professional remuneration. She may well have "chuffed this off", as uninteresting and irrelevant. I have witnessed this myself - especially in younger, contemporary University students:
"Why do I have to learn about Charlemagne!? Who cares!"
Well, I needn't bother to refute the type of vapid ignorance and pathetic intellectual narcissism represented by that incurious statement. Persons of such a view do not belong in Graduate education. They are unlikely to be happy with the institution, nor successful in academic outcome.
Me? I was a monster at my A-Level, then declined the universities for the immediate lure of slacking-off in cafes and night clubs. With a lifelong academic for one parent, I'd understood my temperament would not result in satisfaction on either the part of the school or myself.
Counselor: Er, well, Mr. Anchovy ... I'm afraid what you've got hold of there is an anteater.
Mr. Anchovy: A what?
Counselor: An anteater. Not a lion. You see a lion is a huge savage beast, about five feet high, ten feet long, weighing about four hundred pounds, running forty miles per hour, with masses of sharp pointed teeth and nasty long razor-sharp claws that can rip your belly open before you can say 'Eric Robinson', and they look like this. http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/02_01/LionBAR0602_468x393.jpg [dailymail.co.uk]
Re:And Now, The Vocational Gudance Counselor Sketc (Score:4, Informative)
Although a key to gainful, professional employment may be a classic liberal education, it does not therefore stand that the objective of this education is commercial marketability of graduates. Nor is the measure of education's success the commercial placement of these graduates.
Universities are selling a product. As with any merchant, their success is measured by their ability to provide a service that people want at a price they are willing to pay, while making a profit at it.
The thing is, their customer base has changed radically over the years. Society now requires an increasing number of specialized and intellectually demanding skills. Universities are, whether we like it or not, the place where those skills are bought and sold. This has transformed the university from a playground for the wealthy (who need not care about mundane things like employability) to the gateway to a decent career path for a huge segment of society.
This transformation means employment is now THE critical aspect of this education, not the well-rounded liberal arts education that was the goal of its former customer base. Universities know this well, which is why they market themselves with an eye towards their customers' future career prospects.
That's not to say that people don't care about the liberal arts aspect. We do... but for most university students, it's no longer the driving force behind undergraduate education. Few are willing to put themselves into years' worth of debt simply to become a more well-rounded individual. They do it so they can have a better career and quality of life. The liberal part of the education is simply a bonus.
It's just a case of balancing the breadth of a liberal education with the depth of an employable career discipline. That way we get an education that is both liberal and useful.
"Why do I have to learn about Charlemagne!? Who cares!"
Well, I needn't bother to refute the type of vapid ignorance and pathetic intellectual narcissism represented by that incurious statement.
And I needn't bother to refute the arrogance that assumes everyone should simply hand over their hard-earned money for a class without an explanation of why it's worth the cost. It is incumbent on the seller of a product to make its value clear, not a potential buyer. The annals of history are littered with defunct businesses whose clearly wonderful products could find no buyers.
Re:And Now, The Vocational Gudance Counselor Sketc (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Depressing, but not uncommon (Score:5, Informative)
I am sorry, but where are you?
Sorry, many parts of Europe have apprenticeship programs, etc where people still do low-level technical jobs.
I call BS in your argument!
While you might not like socialism, what it does do is give menial jobs a pretty hefty wage. Instead of the scamming that goes on in North America.
I am here in Switzerland and our cleaning lady makes 39 CHF (about 35 USD) per hour! We can't find anything less.
Re:Depressing, but not uncommon (Score:5, Funny)
in fact, almost every US citizens is descended from immigrants!
Technically, anyone not born in the Mesopotamia region is likely descended from immigrants, whether you are an evolutionist or a creationist :)
Re:Depressing, but not uncommon (Score:5, Interesting)
anyone not born in the Mesopotamia region is likely descended from immigrants
Actually, the Mesopotamians probably walked there from Africa.
Re:Depressing, but not uncommon (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, pay in the U.S. has gone all haywire. My grandfather's best friend was a professional baseball player in his youth (quite a long time ago) -- and he was a plumber most of the time because pro ball didn't pay enough to live on. Imagine that.
Re:Depressing, but not uncommon (Score:5, Funny)
It's got to be more pleasant working on algorithms than being elbow deep in somebody's toilet.
Especially if an overflow occurs.
Re:Depressing, but not uncommon (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm old enough to have worked when the minimum wage was $1.65/hr, and immigrants were NOT taking those kind of jobs because IT WAS ACTUALLY ENOUGH TO LIVE ON. You were poor, but 40 hrs/week kept a roof over your head and kept you fed. It wasn't until Reagan/Bush froze the minimum wage for over a decade while inflation roared merrily along that a minimum wage job became a different proposition entirely.
"There are plenty of CEO's and managers who started out as dishwashers."
Bullshit, at least for CEOs. Competent employees haven't risen through the ranks to eventually become executives since at least the mid-'70s. Look at the car companies for example. Did anyone in their executive suites ever screw on lug nuts on the assembly line? No. Look at retailers. Did any of their execs ever work the sales floor? Except for the soon-to-retire CEO of Target the answer is 'No' again. Did any of the banking executives start out as a teller or counting change? Nope.
It's what I call "The MBA Disease", and it has infected American business for over three decades now. Companies hire these idiots directly out of college, with no real-world experience, as managers and promote those who are best at internal company politics. This, more than anything else, is the reason for our current economic state.
Re:I've no idea either (Score:4, Insightful)
When I graduated (2003'ish), we hadn't yet recovered from the dot.com bubble bursting. I knew people with actually useful academic credentials that took longer than 3 months to get a job. Since the media keeps telling me we're now in a recession, somehow it seems like this idiot's expectations are WAY out of whack. The only way someone like that would get hired so quickly would be in a boom with a serious shortage of people.
Re:I've no idea either (Score:4, Interesting)
Some years back, I was working I.T. at a midsize college in New York. The local supermarket was almost entirely staffed by people with Bachelor's and Master's degrees -- the clerks and stockboys were are "highly educated" and only working there until they could find a better job. They were relatively transient, of course, which is why the store management never changed: they only had high school degrees, but they lived locally.
Re:Depressing, but not uncommon (Score:4, Informative)
Wow, I never realised that vacation time in the US was so bad as to make 25 paid leave days per year sound so incredulous...
It's really not uncommon in Europe to have that much annual leave...and yes, every year.
-- Pete.
Re:Depressing, but not uncommon (Score:4, Informative)
Standard in the US is 10 days, to start. If you're lucky that'll build up to 15-20 in few years.
At a lot of places if you get sick, your sick days come out of your vacation time.
Re:Depressing, but not uncommon (Score:4, Interesting)
At a lot of places if you get sick, your sick days come out of your vacation time.
Which is why he says America is doing it wrong. And as an American, I fully agree. That's why I chose to work at a place that gives me 22 vacation days a year, plus 12 sick days, plus every other Friday off during the summer. And you know what? I absolutely love my job! Sure, the pay is a little lower than what it could be, but the quality of life I get out of it more than makes up for the modest pay cut.
Re:Depressing, but not uncommon (Score:5, Informative)
Standard in the US is 10 days, to start. If you're lucky that'll build up to 15-20 in few years.
Minimum in the UK is 28 days (that includes the 8 public holidays, so it's 20 days if you aren't required to work on those days).
At a lot of places if you get sick, your sick days come out of your vacation time.
That's illegal here.
Re:Depressing, but not uncommon (Score:5, Insightful)
No, they don't. Things only need to get done at the current rate if you insist on your current level of materialism. If we all worked less we'd have slightly less stuff, slightly lower unemployment (people would be hired to work when you're off), and we'd all be happier. If I could take a 20% pay cut to work 20% less, I'd do it in a heartbeat. Hell, I'd take 30%. And the end result- a few less cell phone apps in the world. I think somehow we'd all survive.
For that matter, I'm not sure how much world productivity would really go down. If I had a month or more off a year, I'd devote at least a chunk of it to charity and open source.
Re:Depressing, but not uncommon (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm sorry, when so much of your economy is government pork paid for with debt, it's really hard to take your gdp seriously.
Re:Depressing, but not uncommon (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Depressing, but not uncommon (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Depressing, but not uncommon (Score:5, Insightful)
Not that I'm American, but when and how DO you get to your dream job?
In this country, you can do an apprenticeship in just about anything. So I went into IT. I was good in school (top five of the class) and I showed above average skills in whatever I was doing.
I'm at my third job now. Let's skip how good or bad that one is and just get to what's interesting to me at the moment: Looking for a job. Personally, I'm a guy who is honest about what he can and can not do. I somehow convinced myself that good jobs cannot be had through lying because hey, if you had to lie to get it, can you expect an honest work environment? Either they overstated their requirements and you CAN do the job (but then what else are they going to expect from you that is not part of the job?) OR they were serious, you CAN'T do the job and what then?
For all three jobs, I've been working for sub-standard wage (meaning my salary was somewhere between 50% and 75% of what my work was worth), did unpaid overtime and was generally reachable at all times. I did not have the means to get certification and the companies had no interest in me having them.
So now I'm hearing "Well, for someone in IT, you did remarkably little certification". Or what about "Ah, so you wouldn't call yourself a geniusHmm..."?
Fact remains that doing honest and hard work brings you NOTHING. You must be a quack, a liar and just basically leech everything out of the company that you possibly can. Then you go to the next and rinse and repeat. It's what the managers do and it's what is expected of you. Being a carpenter is starting to sound bloody perfect just about now.
Re:Depressing, but not uncommon (Score:4, Insightful)
You bored me. And if that's the face you show to an employer, you bored him, too.
First of all, go ahead and sit for the certifications. If you are at all good at what you do, you'll pass them.
Second, you don't have to lie, but you do have to tell a story; a compelling narrative. I am not interested, as an employer, in whinny stories of how hard you worked, or how you worked for depressed wages and unpaid overtime. In fact, that that does tell me as an employer is that if I need cheap help,you're probably going to be a pushover for the job. What you have to tell me is what you did. What you accomplished.
I was recently unemployed for five months. I learned to get good at telling my story. I went through countless drafts of my c.v. and presentation. I learned to adapt to fit in whatever situation I was in. And I knew my worth. It is possible to succeed, but you have to be diligent and compelling.
And finally, forget about this "dream job" thing. Unless you are in business for yourself and successful. You will never find a "dream job" working for someone else.
Re:Depressing, but not uncommon (Score:5, Insightful)
I recommend reading this article: How to do what you love [paulgraham.com]. There is a lot of truth in it. Getting your dream job is a matter of persistence, being willing to apply to companies, building contacts, and realising that you are unlikely to end up in your dream job straight away, it takes years of working towards the goal before it comes within reach:
Fact remains that doing honest and hard work brings you NOTHING. You must be a quack, a liar and just basically leech everything out of the company that you possibly can.
Sounds like you're working for large corporations where that kind of behaviour can go unchecked. In a small company, you'd be thrown out very quickly.
Re:Depressing, but not uncommon (Score:5, Insightful)
I've learned that on my first year in this profession (also IT).
The belief that many of us gifted "techies" have that technical excellence, skill and hard-working will make us stand out from the mediocre crowds, be noticed and promoted is one big fat illusion more often than not kept alive by manipulative managers wanting to get extra free hours from us (so that THEY get fat bonuses).
Even in the technical areas, the professional world out there is never a pure meritocracy based on one's technical excellence.
In truth, non-technical skills are often also important (guess who's more useful: the guy that gets the requirements right from the client and implements them in a competent way or the guy that gets the wrong requirements and implements the wrong thing but with an exceptionally good design and code?) and those that evaluate one's abilities during the selection/bonus-evaluation/promotion-evaluation process are often not technically skilled enough to evaluate technical skills above a certain level (they're management, usually not technical, not-good enough techies or simply too far out from their technical days) or will simply outwit the less negotiation-experience techies into taking a lower pay.
Consider the simple example of two equally good programmers:
- One is quiet and reserved: the kind of guy that finds a critical bug, fixes it and checks it in source control without telling anybody
- The other one is loud and outgoing: he'll tell to whomever is willing to listen that he found a critical bug, proceed to fix it and check the fix in source control and then let everybody know that the issue is fixed.
Guess who will get the next promotion!!!?
Another example would be two equally good programmers, both known in their company for the quality of their work. They both feel that they are being underpaid in their company:
- One starts looking at other opportunities, maybe gets one or two good proposals, goes to management and asks for a salary raise saying that he "likes to work there but feels that he's not being fairly rewarded for the work he's doing there versus other professionals in the same area".
- The other one just accepts its and wallows in the misery of being underpaid.
Guess who will get the (biggest) raise!!!?
In the end, the secret to success in IT is still down to soft-skills such as self-promotion, image management, networking, pro-activeness, a willingness to take risks and others. Just look up the definition of EQ (Emotional Quotient, similar to IQ but measuring something else) - it's much correlated with success than IQ, and you will find that the characteristics that are evaluated to determine EQ are very much the kind of thing that make it easier for one to follow the path to success.
Re:Depressing, but not uncommon (Score:4, Interesting)
The resentment of management is so thick in this forum you could cut it with a knife.
The mid-level manager gains from promoting successful people up the corporate ladder. Managers are graded on their ability to build an effective team and recruit/develop high performing talent. An effective manager knows to provide the top people with the tools and environment they need to do their best. While it is true that the promotion carrot is often dangled to push someone harder, only a lousy manager believes they can dangle carrots without coming through on their end. We have an engineer on the team right now who was told he'd get a promotion if he took the role of lead engineer on a recent project and succeeded. He worked hard, impressed his teammates with his skill and ethic, and earned the promotion. That is no illusion. He was given an opportunity and he took it.
You've observed that outgoing type A's get noticed and are promoted more frequently than technical experts. I do agree with this (to some extent) having seen that the road to "Staff Engineer" is longer than the road to "Engineering Manager". There are basically two career paths for engineers: technical and management. The technical path is ascended by demonstrating technical expertise, the ability to guide large scale projects from the technical side, and the ability to mentor less experienced engineers. The quiet and reserved person can and will ascend through this path by demonstrating their technical ability, and accomplishing this takes years of good work. A quiet and reserved person who is also skilled at mentoring young engineers is perhaps more promotable due to the high demand and greater contribution a mentor can bring to the organization. On the management path, outgoing individuals tend to be noticed more for their management potential. A large part of a manager's job is working with other managers and reporting to executives, the majority of which are themselves open and outgoing. Likewise, a successful manager needs to be able to effectively work with people of varied personalities, some of which reserved people find reprehensible. On a similar note, negotiating for pay also demonstrates a skill a manager needs to have. The manager is graded on their ability to negotiate to get the best value for the company and not having the ability to negotiate will hurt their chances of being successful managers. For these reasons, outgoing people shining a light on their work are showing skills of a different sort, and may be promotable based partly on that display which you regard as purely superficial.
When a person earns a senior technical position, it is reasonably certain that they will succeed in this appointment. They can succeed in these positions for many years and have great careers all the way up to retirement, all the while mentoring the next batch of experts. On the other hand, when a person earns a management position, there is no guarantee that they will succeed, and most of them will probably fail (perhaps by committing the ills you've indicated in your post). Then they will either leave or be canned, opening positions for the next batch of potential managers. This is one driving reason for outgoing people to be more frequently promoted.
My advice would be for a person to examine what it is they want out of their career. "Success" doesn't equate to happiness, and if you've sacrificed your personality in efforts to gain pay, you have little chance at happiness in your career. If you aren't going to claim credit for everything based on your principles and your personality, then by all means stick with your principles a go about quietly getting the job done. In a well-functioning organization, real accomplishments do not go unnoticed, and there will always be a place for unassuming technical experts.
Re:Depressing, but not uncommon (Score:5, Insightful)
At least certification is a more reliable indicator of actual job knowledge than a degree, these days.
Huh??? Most knowledgeable IT directors that I've worked with have sneered at certifications. The only ones who were impressed where the PHB types. A certification doesn't prove anything other than you studied for the certification. Why do you think there are so many lovely acronyms for them? "Minesweeper and Consultant and Solitaire Expert" It's been my experience that most people who enter the IT world with nothing more than a certification are useless. I'd hire someone with experience over someone with a certification any day of the week.
I'd rather have a degree over a certification any day of the week. A degree equates to more money from almost every employer on the planet. Combine it with job experience and it almost doesn't even matter what the degree is in. Buddy of mine makes $20k more a year than I do doing the exact same job -- his degree is in marketing of all things.
Re:Depressing, but not uncommon (Score:4, Insightful)
If you are somebody that does have the experience and can do the job, why not get certified (hopefully with your current employer paying for it)? It's a resume builder that will get you in the front door and then you can let your real experience do the rest.
Because the time it would take me to do the certification is better spent networking. Every job that I've ever gotten I got through networking. I either knew the person who was doing the hiring or knew somebody who worked for the company with the open position. That's how I get my foot in the door. Do you really think your certification is going to get you the job when you are competing against someone who has had drinks with the HR manager and whom met the IT director years ago at a community/charity function or trade show?
I tend to think that networking is a more valuable use of my time than studying for the latest certification. Besides, I'd rather give my money to the local bar to buy a round of drinks than give it to Microsoft to pay for a MCSE ;)
Re:Depressing, but not uncommon (Score:5, Funny)
Notice that this story is in the Entertainment section? You're supposed to point and laugh.
Re:Depressing, but not uncommon (Score:5, Insightful)
The big problem here is that society at large has come to view universities and higher education in general as advanced vocational training. The trouble is, the universities themselves have no such delusion.
In short, it is impossible for universities to provide vocational training for professions. There are too many jobs, too many ways of doing them, and too many changes in practices in every single profession for any one institution to have a ghost of chance of keeping up with all of them.
Now, there is some element of "job training" in higher education, but only in an academic sense. You can be taught about binary trees and methods to search them in a university course, but there simply isn't time to train you in how to use the IDE, language and indeed operating system that you will be asked to implement those searches by your employer. And computer science courses are in fact VERY vocational as courses go. Most engineering course will only be able to teach you how to use a bandsaw and AutoCAD. Small use when you have to use the latest tabletop wonder from Hansvedt.
At the end of the day, final training for a job must be done by employers. Unfortunately, many skimp on this and complain that Universities aren't doing their job. HR departments demand experience not because they believe it will provide quality, but because the company does not want to go to the bother of expense of actually passing on skills. Yes, Graduates do come out of universities will few "real world" skills. But this has always been the case. What has changed is a fickle employment culture in which companies hire and fire at will and thus cannot risk training someone only to see them run off at a moments notice for a higher paid position.
I wouldn't go quite so far. It is true that certain courses can be difficult to get a job out of, but it's also true that not taking any course can make it very difficult to get a well paid, and indeed fulfilling job. A university course should be chosen for two reasons; Interest in the subject, and the prospect of a vocation. Both are important. If people choose wisely and put in the effort, their time spent in university will be far from a waste of time and money, and indeed will be time well spent and very well rewarded. Fours years of good education will allow you to hold your own in your chosen field, and prepare you for a changing world and workplace. This is not guaranteed, but the odds are certainly in your favour.
Re:Depressing, but not uncommon (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't be silly. Right wing ranting? I'm as left wing as they come, barring communists, and I think that makes perfect sense. Get a degree in something useful if you want a job. It's really as simple as that.
That said, I do take issue with the "2.7 GPA" part of this. GPAs are overrated. Anyone who interviews with me (I do interviews, I don't own the place) is going to get no brownie points for "perfect attendance", but I don't give a damn what her GPA is. If she can answer my questions well, she'll get a job. If she can't, she won't.
Re:Depressing, but not uncommon (Score:4, Interesting)
She suggested that Monroe's Office of Career Advancement shows preferential treatment to students with excellent grades. "They favor more toward students that got a 4.0. They help them more out with the job placement," she said.
Damn straight. The university helps what they percieve to be good students find jobs in preference to percieved bad students. Your university is not altruistic, and wants to spread the message that it has good people.
In her complaint, Thompson says she seeks $70,000 in reimbursement for her tuition and $2,000 to compensate for the stress of her three-month job search.
... And she is also sueing them because 'life is hard'. COME ON.
Her resume says "I have no internship or experience".
Her GPA says that she got more C's than D's, and more D's than B's.
One of these is okay (C student because of a 30+ hour/week intership, or an A student that neglected experience is a okay hire).
If she can answer my questions well, she'll get a job. If she can't, she won't.
She can't, she ain't getting a job, and she is SUEING the university for it.
Really?
Re:Depressing, but not uncommon (Score:4, Informative)
Get a degree in something useful if you want a job. It's really as simple as that
This is exactly the theory under which community colleges like Monroe name their degrees. This gal has a 2-year associate's degree called "Bachelor of Business Administration" Compare that with a degree in "Computer Technology" or "Industrial Engineering Technology." The names are very similar to four year degrees. A naive 20 year old is susceptible to the line that you can get the skills employers want to work in [impressive field] with salaries up to $50,000, in a business-friendly environment; that by cutting out extraneous classes like English and History, you can graduate in just 2 years rather than 4. If they don't have someone there to point out that "Engineering Technology" is different than "Engineering" or that "Bachelor of Business Administration in Computer Information" is different than "Bachelor of Science in Business Administration," they can end up buying something very different than what they expected.
CC can be a good option. An AS or AA can definitely be a step towards a better career, and can provide a useful skill set, but it's a different route than a four year degree, and I don't think that distinction is always made clear to potential students.
That will teach them (Score:5, Insightful)
oh sit down and stfu (Score:3, Interesting)
I can understand her anger at not being able to find a job,
and yeah, pretty much all collages help graduates find jobs, but FFS, she should have picked a better major.
I'm a geek, and I wont even go into a computer sciences or information tech, field, there are 10 times as many
applicants than their are job openings in that field. 10 years ago, anyone with an IT or Comp Sci degree would
get hired on the spot, these days, you might as well have a liberal arts degree.
Re:oh sit down and stfu (Score:5, Funny)
pretty much all collages help graduates find jobs
Are you serious? Shit! I knew I should have listened to my mom when she told me to save all of my artwork from elementary school.
Re:oh sit down and stfu (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm curious how you even know you have found a good C programmer to begin with.
What do you look for?
Nobody knows.
Seriously.
That's the biggest thing that department managers the world over don't want to admit. Nobody has yet found a reliable way to interview people that will consistently result in hiring people you can work with that meet all your requirements.
Oh sure, companies ask technical questions, try and build a rapport and all that. Some even make the interview process last a full day with in-depth technical, HR, stress interviews. But there is always some little thing you don't think to check for in the interview process. If you're lucky, that little thing never matters. If you're unlucky - well, anyone who's been out of college more than a couple of years knows exactly what happens.
The Entitlement Generation. (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's hope she gets laughed out of court.
Re:The Entitlement Generation. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's obvious that as the entitlement generation grows up we'll see more of this: "I should get a job even though I'm mediocre at what I do and if I don't then I should be able to sue someone".
Let's hope she gets laughed out of court.
The applicants are not the only ones who feel "entitled".
Employers, especially larger ones, feel "entitled" to canned labor without job training.
The employer equivalent of your quoted statement is: "I should get skilled labor even though I don't want to invest one cent in training or orientation, and if I don't i'll blame the colleges and call the applicants selfish and 'entitled'"
Re:The Entitlement Generation. (Score:5, Funny)
"Let's hope she gets laughed out of court."
Maybe if she doesn't, we should sue?
Re:The Fucked Over Generation (Score:4, Insightful)
You think she is entitled simply because she threw $70K of her parent's money down the drain and expects it to get her a job.
The reason university graduates of my generation had no problem getting a job was because the standards were much higher: typically only 5% of the population got a degree.
University is not and shouldn't be for everybody.
So yes, you're right, the standard of graduates has gone downhill since then: which is why so many of them can't get jobs.
They're the unemployable 'me me me' entitlement generation.
Another way of putting it is evolution in action: at least you failures are less likely to reproduce.
Re:The Fucked Over Generation (Score:5, Informative)
Bull. There has never been trouble getting a job. There has always been trouble getting a job you want.
Meanwhile the advantage that college graduates once had has evaporated due to the change in supply/demand. Now that so many people are college graduates, being a college graduate is no longer special. Doubly so now that curricula and grade-inflation and such have taken their toll. When my father got his MBA, one of the requirements for graduating was to visit a real-world company and solve a random serious real-world problem it had.
Re:The Fucked Over Generation (Score:5, Insightful)
Whatever her GPA is, she has worked hard for four years
Negative.
She's got a 2.7 GPA. That isn't outstanding, that's average. That isn't hard work, that's showing up to class and doing what you're told. I'd accept that she'd worked hard if she walked out of there with a 3.0+ GPA. A 2.7? Nope.
spent $70k on it
So?
If I spent $100k on a college education am I now more deserving of a job than she is? What if I go to a community college and only spend $20k? Am I less deserving?
very willing and able to work
Maybe.
I don't know her, you don't know her. We don't know how badly she wants a job. Maybe she feels this lawsuit is a better way to get some money than flipping burgers is. And able to work? I guess we'd have to sit her down in some kind of workplace environment to evaluate that, wouldn't we? Just because you've got a degree doesn't mean you're actually capable of doing the work.
I don't know how many bachelor degree holders there is
There are lots of folks with a Bacheolor's in something. It really doesn't mean much. Four years isn't really enough time to teach you a whole lot of specialization... And a four-year degree isn't going to focus on a specific set of skills either. There'll be lots of general education, lots of theory...
I always tell people that a Bachelor's degree proves one thing - a capacity to learn. Nothing more.
she likely has more education than 70% of the population
Education is borderline meaningless once you enter the job market. Nobody cares what book you read or how you scored on your exams - they want to know if you can do the job. Someone with 2 years experience doing the job (but no degree) has a better track record than someone with a 4.0 GPA coming right out of college. That's why internships are critically important. That's why you want to tinker in your free time and build up a portfolio that you can show potential employers. That's why folks take crap jobs right out of college to build up their resume.
And she can't get a job
Sure she can. Just not the job she wants.
I guarantee you there are jobs that she's qualified to do, but doesn't want - like WalMart, or McDonald's. I guarantee you there are jobs available that she's not qualified to do - like civic engineering or carpentry or something. The trick isn't finding a job, the trick is finding a job that you want.
I worked at Electronics Boutique for a year after I graduated with my BS in Computer Science... Then I worked as an Adjuct Professor at a local community college for another year... Then I finally found a job that actually involved doing what I went to school for - two years after graduation.
It just is not fair
Welcome to the real world. No, it isn't fair. Nothing is. Fairness is an artificial construct. In the real world nobody is going to give you a job just to be fair. You've got to earn your keep, just like everyone else out there.
Kids today aren't entitled, they are screwed over
I disagree.
The vast majority of "kids" I deal with these days have a crippling sense of entitlement. Interviewing people is downright painful. The attitude seems to be "I've show up to claim my job" instead of "let me prove to you that I'll be a good investment"
The older generation didn't have to take bullshit like this. There were no trouble getting a job back then
Really? [slashdot.org]
Despite the obvious problems with your overgeneralization... I do, mostly, agree. There was a time when this nation was built on the backs of skilled laborers. If you were willing to sweat, you were able to get a job. And there weren't usually enough bodies
thou shalt get a degree (Score:4, Insightful)
Obviously this woman doesn't have a case, but it's still not that hard to sympathise with people who are being pushed into higher education on the back of all the "you must have a degree to get a good job" and "knowledge-based economy" bullshit that's put about these days. Most of these folks would be better off learning an honest trade.
What's a C student at Monroe College? (Score:4, Insightful)
Can anyone explain what is a C in the US in the percentile range? Is this synonymous with miserable failure? What about the reputation of Monroe College?
Is she an average or plain-awful student?
Re:What's a C student at Monroe College? (Score:5, Informative)
For UK folks, it's equivalent to a low 2:2, and approaches a third.
Re:What's a C student at Monroe College? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:What's a C student at Monroe College? (Score:5, Informative)
A 'c' encompasses a range of scores - the GPA (Grade Point Average) is more telling.
The highest GPA you can get (with 100% marks on everything) is 4.0.
The national average GPA for college graduates is 3.2 (according to a quick google search)
She got a 2.7, which while not horribly bad, definitely puts her below average.
Never heard of Monroe college.
Re:What's a C student at Monroe College? (Score:4, Informative)
That being said, unless I'm missing something here, a 2.7 is a B-, not a C. Some schools don't have a +/- system, but in that case it's still well above a base-line C.
A: 4.0
A-: 3.7
B+: 3.3
B: 3.0
B-: 2.7
C+: 2.3
C: 2.0
C-: 1.7
D: 1.0
F: 0
If there's no +/- system, it's just 4/3/2/1/0.
As for Monroe College... I live in the area, and I've never heard of it (or at least, know nothing about it). Some local school, I guess. Certainly not a regionally, nationally or internationally known one.
Epic fail (Score:5, Interesting)
I really hope this chick loses the case, and gets saddled with a bunch of court costs to add to her student loans, that way nobody will ever try anything so stupid again. Three month job-hunt? In this economy? College education is no guarantee of a job, and if you can't sell yourself, you're going to be unemployed for a lot longer than that. Your college can't convince employers to give you a job, they can provide some contacts and resources to help you, but that's it.
Re:Epic fail (Score:5, Insightful)
To be fair, while it is tempting to put the blame squarely on her shoulders, it is probably not her own fault that she grew up with such a sense of entitlement.
Her family/school are likely very much to blame though, for not teaching her how the world works.
Re:Epic fail (Score:5, Funny)
....it is probably not her own fault that she grew up with such a sense of entitlement.
Her family/school are likely very much to blame though, for not teaching her how the world works.
She should sue them.
I also don't understand (Score:5, Interesting)
This idea that some (many?) students have that a degree is all they should need to be the ideal candidate. Ummmm, no, not so much. You ought to be smart enough to notice that what you are being taught is highly theoretical in nature. Universities aren't tech schools, they aren't teaching you specific skills needed for specific jobs, they are institutions of higher education and research. They deal heavily in the theoretical. This is quite noticeable if you pay any attention in class at all.
Thus, you should take something away from this: The university isn't giving me all I need to be an ideal job candidate. Practical experience is something you need to go and get on your own. My recommendation, especially for IT, is to get a job on campus doing just that. Now I'm a little biased, I work professionally doing IT on campus so we hire students. However, it is a good way to get some extra money and a great way to get some practical experience. All in all, it seems to work out ok for our students. They seem to go on to get jobs. Heck one guy got his bachelors in computer engineering, went on to another school and got his masters, then decided "Know what? I don't really want to be an engineer, I want to do support," and went to work as a support guy. While they appreciated the masters degree, they cared more about his time spent as a support guy.
For tech stuff I recommend university jobs since there seem to be plenty of them, and they have no problem hiring students, of course. A student position must, by definition, be filled by a student of the university. Universities also like student positions since they are cheap. However there's other places you can look at, or internships, or perhaps even just working on projects on your own time. Whatever, the point is to try and get some real, practical experience, not just a good theoretical education.
Also it really annoys me the idea that some graduates have that they should get a "high level" position. Ummmm, no. You have little experience, that is the definition of entry level. The idea that you'd start out in a higher level job is rather silly. After all, if a BS did that, then the majority of people would be starting out in high level jobs, making them not high level. If you are a new graduate, well then accept the fact that you are at the "entry level" of the work force. Goes double if this is your first job period.
Re:Epic fail (Score:5, Insightful)
So many people claim they have "tried" things. Tried to find a job. Tried to make a marriage work. Tried to resolve family conflicts. Tried, my ass. If you have not actively done something for at least a year, you have not tried it any more than dipping your toes in the water and crying aloud about how cold it is constitutes trying to swim.
Welcome to a harsh world (Score:5, Interesting)
Somehow, many students have the illusion that a degree will bring them to the top automagically. It doesn't work that way. Getting a degree is a good step forward... If they work hard in the university and actually learn. Then they will have to start 3 (or 5) years later in the job market, meaning they will lack many important skills no university teaches and therefor earn less. Even if they learn quickly it takes years to catch up (both in attractiveness on the job market and salary) with those that got into the same field without an university education.
This is true in most fields (including Engineering), but especially true in business administration and management.
The true value of the university education comes after a few years, because many companies have internal rules about giving priority to educated workers. Often there is a hard celing on how far you can get without a master, and it's not unusual for people to go back and get a MBA not only because they need the skills, but also because they need the diploma to continue their career. Some companies even pays for those MBA's to their management.
Re:Welcome to a harsh world (Score:5, Insightful)
It doesn't help that, in my case at least, I was told by pretty much everyone from highschool teachers, through careers advisors and university staff that "a Degree will bring me to the top automagically" - I wasn't exactly convinced, but when everyone's telling you that it's easy to buy into the hype.
Then you leave university and end up in the real world where you either a) Realise it was all a load of bollocks and get on with your life or b) Get all bitter about it as this woman appears to have done.
Funny stuff (Score:5, Funny)
This is funny because just the other day I was talking with my mother, a director of hiring at a large telco, and she was talking about how the young people she brings in feel entitled.
I told her I agreed, then asked if I could borrow $25. When she said no I wrote the local paper exposing the BULLSHIT THAT THIS IS!
Ask her about companies with entitlement (Score:5, Insightful)
They want the best workers but want to be "competitive" with salaries.
Whilst they want the best CEO and pay out the nose for it.
They want "at will" employment yet eternal loyalty from the employees.
They want to fire you and not pay you but don't want you working for anyone else.
It's all about who you know.. (Score:5, Insightful)
if you don't have any previous work history in a field. I'll freely admit I got both of my IT jobs by referrals from friends and acquaintances already working in the companies.
University/College studies are as much about networking as they are about learning. I spent most of my years in University in our student relaxing room playing boardgames and arguing with fellow students and faculty members. Now people who graduated years before me and have achieved higher positions in companies know me or are my friends and have a good understanding on how I fit in teams/groups. And since we mostly argued about our studies at hand they know that even though my grades weren't top notch I knew my stuff.
Of course this doesn't work at all if you're an asshole. You have to stand out somehow, but red flagging yourself for good by suing your school for your own failures is about the worst thing you could possibly do.
Re:It's all about who you know.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Motivation? (Score:5, Insightful)
If she's so motivated to sue someone because "she doesn't get what she wants," why doesn't she use her business degree and start her own business. Find a niche and go with it. It will be more rewarding. The downside, based upon her attitude, is that the only person she could blame then is herself. Unless she sues the customers of the world for not buying her product/service.
Re:Motivation? (Score:5, Funny)
Unless she sues the customers of the world for not buying her product/service.
I believe SCO have already patented that idea.
How To Sue People For Profit 101 (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe next time they'll think before running a subject called "How to sue people for profit"
She should sue them (Score:5, Funny)
For not teaching her about how stupid it is to file frivolous lawsuits.
Advertising and expectations (Score:5, Insightful)
If advertising didn't work, there wouldn't be so much of it.
Universities in .au, probably elsewhere as well, have been selling themselves increasingly for their job training and less for the concept of a liberal education for decades now.
Only a few go to university now to be simply educated, most are going to uni To Get A Job: it is an almost compulsory step between high school and any professional job. And most technical jobs. I wonder sometimes when more universities will go into more trade training, trying to steal business from technical schools. (As opposed to places like RMIT and Swinburn going the other way: technical colleges who became universities.)
And so, when university is sold as something which will get you a job, these expectations are built. Reasonably or not. (In my opinion, not.) But the trend is there, nonetheless.
A University education has gone from something needed for certain jobs, to something needed for certain classes of work, to a sine-qua-non of employment in entire sections of the workforce. And the universities have been competing with each other to advertise how good they are at giving an education which improves the student's chances of getting a job â" a good job, a desirable job â" advertising which might give the impression that such a job is practically guaranteed: that you go to this uni or that one not because of the education you get, but because of the job you are all but promised to walk into when you graduate. (Before you graduate, even, with graduate placements and the like.)
Personally, I think the uni sector would be better off selling the quality of the education itself, rather than expectations of the utilitarian results.
But I only work for a university, and as professional staff at that, so there is no hope that my opinion carries the slightest weight whatsoever.
It Would Be Funny, If Only It Weren't True. (Score:5, Insightful)
She suggested that Monroe's Office of Career Advancement shows preferential treatment to students with excellent grades. "They favor more toward students that got a 4.0. They help them more out with the job placement," she said.
You had a 2.7 GPA, with a "bachelor of business administration degree in information technology", and a "solid attendance record".
Okay, Trina, you've probably never heard this before, but I'll be frank. Those people with 4.0 GPAs are all probably much smarter than you are. If you had, say, a 3.5 GPA (and perhaps a more serious degree), that might not be the case. It makes sense for people to give them preferential treatment when it comes to employment in jobs that require intelligence and skills specific to their fields.
Considering that you're so lacking in integrity and responsibility that you decided to sue the school because you couldn't find an employer, I'll go out on a limb and say that those people are --in all honesty-- better than you. Had you not responded with such a childish action, I might hesitate to say that. Alas, that is not the case.
If you're unhappy with this, too bad. You can try harder, but now that you've made an ass out of yourself on national news, I don't think you'll convince anyone otherwise.
Now, try not to go get pregnant a dozen times.
Why take her statements at face value? (Score:4, Insightful)
A lot of people seem to think this is about her sense of entitlement - I'm not so sure. I suspect this is more about her moral character, or lack thereof. While I realize there is a lawyer boogeyman conservatives like to drag out whenever an apparently frivolous lawsuit makes the news, there are definitely a few people whose first thoughts immediately jump to lawsuits and "how much can I get?" at even the slightest hint of perceived wrong (which, in this case, I guess does boil down to a sense of entitlement after all). We can blame the lawyers, and I often do; but for each case like this there's also a willing client who's only thought is one regarding money.
She even screwed up her excuse (Score:4, Insightful)
"...As Thompson sees it, any reasonable employer would pounce on an applicant with her academic credentials, which include a 2.7 grade-point average and a solid attendance record..."
She's got it backwards. Aquarium algae can get a 2.0 GPA with a little training. If all the poor, dumb little chit can manage is a 2.7, then she'd be better off claiming she skipped two thirds of her classes and spent the whole last term drunk. At least that way, an employer might think she had brains and a commitment to doing the job right.
Truth in advertising (Score:5, Insightful)
The bottom line is, if you are going to advertise a particular service, you had better be prepared to put your money where your mouth is.* These schools need to learn that they cannot get away with making false promises to get you in the door, it is false advertising, and is nothing less than grand larceny.
*I know very well that this is likely not the case, it seems that she is more upset that she still doesn't have a job DESPITE the services being offered -- if the school is living up to their end of the bargain this girl is just an idiot, as opposed to being an idiot with a legitimate complaint. Regardless of whether or not the school is providing the necessary services, she is a 'tard for expecting to have a job 4 months after graduation with a 2.7 GPA, and even more of a 'tard for relying solely on the school's career placement to help her, as everyone knows that they are generally bullshit. This will not work out well for her, but if she is successful, it could work out well for future students in giving schools a bit more incentive to be honest.
Wow, and IT graduate with ZERO experience. (Score:5, Insightful)
So, let me get this straight. A graduate from a [insert random no-name college here] obtains a [rather generic, non-specific] degree in "IT", and automagically expects to be hired in 3 months or less?
Forget economy or GPA for a second, what the hell ever happened to getting your damn feet wet in IT outside of a fucking classroom?
You want someone to hire you? Drop the ego and intern for a short while. Find out how good you are in the real world before you start assuming a piece of paper is your automagic meal ticket. Might also want to pick up a newspaper every now and then to see how long it's taking the average job with experience to land a job.
Steely Dan must've met her type before (Score:5, Insightful)
You been tellin' me you're a genius
Since you were seventeen
In all the time I've known you
I still don't know what you mean
The weekend at the college
Didn't turn out like you planned
The things that pass for knowledge
I can't understand
--Reelin' In the Years by Steely Dan
Well, it paid off...she has a job now (Score:5, Informative)
Just found this article [theskichannel.com] in which the "Ski Channel" is going to offer her a job:
Shocking: The summary title is accurate (Score:5, Funny)
Whenever I read a headline like this I think to myself, "Alright, some jackass is trying to get a bunch of attention. Surely there must be more to this story."
Imagine my surprise when I realized that, no, the title is 100% accurate. Amazing.
Mob torches for sale (Score:4, Insightful)
I imagine her expectations were unrealistic, but why is everyone so quick to condemn this girl? Why is it unreasonable to live in the wealthiest country in the world and expect to be able to find gainful employment? When you finish paying out tens of thousands of dollars for a college education, don't you expect to find better work than the local Walmart? If not, then why would you risk carrying so much debt?
Does it help you to sleep better at night telling yourself that ALL the unemployed or underemployed people in this country richly deserve it?
Kind of ironic coming from the crowd that has been working feverishly to develop machines that can replace human labor in a wide variety of jobs.
Two Things (Score:4, Insightful)
2) "I can't give you a brain, so I'll give you a diploma" - The Wizard of Oz
As an aside, it has fallen to me on more than one occasion to interview prospective candidates for positions on my teams. The more I have done so, the more I've come to realize that a degree also doesn't guarantee that the candidate will know anything or be a good employee. As such, I tend to value the attitude of the candidate to my questions, his work experience and contributions to projects such as open source projects over a piece of paper that tells me he's reasonably good at memorizing facts (or cheating.) I am fairly certain that if anyone approaches the interview with a positive attitude and engages the interviewer rather than just sitting there like a cabbage or something, they will have a very good chance of landing the job. A lot of people come to the interview with the attitude that it's a chore they'd rather not have to do, and trust me on this that attitude comes through very clearly during the interview. And if you're going to be like that during the interview, odds are you're going to be like that on the job as well.
Re:Frivolous Lawyer (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I was in a similar situation recently. (Score:4, Insightful)
The harsh reality that college is a sham at this stage in our country will eventually sink in, you're smart.
I wouldn't go so far as to call it a sham. I think each generation shams itself into thinking more and more that they are entitled to good grades and that a degree entitles them to a job, as is certainly the case with the woman in the article. An education at a university says several things to an employer - first, you have a rounded education and you've been able to meet at least some standards and deadlines in your academic career; second, you have at least some basic understanding of the field in which you studied; third, you've demonstrated that you can put out and do unglamorous work to acheive a goal; and fourth, you might possibly be teachable, since you've apparently demonstrated a willingness to learn in school by choice, beyond mandated state K-12 education.
What screws a lot of people up, in my opinion, is how they present themselves on their resume and in their interviews. It takes more than listing your references, past jobs, and education. Your goal in your resume should be to present to each recipient the case that you are the best fit for the position they are trying to fill, you can't farm out a drab, inpersonal list of data and expect to stand out. You have to address the requirements of the job in your resume so the recipient at least knows you can meet some of their desired criteria. You have to elaborate on your job experience, summarizing your responsibilities and pointing out relevant acheivements. You have to include a well written cover letter that introduces you and describes your interest in the position. Between you and Candidate Y, the person that gets the job is the one that describes most aptly that they will fill the role with enthusiasm beyond that of filling a chair. It's painfully obvious to employers who is interested in the job and who is interested in the money the job pays. No one wants an empty shell that pulls a paycheck, they want to hire someone who has a genuine interest in their field that will provide results and improve over time that is worth the investment of that paycheck. A person that goes to school majoring in Business Administration in IT, makes unremarkable grades, sees attendence as some sort of exemplary behavior, and expects an employer to seek out her resume on an e-recruiting site is not enthusiastic about anything, and simply expects to be handed life on a platter, which is why this lady is suing her school and reveals the real reason she is unemployable. She does not want the opportunity of work, she just wants to be paid for going to work.