Exiled high schooler to be looking to move to Michigan (Detroit: find a job, college)
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And just to add a bit more pessimism -- you're chasing high placement rates. The placement rate will be different by the time you graduate. I remember when I graduated high school that the placement rates for computer science majors were through the roof; 4 years later and nobody could find a job -- that was during the late 80's/early 90's recession. Things got better and then the federal government interfered and dumped the H1B visa cheap labor on the market -- this started in 1990 at 65K/yr and fluctuated up to 130K/yr until the present (50% of them were dumped into IT). It's really hard to judge what the hot labor markets will be in the future. It's just never what it is in the present though.
Placement offices are notorious for manipulating data to show high placement percentages and high starting salaries. You need to know if the data is stale, the number of respondents, the total number of graduates, the honesty of the responses, etc. You should also be suspicious of all of the current career surveys where the media is stating what the hottest jobs are and the salaries. I see frequent reports of how there's such high demand for IT related careers and can tell you that it's simply not the case for new graduates.
Even in the paralegal field, I find it hard to believe that things are rosy there. There's a glut of lawyers at the moment. Some of these will take work as paralegals and that can't be good for the job market.
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Originally Posted by flyingwriter
Beware of those 98% placement rate claims - many of them are false. What college is this, specifically?
Also, since Detroit is a huge city, you'd probably stand at least a decent chnce of finding a minimum wage job. However, Detroit is the most economically depressed area of the state with LOTS of laid-off auto workers.
Trouble is our good schools in Florida are crowded and FL has a very high cost of living that I WOULDN'T be able to afford right now. I don't have that much money to support my self in a town in FL. Electricity and Water bills are about 300 a month, on top of that there aren't many cheap homes/apartments in my area that is in a safe place and just for a measly 1 bedroom one bath Id have to fork out a minimum of 1200 for rent. Not to mention Miami is hit by hurricanes every freaking 4 years on average, and Im fed up with hurricanes.
You are saying that most young people are leaving the Rust Belt for "bigger cities and better jobs" well you aren't looking at someone who wants to pay as much as most young people for an up-to-date city living. You are looking at someone who is tired of living in an urban environment where you have to practically sell your soul so to live here.
One of the attractive things Michigan has are lakes and cheap real estates. 4 Bedroom homes here at a safe location are near the half of million dollars. 50K for a decent home in a small town with some jobs? Id rather take my humble abode, get an okay paying job after getting a bachelor, pay off the house, and enjoy a nice frugal life near nature, water, and friendly folk.
young man, you cannot have your cake and eat it too. having a home (any home) requires more than an 'ok' paying job. once you get into school, hopefully you will learn what it takes to be responsible enough to own a home. YOU NEED TO FOCUS ON SCHOOL FIRST
Community college for one year out of state in Michigan should be about 3.5-4k a year. If you happen to get a place for $400 a month, that's $4800 a year. $8800 for school and living and let's say $1000 a year for food. That comes out to $9800 for living, eating and school. You're pretty much good other than transportation. Getting a minimum wage job should be easy, getting enough hours may not be and you might want to look into getting two jobs or making sure you have well over enough hours. And you wanted to live some place up North. Like someone said before, small towns that rely heavily on tourism so if you are dead set on those four cities, Muskegon is your best bet.
-Look further South (in Michigan)
-Make sure you have a job and set hours
-Have enough money saved up if something goes wrong
-Don't limit yourself to Michigan. If you want that far North look at Wisconsin and Minnesota as well.
Im still undecided on whether to rent or to own, but I definitely will focus on school first, I just need to work for a few months to get my self some money saved up. (BTW its Baker College I am looking at)
As for the paralegal field, according to BSL the job availability will be expected to grow, so hopefully I will be able to find such a field here in Michigan, if not I probably WILL settle for another midwest state.
As for looking at other options I have considered Minnesota, although I am not entirely sure about that state because based on the posts at this forum, it will be difficult to find friends or honest hard working people, which based on some posts here, Michigan does have.
Yeah, I've seen the Baker College thing that says "98% of our graduates are employed." Where are they employed though? I mean, I went to UM and I'm employed, but I'm making 15k/yr and on unemployment and not the 65k that everyone seems to think that grads from there make after they graduate. In fact, I'll bet with recent layoffs at a number of financial institutions and engineering firms having problems, I'll bet not even 98% of grads from UM are employed at what they went to school for. Like other posters said, I would be leery of the paralegal field. There are tons of lawyers right now, literally way too many for the system to support, and so many are doing whatever work they can in the field to pay back their 100k loans, and many of them are making 20k working as paralegals. Everyone bought on to the whole idea that if you go to law school, you'll be employed instantly, making 150k/yr no sweat, and so everyone went to get their law degree, and now there are not enough jobs to support them. Here in Lansing, there is Cooley Law School, which apparently is one of the largest law schools in the nation. That doesn't mean anything, in fact, thats worse because they advertise like hell, and if they are that large, then they accept almost everyone just so they can take their money, and don't bother to tell them that they aren't marketable once they get their useless degree, so its just money down the drain.
I knew when I received my undergrad degree that I would have to go back to grad school, which is fine by me. Even though my BA is seen as pretty much useless, I am entering a grad program that is supposed to see modest growth by 2015, but isn't one of those explosive areas that everyone flocks too, but its a solid area of study with an increasing amount of jobs opening every year. Since its solid but not explosive, and the numbers are higher than average, that should mean that there won't be thousands flooding the field and creating a glut. If for some reason that doesn't work out, I already know what else I can do with my degree. I wouldn't put all my eggs in one basket, just like I wouldn't base what I want to do solely around statistics.
We are looking into hiring paralegals instead of additional lawyers. Anything that we can do to keep costs down for our clients gives us a comeptitive edge right now. Business are looking to save every penny that they can and cutting legal costs by 10% or so is very appealing. A good paralegal can do many things that a young lawyer can do, and they take less pay. An experienced paralegal who is smart, motivated and well trained is more useful than a young lawyer. However while you may be able to supply the smart and motivated part, the well trained part takes time and a lot of moeny from the employer. I would prefer to hire a paralegal that was well trained by someone else. It is really costly for me to spend my time training someone who may just leave and go to another firm. Thus, we tend ot look for well trained paralegals who have considerable experience. We have made exceptions though, usually from promoting from within. (Legal Secretary to Paralegal). Smart and motiviated employees who are interested enough to do paralegal work are even harder to find than well trained. Thus we will sometimes risk the training expense.
One good way to move inot a paralegal position is to start off as a legal secretary. The skills that you need are simlar to a paralegal. In fact, the lines between the two often become somewhat blurred. Many legal secretaries do paralegal work. WOrking as a legal secretary is easier to find, and can lead to a promotion ot paralegal. It also allows you to find out whether you even like this business. If you do nto like it, you will probably not be good at it no matter how smart and motivated you may be.
Finally, be careful. Some law firms mistreat paralegals and force them to practice law without a license (illegal)
Hmm after looking at colleges that offer associates degrees for paralegals (the career Im pursuing) I think it would be best to actually go to Auburn Hills/Detroit (due to the fact that its a career college offering a good employment rate of 98%). With that said any hope of finding minimum wage jobs in Auburn Hills/Detroit?
I would not trust any employment statistics that a college or university, especially a for-profit unscrupulous "tech" college, puts out. They are for-profit businesses--even public universities--and they do not care about what happens to their graduates other than what their graduates' success can do to increase their profits (and alumni donations). Remember, a graduate who works as an impoverished Walmart greeter with student loans to pay is "employed" as far as the statistics are concerned.
As for looking at other options I have considered Minnesota, although I am not entirely sure about that state because based on the posts at this forum, it will be difficult to find friends or honest hard working people, which based on some posts here, Michigan does have.
Definitely choose Minnesota over Michigan. It pretty much offers the same outdoor activities with a much, much better economy. Don't put much stock into that claptrap about how you can't make friends in Minnesota. Also, Minnesota has lots of honest hard-working people. (Who the hell is spreading the notion that Minnesota is full of lazy dishonest people?) Minnesota offers you the opportunity for a more rural lifestyle or a big city lifestyle and the big city is very nice (much nicer than Detroit). The only real negative about Minnesota relative to Michigan is that the weather isn't as good.
This sums up what is really killing employment opportunities around the country. All businesses want somebody else to train their employees. You see job ads with horrendous requirements for entry level wages and businesses complaining because they can't get qualified people. The government solved this problem in the IT field by importing nearly 100K H1B immigrants every year to replace American workers. This was the big business wet dream -- experienced degreed professionals that couldn't job-hop and worked for entry level or below.
Instead of looking for the ideal candidate that somebody else trained -- train them yourself and pay them competitive wages. Maybe that will actually instill some corporate loyalty. Businesses simply don't want to invest anything into their employees and then complain when they move on to better opportunities. It didn't used to be this way.
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Originally Posted by Coldjensens
I would prefer to hire a paralegal that was well trained by someone else. It is really costly for me to spend my time training someone who may just leave and go to another firm. Thus, we tend ot look for well trained paralegals who have considerable experience.
Instead of looking for the ideal candidate that somebody else trained -- train them yourself and pay them competitive wages. Maybe that will actually instill some corporate loyalty. Businesses simply don't want to invest anything into their employees and then complain when they move on to better opportunities. It didn't used to be this way.
So where and when does one get training in America at these times? Both of my parents and a few relatives that I know had no difficulty finding entry-level jobs in their field during college or getting the training they needed to succeed (while at the same time supporting theirselves on the minimum). My Dad is a Naval Architect and Mom is a successful photographer, and neither of them switched jobs more than two times.
The path they followed is the only path I know, and probably will be forced to take.
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