Job market is tough, but kids are not getting the right degrees. The engineering firm I work for can't even fill the job openings we have and just hired a couple of civil engineers with zero experience and are paying them $50k a year. I can tell you that you won't get stinking rich as an engineer, but I've never had a problem finding a job that paid well.
take some math courses wrote:
I can tell you that you won't get stinking rich as an engineer, but I've never had a problem finding a job that paid well.
...but, but, but...I want a major that I LOVE and really INTERESTS me...I feel that's a good use of $80-$130k dollars and four-five years of my time...
It seems like it's implied in the U.S. that you can work anywhere you'd like in any career. But, if there aren't jobs available there, doesn't that defeat the purpose? If the only line of work available in your region is, say, engineering or the service industry, what choice do you really have and why are 'useless' degrees even offered to begin with?
history wrote:
My friend has a history major and works at an investment bank. Not only that, he actually survived the last 2 years of lay offs.
What Ivy League school did he or she attend?
intriguing wrote:
We are a free market society and most college programs are pushing a weak product and it might not be a bad idea to start holding them up to their responsibility.
Then the free market response is to attend a different college, not to sue the one you chose because you were disappointed with the product.
For the OP, If she was explicitly promised certain services and the school didn't provide those services, she has a case. If it's just "I thought they'd do more to help me" she should shove it up her arse.
I blame alot of this on the secondary education sytem. In my high school there was never any valuable discussion on college majors and career prospects. I came from a lower middle class family in which neither one of my parents knew how to turn on a computer or use a cell phone. By the time I was 18 the people who educated and raised me had me believing accountants only worked for H&R Block and engineers only existed on a railroad. I had an athletic scholarship to a decent university and I learned ALOT while majoring in a humanities discipline. ut I learned ALOT about life and how the world works and thinking outside the box. I learned nothing of how to apply myself in the real world. I basically learned everything on my own and given another chance I would be able to make something of myself, but its too late because college is over and I got tricked and deceived as a vulnerable teenager to major in what \"INTERESTS\" me. I probably know alot more than most people because I\'ve spent so much time researching graduate programs that will accept me based on my merits (slim pickings). I wish I had the means to do this the first time around. (Oh I did not own a computer until I went to college and in my high school you could only use them if you were in a computer class) I almost feel a sense of responsibility to speak to seniors coming out of my high school and share all this knowledge I\'ve gained through my own research b/c pathetically I more useful in society based on that than I am on my worthless humanities degree. I am starting a campaign right now traveling across my county to preach my story. Who is with me?
I remember making a compromise with my dad when I went to college. I wanted to be a history major, he told me that he'd pay for everything if I'd get another major in business. He didn't tell me not to major in History, but told me he wanted me to major in something that was marketable to the general employer.
He was right.
As much as I hated to admit it at the time...he was right.
I came out of school with a double major in Business and in History; and got employed nearly right away (in a bad economy). I'm still with the company that hired me, and am well up the food chain...enjoy the job, the company, and its products. I guess I'm lucky, but without the Business degree, I wouldn't be here.
And I still use my history degree as well...writing, researching, etc. Got an MBA later on.
She should get $70,000. All American's should get $1500 at the beginning of the month. If you want to work and make a good life for yourself awesome.
I'm sure everyone will think that is crazy, but have no problem spending hundreds of billions of dollars on the military.
championer wrote:
I blame alot of this on the secondary education sytem. In my high school there was never any valuable discussion on college majors and career prospects. I came from a lower middle class family in which neither one of my parents knew how to turn on a computer or use a cell phone. By the time I was 18 the people who educated and raised me had me believing accountants only worked for H&R Block and engineers only existed on a railroad. I had an athletic scholarship to a decent university and I learned ALOT while majoring in a humanities discipline. ut I learned ALOT about life and how the world works and thinking outside the box. I learned nothing of how to apply myself in the real world. I basically learned everything on my own and given another chance I would be able to make something of myself, but its too late because college is over and I got tricked and deceived as a vulnerable teenager to major in what "INTERESTS" me. I probably know alot more than most people because I've spent so much time researching graduate programs that will accept me based on my merits (slim pickings). I wish I had the means to do this the first time around. (Oh I did not own a computer until I went to college and in my high school you could only use them if you were in a computer class) I almost feel a sense of responsibility to speak to seniors coming out of my high school and share all this knowledge I've gained through my own research b/c pathetically I more useful in society based on that than I am on my worthless humanities degree. I am starting a campaign right now traveling across my county to preach my story. Who is with me?
Unfortunately, I guess you never learned "a lot" is two words?
I had the same thing going on as championer. I sort of knew I was studying the wrong subject by the end of my time so I took some science classes. But I decided to graduate anyway and got nothing really. The disappointing thing I found out after working crap jobs and being unemployed is that it would have been a lot better to stay in school for two more years studying a subject that I had been thinking about (geography with a GIS concentration) because it would have actually given me good job opportunities. Right now I know areas of study I would be interested in that would get me good jobs but I wonder if it's even worth it to go back to school.
My brother is going to go to the same school right now and I'm basically just telling him to take as much math as he can and major in something that doesn't require a master's degree to get an entry-level job.
She should have studied "community organizing".
J Wright wrote:
She should have studied "community organizing".
Do that a while, go into politics, wright your autobiography, run for president. That should pay the bills.
Just because you haven't heard of the school doesn't mean it isn't a good school. But the 2.7 part is not so good
in general this is the most laughable case since the fat bastard that decided to sue four different fast food chains for making his ass fat
She should just enroll in a post-baccalaureate program, study for the MCATs, and become a doctor.. There's always gunna people-a-dyin'. Too bad she got a 2.7 GPA and she'd probably be turned down by every post-bacc./graduate program there is.
Time for her to apply to Wal-Mart.
agree wholeheartedly. Just blame others - instead of taking responsibility oneself.
Name wrote:
It seems like it's implied in the U.S. that you can work anywhere you'd like in any career. But, if there aren't jobs available there, doesn't that defeat the purpose? If the only line of work available in your region is, say, engineering or the service industry, what choice do you really have and why are 'useless' degrees even offered to begin with?
so you're in favor of banning certain majors that aren't useful?
i think people should be allowed to make their own mistakes, and then made of deal with the consequences themselves.
but i guess more and more people in the US would disagree these days.
wontwork4everybody wrote:
history wrote:My friend has a history major and works at an investment bank. Not only that, he actually survived the last 2 years of lay offs.
What Ivy League school did he or she attend?
Well he and I both went to the same school and it wasn't Ivy League, although, yes it is a prestigious university that would be considered up there.
I realize that all history degrees are not created equal, but to say that some of these majors are useless is foolish. Now if you go to a mediocre school you might want to pick your major more carefully, but many times you are receiving a liberal arts degree anyway and you will have skills in many areas when you graduate.
interestingddd wrote:
I think she raises a pretty valid point. The biggest problems with universities is that they are sheltered from the rest of the world. They teach topics with little, to no real world implications. My senior year, as a finance major, we took a survey of our class. We asked how many people in there knew how to do their own taxes. Less than a quarter did. Less than half of the kids didn't know what the correct business attire for an interview was. Almost no one could tell us who the chairman of the Fed was. It was an interesting survey because it illustrated that a lot of kids are graduating with little to no knowledge of how the real world works. Yes, that may be because the students were lazy or ignorant, but our contention was that the school had failed them a little as well by giving them a diploma, when so many students seemed unprepared to enter the real world.
Do you want your college to wipe your ass too? Come on man, do your research on where you go to school so you don't have stuff like this happen. Ask questions when you do your tours in high school, this stuff is important.
I feel no sympathy for anyone who gets through four years and then feels like their university let them down, you were either lazy and didn't attend some of the optional things that the career services office would put on to help you or you didn't do your research on the school enough to know what you were getting into.
i'd like to know more specifics about the case.
I see nothing wrong with this case. Schools are not above the law and if they didn't offer the type of programs that were advertised, she should get her money back.
Schools should be held accountable. I have personally received almost none of the education I was promised, and neither has anyone else within my major. Schools and most professors are in the business of helping themselves, not students. Most resort to underhanded tactics to get what they can out of the students, in the form of money, time, or effort.
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