College Grads Un- Under- Employed

[midjd]

So is it only the people with non-YM-approved degrees who are underemployed/unemployed? Somehow I doubt that. It is easier to pick on the "creative writing" majors, though...

[Sum Dum Gai]

Maybe the name is part of the problem - Journalism, English?

That might help a little, but I don't know how much. What job at your company would an English degree qualify somebody for, that a creative writing degree wouldn't?

I heard the craziest little factoid several weeks ago on NPR. Apparently US universities graduate more Journalism majors every year than the total number of journalism positions in the country. Every year. That's friggin nuts. I don't know that any other major is that over saturated.

[Deleted]

A lot of difference between just a straight degree in math or English and a teaching degree is not only methods, but special education. Like it or not, special education students are protected legally and must be accomodated. I can see someone with no education courses getting into deep crap with that issue. Whatever is written in that IEP is legally required, whether you philosophically believe in it or not. They could have tests with only two answer choices required (not true or false), and it is law. Teachers can be required to give them copies of notes, copies of a targeted study guide, reduced choices, extended time, clarification of questions, dictated responses, read aloud, and so on. And that's just a quick list of accomodations. There are much more.

I advised my daughter against becoming a teacher although she would have probably been a good one. Teaching, though, is highly political. Bad test scores? Don't blame the kids or their parents. Blame the teacher. Accountability . . . you teach the lowest level, but they should acquire grade level by the end of the year. Can't do that? Bad teacher. Everyone wants to blame the teachers for everything. Meanwhile, the pay is ok (especially for my generation which thought we had fewer choices).

So my daughter is a pharmacist. She started at twice my salary and can work part-time anywhere she wants. Yep, that trumps teaching science even if she would have been great.

Meanwhile, on the Creative Writing graduate degree thing . . . most creative writing programs at the graduate level require you produce a "publishable" book. It is true that no one may ever publish it, but it definitely pushes the envelope. The author of The Hunger Games came out of Alabama's School of Fine Arts although I think she was in the dramatic art division. I think that probably helped her writing for tv career that turned into real authorship.

[phil5185]

It will be a check-box thing, like a high school degree is.

In many companies, that has already happened - the ads say 'degree preferred" or 'degree required'. Common for secretarial jobs, receptionists, office mgrs, etc. Two reasons - the failure of our K12 system, HS Grads are unable do the work. And (2), there are so many more applicants than there are openings, it is a way to screen the applicant pool to a manageable number.
We've had assembly line applicants (HS grads) that need help filling out their application - and cannot read a tape measure, cannot read temperature on a gage, cannot do simple addition, cannot read an instruction decal, etc. So it will be "AA reguired" for future jobs.

[tskeeter]

What do you do with a degree in Creative Writing? There are lots of careers. Copywriter, journalist, technical writer, marketing, pretty much anything that requires great written communication skills.

I just wonder how many creative writing majors think they should apply for a job with a computer software company, or a manufacturer of consumer goods, improving on those poorly written owner/operator manuals that we all struggle with. Or with a tourism agency, encouraging people to travel to an exotic, far off land (as my Speech Communications major SIL did). Should note that she did have to start out in a receptionist job at an advertising agency.

[Sum Dum Gai]

We've had assembly line applicants (HS grads) that need help filling out their application - and cannot read a tape measure, cannot read temperature on a gage, cannot do simple addition, cannot read an instruction decal, etc. So it will be "AA reguired" for future jobs.

Good call. If the first check box isn't working, just add a new one. I'm sure that will solve everything. If for some crazy reason it doesn't though, you might consider changing your interview process slightly to include a testing component. It's more work on the front end, but at least you don't hire somebody thinking they know certain things because they met your check box requirement and then find out they really don't.

[Phoenix84]

"Probably true-ish 5 years ago. Maybe not so much today. It will be true again in the future."

Yeah, when the economy was good in the early to mid 2000's a lot of people were promoted beyond what their credentials allowed them, that's been corrected now.

[Deleted]

(a) the world needs teachers and social workers, even though the pay sucks

(b) if you are looking at a non-technical degree, any liberal arts degree is pretty much as good as the next. You can major in English, psychology, anthropology, history, math, whatever - you are qualified to be a cube jockey. It's what you learn on the job and what you do with it that matters for most careers.

[Phoenix84]

"We've had assembly line applicants (HS grads) that need help filling out their application - and cannot read a tape measure, cannot read temperature on a gage, cannot do simple addition, cannot read an instruction decal, etc. So it will be "AA reguired" for future jobs"

Ugh, don't get me started. It's terrible how badly the general public understands math and simple tasks like reading a gage.

[Rocky Mtn Saver]

Apr 23, 2012 18:37:37 GMT -5 tskeeter said:

What do you do with a degree in Creative Writing? There are lots of careers. Copywriter, journalist, technical writer, marketing, pretty much anything that requires great written communication skills.

I just wonder how many creative writing majors think they should apply for a job with a computer software company, or a manufacturer of consumer goods, improving on those poorly written owner/operator manuals that we all struggle with. Or with a tourism agency, encouraging people to travel to an exotic, far off land (as my Communications major SIL did).

I had an English professor who got one of his first writing jobs by working for a group of engineers translating their engineer-minded writing into something the rest of the world would understand.

But most of the jobs you mentioned also have their own programs, don't they? Journalism, marketing, technical writing. If a person came in with a degree in creative writing, wouldn't she be up against a bunch of people with more closely-related degrees? It seems that company would hire one of the many grads with a journalism degree before someone with a creative writing degree.

[Deleted]

A lot of that has to do with how big your school is. A major university will be able to subdivide its English department into technical writing, creative writing, literature, poetry, journalism, etc. A small school will just have "English."

[swamp]

Apr 23, 2012 18:40:45 GMT -5 Phoenix84 said:

Ugh, don't get me started. It's terrible how badly the general public understands math and simple tasks like reading a gage.

I've never had to read a gage, but I can read a gauge even though I have a liberal arts degree.

[Deleted]

snickeur

[Sum Dum Gai]

But most of the jobs you mentioned also have their own programs, don't they?

Yeah, but how much difference is there between the programs? Loop got an English degree from a local university. Judging by the degrees they announced at her graduation the English department has at least half a dozen specalties. I'm pretty sure if you looked at the class list for each one 90%+ would match from degree to degree. The difference between a creative writing degree, and a technical writing degree is probably only a couple classes.

[Rocky Mtn Saver]

Apr 23, 2012 18:48:09 GMT -5 swamp said:

Apr 23, 2012 18:40:45 GMT -5 Phoenix84 said:

Ugh, don't get me started. It's terrible how badly the general public understands math and simple tasks like reading a gage.

I've never had to read a gage, but I can read a gauge even though I have a liberal arts degree.

Thank you! I was trying to ignore that so as to avoid being pedantic.

[midjd]

Swamp

Like Tskeeter said, there is a market for the creative writing majors to translate engineer-speak into digestible English

[Rocky Mtn Saver]

Apr 23, 2012 18:52:08 GMT -5 Sum Dum Gai said:

But most of the jobs you mentioned also have their own programs, don't they?

Yeah, but how much difference is there between the programs? Loop got an English degree from a local university. Judging by the degrees they announced at her graduation the English department has at least half a dozen specalties. I'm pretty sure if you looked at the class list for each one 90%+ would match from degree to degree. The difference between a creative writing degree, and a technical writing degree is probably only a couple classes.

True, but would an employer care sufficiently to get her in the door? Or would a hiring manager say, 'we have a position for a technical writer, and this person's degree is creative writing, oh well'? These days, a lot of resume-sifting is being done by computer, too.

[swamp]

Apr 23, 2012 18:53:12 GMT -5 Rocky Mtn Saver said:

Apr 23, 2012 18:48:09 GMT -5 swamp said:

I've never had to read a gage, but I can read a gauge even though I have a liberal arts degree.

Thank you! I was trying to ignore that so as to avoid being pedantic.

Yes, I'm a bitch

But seriously, it's really annoying to continuously hear from the Nerds on here how the non STEM people are a bunch of ignorant morons with no useful job skills.

[Sum Dum Gai]

True, but would an employer care sufficiently to get her in the door? Or would a hiring manager say, 'we have a position for a technical writer, and this person's degree is creative writing, oh well'?

I think there's a decent chance that a person who's hiring a writer would be willing to go out on a limb and look at the resume/interview a writer. I do get accused of being a crazy optimist though.

[souldoubt]

I finished high school in 2000 and the emphasis at times felt like it was more on going to college than what some people were actually going to do there. I met quite a few people who were in college going through the motions just because it was expected of them and they got to live at home rent free and have fun. I was one of those kids setting my schedule up so that I could knock out my classes 2 days a week and was at work the rest of the week and also on the weekends.

[Rocky Mtn Saver]

Apr 23, 2012 18:59:05 GMT -5 Sum Dum Gai said:

True, but would an employer care sufficiently to get her in the door? Or would a hiring manager say, 'we have a position for a technical writer, and this person's degree is creative writing, oh well'?

I think there's a decent chance that a person who's hiring a writer would be willing to go out on a limb and look at the resume/interview a writer. I do get accused of being a crazy optimist though.

LOL, I'd like to think so to, but I'm not betting a 5 figure student loan on it!

[Sum Dum Gai]

LOL, I'd like to think so to, but I'm not betting a 5 figure student loan on it!

A 5 figure student loan isn't really that bad. It's a couple hundred a month. If you don't go to school at all you'll definitely be working at Starbucks. Might as well take the chance and set yourself up for the higher paying job just in case there's still a sane hiring manager left in the country.

[phil5185]

I had an English professor who got one of his first writing jobs by working for a group of engineers translating their engineer-minded writing into something the rest of the world would understand.

Yes, we have a whole dept of tech writers doing exactly that. When we design a new product for a customer, we write a company overview with engineer bio's and pix, an executive summary of the design concept, a detailed electrical design, mechanical design, maybe some space flight special features, and a cost volume. Usually about 3 books about an inch thick each.
The Tech writers assign a book-boss to each book, an editor, a layout person (2 columns, at least one pic or sketch per page-column, yada. Takes about 4 weeks for about 8 engineers, 8 tech writers, and some cost accountants to build a proposal and ship it to a military procurement agency.
These are good-paying jobs, 6 figures for editors & book bosses. But I wonder if an applicant with a "creative writing" nomenclature would make the cut, it might be best to call himself a Tech Writer.

[findingdeadbeats]

The problem with requiring a degree for every job is that those degrees are now very expensive. It adds just one more requirement for today's youth to have to pay for each month, on payments, the student loans.

Graduates today often are looking at entry level wages with the costs of their health care and student loans being more than the entry level job grosses a month...

[milee]

Apr 23, 2012 18:56:30 GMT -5 swamp said:

Apr 23, 2012 18:53:12 GMT -5 Rocky Mtn Saver said:

Thank you! I was trying to ignore that so as to avoid being pedantic.

Yes, I'm a bitch

But seriously, it's really annoying to continuously hear from the Nerds on here how the non STEM people are a bunch of ignorant morons with no useful job skills.

Guilty of being a Nerd, but if you're interpreting my comments to mean you think I believe non-STEM degree holders are ignorant morons, then you're misinterpreting.

I know there are some highly intelligent non-STEM people and steering my kids into more technical degrees isn't about bashing non-technical degrees. It's just about playing the odds. Not everybody knows what they want to do when they're 18. We're not going to receive any financial aid and college is expensive. Given that, I hope they choose degrees that will allow them flexibility not only in different jobs, but in earnings potential. Again, the engineering grad may not be smarter than the education grad, but the engineering grad has dozens of different options, while the education grad is limited to a very few.

Part of the problem is the curriculum at most colleges. Let us be frank and put it on the table - an employer will assume that a kid who graduates with an A average in engineering is fairly intelligent, while they may or may not assume that about a person who graduates with an A average in communication (or whatever degree the athletes at the school end up taking because it's the easiest.) Add in the fact that STEM/tech grads are much less common and the scarcity makes the degree more valuable than a degree that many people of varying intelligence have.

Again, it's not about bashing the people that have non-STEM degrees, it's about trying to play the odds. Odds are that a STEM or tech degree is going to give a kid more options than a liberal arts degree.

[swamp]

Milee, it's not your posts I'm referring to.

[midjd]

Again, it's not about bashing the people that have non-STEM degrees, it's about trying to play the odds. Odds are that a STEM or tech degree is going to give a kid more options than a liberal arts degree.

When it's phrased like that, I completely agree with you (and I'm a non-STEM major). But when it's phrased like, "Well what do you expect with a degree in creative writing, if you're going to throw it away on fluff like that why even go to college?" or "Well obviously he's unemployed, he has a useless degree" that can be a little offensive. Like Swamp said, it's not you

[milee]

OK, good. Being a Nerd, it's not always easy to tell if one of my Spock statements has offended...

The leader of an organization for which I serve on the Board asked if I'd give a presentation to our City Commission on how one of their proposals would impact our organization. It's a very complex data set and I'd done some detailed analysis on the issues and possible outcomes. I told the Board that although I'm always willing to help in any way, that they might wish to choose a more relatable spokesperson. It probably drove home my point when I made the comparison to the classic Star Trek and reminded them that although the Enterprise Crew relied on Spock for analysis, they didn't tend to send him out as an ambassador to meet the new aliens.

[Cookies Galore]

Apr 23, 2012 19:09:20 GMT -5 phil5185 said:

I had an English professor who got one of his first writing jobs by working for a group of engineers translating their engineer-minded writing into something the rest of the world would understand.

Yes, we have a whole dept of tech writers doing exactly that. When we design a new product for a customer, we write a company overview with engineer bio's and pix, an executive summary of the design concept, a detailed electrical design, mechanical design, maybe some space flight special features, and a cost volume. Usually about 3 books about an inch thick each.
The Tech writers assign a book-boss to each book, an editor, a layout person (2 columns, at least one pic or sketch per page-column, yada. Takes about 4 weeks for about 8 engineers, 8 tech writers, and some cost accountants to build a proposal and ship it to a military procurement agency.
These are good-paying jobs, 6 figures for editors & book bosses. But I wonder if an applicant with a "creative writing" nomenclature would make the cut, it might be best to call himself a Tech Writer.

Yep. I'm a medical editor with a journalism degree. Luckily, I'm from the Philly area, which is a mecca for medical and scientific publishing, so I didn't have to go anywhere to find good employment. I work for a board that owns/writes licensing and certification examinations and we are expanding globally. My department is full of English/Journalism majors and we certainly may not be the ones who bring in the new clients, but we sure are the ones keeping them! Each exam cycle is roughly 12-18 months, so there's a lot of work involved. I love where I work, but if anything were to happen I have my pick of specialty boards and publishers to choose from. My degree was the best choice for me and I only have $4200 left to pay off at 2.36%! So...

[midjd]

The leader of an organization for which I serve on the Board asked if I'd give a presentation to our City Commission on how one of their proposals would impact our organization. It's a very complex data set and I'd done some detailed analysis on the issues and possible outcomes. I told the Board that although I'm always willing to help in any way, that they might wish to choose a more relatable spokesperson. It probably drove home my point when I made the comparison to the classic Star Trek and reminded them that although the Enterprise Crew relied on Spock for analysis, they didn't tend to send him out as an ambassador to meet the new aliens.

Hahaha! It's not just limited to STEM majors - we have a few attorneys who could seriously put a room of hyperactive third graders to sleep in 5 minutes They are very, very good at written communication and absolutely terrible at verbal communication. I'm thankful that my college's English program required 4 or 5 speech classes...