But what does it cost so much? When you look at the cost of a college education, aside from the actual dollars, there is so much more that goes into it. foregoing all the time you could be spending working, or learning these things on your own. All of the time spent meeting with advisers to decide your career path at 19 year olds (ridiculous) or looking into master's programs or PhD programs. Countless hours studying, which could also be spent working. It's amazing how for those 4 years, you're essentially checked out of the real world. You're thrown headfirst into a world of strict academia, and you don't have time for much else. This, in my humble opinion, is the biggest mistake of the college education system.
Those 4 years you're in school take you completely out of the workforce, for all intents and purposes. Sure, I help down part times jobs through my entire college career. I even started some small businesses and made some money off of them. I worked full time in the summers when I could find the work, and I was broke all the time. Aside from getting an education (which takes on average 5 years nowadays) my resume was essentially sitting in park This is the standard for most all college students. Why? Why on god's green earth would a college, a place where you o to gain the resume you need to land your first "real" job, not also focus HEAVILY on real world resume building? In my humble opinion, I believe that the first thing that should happen when you walk in the door of a college, and select your major, is you get placed into a part time internship actually working in the field. Okay, maybe a semester after. But you should be WORKING in your field as soon as you can.
Why do I believe this so strongly? I got an internship as an accountant my senior year. It was unpaid. No wait, let me back up a step. My junior and senior year, I was looking for an internship. I college job placement office was so inept at landing me a job, that when I went in with my resume, they edited it for me, and said "fix your resume, and then I guess we'll try and find you something" That's right folks, the place I had paid thousands and thousands of dollars to to find me work in my field, basically told me that's too bad. Try elsewhere. What a sham.
So, my junior and senior year, I spent a good portion of my free time cold-calling accounting offices. I would call up and simply ask if they needed help during the tax season, that I wasn't interested in pay, and that I was a junior year accounting student who was eligible to sit for the CPA exam. no one bit. Can you believe that? out of the 50 or so offices I called, not one was interested in free help from a CPA-eligible college student.
Now I'm not sure what that says about what. Does it say that people picture college students as worthless? Does it mean that "entry level" jobs are literally considered charity by the companies that offer them? or does it mean that people were freaked out that I wanted job experience that badly? It could be the latter but I have a feeling that you can't have one without a bit of the other. I didn't even get invited into a place to sit down and meet anyone. Literally nobody wanted to offer me unpaid work for job experience.
My favorite cold call was to H&R Block. I had gotten desperate, and it was my last resort. I called and told them I'm looking for unpaid work to build my resume, and I'm an accounting student at MCLA. The Manager told me that "here at H&R block, we have a rigorous training schedule to get our tax preparers up to snuff, you would never be able to do it without training first" I retort with "well, I'm eligible to sit for the CPA Exam"
She then went on to offer me an interview for a district manager position.
I kindly declined, and told her I had another year of school left. She hung up awkwardly, as did I.
I still, to this day, do not understand why unpaid internship work was not given to me, but I was able to get fired directly into a district manager position at H&R Block.
It seems to me that education sets most of us up for failure. You work hard in school, get decent grades, and keep your head down all 4 years. You look up, and you have a blank resume with the "education" section nice an full. Nobody cares. you're the same as everyone else.
I'm very glad I spent time working hard at part time jobs that built my resume. I'm glad I started small businesses that I can put on there. I'm glad I cold called those accounting offices and failed. Almost all of that goes on my resume. And people look at it and know I can work, and apply my education, and use it to their company’s benefit.
How can you show that as college education becomes more time intensive, takes you farther and farther away from reality, and costs more and more? It makes no sense.
Only in the past 2 years have I started to hear about college programs where they offer job placement, or make internships mandatory. How is this not the very, very first thing that happens? How do you not instantly start looking for an internship? How can you not work in your field for 4 years, just learn about it, and then expect to step in the dour of some company, and then hope you know the right stuff to help them out? hint: you cant. Its a bad system and needs to be reformed.
So if you're a young buck, getting ready to go to college, let me say this first: Do it. But do it smart. community college is cheap, and the parties are crazier. you'll thank me later. Get an associates, keep your grades up, and transfer into the program that makes more sense to you when you're more grown up and know what you want (god do I sound old) Or once you have your associates, and almost no student loan debt, then go get a job instead of going to school right off the bat. see if you like what you want to spend another 2 years learning. If you hate it, oh well, try something else in college. If you don't, all the more power to you.
If you need to go 4 year. work all 4 years. No exceptions. Find work, take work, excel at that work. Prove that you're worth something. at the end of your 4 years at college, you should be able to have a resume not BECAUSE of your college education, but in spite of it. It should just be the cherry on the top of the cake.
Older folks, who have resumes: Build skills, don’t get educations. you don't need them anymore. Go check out websites like Lynda.com, where you can learn just about any modern skill for pennies on the dollar compared to school. And you'll do just fine.
Until Next time.
I agree that it is good to do some work in the field you are choosing because what may sound glorious in theory could be awful in practice. Better to know early on.
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