Don't go to college (if you're in college, drop out)

[zelda2fanboy]

And if your not trolling , i suggest getting some serious help.

Can't afford it.

 

[Arluza]

Short version to OP: you're an idiot to go into a business related field. Even then, you should have applied yourself, gone to events where you could make connections, get a job that way. Plan for getting a job in any city in the country.

Seriously, you guys in Europe, I envy you more than you can imagine. My parents will be paying off their part of loans until they are dead (and then I'll have them, probably.) The loans I have must be paid off in part starting 6 months after I have left college. You guys have it significantly easier.

I was in computer programming, decided 2 years and $24,000 later it wasn't for me. Now I am in Environmental Biology, with hopeful plans on getting into grad school later on to be an evolutionary biologist. While 'Follow your passion' may be the worst advice I've ever been given, I'm living the dream to some degree now, and expect I'll be happy when I finish school finally and am working in science.

 

[zelda2fanboy]

Also done, got a skype interview tomorrow, maybe going to UK working minimum wage + room + food

Sweet. Good luck, man.

 

[shrimpcel]

Post removed by me.

 

[ShakyFt Slasher]

Don't care. I want my $11,000 back. I don't see why someone else should get scammed just because society says so.

Yo bro, you totally changed my life. I am cancelling ALL plans and will become a professional thief like Nathan Drake!

 

[Burst6]

Yeah..

I'm just going to keep going for that engineering degree.

If everyone dropped out of college, scientists and engineers wouldn't exist (you can't exactly pick up all the skills you learn in college on the job).



And besides, people need computer engineers more and more. I'm probably going to get a nice job when i finish college.

 

[BreakfastMan]

The saddest part of all of this is that I started this thread knowing full well I was wrong. The responses have been shockingly weak. I think I'll have to call it a night. This is getting depressing.

Then what the hell is the alternative? Sit in a thread and complain about how life sucks? You are doing nothing at all to help yourself, by the sounds of it. Stop complaining, and do something to help you get that job you want. Anything is better than sitting on your ass and doing nothing. These people are trying to help you. You hear me? People on the internet are trying to help you. Do you know how frakking amazing that is? Besides, what do you have to loose by following their advice? Your crappy job? Your dignity?

 

[Gennadios]

The fact of the matter is that US education is complete and utter crap, it's geared towards graduating anybody with a minimal amount of patience and no clinical retardation.

Less people with US degrees may actually improve the chances of the rest to land a job, but India's education system actually have standards and they cost half as much to hire. We're doomed.

 

[Hap2]

Yet you don't consider the very positive advice that many are offering? People can only be as helpful as you are willing to act. There's a lot of good advice in this thread, but it's up to you to use it.

It's just nothing I haven't heard before, most of it being the claptrap I was subjected to while I was still in school. Go back to school. Pay someone to look at your resumé. Have you tried applying to places? You should apply to places. I have a good job. You should have a good job like me.

The saddest part of all of this is that I started this thread knowing full well I was wrong. The responses have been shockingly weak. I think I'll have to call it a night. This is getting depressing.

I did not suggest any of those in my initial post, which leads me to think that you haven't been reading all of the posts very thoroughly, or at the very least selectively reading them in a way that embellishes upon your misery. Sleeping on things might be a good thing indeed.

 

[KefkaCultist]

Yeah... I'll keep going, thanks. My friends and education are too important for me to go and work my life away in a factory.

Also, I just want to add, I'm going to a community college and it's roughly $4,500-$5,000 per semester and that's pretty cheap really. I don't really see how you can get a bachelors degree for only $11,000. That much wouldn't even get you through the third semester at my college.

The fact of the matter is that US education is complete and utter crap, it's geared towards graduating anybody with a minimal amount of patience and no clinical retardation.

This I agree with.

 

[gyroscopeboy]

In America you have to pay back your loan no matter what, even if you go bankrupt. Education loans are tied to you for the rest of your life. If you don't pay them, they'll garnish your wages. I didn't make any friends in college, had no fun, and never even got laid. Don't listen to your parents and don't listen to what TV tells you. It is a pack of lies.

Sounds like you did absolutely no networking in college..which, when you look at a majority of successful people, is where they formed their business partnerships and/or after college opportunities (Facebook, Google, Myspace, any comedy writing teams, etc). Sounds like YOU wasted your time at college by being socially awkward. Should have done computer science or something.

That said, i don't think blindly doing college is a good thing...college used to be about connections, where great minds come together...but they've now pushed it down everyones throats and diluted that ideal.

 

[Strain42]

I'm currently in my third year of college, in that time I've already gotten laid, learned enough Spanish to help myself get by (which could actually help me get a large number of jobs) and I'll soon be transferring an art college to finish my degree in Film and Television where I will network with people in the business, make friends to work on future projects with and gain the skills necessary for my Plan B, webcomics which I'm already a good way into by having two very successful comics that each get thousands of views per day.

Is all this stuff guaranteed to work out for me? Of course not, It'll take a lot of hard work, and a hell of a lot more luck. But it takes a lot of guts to go after a dream, and I'm sticking with it.

I'm sorry life isn't panning out for you right now, but I'm not changing my entire plan because someone of the escapist told me to.

If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.

EDIT: On another note TC, have you ever considered the military?

 

[Scars Unseen]

No. That is possibly the second worst method of job hunting possible(by sitting on ass and complaining about not having a job, you are engaging in the one that tops it). Casting a wide net does nothing for you. Why? Because that means your resume is too generalized, and you are just one of hundreds of people being beaten to the punch by people that actually take the time to show that they have done the research to show not only that they are a good fit for the company, but that the company is a good fit for them.

For every single job you apply for, you should be tweaking your resume to ensure that both content and the order in which it is presented is tailored to the company's requirements. An introduction letter should accompany it. And it goes without saying that if you aren't networking, you aren't really job hunting. Talk to people. Do volunteer work. Sounds like hard work? It is! But if you want to have a career instead of a sob story, you have to put in the hours.

Or you could just complain on the internet.

Is this the method through which you got your current job? Constantly tweaking and messing with your resumé so they'll pay attention to it? I know a guy who does that and has a masters degree. Has yet to do him any good. I truly doubt any of these employers have even opened the text file or glanced at my application. It's all automated. Apply, delete, apply, delete. If you know someone on the inside who can hassle HR, then they'll look at your application.

Not everyone is special. Most people aren't. I didn't go to college because I thought I was special. I went to college because I had no useful skills and nothing noteworthy to offer the world. After completing college, I obviously still don't. I've tried and I've tried and I've tried and after months of trying, I post here because I'm pissed off and frustrated. It's better than the alternatives, I assure you. I almost wanted to walk into that warehouse today, find HR, and just scream at them.

It is, and although this is not the place where I want to be for my entire career(2 more terms till graduation), it has provided me with networking opportunities, bullets for my resume and enough money for my family to get by(if only just). It still took me 10 months to get this job after I got out of the Air Force, but in that time I had 5 interviews and I've had a few offers since then. And that's with what is likely a far more difficult job market than you are in.

Putting in the extra effort does not guarantee the job, but not putting it in almost guarantees that you'll get passed over in favor of someone who did. It's called a market for a reason. You are the product, and the manner in which you pursue a job is part of your advertisement.

 

[Terminate421]

I am going for a degree in game art...why? Because I want to be a concept artist in my future.

A degree in that category is important as the industry is quite competitive, throw in any other bonuses and I may have a job at say....Epic Games. That'd be cool.

Degrees are important for where you want to go, not for what you are doing now. Their the trump card for your life.

 

[Bomberman4000]

Scammed? Lol. It isn't a scam. Picking what was possibly the wrong degree and not being able to get a job doesn't make it a scam. They didn't sell you a job, they sold you education. Don't start some self-entitled whining about how it was a scam because you didn't get a job.

Self entitled? You spend 11 grand on an education and not work for two years and then we'll talk about entitlement.

I graduated from college in 2010 with a degree in Communications. I owe $16,000 in loans which isn't bad considering the price of my education after 4 years was between $110,000 and $120,000. The most recent job I've had a part-time job working at a mall food court only because I worked with that owner before and he needed some help during the summers/holidays.

Do I feel like I may have made a mistake by not pursuing something a little more concrete like the military? Do I feel like if I had gone to a better school I'd be in a better position? Do I feel like if I didn't live in a Podunk of a town in South Carolina that I'd be more able to find work in things I'm passionate about (film, television, theater, music, etc) instead of what I'm "trained" in?

Yeah. Sometimes I do feel this way.

Very few people I went to college with have a career remotely related to what they studied. Very few friends of mine are doing something they truly enjoy doing. A lot of my friends have gone on to graduate school only because they want to delay looking for jobs until the job market picks up.

This is why you don't have a job. And believe me, I know how you feel. I've been turned down by many retail jobs because they don't want to pay me for my degree. I've been turned down by potential careers because I don't have the experience and they don't want to take a chance on me. That's not anything against me personally, or my college education. It's an indictment of the job market as a whole.

And so what if people who aren't as intelligent as you or as educated as you are getting jobs simply because they know someone. They job market will eventually get better but they'll always be uneducated.

You're between the proverbial rock and a hard place. One thing you need to be happy about though, is that you have a job at all. I'm currently waiting to hear back about interviews from 3 minimum wage retail jobs because that's all I can get right now.

Basically what I'm getting at is SUCK IT UP.

There are plenty of people in much more dire straights than you (I'm not saying I'm one of them, but they're out there). What you need to do is instead of telling people the entire system of higher education is a scam (it does need some tweaks, yes) why don't you just continue to go to work for a job that you DO CURRENTLY HAVE and stop your whining.

 

[Timmey]

No offensive but you picked a degree in business excepting what? A 100k pay packet?

Welcome to the real world, your pay is poor because your degree is poor, tough cookies, want more money? Then work harder, yes life is hard, congratulations, you've realised this. Now go do something about it (no complaining to a largely unsympathetic escapist wont help)

 

[NeuroticDogDad]

Hey, you learned a useful skill. I can't business anybody. If you had done what many on this forum believed was "correct," you could have gone into a more practical scientific field and become the useless shell of a person that I am. No one should waste their time and money on a degree for something that they have no passion for. The people I've heard of who had positive enjoyable collegiate experiences did so because they were doing something they loved anyways. Maybe I should have put that in the OP.

I don't mean to be a snob or a killjoy but are you really referring to business administration as a "practical scientific field"?

Furthermore, there seems to be an implication that those who go into actual practical scientific fields instead of an "art" are "wasting there time and money on a degree for something they have no passion for"? Some of us have passion for the sciences, they are beautiful and magnificent. If I've inferred the wrong idea then I apologise.

 

[DarkRyter]

I've been making minimum wage for the last three and a half years working in a retail store. I only get about 20 hours a week. I owe $11,000 on my college loan (pretty low by most standards) for my bachelors of science degree in Business Administration. I've applied for dozens and dozens of jobs across two major cities over the last two years.

I recently applied to work at the local Pepsi warehouse which paid $13 an hour. At my workplace, I overheard someone mentioning that their friend got a job there. This friend never graduated high school. So yeah, don't bother going to school. Waste of your time and money. There's no defense of it. The only way I have the shit job I have now is because my dad worked there and complained to my old boss enough to hire me.

Perhaps this is not the proper venue to vent your frustrations with the disconnect between your level of education and ability to get employment.

You should try crime. Maybe start try to find a shoplifting ring, or maybe start one yourself. Your previous retail experience should help you out there. If you're willing to go into riskier fair, you could try straight up robbery.

It's honestly the best course of action for "educated individual frustrated with his poor circumstances".