I was watching “2 broke girls” marathon the other night and there was this episode where the girls had to go to Starbucks to learn how to use a coffee making machine in order to operate their coffee maker (smuggled by Oleg, of course) . In a particular scene, Max, Caroline and this male barrista were going head to head about their qualifications:
Caroline: ” I think I can handle it. I went to Wharton.”
Barrista: ” … and I went to Harvard”
Max: “… and I went to juvie, and we are all here wearing an apron!”
This joke had me thinking, “Didn’t we all think that after walking across that stage in proper gowns, we were all going to take over the world? That we were respectable individuals? That we would stop flipping burgers and start owning the houses, the cars and the clothes? I mean WTF man?!?! So there really isn’t a pot of gold waiting for me at the end of this brutal journey of assignments, exams, projects, scrounging for tuition money, student loan debts? So what exactly did this diploma do for me? How come I feel more retarded than than when i was 16? Why do companies keep asking for work experience yet they knew we were in school just trying to make it? When do I win?”
Clearly, I was upset. A college degree can give one a sense of competency , but the truth is you do not get that good at what you went to school for until you are on the job. However, you don’t get the job unless your resume stands out like a beacon or you know someone who knows someone. I can honestly see why many self made millionaires and billionaires dropped out of school.
According to Jordan Weissmann, who is Slate’s senior business and economics correspondent:
“…,the Economic Policy Institute reported that roughly 8.5 percent of college graduates between the ages of 21 and 24 were unemployed. That figure is based on a 12-month average between April 2013 and March 2014, so it’s not a perfect snapshot of the here and now. Still, it tells us that the post-collegiate job market, just like the rest of the labor market, certainly isn’t nearly back to normal. (For comparison, the unemployment rate for all college grads over the age of 25 is 3.3 percent, which is also still higher than normal.) More worrisomely, the EPI finds that a total of 16.8 percent of new grads are “underemployed,” meaning they’re either jobless and hunting for work; working part-time because they can’t find a full-time job; or want a job, have looked within the past year, but have now given up on searching.”
Even though these statistics seem fairly low, you also need to consider that many recent graduates will attest that whoever conducted this survey really did not count them in (clearly no one felt the need to ask me if I had a job). So, by the time I’m 25, after a degree I am still struggling for what? I have proved that I am competent yet I compete for a position while I am being underpaid.I thought I would never borrow or ask anyone for money by the time I turned 25 and that I would be living in decent apartments and driving a fairly new vehicle, but here we are.
I wished they had told us that all we needed was a plan and certain courses to get there, then learn the rest on the job because most people did not care before and still do not care for some of the courses we were made to take. Now I ask myself again,” Is going to college a good idea?”Yes, if you want to work for someone and spend a long time struggling just to get noticed. It seems academic institutions gained more from this than the graduates did. I hate to be the one to say this but, unless you know what you want, keep flipping burgers, because going to school for 4 years, spending money or getting into debt over a degree you most probably wont use and courses you wont remember just to have a title on your resume is not worth it either.
mylilthoughts 
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