Masters degree holders at Starbucks and the like? (employee, non-profit, unemployed)

[Idon'tdateyou]

When I worked at Borders almost 15 years ago most of my coworkers had degrees sp this has been going on for a long time. Most though were recent grads.

[redguard57]

i'll add to this the stories about the students with $100,000+

The student loan borrowers with that much are in the top 3-4% of all borrowers. 90% of borrowers took out less than $50K, the plurality are in the $20 to 40K range. That's not good, but very few are coming out with $100K in loans.

[redguard57]

I would absolutely love to go back and get a graduate degree in sociology.

You could do it online, but for legitimate online programs from real universities, it's not cheap - they usually charge a premium for online.

What I would do is look at what graduate programs are in your area and ask them about their requirements. Ie: if you can do it over 5 years you could do while employed. Not all programs do that.

I wanted to get a PhD while I was employed, but the program had a 7 year time-to-completion requirement. There's no way I could work full time and finish that within 7 years, I would at least have to take 2 years off from working to finish within that timeframe. So I was talking losing more than $100K of salary over 2 years PLUS paying the school $10K a year. No.

[gizmo980]

Originally Posted by G-fused

[color=black][font=Verdana]I think what happens is that some people attending a graduate program work in places like Starbucks for a little extra $. That then gets bastardized into a general perception that people with a Masters work there.

I think this is a big part of it, honestly. When I was in graduate school, I worked part-time at a video store, then an ice skating rink, and finally at an after-school program in a library... I also tutored privately, and picked up music gigs here & there. So you might have thought "she's a failure" based on these jobs, but it was my CHOICE. I wanted to focus my energy and "brain power" on doing well in school, and knew a rigid full-time professional type of job wouldn't have allowed for that. So yeah, this could definitely have contributed to these beliefs.

[Mightyqueen801]

I remember working with a woman who had a Master's in Psychology. We worked at Bradlees,, a now defunct department store chain, similar to KMart. She was in the underwear department. (I handed out numbers at the fitting room, but I only had a high school diploma.)

This was in 1977. This is not the first time we're living through an economy like this and it won't be the last.

Things will change eventually.

[jobaba]

Originally Posted by squirrels

So I see around here people throwing claims of people with graduate degrees working as baristas or fry cooks because the job market is so terrible.

I was thinking today, there are two Starbucks I go to regularly - one near my apartment, and another close to work. At the one where I work I've never seen anyone who looked older than maybe 25, and at the one by home I know one of the baristas and asked her, she told me that no one like that worked there.

So it got me wondering, is this something anyone around here has actually encountered themselves, or just one of those things that "everyone knows"?

I would have been one.

I have a Masters degree and when I was out of work for a while, I considered Home Depot, and similar places definitely. But I am a certain type of person who is quite practical.

A friend of mine who graduated from the same program also bartended for quite a while but eventually found a job within the field.

[Tac-Sea]

Originally Posted by BleedTheFreak

I guess I've never known a real example of the proverbial "Masters degree holder working as a barista", but I do know examples of Bachelor degree holders who are

* working in a warehouse
* working as a barista
* working as apartment maintenance staff
* working menial labor at FedEx

and the list goes on. Granted: if you asked them, they would say they are only doing those jobs for a source of income while they implement a plan for their real career ("I'm waiting to study for the LSAT" or whatever). I would argue that many of them will never get that real career.

Yep. When I was a hiring manager I saw it all the time. When I saw the resumes with graduate degrees or even undergraduate degrees, and even after 10 years they have still not managed to break into their field, or move up in their existing job at the grocery store, or any job they change to in a period of 10 years after graduation, it is an obvious pattern.

Compare that to the ones who were rock stars before they got a degree, moved up constantly, in any company they worked at, and after they graduated, they continued their pattern of success.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: if you are capable of being successful before college, you will succeed with or without a degree. If you can't succeed without college, going to college will in most caes, do nothing for you. You just can't fix lazy or stupid.

[leo255]

There's a difference between a Masters degree in Philosophy or some other Liberal Arts subject, and a Masters degree in some Engineering/Technology field - The latter is far more difficult. You reap what you sow.

[dallasdoughnuts]

I was working at a low end retail chain store making about 8 bucks an hour for more than a year with a masters degree and I know that at least one other person there had a masters degree.

[esunsalmista]

Originally Posted by leo255

There's a difference between a Masters degree in Philosophy or some other Liberal Arts subject, and a Masters degree in some Engineering/Technology field - The latter is far more difficult. You reap what you sow.

Not to be rude because I understand what you're trying to say, but any coursework in philosophy is significantly harder than a lot of the programs you're attempting to group it with. Even at my undergrad, the only kids that had lower GPAs than the philosophy majors were basically the engineering/physics/math students. And it's not because they were subpar students.

OP, the only trend I've noticed from my experience is that kids straight out of undergrad will get those types of jobs while they wait to go back to school or while they seek better employment. Even that's pretty difficult to do, considering very few people will want employees who will only stick around 6-12 months.