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The New Normal Graduate's Survival Guide
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Its not the goal its the journey and yeeeeeeehaaaaaaa we're all in for one hell of a journey.
Education can be an enjoyable experience. I spent three of the happiest
years of my life in the 6th grade.
They should offer a mandatory class in their graduating semester on how to move back in with your parents or how to live icomfortably in your parents basement.
Saturn's Tent.
Mortarboard and Cap with tassell all wrong....
Saturn's Squared yer circle. Mine too. A few times at that.
Unlearning can be fun...electrifying even ;-)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lk1TSBW_368
We billionaires need more H1Bs!!! :'-(
looks about right
about what a Canadian graduate can afford in Vancouver right now lol
"... and then you can plug the leaks each month with a portion of the monthly billing
statement"
Too bad students aren't allowed to go bankrupt. That would solve lots of problems.
They should offer the class "Escorting 101: How to Market Yourself Effectively so You Can Repay Sallie Mae," but it would probably make too many think twice about taking out that student loan...
"WHATEVER"...Don't graduate, stay in school as long as possible and max student loan debt. NO one will repay and you can enjoy life.
I have wonderful news. There be a leprechaun up in the tree. Peace.
Why aren't universities held liable for the implied and sometimes explicit claims they make about higher education, selection of a major and the real world result to your job and income prospects?
The amount a student is eligible to borrow should be directly linked to what they are studying and capped at a reasonable ratio of expected income for the first 5 years or so.
.
The real issue here is population control
The world needs ditch diggers, too.
Ditch diggers today need a B.A. or Mf.A.
People who advocate population reduction should take direct, personal action.
Go on - Make a difference in the world by making an example of yourself.
How about you stop screwing first.
How about you do some research and find out Malthus is a useful idiot for the UN agenda 22 asshats to beat you into guilty submission with?
I'll make motion for hell no. You are mad, and once you can stop screwing, call Discovery Channel. Next option please.
The professorial hustle endures. They profess knowledge of reality to fleece the believers.
That hustle has evolved into the new religion, complete with its hierarchy, materialist dogma, and a blind impulse to shun all observation that contradicts the elders word.
I graduated (in the UK) with a science degree during a major recession and it took me 2 1/2 years to get a degree related job. It wasn't fun.
My brother, (who's easily as smart as me) didn't go for a degree - he had his first job before I did, his first car before I did, his first house before I did, etc, etc.
I really feel for a lot of these debt burdened students even if some of them are 'silly' subjects.
DavidC
Thank you, sir. I appreciate the empathetic comment. We all (most of us anyway) want to work, contribute, and succeed. Good day to you.
How'd he do it, mate?
He was a driver for Los Pollos Hermanos.
If your a young person you don't have much choices if your parents are not well connected or have put a lot of time and effort into guiding you.
Choices,
A. Sign up for uncle sams meat grinder.
B: go to college and take somethign that you think you can succeed in.
C: start working at mcdonalds.
D: a trade school
E: Obama Sugar
Now all of these choices can lead to success of some sort. As young adults in government education we were told college is the way to success. But right now trade school seems like the winning bet though not everyoen can succeed there.
It was a trap. This generation is now held captive. The endgame begins, either you have ptsd, a boatload of dept , or you are dirt poor and stupid.
There are some decent franchises that one could open for 100,000-250,000 . . . or the equivalent of a 4-year undergrad program. UPS store, for instance. Or a Little Caesar's pizza place. Or a differentiated coffee shop that is well grounded to meet the needs to the locals. Or a car wash. Or one of those oil and lube places. People overlook these basic services as ways to make a living/pay for more education, but they are SOUND businesses. If you wish, welding/plumbing/electrical work are all high-potential areas to both (a) make a living and (b) own a business. Our nation is SO perceptually fucked up in guiding young people ONLY toward investment banking or rap mogul or law or medicine or pro sports. And if you are perceived as dumb/unmotivated as a 12-year-old, then you get tracked toward hourly unskilled labor, where you are indirectly competing with a Cambodian in a country with zero worker safety or environmental laws, not to mention a corp tax rate below 15%.
If I could offer some advice to any 18-year old, it would be to take one of your durable interests and make a business out of it. You can always go to college full time later, or part time, or at night. Failure is OK, as long as you learn from it and keep striving. Fuck going straight to college. It is now a sucker's bet. It simply costs too much for the value you are getting. Start a business, youngin'!
May not be able to afford a down payment on a home, but they can all afford an smartphone, plasma-screen TV with all the channels, chrome rims on their pimpmobile, Air Jordans (are those still in?), and a Wii.
WRONG
Im a millenial WITH A JOB and I cant afford any of that shit. I still have an old pantech matrix from 8 years ago. The majority of my money goes towards gas, insurance, and food.
Do you at least have fuzzy dice hanging from your rear view?
You are confusing recent graduates with EBT cardholders.
Good one!
Touche.
I ROBOT - THE ALAN PARSONS PROJECT 1977
- they saw the future.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7oAuba3Ekg
What great sound they had...big, reverby, looping awesomeness.
Nice one Rusty and of course they were in touch...
OT, but cool to know... Alan Parsons was the Sound Engineer for Pink Floyd's albums.
Am huge fan of both, FWIW.
The ability to ( do the math ) before you go to college... Priceless...
The ability to do any math...
Priceless...
And I ain't talking high brow stuff either....
Richard Feynman - my favorite physicist once said that equations were made to allow people who don't understand math to come up with answers. You plug a number into one end and get something out the other without having any idea as to what's going on in-between.
Schools, I find, don't teach the meaning of math enough to make it interesting. So, it's up to parents to fill in the gaps and to explain what math actually is.
All my life I loved math and geometry especially, as it gave me a visual representation of functions. I had very hard time grasping concepts that couldn't be plotted on a chart. I had mathematically inclined parents. My father was an engineer and did many technical drawings that I studied. Mother worked in accounting. That's also numbers. The family was poor, so high attention was paid to finances, income and spending. The numbers directly affected life conditions and therefore were interesting to someone like me, who was eager to find out whether there'd be anything to eat the next day, of if I could afford to take the bus to a friend's house instead of walking.
Necessity is the mother of invention. I'd say that it is also a great encouragement for learning. When your life depends on numbers, you'll want to know how they work.
The American Dream: Hopefully out of mom and dads basement by 40.
We celebrated a relative's 50th birthday yesterday. One of the people remarked "50 is the new 30", meaning it in the traditional sense. I had an entirely different interpretation to that remark and cringed as images of 50 year-olds living in their parents' basements ran through my mind. Perpetual childhood for all...
Before the explosion of nursing homes and senior-living communities, adult children often did live with one of their parents. The 50 something adult child would often have a room in the house for the widowed grandma. But of course, those arrangements are from the age of barbaric relics.
"50 is the new 30"
Were you in Hobbiton trying to get Bilbo to start his quest?
Oh, and did the say 111 is the new 80?
And up on the Main Floor, with them up in the Attic.
Wanna bet that the teepee cap and gown will still have to be set up on land owned by a big bank?
yes DC but every study (Univ study that is) shows that by the time you're 55 your income will be 30-50% higher than your degreeless bro.
please tell me i'm right DC. please tell me those selfserving Univ studies are infallible. please.
signed
college bound debt laden parent w/ skyward sniffing nostrils
Should have sent your kid to Germany in one of the hundreds of English speaking programs where the higher education is basically free.
Those European degrees may be free now but I would bet sooner of later the United Welfare States of Europe will be forced to have a different model for tuition
Perhaps yes. Is that a relevant reason to not go there or somewhere else versus paying 20k+ for American 'university'?
Give me the 'get a job' argument when there are some actual jobs existing that actually allow a person to grow.
Also quite frankly I'd rather see money used up on welfare than on endless war. Investing in your people even if it gets you into debt is going to leave you better off in the long-term than using the money to blow up other people for some oil.
One of the reason why Europe can give free education at the university level is because Uncle Sam picks up their defense tab
That's right. I'm perpetually grateful to Uncle Sam for saving me from the Viet Cong, Grenadans, Saddam Hussein, Qaddaffi, Assad and the Iranians. Were it not for him I'd now be speaking in a polyglot Vietnamese/Arabic/Farsi dialect.
Whew!
Logged in just to green ya!
+20,000,000,000,000 or whatever the US debt is now.
Free?
Don't you mean paid for by someone else?
An American citizen who does not speak German can really go to Germany and attend a higher education program for practically free? Even 10k/yr wouldnt sound believable. There has to be some kind of barrier to entry or caveat.
We pay 7.5k(eur) a year for the Netherlands.
Switzerland, Germany, Finland, Austria and Norway are essentially 'free' (relative to american places).
Obviously some of them aren't in the EU.
http://bib.htw-berlin.de/studying-bachelor-of-international-business-bib... (290eur / semester) Germany
http://www.aalto.fi/en/studies/about/for_future_student/financing/ (Nothing / semester) Finland
http://studieinfo.uin.no/nor/standard-forsteside/studiesok/?&displayitem... (Semester Registration Fee / Semester) Norway
http://www-en.fh-ooe.at/programmes/bachelor/global-sales-and-marketing/ (Nothing / semester) Austria
https://www.hslu.ch/en/lucerne-school-of-business/degree-programmes/bach... (800chf / semester) Switzerland
Perhaps the catch that you're seeking is that most universities in Europe are actual universities and not living complexes.
I.e., there's no meal plans, dormitories, and often no (school) soccer team. That's on your own.
You obviously have to apply and be accepted just like any other university.
Thanks for the thorough answer, Ill be reading into some of these. Ive been interested in trying to work oversees for a few years but thought the best bet would be to build a skillset that transcends language barriers and transfer within a company (ie not likely to happen haha). Im generally opposed to over-education but a masters might be a good approach.
If you are looking towards a masters you really might want to look at Switzerland. Although Switzerland cost of living of course is expensive.
If everything goes fine with my bachelor's in the Netherlands I may go to Lausanne for a Master's in Actuarial Science (hopefully better risk models not based upon gaussian distributions, but perhaps levy instead, are getting developed by then as people realize six sigma moves happen in things like certain currency pairs [EUR/CHF] more than they thought...). Depends on what job prospects I can find in 2018 after finishing my Bachelors...presuming the world hasn't blown up by then or something. If I am able to find or start something decent in 2018, probably won't go for the Master's...otherwise if prospects are bad, off to learning about developing mystical mathematical models.
Also depends on our financial assets having not been wiped out by then. Otherwise we'll probably be living in a secluded cottage we normally use for the summers, fishing for food and growing what we can in a greenhouse.
http://www.studyineurope.eu/#program-search/?view_240_page=1&view_240_fi...
I went to graduate school in computer science Zurich. They paid me more than enough to live on and it was a great experience. They do expect you to work hard.
in USSA you can take actuary exams without having a degree and or having a non-STEM degree
learn some scripting languages like vba, python, r and get good @ excel
good luck!
There are loads of jobs for intelligent hard working graduates who are willing to travel and are smat enough to have chosen a subject that ends in a real career. There are no jobs for the majority of American graduates who spent the last 4 years wasting their parents money and partying like Animal House. It seems to me that a whole generation goes to college now to get laid and drunk. As fun as that might be, it doesnt get you far after youve chosen social studies as a subject.
The hard truth is most Americans are plain stupid at 18 because the education system is designed by idiots, for idiots. So, at 18, they have no ability to plan a career, much less a life. This is why your average European and Asian is miles ahead of the US in education and therefore jobs.
So called Parents have bene dumb down and wonder why the kids are stupid. Too much inbreeding and so called softy touches. Pussified Generations to come.
The education system sucks in no small part because there is complete disregard and lack of respect for intellectually ability in the US. Used car salesmen are held in higher regard than educators.
Education starts at home and requires an enviroment fostered by the parents. If they don't value education and intellectual development, why should their kids, regardless of whatever any teacher does...
You reap what you sow...
" loads of jobs for intelligent hard working graduates who are willing to travel"
Maybe within the USA. But thanks to FATCA, US persons are way too much paperwork and IRS risk for any foreign corporations to hire US graduates. There are only a few overseas jobs within the confines of a large US multinationals that handle all the tax issues through contracts with big US accounting firms like Deliotte or PWC.
Sorry, even with the perfect STEM degree there is fuck all for jobs out there.
They still hire STEM graduates where I work but mostly Indians and Chinese. It's not that they don't want Americans, it's that the best grad students are usually Indians and Chinese. They are motivated to study harder than Americans. They are doing their best to improve their own lives and I can't fault them for that.
This should read: "There are still some jobs for smart, lucky and well conencted individuals from rich families". Everyone else is pretty much fucked.
"... your average European and Asian is miles ahead of the US in education and therefore jobs. "
As a European I can say that I very much doubt that.
I would agree with you...as a non-european studying in Europe.
Europe does have some good programs (personally go to one that is probably a bit better than 'ok', though not the best or amazing)
However, they have plenty of useless programs like the US as well.
Tons of people in my area are doing Psychology or American Studies.
American studies. What the fuck are you going to do with a degree like that. Go work at the Fed?
The recent study that shows High school graduates from Finland and Korea have better literary, math and problem solving skills than American university graduates is a real eye opener.
That university gown looks more like a teepee. But more to the point graduates are but one of the many groups of dispossessed people. Savers have been dispossessed of decent interest income, pensioners have benn dispossessed of their pensions, workers dispossessed of their jobs, citizens dispssessed of their privacy, democracy dispossessed of its voting rights by lobbyists, people dispossessed of their health by big pharma and GM crops, people dispossessed of their property by gargantuan property taxes, and so on and so forth.
And all this because a certain number of people being possessed by the devil.
So sick of hearing about these whiny entitled brats. Suck it up buttercup!
More than 50% of recent college graduates do not have full time jobs, despite many owing six figures to the banksters.
Sallie Mae a banksta' ? Maybe at second hand removed, but the us.gov is pandering to the university crowd on the other side. You know, Granny Warren with her $300k+ job at the world's most perfect university.
they don't owe a penny...they are taking Obama's message and ignoring the debt....so YOU OWN THE DEBT!
I live in a large university (state school) town. I'm very good friends with several professors. We have monthly gatherings and chat about all things. I'm always stunned by their absolute cluelessness about real life. They assume everyone is employed and the economy is great. They were dumbfounded when I mentioned several other friends had lost their executive jobs and were struggling to find employment. Equally, they were surprised to hear the college grads are having a very difficult time finding a job. They spewed off stats that the University told them 5-10 years ago. Along the lines that only kids that don't find a job either didn't apply themselves in class (low GPA) OR majored in the wrong subject. They assumed all of the recent graduates were employed. I personally know dozens of kids that found a post college job, but only make minimum wage.
I asked one of the guys last meeting how safe was his tenured position. He confessed that tenure means nothing anymore. He had been told about 6 months ago that if the state cut funding that there would be layoffs in every department.
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!"
- Upton Sinclair
I am NOT defending rhe clueless professors and their view of the economy,HOWEVER, remember there is a TON of dough going to the Uni's now, and, a lot of that dough does leak-out (lol trickle down) into the surrounding communities. This makes their little university-town-islands seem much better then, and isolated from, typical economic reality.
Hey new grads, here's your plan:
DON'T FUCKING WORK AND NEVER FUCKING WORK!
You won't have to pay back your student loans. You won't have to worry about health insurance. Your utilities will be paid for by the state. You'll get money for food and if you pay a legal service to tell the government you're depressed from not being able to work, you'll get paid even more money. You'll also get a handicapped placard so you can park right outside the door of most stores.
You might ask how you can get a car if you don't have a job. Oh how naïve you are. Most Chevy dealerships have special programs for "fixed income" individuals. See your welfare payments actually make young less of a risk than a working stiff because as of right now your payments are guaranteed. With 8000 Volts on dealer lots you can probably score one of them.
You might say, "I live in California, it's expensive." Oh naïve youngster, California offers up to $2200 a month in rent assistance for low income individuals. Now you can even get a $35k rooftop solar array installed for free as well. You can charge your Volt for free.
http://inhabitat.com/california-dishes-out-free-solar-panels-to-its-poor...
In fact with the rent assistance, disability, food stamps, utility assistance, etc you might have enough cash to lease a Tesla and charge it for free. My god imagine it. You won't even have to work a single hour but can drive around like you are a Silicon Valley Billionaire.
WHAT A COUNTRY WE LIVE IN!!!!
While I know the above post is tongue in cheek - I think this might be a prophecy.
Reminds me of an episode of Sliders about a prosperous world where everything was free and all one had to do is participate in a lottery. Those who borrowed the most would be killed, but would also get a privilege card allowing them to live out their last week enjoying high luxuries. We are on a depopulation course. If you choose to become a non-player (to get out of the way) you are rewarded. If you choose to pursue personal growth, you are punished.
How to get $75000 worth of free shit:
http://www.theburningplatform.com/2015/05/04/13-east-steps-to-75000-of-f...
I guess all those ads about a single mother making $7000 a month on her computer weren't lying.
Long Trailer Homes and Shanty Towns.
Seems just like in the Good Ol' Days of the Industrial Revolution, European Colonies in the Tropics.
Neofeudalism, Feudalism 2.0. Bitchez.
Glad I dropped out before I got sucked in.
What kind of high school guidance counselor said to these kids four years ago, "Yes, Johnny, you should borrow as much money as you can to go to a small liberal arts college and major in sociology, psychology, anthropology, womens studies, or black studies"?
The entire ethos of US education is wrong, given that our greatest challenge lies in working to individual financial independence. Nobody hears in 2nd grade about the time value of money. Nobody learns how to design a product and price it competitively. The closest we come is the over-emphasis on marketing ourselves via buying the right clothes, car, and smartphone. For the academically focused, high school is all about putting together a good resume for college. that's nuts. Think about how many more entrepreneurs our nation would have if there was an alternative to the 'straight-to-college' track. Call it a four year experimental business program. Our educational system is fucked up, and so are our values as a consumerist society. ZIRP/NIRP further penalizes saving. We're SO screwed. . .
The trades, thats where the money will be, and no college debt, they will pay you to learn in an apprenticeship,
I'll take the other side of that bet, there are plenty of carpenters, electricians and the like who haven't worked in their chosen fields since the 08/09 debacle, and many who openly admit the employment bubble in their trades is over, never to return.
I was in the construction field, classified as 'field staff' and my company went from 200+ Project Managers and Superintendants on a Monday down to less than 90 on the Friday. I worked 19 days in 2009, still haven't caught up.
The trades sound great, to a STEM guy. Shit, as a trades guy the STEMs sound great...but we all know how that is going, trades may be a tad harder to outsource but I can attest what the can't outsource they simply disrupt and displace.
Like those 20+ Lebanese (from Lebanon) carpenters working at the local college in Canada's Capital City, or the chinese in the Oil Sands, or the chinese building Winnipeg's International Airport, or the 300+ chinese miners that B.C. was going to allow into a chinese owned mine on the mainland, or...well you get the picture.
my advice to any young high school kid today would be to go to trade school and or if you dont want to be a drunk blue collar idiot...learn to code..if you HAVE to go to college...get a STEM degree and minor in accounting.
Get a gun, some beans and a gold claim. Digging cash out of the ground will be the best career choice for some time if the shtf the way some on this site think it will.
So, send millions of good jobs overseas, bring in loads of H1Bs to take the rest of the decent jobs, then allow in millions of illegals to take the jobs "that nobody wants" (at slave wages). And tap the taxpayers for medical care, housing, education costs for the illegals. I like it. What could go wrong?