quiddities and agonies of the ruling class - a rolling new york times thread

there is something inherently elitist in thinking that your time spent talking about chaucer in small groups of like-minded people qualifies you for high-paying work more than four years as an apprentice electrician running cable in the rain at 5am for $12/hr

a college degree has traditionally served as a signal (= this person is safer to hire than someone who doesn't have the degree). it wasn't 'elitist' to decide that this was a decent investment/goal/use of 4 years. the majority of people who made that investment in the 40 years prior came out thinking they made a good decision - that's why 'college is good, more college is better' has become universally accepted, and still is, even while there's mounting evidence that that isn't quite the case anymore.

otm

although i don't think that it isn't 'just the case' –– i think it's actually injurious to the neediest and least-employable segment of the workforce

there are other conversations, like, yes sometimes 21 year olds are entitled about jobs because they don't know anything yet, but that doesn't mean that everyone's life should be backbreaking soulcrushing labor until they die

― horseshoe, Thursday, September 1, 2011 8:07 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

feel like it's worth pointing out that as americans we are pretty lucky to have (the possibility of) options other than backbreaking soulcrushing labor!

absolutely, which is an even bigger problem that gets less time in the nyt xp

its true being a rickshaw wallah or sharecropper is not that cool

yeah i mean we're still in a position of privilege globally but i don't know this:

most jobs are shitty –– if there's a truism in the universe it's that you don't have any right to be happy at work. it's nice, and lucky, if you are. but you should also feel very, very lucky to have a job at this particular juncture in history and not be a grudge-filled asshole about it.

― remy bean, Thursday, September 1, 2011 7:57 PM (15 minutes ago) Bookmark

kind of comment always rubs me wrong. if you're not independently wealthy then you can't opt out of this, but there's nothing wrong with pointing out that it sucks

I also kind of want to examine how the 'follow your bliss' or 'do what you love for your job' line of thinking plays in to all of this

i do agree with max to an extent, i think our model of higher education can be very reasonably be called a scam as far as it doesn't always deliver its promised economic results and has institutionalized massive personal debt as a rite of passage.

however, and i'm wary of sounding too bootstrappy here, but you get out what you put in, at least as far as a biz degree is concerned i would think. if you hustle your ass off and network with everybody and work your way into good internships, you probably have a higher chance of putting that degree to good use. but if you think that your diploma alone is going to open doors for you, you're likely gonna be disappointed.

my point is, dude in the article comes across as the latter. sitting in his parent's basement "browsing for jobs online" doesn't exactly endear him to my sympathies. his parents started charging him rent? good for them. it sounds like he sorely needed some motivation.

yes i think that's part of what went wrong with academia

xp

I also kind of want to examine how the 'follow your bliss' or 'do what you love for your job' line of thinking plays in to all of this

― dayo, Thursday, September 1, 2011 7:15 PM (17 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

otm mostly bcuz im struggling with this myself irl

seems like we're assuming a lot about this guy and passing judgment from a few 'graphs of a nyt article

however, and i'm wary of sounding too bootstrappy here, but you get out what you put in, at least as far as a biz degree is concerned i would think. if you hustle your ass off and network with everybody and work your way into good internships, you probably have a higher chance of putting that degree to good use. but if you think that your diploma alone is going to open doors for you, you're likely gonna be disappointed.

― elmo argonaut, Thursday, September 1, 2011 7:15 PM (45 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i think its fair to say that this kind of thing isnt always communicated to college students

fwiw I think ygl is right on this and the american university system is pretty much gonna implode in our lifetimes

http://thinkprogress.org/yglesias/2011/09/01/309988/bold-prediction-of-the-day-universities-are-the-new-newspapers/

i never did an internship -- no one ever really impressed on me how much easier it would make things -- i wish they had

never mind the fact that 99% of all internships nowadays are unpaid!

kind of comment always rubs me wrong. if you're not independently wealthy then you can't opt out of this, but there's nothing wrong with pointing out that it sucks

― horseshoe, Thursday, September 1, 2011 5:14 PM (1 minute ago)

I've had incredibly shitty high-stress jobs, but damned if I'd let the public/clients know that I was unhappy. I valued my work that much. It was only when I was under actually-abusive working conditions that I let any of the strain show, and that was (unfortunately) mostly to coworkers, and I got out of the position as soon as possible. I don't think anybody should suffer needlessly for work, but, let's be honest, being a dickhead while you work a relatively cushy job at starbucks is NAGL whatever your college degree.

fwiw I think ygl is right on this and the american university system is pretty much gonna implode in our lifetimes

http://thinkprogress.org/yglesias/2011/09/01/309988/bold-prediction-of-the-day-universities-are-the-new-newspapers/

― iatee, Thursday, September 1, 2011 8:17 PM (8 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yeah feel like theres been a lot of that kind of talk going around recently, prob true

not all internships are created equal, some of them are just abusive free labor in return for getting to put a fancy name on your resume, some of them are actual-lead-to-job things

all of them should be illegal, too bad the american gov't pretty much runs on a big pile of interns

xp

not sure what direction yglesias is pushing for in that article but I've been thinking for a long time that the american idea of college - a 4 year wonderland of drinking and 'finding yourself' financed by loan money - is unsustainable. not advocating that everybody should go to devry's or lincoln tech to become an auto mechanic instead, but

the white house is actually built on top of a foundation of intern bones, little known fact

too bad the american gov't pretty much runs on a big pile of interns

xp

― iatee, Thursday, September 1, 2011 8:19 PM (35 seconds ago) Bookmark

otm i was shocked when a very impressive go-getter friend of mine got a white house internship when we were in college and it was unpaid. she did not come from money, so she went into serious debt that summer.

Why don't we focus on the real enemy: MBA programs?

fwiw I think ygl is right on this and the american university system is pretty much gonna implode in our lifetimes

as someone at least partially in the business of teaching undergraduate science courses certain kinds of teaching have gotten much more expensive but i can see his point

i think the most unsustainable and 'broken' thing is the amount of degree-creep necessary to be considered 'qualified' for jobs that probably don't require a degree at all

dayo otm, kids should maybe get their drinking and self-discovery and shitty soul-crushing menial jobs out of the way before they even GO to college?

it's mostly employers trying to find ways to let people down gently

the GOP basically wants the president to be an unpaid intern iirc

i think the most unsustainable and 'broken' thing is the amount of degree-creep necessary to be considered 'qualified' for jobs that probably don't require a degree at all

i think the most unsustainable and 'broken' thing is the amount of degree-creep necessary to be considered 'qualified' for jobs that probably don't require a degree at all

― *clicks 'OK'* (Lamp), Thursday, September 1, 2011 8:23 PM (53 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yeah itd prob be better if their were more alternatives to college, apprenticeships, school if lyfe, etc

tbh i feel like paid internship would be >>>> college in practical terms

i wish i had had a year or two between hs and college! tbh i am always going to feel that i took v poor advantage of my higher education because NO PARENTS HEY BONG BONG KEGSTAND BONG

ha xp exactly

you mean like an apprenticeship xp

who wants to become a blacksmith... my blacksmith

tbh i enjoyed goin right into academia but i was a pretty srs student who felt like i had earned it bcuz i didnt really get to goof off in high school ... there was the economic pressure like, if you dont get enough scholarships to go to college, u will be min wage

all kids should have to be bellhops instead of going to college

xxxp to IC: Also the lack of actual experience in that field. Want a teaching degree? Take a bunch of classes, do 200 hours in a classroom and blam, you're covered. Law school, medical school, roughly the same thing, before you're finally allowed to test the waters. There's very little value placed on real-world experience, except in trade schools –- and obv. those aren't highly esteemed. A friend of mine in culinary school has spent far more time at work than I spent in the classroom earning my M.Ed, and his initial career prospects are significantly lower than mine.

when u ride the elevator to the top floor u become boss of the hotel xp

at my last corporate job our interns made $10/hr, in nyc, and i remember being kinda o_O that most of them considered that 'decent', so many other firms didnt pay anything.

jobs that 'require a college degree' is more complicated than it might appear at first glance. most white collar jobs do not require a direct skill that you learned in college, but they still want a competent, generally skilled worker who's gonna show up on time. 'require a college degree' makes people oversimplify the idea of college, like the entire purpose is to specifically learn one skill that you're going to use in one job.

a good article on the subject

http://www.quickanded.com/2011/05/is-higher-education-a-bubble-fraud-conspiracy-ponzi-scheme-part-ii.html

sometimes i look around and am like 'where r my interns'

it's probably also worth remembering that the idea of college as being accessible to everyone is a pretty recent idea, dating back probably to the... GI bill? for women, even later, not til the 60s/70s

haha I have had two different 10/h internships in my life

everyone i know who has a job in NYC had to work for free for 6 mo & gambled that they'd be offered a FT job at the end. they had to work for a year waiting tables or doing similar work at home in rural/suburban/midwestern [wherever] so they could afford this. many were basically out of money when offered the job

im guessing friends who 'didnt make it' dont advertise that

whoops the last claim is def wrong xp to myself

i went to college but i was always late to my first job, lol

mostly bcuz i was still living like a college student though

To get my teacher's license (2010-2011), I had to do an unpaid internship for 12 months. To the university granting my degree/license, I had pay a full 9-credit class-fee to register for the internship. Net cost for volunteering as a teacher for the year? -$7200.

yeah, i had an internship that was unpaid except for $5 for lunch if i worked 4 hours or more, but i took it because the company was in practice of hiring their interns.

http://www.quickanded.com/2011/05/is-higher-education-a-bubble-fraud-conspiracy-ponzi-scheme-part-ii.html

I love this url so much