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As I work my blue collar job four years after graduating *** laude, I look around and see a vast majority of adults in their early 20's working similar type jobs. For Instance, I know one fellow who loads and unloads trucks part time with an MBA, and yes been doing this for over a year. I met another girl working as I security guard after finishing her degree from UCLA. I can't figure out if this is just a Southern California problem with Millennial, or is this a nationwide norm?
I am asking any millennial to answer this simple question "What do you do for work?" Getting information from a forum might not be the best representation of what a generation does for a living, but its a good start. My hypothesis is our generation will have the most difficult time establishing careers and saving for the future. Since I have graduated, I have noticed many companies do not want to train their new hires. Consequently, they are predominantly hiring workers with experience and not necessarily the education.
Interest rates for new college loans also doubled from 3.4% to 6.8% overnight. How will we be able to pay these loans off with no entry level jobs coming out of college. Part time work as a customer service rep, waiter, bell boy, or truck driver don't pay enough for someone to pay off the loans and save for future investments.
Is this the first time in American history when an 18 year old adult might actually be worse off pursuing a college education( financially of course). Professions such as plumbers, HVAC techs, carpenters, and mechanics all make considerably more than telemarketers, customer service reps, and data entry clerks. Most of the millennial I know work in many professions such as the latter. What do you all think? Do the millennials have it the hardest? Is college a waste of time and money? What can be done to help get us back to work and in positions so that we aren't underemployed?
You haven't been around long enough to know what "hard/hardest" is ... or, apparently, to have figured out there's no reason you should have it easier than anyone one else just because you have a college degree.
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Professions such as plumbers, HVAC techs, carpenters, and mechanics all make considerably more than telemarketers, customer service reps, and data entry clerks. Most of the millennial I know work in many professions such as the latter.
College grads, including those with "MBA's" are allowed to work as "plumbers, HVAC techs, carpenters, and mechanics". They can start at the bottom and work their way up like the experienced in those professions do. Waving a piece of paper won't get you to the head of that line, however.
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How will we be able to pay these loans off with no entry level jobs coming out of college. Part time work as a customer service rep, waiter, bell boy, or truck driver don't pay enough for someone to pay off the loans and save for future investments.
Sounds like you might have to struggle to get by, just like most "blue-collar" people have since forever.
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What can be done to help get us back to work and in positions so that we aren't underemployed?
Revealing. If you study on this attitude, you may realize you haven't yet earned the right to classify yourself as "underemployed" ... and that hanging on to that attitude won't get you very far any time soon.
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Is college a waste of time and money?
Not necessarily. It remains true that those with college degrees, statistically, do "better" in the long run than those without. But the best gift of college is the opportunity to learn to think critically with a broader theoretical view of the world than many without will achieve at the same age. Good luck drawing on that reservoir of knowledge in the real world. Really.
Yeah, I have done a lot of "blue-collar" type work over the 40+ years since earning my B.A. and M.S. degrees. I never expected to benefit financially from them (and never used them professionally). I just went for the love of the learning at the time. Of course I paid for mine partly with veteran's benefits earned through military service ... and part by working full time while attending school and being a father and husband and buying a home. Graduated without debt.
Btw: no one needs college to gain the information and skills that path offers. It's just one way to get them. An expensive one. If it was a mistake for you to have paid, welcome to your first expensive mistake in life. You'll be lucky if it's your last.
Now, you can fume about my response -- or, conversely, you can think about it and take a lesson in critical thinking.
Well expect more jobs to be shipped overseas and more competition for our jobs being imported from overseas. And of course, many jobs won't even pay a living wage to begin with. The middle class will continue to shrink.
But there's still people "doing stuff" and opportunity to be had and always will be. You just may need to be more creative, move somewhere, rely on networking etc.
You haven't been around long enough to know what "hard/hardest" is ... or, apparently, to have figured out there's no reason you should have it easier than anyone one else just because you have a college degree.College grads, including those with "MBA's" are allowed to work as "plumbers, HVAC techs, carpenters, and mechanics". They can start at the bottom and work their way up like the experienced in those professions do. Waving a piece of paper won't get you to the head of that line, however.Sounds like you might have to struggle to get by, just like most "blue-collar" people have since forever.
Revealing. If you study on this attitude, you may realize you haven't yet earned the right to classify yourself as "underemployed" ... and that hanging on to that attitude won't get you very far any time soon.Not necessarily. It remains true that those with college degrees, statistically, do "better" in the long run than those without. But the best gift of college is the opportunity to learn to think critically with a broader theoretical view of the world than many without will achieve at the same age. Good luck drawing on that reservoir of knowledge in the real world. Really.
Yeah, I have done a lot of "blue-collar" type work over the 40+ years since earning my B.A. and M.S. degrees. I never expected to benefit financially from them (and never used them professionally). I just went for the love of the learning at the time. Of course I paid for mine partly with veteran's benefits earned through military service ... and part by working full time while attending school and being a father and husband and buying a home. Graduated without debt.
Btw: no one needs college to gain the information and skills that path offers. It's just one way to get them. An expensive one. If it was a mistake for you to have paid, welcome to your first expensive mistake in life. You'll be lucky if it's your last.
Now, you can fume about my response -- or, conversely, you can think about it and take a lesson in critical thinking.
Since I have graduated, I have noticed many companies do not want to train their new hires.
You may have to work outside of your field, or at least the area in which you majored (and so did we, the supposed Baby Boomers.)
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Interest rates for new college loans also doubled from 3.4% to 6.8% overnight.
I agree that this problem is much worse than it's been for previous generations. Most of my generation completed college without taking out loans.
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Professions such as plumbers, HVAC techs, carpenters, and mechanics all make considerably more than telemarketers, customer service reps, and data entry clerks.
But that's probably always been the case. I remember that my mother, born just before the Depression hit, told our plumber that he made more than our pediatrician per hour (this was the mid 1960s), and she was right.
As I work my blue collar job four years after graduating *** laude, I look around and see a vast majority of adults in their early 20's working similar type jobs. For Instance, I know one fellow who loads and unloads trucks part time with an MBA, and yes been doing this for over a year. I met another girl working as I security guard after finishing her degree from UCLA. I can't figure out if this is just a Southern California problem with Millennial, or is this a nationwide norm?
I am asking any millennial to answer this simple question "What do you do for work?" Getting information from a forum might not be the best representation of what a generation does for a living, but its a good start. My hypothesis is our generation will have the most difficult time establishing careers and saving for the future. Since I have graduated, I have noticed many companies do not want to train their new hires. Consequently, they are predominantly hiring workers with experience and not necessarily the education.
Interest rates for new college loans also doubled from 3.4% to 6.8% overnight. How will we be able to pay these loans off with no entry level jobs coming out of college. Part time work as a customer service rep, waiter, bell boy, or truck driver don't pay enough for someone to pay off the loans and save for future investments.
Is this the first time in American history when an 18 year old adult might actually be worse off pursuing a college education( financially of course). Professions such as plumbers, HVAC techs, carpenters, and mechanics all make considerably more than telemarketers, customer service reps, and data entry clerks. Most of the millennial I know work in many professions such as the latter. What do you all think? Do the millennials have it the hardest? Is college a waste of time and money? What can be done to help get us back to work and in positions so that we aren't underemployed?
a) It depends upon your degree and what job market demand that degree has in today's job market
b) You may have to move. I had to move 2000 miles away from a bastion of Democrat crony controlled heaven to a (what was then) politically neutral booming economy (not anymore) and it was a good deal for me[1]. Know of many others then and now who had to move out of California to get a decent job (this includes degree holders and non-degree holders).
c) From personal experience, the longer you stay in a non-related work field job, the harder it will be to get back into the field you want
[1] I'll let you guess what state I moved from and moved to
As I work my blue collar job four years after graduating *** laude, I look around and see a vast majority of adults in their early 20's working similar type jobs. For Instance, I know one fellow who loads and unloads trucks part time with an MBA, and yes been doing this for over a year. I met another girl working as I security guard after finishing her degree from UCLA. I can't figure out if this is just a Southern California problem with Millennial, or is this a nationwide norm?
I am asking any millennial to answer this simple question "What do you do for work?" Getting information from a forum might not be the best representation of what a generation does for a living, but its a good start. My hypothesis is our generation will have the most difficult time establishing careers and saving for the future. Since I have graduated, I have noticed many companies do not want to train their new hires. Consequently, they are predominantly hiring workers with experience and not necessarily the education.
Interest rates for new college loans also doubled from 3.4% to 6.8% overnight. How will we be able to pay these loans off with no entry level jobs coming out of college. Part time work as a customer service rep, waiter, bell boy, or truck driver don't pay enough for someone to pay off the loans and save for future investments.
Is this the first time in American history when an 18 year old adult might actually be worse off pursuing a college education( financially of course). Professions such as plumbers, HVAC techs, carpenters, and mechanics all make considerably more than telemarketers, customer service reps, and data entry clerks. Most of the millennial I know work in many professions such as the latter. What do you all think? Do the millennials have it the hardest? Is college a waste of time and money? What can be done to help get us back to work and in positions so that we aren't underemployed?
Let this Gen X'er tell you something. It will be hard but quite likely, you're not "doomed". They fed us the same crap. That we would not make anything of ourselves. They meaning the highly critical boomers who have a hard time understanding anyone not like themselves. While jobs are hard to come by, what you're doing right now is paying your dues. I worked in a theme park for 19 years and spent the first 5 picking up trash before I was able to start doing the cool jobs and into management. You'll get there, just be patient. One thing the Bommers are right about is that our generations who came after them tend to lack patients.
The first job I had after high school was as a seasonal forest fire fighter for the state of CA. The captain took the new guys out to the apparatus barn for a dose of reality, some of which included how to quickly commit suicide if we found ourselves in a hopeless burnover situation.
Anyway, he also stressed where we sat in the pecking order, and it went like this: "You guys are lower than whale s**t, There's nothing in this world lower than whale ****, except for seasonal firefighters. We don't care who you are or where you came from, what your skin color is... as long as you work your asses off for us, we'll allow you to stick around. Slack off, and you're gone."
That'll open a youngster's eyes. I wonder if they still do that?
The first job I had after high school was as a seasonal forest fire fighter for the state of CA. The captain took the new guys out to the apparatus barn for a dose of reality, some of which included how to quickly commit suicide if we found ourselves in a hopeless burnover situation.
Anyway, he also stressed where we sat in the pecking order, and it went like this: "You guys are lower than whale s**t, There's nothing in this world lower than whale ****, except for seasonal firefighters. We don't care who you are or where you came from, what your skin color is... as long as you work your asses off for us, we'll allow you to stick around. Slack off, and you're gone."
That'll open a youngster's eyes. I wonder if they still do that?
Fonty, your aged memory is showing ... That was USMC boot-camp you are recalling ... Ah, for the good old whale **** days ...
Naw, I graduated HS early and was able to get two seasons of firefighting under my belt before the extended Summer camp with Uncle. Of course, I had to tell a lie about my age, but I'd been shaving since 7th grade, so nobody cross-checked anything.
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