Anyone else graduating this year and anxious about it?

Crunchy Leaf

Crunchy Leaf

cronch
kiwifarms.net
Joined
Aug 14, 2017
College, clown college, grad school, trade school, high school, whatever.

I'm graduating this year from a barely-second-tier state school with a 3.4 GPA, a useless liberal arts degree (Economics), and about 40k in student loans. Applied for a job today and they asked for my desired starting salary, so I said 30k because I figured that's about as much as I can expect with my bad stats. Can't do math and can't code (got a C in Calc 2 and a C+ in Intro to Java). Starting to feel like the donut shop and my parent's house is going to be my only option. Anyone else not having a good senior year? Or gloat about your STEMlord job that's going to pay 100k.
 
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Nothing wrong with state schools. I know many successful people that graduated from them.

Don't lowball yourself and be happy if you can get a job in your desired field.

You can always work to improve your math and coding skills.
 
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College is mainly for networking and STEM courses focus on mystifying you with current day/probable innovation rather than teaching technique, so there's not much to gloat about there.
What you do afterwards is important, be it resume padding or teaching yourself important skills while bullshitting yourself up the ladder.
Or just join the Chair Force.
 
I'm you in five years. Bachelors of Arts in [redacted liberal BS], minor in CS, 90% of a Masters in a CS adjacent field. Currently work as a security guard that gets hired out to sporting events and businesses. I make about $12 an hour and have no hope of ever paying off my student loans.

I'm lucky because I was in the military and have a 20% disability rating from hearing loss and joint injuries. If I injure my back enough that I can't work, I can say it's from my military injuries getting worse and get a higher disability rating (which isn't necessarily untrue as joint injuries often get worse as you age). Even if I can't get 100% service connected disability and have my student loans dismissed that way, I can also file for SSDI and have them dismissed another way.

If you need an escape card, the military is always an option. I can give advise on that depending on your goals and inclinations.
 
Idk how large your school was, but larger state schools will have lots of alumni. For this reason, even if the school isn't top-ranked, chances are that there is someone somewhere in your alumni network who is in a position to help you find a job or advance in your field. Just take advantage of the networking opportunities available to you and hope for the best.
If all else fails, you could always troon out and get a diversity sinecure.
/sneed
 
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Graduating from college in May. I'm actually taking a course that is designed to help people with my degree find a job easier.

Megaroad 2012 said:
Join the Air Force, they're anal for people with college degrees and you might get a sweet enlistment bonus.
Click to expand...
This is actually sorta my backup plan. Sweet military benefits plus I get to put my degree to good use.
 
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Like other people have mentioned the military is a great option. Even just joining the National Guard or the Reserves will get some cash and job experience. Plus with a bachelors I believe you'd be eligible to do officers school which would get you some pretty good pay even just for the one weekend months.

Another way to get started with a degree is to get your foot the door with something simpler, I know a family member who got a Bachelors in CS and got a warehouse job with a large food service company. He was only in there for three months before he was able to transfer to a sales job (though with an econ degree I'm sure you could get a accountant or admin job) and in the meantime he made 19-21 bucks an hour.
 
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To be fair, I wouldn't fail at learning Java and say you "can't code". It's a very dense language, and (generally speaking), OOP is a bad starting point. I recommend Python to people who have tried and failed at other languages and they generally feel empowered by how easy it is to jump in and get started without typing "public static int system.computer.monitor.screen.text.print.line".

STEM is great, but ultimately you need to be built for it. Recruiters were quick to tell me there was in-office ping pong tables, arcade games, and a keg, but left out long work hours (40 hour week? LOL), crunch, and the inevitable long-term health effects of sitting/standing in a fucking office all day. Money is overrated - $100k/year won't make you happy if it means burning out by 30.

Education is a life-long pursuit. Many people forget that. Your degree is one thing, but the stuff you do in your free time matters more than you think.
 
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Economics is only a useless degree if you have no initiative. It's the best fucking degree you can get outside of the technical (accounting, engineering, programming, etc.) fields.
 
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