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Mel Evans / AP file
The graduating class of 2012 at Princeton University after commencement ceremonies in Princeton, N.J., in June. How much are their degrees worth in earnings?
Joyce English was about to start studying toward an associate degree she hoped would lead to a job as a consultant to healthcare companies around Tacoma, Wash., where she lives.
Then she discovered a database created by the state’s workforce training agency estimating what she’d earn with that degree versus how much she could make in other jobs with other majors and degrees from colleges and universities across the state.
They paid more, she found.
“You obviously want something out of your education,” says English, who changed her mind and is now majoring in what she learned is the more lucrative field of business management at Pierce College. “You don’t want to go into something that’s going to pay you less than it cost to go to college.”
Efforts to disclose the earnings potential of degrees in specific majors from particular colleges and universities are picking up steam, promising to bring competitive pressure to bear on institutions by steering students away from programs with lower market value and colleges whose graduates fare poorly — and holding higher education directly accountable for the return on investments made by families and taxpayers.
“We’re on the cusp here of something really big,” says Grover “Russ” Whitehurst, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who was an assistant secretary in the U.S. Department of Education during the George W. Bush administration.
Comparing schools, too
Wage information—by major, degree and institution — was made available for the first time this fall in Arkansas, Tennessee and Virginia, which joined Florida and Washington. Colorado, Nevada and Texas are in the process of producing it, and a bill in Congress would require every college in the country to disclose the average annual earnings of its graduates.
The data already released reveal not only which majors pay more than others, but which universities’ graduates earn more and which earn less.
In Virginia, for instance, graduates of four-year nursing programs earn more than twice as much as liberal-arts majors, on average, and graduates of the University of Richmond make almost 72 percent more than graduates of Hollins University.
In Tennessee, majors in health professions make two and a half times what philosophy and religious-studies majors make, and graduates of the University of Memphis earn 13 percent more than graduates of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.
10 best-paying jobs for community college graduates
“I can imagine some hard questions being asked” by parents, students and legislators armed with knowledge like this, says Mark Schneider, a vice president at the American Institutes for Research and president of College Measures, which is helping states create such earnings databases.
Despite the appearance of choice, says Whitehurst, there’s historically been “no reliable information on which consumers can base a rational decision” about which college to attend. “But lots of students are making this decision largely for one reason, which is to improve their economic prospects. And not giving them that information has put all the power in the hands of the sellers instead of the consumers.”
In fact, nearly 90 percent of incoming freshmen say the main reason they enrolled in college was “to be able to get a better job,” UCLA’s Higher Education Research Institute reports. “And probably 100 percent of their parents say that,” says Schneider.
State legislators and governors are also looking more closely at what they’re getting for the money they put into public higher education. “The question is, what are we getting out of that support?” says Tod Massa, director of policy research and data warehousing at the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia, where it was the General Assembly that ordered the creation of that state’s earnings database.
Difficulty in making comparisons
The information has significant limitations. It can be hard to find and difficult to follow, for example. Proponents hope it will be picked up by private college-rankings services such as Barron’s and The Princeton Review and distributed more widely. It typically provides earnings of people only a year after they graduate, and it compares colleges that admit considerably different kinds of students who go on to work in places where living costs and wages vary.
The information is also based on such things as state unemployment insurance records, so it doesn’t take into account graduates who work for the federal government, join the military, move away or go on to graduate school. An analysis by the University of Virginia found that 22 percent of its degree recipients went on to graduate school and 43 percent left the state, meaning they weren’t being counted.
But the data could eventually put substantial pressure on colleges and universities whose poor rates of return cost them applicants and state support in favor of institutions with the best results.
“It’s the no-name comprehensives, the regional campuses, the third-tier not-for-profits — their business model is going to be held up and people are going to ask about it,” Schneider says. “ ‘Why are you charging me $40,000 a year? What’s the outcome at the end of the day? What am I getting for all this time and money?’ ”
Higher-education leaders complain that judging degrees based on prospective wages diverts students from the liberal arts and overemphasizes narrow skills and majors, not the broad knowledge they say employers really want, including the ability to problem-solve and communicate clearly.
“We are misleading students when we tell them over and over again that the major is the only thing that matters,” says Carol Geary Schneider, president of the Association of American Colleges and Universities. “And we’re making that even worse when we’re saying, ‘Pick a major that will make the most money for you.’ ”
Though she acknowledges that universities should be providing so-called “soft skills” to students regardless of what major they select, Schneider says that what she calls “major myopia” makes students “push back” against learning writing and math.
“Your college decision should be about becoming an educated person — giving yourself a resource that will increase in value your entire life, finding something you care deeply about, and developing the skills to go on learning what you need to learn,” she says. “We should not be telling them the only thing that matters is how much money they’ll be making a few years out. The more important message is, follow your passion.”
What's the return on investment?
But proponents of disclosing earnings say spiraling tuition is driving the demand for information about returns on families’ investments in a college education.
That’s the same force behind a contentious regulation proposed by the U.S. Department of Education called the “gainful employment” rule, which would disqualify from federal financial aid those programs in fields whose earnings aren’t enough to justify their students’ loan debt. The proposal has stalled by litigation brought by for-profit colleges and universities.
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., has introduced legislation that would require colleges to disclose the average annual earnings of their graduates, along with such things as average debt. “Students are entitled to know the value of their education before they go out and borrow tens of thousands of dollars from the banks and from the government” to pay for it, Wyden says. “Right now, consumers don’t have this information.”
Mark Schneider says that, given what colleges and universities charge, they shouldn’t object to being judged on graduates’ earnings.
“‘Leave us alone,’” he declares, mimicking what he says are the universities’ arguments. “‘Our students don’t get jobs, but it’s not my problem. They don’t graduate, but it’s not my problem.’ We’ve heard all these things. So I say, ‘Show me the return on investment. Show me what happens when you graduate. If you want to talk like that, then show me the outcome.’ ”
In Washington, Joyce English still sees many classmates start college not knowing whether there’s demand for the careers they want to pursue.
“That’s the crazy thing,” she says. “When you’re younger, you chase your dreams and sometimes you don’t look at the salary. That’s something you don’t even think about. But you need to make a living.”
This story, "New pressure on colleges to disclose grads' earnings," was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, nonpartisan education-news outlet based at Teachers College, Columbia University.
More from The Hechinger Report
- One in four freshmen now starts in January, not August
- Colleges step in to fill students’ social-skills gaps
- Boards of trustees think the price of college is just about right
Leave a Comment:
Start with Barrys collage records.....oh thats right ...they were sealed.
Did you mean college, Scooter? I think maybe you need to check your college records.
Hi, Scooter.
Speaking as a taxpayer and an underwriter of the loans... the government has no business making loans to students who have no viable future means to pay it back.
Just look at all the billions of dollars that are outstanding right now that students are demanding the government wipe away "because I can't pay it."
Oh.... okay.... think I'll try that with my electric bill.....
How do you force graduates to reveal their salaries? Many would consider that to be an invasion of privacy, likely those making the most money...
I think that this is a fantastic idea. Students need to know before they spend $150,000 on that art history degree that they are not going to be able to find a job that pays anywhere near enough to warrant that type of investment. There also should be more scrutiny on federally backed student loans. These loans should not be made to students who are taking majors where they will have no realistic hope of ever paying the money back. I am tired of hearing all these OWS whiners who want their student loan debt wiped away because they majored in liberal arts at some private college, borrowing $100,000+ and now find they can not make enough money to pay it back. No one told them to take out that amount in loans for a worthless degree. This is basically taxpayer money backing these loans and the government needs to make sure that this money is being spent wisely and that those borrowing the money will be able to pay it back after they graduate. I think that this will result in a lot of schools dropping these worthless, purely academic majors because the demand for them will disappear. I think you will also see a number of these small, high priced liberal arts college closing down when people start to realize they are not worth the investment to go there. It will force colleges to compete based on the value of the education they are offering and what it costs.
E ....Or ...A....either way someone byches.
If you smart you will take any college education and then go to a big corporation and apply. They really don't care what you took they just want to re-educate you college grads in their manner of doing things. They just want educated people.
I can't tell you how many people I know in the IT/Business Intelligence business that have pshyc, law or or other degrees that they couldn't find work in.
bloggit,
Universities and Colleges cannot require graduates to provide salary information and so most likely any information collected by the schools is biased and skewed anyway. This is one more federal waste of time. Schools will spend millions of dollars based on knee jerk orders from the biggest money wasting enterprise in the history of humankind (the US federal government) to provide information that is incorrect, biased, and of little use. One more useless unfunded federal mandate. Rather than spend that money on increasing salaries for faculty (many of whom earn half of what they could make in the private sector), provide better facilities or provide the remedial services needed by so many students, the government will order schools to waste this money on the creation of bad data.
i will.
Thank you for the suggestion.
I took on student debt (a good amount that that), and have paid it all back within 5 years of graduating despite going unemployed for one year, partially employed for half a year, being paid much less than I anticipated upon graduating, and the interest rates greater than 5% I had attending under Bush. I would never have been able to attend college without student loans, but at the same time, I paid a premium to take them out and felt I sacrificed my personal freedom.
I thought it would have been better if I worked before college and saved up to go to college, but with the cost of a college education rising by 10-15% every year, I would have had to probably work for 10 years (and be employed at the same time) to pay for the cost of college. By then, it would make more sense to invest that money in property or land than it would in a college education considering decreasing wages and the ROI.
After paying off my student debt though, I have decided to work part-time while pursuing my true passions. Before college people hyped up high paying jobs and the "American Dream". When I graduated though, I realized my dream was more about human ideals than it was about achieving material ends, so I vowed to get rid of my student debt within 5 years (not the 10 year or the frightening 30 year plan) so I can dedicate my life to something better than owning a house, car, Macbook, TV, etc. etc.
As a result I am much happier. I still do want to own my own home of course over the long run, but I would rather do it while helping people, than working for myself. With a full-time work week, even though I had a great salary, I felt I could not help anyone but myself. Even working part-time, I feel my salary is sufficient to live. I am not as high-flying as my classmates I graduated with, but I am much happier and have more freedom.
Mark, It doesn't work like that anymore. Those companies don't want to invest in people who received worthless degrees because they were either too stupid to get a degree for the job the company wants or too stupid to know that a degree in women studies or art history doesn't have many (if any) jobs...
@JoeMike404
All the government needs to do is look at tax returns of graduates to get accurate information. If that same person took out student loans, then you know where they went to college too. If they didn't take out student loans, then who cares? We are only concerned with the majority of the kids who are borrowing from the government to go to school and how much they are making once they graduate so they can pay those loans back, right?
Surely you're not suggesting that people lie on their taxes, right?
@JS in SD
I agree with you on taxpayer backed loans and that before people spend a lot of money for a "worthless" degree they should know what the deal is, but liberal arts will not disappear and should not. There's more to life than just making money. Colleges are running sales and marketing schemes because it's good for their earnings.
Education is purely Academic.
"Genius without education is like silver in the mine." ~ Benjamin Franklin
Exactly. The silver is just worthless material in stone until it's taken out & molded into something valuable to others.
Today's colleges are run like multinational businesses, so today's (potential) students should be able to evaluate these powerful institutions like a major life investment. The return on investment (ROI) is obviously much better than others and incoming students & their parents should be allowed to access the available information to make better decisions on what college to attend.
Colleges want students that have potential & they are eager to provide funding for those students as well, in the form of scholarships, support staff, programs, etc. Students are asked to pay ever increasing tuition rates year after year, they should know if their preferred school is going to provide them with the education to earn the comparable/competitive pay level after graduation.
Who wants to spend $80k-$100k after 4 years of school only to be qualified to get a $30k/yr job? And if the average student has to accumulate loans for most of those educational costs, it's hard to survive and pay-off those loans.
Schools is not purely academic it is here to serve society.
People need to understand that a college degree will not bring you wealth. Education is a tool and nothing more.
You sound like that guy at Texas State University that works in Technology Resources as an assistant director, but doesn't have a degree of any kind - raking in $130,000 a year.
Yepper!
His high school records are pretty damned poor, too. But - you all keep paying out the nose for his "Texpertise...in information technology".
Oh boy... given how people are inherently stupid, there will be a lot of misuse and misinterpretation of this information...
People who go to Lehigh University make bank!!!!!
How about all the universities revealing what they pay their highly qualified professors, too?
For the public schools, it is in the public domain. Very often, you can just google it.
It's about time this happens. I was sick of the "well-rounded" education lectures from advisers and department heads. That is supposed to occur before college. Make the information available to students so they don't end up like most of the Liberal Arts and Social Sciences majors out there - unemployed or underemployed.
There's enough well rounded people waiting tables already. Stick the useful arts.
My daughter-in-law has 2 "useless" degrees, one undergraduate one masters. Both are in drama/theatre arts/acting. At age 30 she is making almost $100,000 a year in marketing and corporate communication using all those "well rounded" non-useful arts courses and skills.
Isn't that funny? I have a undergraduate in Theatre Design, and soon to be a Masters in Lighting Design. I have had no problems with jobs thus far either :-) Yet people tell me all the time how I'll never make it in anything.
I think they're just jealous that I went into what I really wanted to do. Props to your daughter in law!
Good grief..
oneiron
Kudos to your daughter-in-law. She's got a Masters so that can certainly help. I'm sure she received an excellent well-rounded education before college - where it belongs.
Mandy
Theatre/Lighting Design are niche studies. I can't say I've encountered anyone with an interest in that. Nor do I recall such majors being offered at my university. Good for you, though, for finding a special interest and pursuing it.
I will remind you, however, that I said "most" graduates. There are exceptions to the rule. Please refer to comment 24.2.
There will always be "exceptions to the rule" or outliers that excel regardless of some adverse situation.
In the situation where you have a person "making almost $100,000 a year in marketing and corporate communication" - congrats by the way - you have to see the "forest IN the woods". This lady is doing well in a business-oriented position, but she majored in drama/theatre & arts/acting...she lucked-out finding a well paying job outside of the education she went to school for. And that's the craziness of this entire situation! With so many people forced/unforced to obtain jobs outside of their given degree, that leaves less opportunities for graduates looking for jobs based on the education they received in college.
Today's employers are looking for specific graduates with specific degrees & experience. Not every drama/acting major is going to transition to marketing & communication like this 1 lady did.
Everybody is asking themselves, "how likely am I to obtain a job based the degree I earned in college?" And will that job pay or have upward financial potential to justify the high cost of tuition.
Calvin, its true, it is a pretty small world. Kind of scary in fact. I am just getting into a field and I can hardly go to a theatre without working with someone who knows someone I have worked with in the past. Mostly its because we are all so mobile that we end up working all over the country.
However, its not extremely tiny. I'm attending a technical theatre conference in March which will include thousands of tech and design professionals. :-)
Want an education that pays - go to trade school. Want to learn to think. Get a PhD. Want to do what most of your friends and neighbors are doing to qualify to load trucks, get a BA. It is about what one wants from life. In America it is money, money, wealth, wealth, and perhaps more wealth.
The EU for one has a different value system and respect for academics and academic achievement. To each their own.
I too live in the EU, luckily the still somewhat functioning Scandinavian part of it. Here there is a steady influx of unemployed/unemployable academics from southern European EU countries, luckily some of them - the ones who have engineering and technical degrees may be able to find employment. I would NEVER advise a young person to take a liberal arts degree, unless they come from an independently wealthy family OR they do realize that they will be choosing to be "just scraping by" for most of their working lives. I have a BA which I luckily supplemented with a teaching degree which has served me well, but thank my lucky stars (and intensive career counseling from Mummy here) that my sons have chosen the wiser, more technical academic route. If you enjoy literature, art history etc fine - it's a nice hobby.
The Liberal arts have always been for the idle rich so they can appear well rounded at cocktail parties. In the upper class, that's the main skill they need.
Just because a person goes to college (and graduates) does not guarantee that they will be able to back the loan back, no matter what the degree is.
And one that should be put to the proper use.
I agree.
Aside from union collective bargaining, most salaries are simply a result of the basic law of supply and demand. I suggest researching the current jobs in your field of interest to identify some specialty niches. Target that particular specialty in your college training. The trick is to find that niche in the economy that you're truly interested in, and that pays well. Don't be a 'generalist', especially in a field such as Psychology or you'll be just one of thousands and thousands of people with the same approximate skillsets and knowledge. Unfortunately job salaries are not a function of how beneficial the job is to society, such as teaching or emergency medical responders. Those are examples of jobs with far too large a pool of available applicants to be able to command a relatively high salary. Make yourself stand out from the crowd with some extra training and education that targets a valued niche in the field. You'll make more money in the long run and even if you're not money driven you'll have a better chance of retaining your job when layoffs come around during the unavoidable periodic lulls in the business cycle. The lulls affect all jobs, both in the public and private realm. Be a specialist in something you're interested in and that's in demand. Then you won't just be making a bunch of money, but you'll also have fun doing it!
It is none of their damn business how much I earn. Is nothing sacred anymore?
It's none of the government's business how much you earn?
When was the last time you paid taxes?
Lemmings! What job pays the most? Study for that, then get out in two to four years with all the others who did the same thing to find a glut of people with degrees in that area - thus no more jobs or low pay for the jobs that do exist. Follow your skill set, get really good at anything useful, and you will find some way to make money at it. In the meantime, I hope to God you discover in the process of your education that one's earnings are not a measure of one's happiness or one's value in our society. We can't all, nor should we all, train for the same jobs - this line of thinking is a fool's errand and a sign of desperate economic times and lottery winning thinking. Do some research, have some careers in mind that will make you happy and for which you will be suited, and go get some kind of education. Enough with trying to time the education market! And please stop misspelling when pontificating on education. It's annoying.
Amen. When my younger kid started university, lots of folks told him that chemical engineering was the hot field with guaranteed jobs and high income. So he declared a major in Chem Engr and soon discovered that he had absolute no interest in organic and inorganic chem, solutes and solvents, etc. Changed his major to structural engineering. He had 3 job offers when he graduated while several of his friends with Chem Engr degrees struggled to find work.
screminmimi
Hi, Scooter.
Speaking as a taxpayer and an underwriter of the loans... the government has no business making loans to students who have no viable future means to pay it back.
Just look at all the billions of dollars that are outstanding right now that students are demanding the government wipe away "because I can't pay it."
Oh.... okay.... think I'll try that with my electric bill.....
Well, the government used our money to bail out a.i.g and the tops banks that knowingly ruined our economy. So why shouldnt people who were duped by these same banks to take out college loans get some relief? After all they are being victimized and exploited by the big banks.
HAPPILY RETIRED
It is none of their damn business how much I earn. Is nothing sacred anymore?
Whoa! They actually posted your name and what you personally make!?
Stupid idea, as usual. Education is only one of the factors. Next, what is a hot profession today might be not so hot tomorrow, etc. Finally, publishing data like this would create artificial demand for some fields and will backfire.
Your particular college degree is worth what an employer is willing to pay you in salary or wages for the time you spent in research and learning actual knowledge, which will benefit the employer.
It really has substantially less to do with where you attended so long as it is an accredited institution in the United States, which bears a greater potential for learning.
This particularized determination varies greatly from one employer to the next. So, this article, is influencing a base of students or worse, discouraging them before they even graduate.
It is reflective of extreme competition in the workforce during hard economic years.
Study strong and learn your craft. Your skill will open doors if your actual reading and research time spent was genuinely applied and you scored a high GPA.
My god, what are we doing to the people of this nation?! An ever shrinking pool of jobs for a couple dozen high demand specialties does not bode well for any but the wealthy and brilliant (as opposed to "average" which is by definition what most people are). I wonder how many will wind up like the auto workers who retrained for a career in IT, only to be outsourced a few years into their "second career? Are we are surprised at the distrust of every institution in the country? The lenders who talked kids into signing loans on the hope of a better job should be made to reimburse the government for 1/2 of those loans.
I am 7 years from retirement, but I do worry about the young workers of today. What hope do they have of a comfortable secure life? The economy is now like a stripped bolt that can not be fully tightened, and slips lose when any tension is put on it.
"The economy is now like a stripped bolt that can not be fully tightened, and slips lose when any tension is put on it."
Well said, but please don't use similes - no one is being educated to understand them anymore because there is no profit in abstract thinking like that.
It's not always about money. If you choose, say, an accounting major but you really hate working with numbers, you're going to be doing yourself a disservice. You will be more successful doing something you enjoy, or at least are good at and can pay the bills with.
I'm not saying go out and major in something you can't get a job in. But you have to be good at your job in order to keep it and make money. If you get a degree in a profession just to get the pay, and you wind up being unable to hold a job, then you are not going to make much pay either.
Also whatever you do for a living, you have to be able to do for 8 hours a day, at least. So don't major in something you hate or find extremely boring.
Then why go into business at all? You either count or you sell. If you cant count and you cant sell. Don't go into business. But yet, its amazing the millions of managment degrees and half those people have no clue of what they plan on managing when the get out! I dont disagree about doing what you like to do, but if its not gonna pay the bills..... you better think of a way to get it done.
Willow Sunstar
It's about making a decent living.
You are correct to say that one should be mindful of their own interests and strengths. However, the market doesn't care what you want necessarily. I will argue that it is much better to choose a field that is in demand and pays well, even if it's a challenge, rather than what you feel would be a natural fit. It beats financial stress that accompanies low wage careers, whether you enjoy a particular job or not.
The better advice is to find a niche in a field that has value. Even if the career field is not all that exciting to you as a whole, find a way to incorporate interests and strengths to it.
Simple solution:
1) If girl, do porn or acting. Easy. No college debt required
2) If guy, do sports or acting. Easy. No college debt required.
You could also do music or become a religious leader and live a great life without crippling student debt.
LOL Kathy Griffin, the comedian, says "Gay porn is where the money is!"
colleges are too big of an industry to disclose anything and their will be a fight. Like banks, its all pump and dump. Also, employers may want broad knowledge but their hire specilized degrees that they need. If they need broad knowledge they go get a library card. Also for you anti disclosure folks, the government is in 80% of the economy already. Take 3.6 trillion out and all the multipliers and this whole system collapses in a day.
If people are going to school purely on the basis of making money... then school is probably not the place for them to begin with.
Money is definitely not why I am in grad school. Not even close to the top 5 reasons.
College by very definition is a place of higher learning. That learning can be either for pleasure or for business (and the ones forced to go).
You don't go to college for any other reason than those two. Now lets take a very hypothetical percentage and say 50% of the people go to college for pleasure and 50% of the people go to aquire a skill so they can be sucessful in the career world. If one half of all people going to college are paying for a service in my opinion they have the NEED to know what the outcome will be when they graduate. Our country has to make up for the deficit of children who don't know how to properly research job prospects, rite?
This only opposing view I can see would be analogous to sigining up for tv service. You are paying for channels to view (education). You are promised by a contract you sign to get said service. However, there is no guarantee that you will like the programming on the channels you are paying for (future job prospects).
JonOlche
They absolutely do need to know likely outcomes, agreed.
But most importantly, parents need to know that a college degree is no longer a ticket to success. Times have changed. Talk to your kids before pushing them out the door and into the dorms. Explain to them that they should choose a field in demand or, if they don't know what they want to do yet, wait a few years and work to save $$. Jobs that are available to HS grads will be low paying, but having a BA or BS in a useless field won't yield much better results. At least your kids won't be buried in debt. There are plenty of food service employees with degrees...
There is no such thing as a "useless" field or "useless" degree. If you spend your whole time wacking off in college and not doing internships and building your supporting skills during the summers and such, then no, you're not going to have a job.
Relatively useless to other fields. There are tons of articles written every year about how Liberal Arts and Social Sciences degrees have saturated the workforce. Fields in these departments are consistently among the top 10 worst to have in today's service/tech economy. There's simply not enough demand for graduates in Sociology, Philosophy, Psychology (mine), History, English, and so on. A Masters degree can help, depending on what it is, but that's more debt one must incur. Students need to know that it's worth their time and $$ to do so.
It's all about Engineering, Computer Science, Nursing, Pharmaceuticals, and Business Administration. It also helps to know two or more languages (Spanish being a must have in certain areas). This is the world we live in today. Surely you have nothing against disclosing earnings?
I don't disagree that people with these degrees is growing. However, one of my professors said something today which is actually goes with this conversation quite well.
He said the university is trying to get the department to quantify the skills and things we "master" while in the program and what types of jobs/how much money we make outside of the field and he said "Really, I don't believe this is a part of my job. My job is to give you the tools and skills you will need. But it is up to you to decide how well you develop them and what you do with them."
Really I think its not a problem with what degrees people get, but rather a lack of focus within those degrees. And, like I said, if you are going home every summer and working at Applebees, you are doing nothing to further your career. I, on the other hand, started interning at large theatre companies during the summer of my sophomore year so I would increase my skills before graduation. Now, I spend my summers as a Master Electrician for theatres, and I'm not even done with school yet. Some people are doers, and some people wait for others to tell them what they should do.
I do wish I knew another language, we really should be teaching it in elementary school. I took French in high school and didn't really apply myself, but that is no ones fault but my own. Someday. :-)
I don't see what is wrong with disclosing earnings. But I live my life in a very open community of people.
Interning is a great way to improve skills and give yourself a name, but it's not cheap. If you don't work at Applebees, how can you afford to survive an internship? Very few internships pay much of anything (or a very small stipend). In fact, it's more likely to come out of your pocket. At least you have a summer job.
I'm glad that it seems so easy to you - but it's not just about being a "doer". You can have the work ethic of five people combined and still be floundering around in the job market. I would argue that, in fact, it's more about who you know than what. There is also the issue of location. And company downsizing. And personality traits. And politics. And luck.
I would be careful not to paint too rosy of a picture, especially since you haven't finished school yet. That's when you get your first dose of reality. Like some students these days, they have pie-in-the-sky expectations for their future, only to come crashing down outside of the comfort of campus life. They thought they covered everything, but you soon realize that you can't always just will yourself to success. Good luck to you.
Well, I specifically applied for paid internships all over the country that provided housing. If they didn't pay/provide housing, I didn't waste my time.
I am not painting too rosy of a picture, I simply know that I have built up my qualifications and resume over the past few years and now my summer jobs are well paid, high up positions. And as far as the "comfort of campus life" I am pretty sure I don't really snuggle in on campus. Like I have already said, I have been working professionally in my field for 4 years now, if only for three months a year plus some other smatterings.
Don't be such a negative nancy
Haha, if only that was possible. I know too many good people who can't find work. It's not easy to compete with folks that have 10-20 years of experience and qualifications behind them. Employers want highly specific skill sets and those only develop with extensive time in the field. New grads are having a rough go at it because they also must apply with candidates twice their age.
Again, good luck. Sounds like you've got it all covered.
Hence all of the work I have been doing.
Don't be jealous that I paid attention ;-)
Ha! If it was up to me everybody would have their income written on their forehead. And how much they pay in taxes.