Friday, May 20, 2011

Taking what they're givin'

As often happens, The New York Times picked up on my blog post and had this interesting article on the job market and recent college graduates:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/19/business/economy/19grads.html?_r=1&src=rechp

There are some interesting points here, including that college graduates are pushing out non-graduates for lower-level jobs (which, in its sad way, actually speaks to the value of higher education, although it's a bit wrong to thing, "Yay! I'm more likely to get that job at McDonald's now that I have that engineering degree!") I don't like the idea of assessing the value of something based on the group that had it for the shortest period of time. They touch on this point later in the article, that a college education (and beyond) should help you in the long run, but it's buried pretty far down there.

I hate the idea of college being viewed as simply a job-training program. This isn't the deal when you sign up. If that's what we want out of our colleges, then the whole system needs a big change: contracts between students and employers when they enter, promises of specific coursework, GPA's, all that. I dont' think we want to go there just yet.

The point that needs to be made is that the real reason college grads aren't getting jobs easily is because no one is getting a job easily these days. Times are tough and it's gonna take a bit more work to get something going. This doesn't take away from the "value" of the degree. It's not like there's a better alternative out there.

Sometimes you have to take a step back to move forward. Here's my story: after graduate school, after I had worked a few years in academia and decided it wasn't what I wanted to do, I started the job hunt. Admittedly, the only plan I had was "not academia" and my timing wasn't the best, so I was out of work longer than I had hoped. I finally got an interview for a temp job at a non-profit where they said they'd love to have me but could only pay $14/hour. I pointed out that it was more than I was currently making, and we had a deal.

Fast forward a few months (shortly after the temp job ended) to a job interview at a big pharma. Turns out, the guy interviewing me had worked at the same non-profit years earlier. I ended up landing that job (with a very nice boost in salary). He told me later that one of the main reasons he hired me was because, if I was willing to work at the non-profit, I would work super-hard now that I was getting a decent salary.

Sometimes you have to take that not-so-great job to get the good one. If I had taken my snapshot of "Is grad school worth it?" when I was at the non-profit, the answer would have been, no way. But less than a year later, the answer would have completely changed. Whether or not college is worth it (if it's only about the job-getting) needs to be examined down the road: once the economy changes, over a lifetime.

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