* Title attributed to the late, great BC sensation, Jazzberry Ram
I just finished reading (skimming, more honestly) an article about Canadian lower education employment wages growing at a faster rate than higher education employment wages. Yes, a lot of this job growth can be attributed to high growth sectors such as construction and mining, but still… it’s a little disheartening for the average recent college graduate.
Are we educating ourselves out of jobs? Or are we just pursuing educations that are not necessarily career ended?
(In good uni-educated fashion, I will define my terms: By “We” I mean many of my peers, aged 21-35ish who have spent 3+ years in a college/university bachelor-type program).
Most of the We’s I know have university degrees. A large number of these We’s are not working in their chosen field, or underemployed in their chosen field. Most of those Not-Working-In-Chosen-Fielders have some type of liberal arts degree. (Self included – Bachelor of Fine Arts, class of 2004). So why the apparent glut of fine art / philosophy / english majors?
Let’s take look at Case Study #1 as an example.
Case Study #1: Me. (I mentioned in a previous post that I was a solipsist.)
Growing up, I was encouraged to follow my dreams, do what I want with my life, never settle for some boring job when I can do whatever I want. Me Me Me!!
Whereas my mother, born 27 years before me, had 2 or 3 choices in her higher educated career path: nurse, teacher, and eventually (and/or in combination with) homemaker.
These days, with the independence-bug bred into us, family-making before 30 is strongly discouraged. So we spend the greater part of our early and mid-20s accruing degrees, life experiences, and debt.
It is not unusual for my husband (on the higher end of his mid-20s, and one of the rarities among my peers who has a degree (non-art, of course) that actually landed him his job), to interview a 30 year old who has never stepped foot inside the door of the Workforce. And it shows.
So if all this excess of book learnin’, and degree earnin’ isn’t helping prepare us for the Workforce, why are we doing it?
Yes, going to university is fun (and hard work, I assure you), but is the price too high for what we end up with? With an average of $17,600 in student loan debt, and employers shaking there heads at how Not Ready recent grads are for the Workforce, it seems like our education investment (or accrued future debt load) is not really earning it’s keep. If it were a roommate, we would have already had a House meeting to present an ultimatum—shape up, or ship out.
Should we be looking at higher education as an investment rather than a necessary life experience? Would that help dissuade the Liberal Arts Glut? (LAGs, because I like coining terms, and one day, one of them will catch on.). I’ll save a more in-depth discussion of The Usefulness of Art School for another post.
Summing up, in question form, as a nod to my first year philosophy professor, Jeffrey Reid, who taught me all about Socratic Method:
Are our (Gen XYs) degree pursuits simply a way of delaying the inevitability of real life? And are our very very expensive brains ever going to produce a satisfactory return on investment?
I was told there would be no math on this exam. -Troy Dyer, Reality Bites
(To confirm my 21-35ish age bracket, because affirmation of belongance (along with makeingupwordance) is how I roll, I googled that Reality Bites quote, and found two Myspace links – both posters in their mid-20s…)
