Hi Jenny,
My mother, a follower of yours on Twitter (@SCJoson), actually put me on to this (insert unprofessional "lol" here). She informed me that you were looking to interview recent college graduates in "situations" and I, among thousands of others, can definitely identify with that! I'm a 2008 graduate from Douglass College-Rutgers University, with 2 bachelors in Economics and Latin American Studies; I interned and part-timed for 2 years at a global investment bank while going to school, as well.
The verdict? I have a beautiful piece of paper that says I'm smart, another piece of paper that says I have experience, and a monthly notice (more paper) that arrives to remind me how much I owe the government for helping me obtain the first two. Interviewing, and schmoozing (I believe we call this networking now) got me a lot of nothing, so after about a year of that, I moved on. I have my own blog since 2010 and have been working independently for the last 3 years in that Latin Urban music industry doing everything from web design and public relations to promotions and producing (insert "etc." here). Until recently, I was working at Starbucks serving all those who have the jobs I studied 4 years for, alongside aspiring actors and dancers of course. Don't get me wrong, Starbucks is a great enterprise and I loved my co-workers, but I gladly took that "dead-end" job to have some sort of medical insurance, a steady income and free espresso.
Perhaps my case sounds interesting enough to explore, and even if it's not, I'm still really glad you're concerned enough with the issue to seek out candidates to dissect.
Maybe it's really not us, it's them.
My daughter has always been an entrepreneur. From the time she was in middle school she was making things and selling them, or doing people's hair (see my earlier post about proms). She has been able to get by in this economy while her fellow Economics grads were taking jobs as bank tellers (still honest work, but a slap in the face after four years at a university), or worse finding no jobs at all. She started a business, but not every young person has the gumption or ability to do that. So for this young generation pouring out of our universities each year: Now What?
The original 2009 Look Mom, I Graduated! Now What?
My daughter has always been an entrepreneur. From the time she was in middle school she was making things and selling them, or doing people's hair (see my earlier post about proms). She has been able to get by in this economy while her fellow Economics grads were taking jobs as bank tellers (still honest work, but a slap in the face after four years at a university), or worse finding no jobs at all. She started a business, but not every young person has the gumption or ability to do that. So for this young generation pouring out of our universities each year: Now What?
The original 2009 Look Mom, I Graduated! Now What?
Posts
Great post- and very relevant to the discussions on the economics blogs lately about whether unemployment is structural or cyclical. To me the answer looks obvious- and Krugman supports it with just this argument- that if it were structural, people like your daughter would be in great demand. More interesting to me is something that's NOT being discussed that much. I'm wondering to what extent this idea that getting an education is the route to the middle class really holds up at all any more- recession or no recession. Most 'intellectual work', after all, can be outsourced even more easily than manufacturing. I suspect we are at a major tipping point here. Things look pretty dire in many ways. On the other hand, I take heart from a number of much more encouraging trends- including people like your daughter setting off on their own, independent paths. Social media is giving a lot of us the opportunity to find and get together with like-minded people. On good days I imagine us creating something like the 'Second Culture' developed by dissidents behind the Iron Curtain. Parallel groups and institutions, organized around a new kind of commons with some structures in place to keep out the free -riders... and just let all the greedy bastards play in their own crap - until they realize that no one's coming to shovel out their pig pen for them and either learn to be human or kill themselves off.
ReplyDeleteAnyway... thanks for post. Sorry for the long ramble. I'm procrastinating as I prepare to give my first talk of longer than a few minutes- on Open Source and Sustainability.