Squandered elite education

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Sorry, I was trying to be somewhat anonymous -- I mean how many Ivy league grads work for Fed contractors But I did miss the question about age, but I graduated 95-99 timeframe. For reference, Glassdoor founded in 2007, and LinkedIn in 2002. My first jobs I mailed in my applications!

PP. Thanks, OP, and I owe you an apology. Thanks for coming back and clarifying. I respect your concerns.

I'm also going to post a thread like this that popped up a while ago. One poster included an analogy that I think may soothe your soul - she does a great job of balancing compassion and accountability. This related to a woman who went into the arts and didn't figure out until middle age that all her peers were trust funders - she was MC. The thread also broadly discusses why some people have more savvy than others in figuring this stuff out (a point also raised here).

Here's how this happens. It's not ultra common, but it does happen, and it's not so simple as "make better choices". Because many of the choices are made before the person has the necessary info, and often they are working on information that is bad or very misleading:

- Larla grows up in rural or remote part of the country. Low cost of living, middle or working class parents who don't struggle a ton to make ends meet because low COL. Larla has pleasant childhood without a lot of class strife thanks to this.

- Larla is very good at school, and opportunities in this area are limited. It's not near a larger city. The area doesn't have a ton of arts, culture, or commerce. Larla very quickly develops interest in leaving area because of these limitations and because they are very successful academically, this starts to feel like a real possibility.

- Larla goes to college far away, a "good school" likely with some or a lot of merit aid. Larla's grades and test scores qualified her for school, but her admission probably has a lot to do with her - background too -- these schools like diversity and being from some remote place stands out.

- Maybe the school is in a big city, but maybe in little college town, but either way, winds up in a student population with people from much more cosmopolitan backgrounds. Some are wealthy, some are UMC, some might be MC or WC but from places with greater diversity (of people and experiences). This means everyone understands a lot more about how the world works than Larla, even the other kids on financial aid and who have to work. Larla is straight up naive.

- Larla makes friends, and her friends educate her a bit about the world. The problem is, they are naive too, because they don't even understand what they know. They explain stuff to Larla, but it overemphasizes the fairness of the system. They gloss over stuff like the value of family connections or the fact that they are from families that really, really support and emphasize higher education (something Larla's family probably doesn't value to the same degree because of very different environments and circumstances). Larla starts to think she's figuring things out, but she's only getting a very small part of the picture.

- Larla makes career choices, decides where to move after school, based on her naive assumptions coupled with a pretty incomplete explanation of the world gleaned from young people who are really still just figuring it out. What Larla could really use at this point is a parent or relative who can say "Whoa, wait -- some of these kids have trust funds. Some of them can live in their aunt's apartment while they intern. Some of them have parents who will will do anything to cover the cost of a graduate degree because it's important to them. You need to make different choices based on your specific situation. How about Philly instead of NYC? How about marketing instead of publishing? Maybe what you really want is to write -- get an ed degree, teach high school English, and write! Or pursue an academic degree but get used to living in midwestern college towns, which are at least cheap."

- So instead, Larla figures this out on her own over the course of a decade or so. It's revealed in fits and starts, and often she only learns a key piece of information after it's too late to do much with it (like that an MFA is treated as required in publishing, but has no actual value in terms of earning, something that should actually be a required release of info before anyone enrolls in an MFA program). She also gets deeper into a career and social circle that will simply reinforce her value system, making it harder and harder to pull herself out. She might contemplate moving to Chicago or Portland or Denver, but her NY friends will say "OMG no, I could never" and she's only 28 and her family doesn't understand her anymore either, so she holds onto those values even though they don't serve her.

It's a sucky thing. Yes, she was naive and stupid and made bad choices. But it's also kind of hard to blame her because she's kind of been thrown to the wolves. Her university probably should have offered her some kind of practical economic education, but that would require being honest about their student body and their funding and the value of their degree, so: no. Same with the MFA. Her friends are self-interested in believing that they earned their way (to a degree they may have, in other ways not). Also, Larla doesn't have a stereotypical hard luck upbringing. She's not from poverty, her parents have steady jobs, she had a nice childhood. The fact that it in no way prepared her for the life she is now leading doesn't concern anyone because she is a [almost certainly white] middle class lady with a fancy college degree. It's just that none of those things are really helping her right now and she'd have to go back in time, or totally upend her entire values system, to change it. It's what she should do, but it's understandable that she is struggling.

I feel really bad for people in this situation. This is why it helps to have savvy parents who get how the world works, why you are lucky to find mentors or honest friends who tell it like it is. It can save you. Some people never get that and they get stuck.

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/210/791426.page

Wow, damn, I am Larla! Replace publishing with museum work, and NY with Boston/DC, but that's it.

And I thought I was successful because I have a job in the *high* five figures, even if it's a hefty commute from where I can afford to live to my DC job. That's the sad thing - if it weren't from DCUM, I'd be able to think of my wealthy successful friends as the outliers and me as the norm, but this forum really does have a consistent message that everyone makes six figures with a college degree except morons.

Same here! Does anyone know how to fond others that relate to this is the DC area? Is there like a certain bar they go to or scene/activity or something because I would love to find people that “get it”?

Uh, well, a lot of us live in places like Frederick and Manassas. Maybe Hyattsville and Silver Spring closer in?

Mt Rainer probably has lots of these types.

[Anonymous]

NP. When i was at a big public school 1997-2001, literally no one i knew was networking, sending letters, tracking down internships, etc. I remember there being on campus job fairs periodically. I don't know anyone who went. We should have been. And we were lazy. But this was pre real internet. As others have said, you don't know what you don't know. I don't know how we all thought we were going to get jobs. Most of us lingered in non impressive jobs until we went back to grad school within a year or two. Summer jobs we usually found after we went home. We worked in lawn care and camps and other jobs that were summer only.

In hindsight, if i'd put any effort into creative job hunting back then, it would have been SO easy to end up on an amazing job path. Because no one else was doing it.

I actually probably put more legwork into it than others, solely because i tried to find a job a few weeks before my first summer (which rehired me in my second summer). And i did seek out an internship in a different city during my third year summer, and that turned into a job post-school. But you want to know how i found those jobs? The one i got for my first summer.... my sister had finished college a year prior and was looking to change jobs. She went to the "job center" in my home town and happened to see a bulletin board posting for a summer job that she thought sounded interesting for me. A bulletin board job posting at a job center. In 1998. By the time i found my internship two years later, i was able to search online. I found a webpage with DC internships - it was literally just a text based repository, non-alphabetized, not filtered internships throughout DC. I had to submit by resume by paper.

In any event, i'm a new poster and i don't like the crap people are dumping on OP. I think people don't realize what a different world it was before the internet existed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NP. When i was at a big public school 1997-2001, literally no one i knew was networking, sending letters, tracking down internships, etc. I remember there being on campus job fairs periodically. I don't know anyone who went. We should have been. And we were lazy. But this was pre real internet. As others have said, you don't know what you don't know. I don't know how we all thought we were going to get jobs. Most of us lingered in non impressive jobs until we went back to grad school within a year or two. Summer jobs we usually found after we went home. We worked in lawn care and camps and other jobs that were summer only.

In hindsight, if i'd put any effort into creative job hunting back then, it would have been SO easy to end up on an amazing job path. Because no one else was doing it.

I actually probably put more legwork into it than others, solely because i tried to find a job a few weeks before my first summer (which rehired me in my second summer). And i did seek out an internship in a different city during my third year summer, and that turned into a job post-school. But you want to know how i found those jobs? The one i got for my first summer.... my sister had finished college a year prior and was looking to change jobs. She went to the "job center" in my home town and happened to see a bulletin board posting for a summer job that she thought sounded interesting for me. A bulletin board job posting at a job center. In 1998. By the time i found my internship two years later, i was able to search online. I found a webpage with DC internships - it was literally just a text based repository, non-alphabetized, not filtered internships throughout DC. I had to submit by resume by paper.

In any event, i'm a new poster and i don't like the crap people are dumping on OP. I think people don't realize what a different world it was before the internet existed.

Sure but you were at a public school. The recruiting at the ivies has always been intense. That’s the whole point ivies gave you opportunities.

[Anonymous]

I was at an Ivy starting 2002, and everyone my freshman year knew what’s up, even the middle class ones. And Internet was already a thing then.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was at an Ivy starting 2002, and everyone my freshman year knew what’s up, even the middle class ones. And Internet was already a thing then.

+100

Same here. Graduated from HYP in 2006.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP. When i was at a big public school 1997-2001, literally no one i knew was networking, sending letters, tracking down internships, etc. I remember there being on campus job fairs periodically. I don't know anyone who went. We should have been. And we were lazy. But this was pre real internet. As others have said, you don't know what you don't know. I don't know how we all thought we were going to get jobs. Most of us lingered in non impressive jobs until we went back to grad school within a year or two. Summer jobs we usually found after we went home. We worked in lawn care and camps and other jobs that were summer only.

In hindsight, if i'd put any effort into creative job hunting back then, it would have been SO easy to end up on an amazing job path. Because no one else was doing it.

I actually probably put more legwork into it than others, solely because i tried to find a job a few weeks before my first summer (which rehired me in my second summer). And i did seek out an internship in a different city during my third year summer, and that turned into a job post-school. But you want to know how i found those jobs? The one i got for my first summer.... my sister had finished college a year prior and was looking to change jobs. She went to the "job center" in my home town and happened to see a bulletin board posting for a summer job that she thought sounded interesting for me. A bulletin board job posting at a job center. In 1998. By the time i found my internship two years later, i was able to search online. I found a webpage with DC internships - it was literally just a text based repository, non-alphabetized, not filtered internships throughout DC. I had to submit by resume by paper.

In any event, i'm a new poster and i don't like the crap people are dumping on OP. I think people don't realize what a different world it was before the internet existed.

Sure but you were at a public school. The recruiting at the ivies has always been intense. That’s the whole point ivies gave you opportunities.

+1000

Seriously, did you not see the people running around you junior fall in their poorly-fitting blazers for corporate recruiting?

[Anonymous]

NP but i want to echo a general theme that i don't think gets shouted enough: That women undersell their salary potential.

Women NEVER talk about salaries. We don't talk about it with our mothers or our friends in HS or college. We talk about doing things that make us happy. Meanwhile, men are talking about salaries. Dads are telling their sons what they make. Dads are talking about salary ranges when it comes to job choices. But this is taboo for women. Why do you think women are also worse salary negotiators once they are job-hunting?

So then women graduate college and target the lowest fruit, the warmest fuzziest jobs - like museum intern and magazine intern. After a year, maybe they get an entry level admin job. Essentially a secretary - something you don't even need a college degree for. And they talk amongst their friends, also all making terrible money and think it's all normal.

Then -- women on this site and others - start citing national employment and salary statistics for why making $45k is good money, and we live in a bubble if we're making over six figures. Because the average household income in the US is something like $50k. But they ignore that those "average" and "median" numbers are skewed by the 40% of americans who are retired, 10% who are full time or PT students, stay at home parents, moms who work in bonbon jobs just to get out of the house because their spouse is the primary earner, etc. And the "payroll" numbers ignore anyone self employed (which includes many high earners) and i think bonuses too. Yes, my friends in DC live in a bubble and make high salaries. But DH went to a state school in the south, and his group of friends (now in the late 40s) came from varied backgrounds - some like DH and his best friend, very poor. But all of them are making $200k+. That's pretty standard money for someone with non-garbage college degree in the middle of their career, so long as they put any effort into being a primary (or equal) breadwinner.

I can't get over how many women on here, and some other well educated forums i spend time on, justify their own low salaries, completely ignoring the financial realities of the men around them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP. When i was at a big public school 1997-2001, literally no one i knew was networking, sending letters, tracking down internships, etc. I remember there being on campus job fairs periodically. I don't know anyone who went. We should have been. And we were lazy. But this was pre real internet. As others have said, you don't know what you don't know. I don't know how we all thought we were going to get jobs. Most of us lingered in non impressive jobs until we went back to grad school within a year or two. Summer jobs we usually found after we went home. We worked in lawn care and camps and other jobs that were summer only.

In hindsight, if i'd put any effort into creative job hunting back then, it would have been SO easy to end up on an amazing job path. Because no one else was doing it.

I actually probably put more legwork into it than others, solely because i tried to find a job a few weeks before my first summer (which rehired me in my second summer). And i did seek out an internship in a different city during my third year summer, and that turned into a job post-school. But you want to know how i found those jobs? The one i got for my first summer.... my sister had finished college a year prior and was looking to change jobs. She went to the "job center" in my home town and happened to see a bulletin board posting for a summer job that she thought sounded interesting for me. A bulletin board job posting at a job center. In 1998. By the time i found my internship two years later, i was able to search online. I found a webpage with DC internships - it was literally just a text based repository, non-alphabetized, not filtered internships throughout DC. I had to submit by resume by paper.

In any event, i'm a new poster and i don't like the crap people are dumping on OP. I think people don't realize what a different world it was before the internet existed.

Sure but you were at a public school. The recruiting at the ivies has always been intense. That’s the whole point ivies gave you opportunities.

+1000

Seriously, did you not see the people running around you junior fall in their poorly-fitting blazers for corporate recruiting?

Like i said, i was at a big public. I never saw someone on campus EVER in four years wearing a blazer or a work interview outfit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was at an Ivy starting 2002, and everyone my freshman year knew what’s up, even the middle class ones. And Internet was already a thing then.

+100

Same here. Graduated from HYP in 2006.

I don't think these last two posters realize the difference in the internet in 2002/2006 versus 1999 (which is when i'm assuming OP was still finishing school, since she was employed in the dot com bust).

Not only were jobs and internships not reliably available online. More important, there was zero community online. By the time i applied to law school in 2002, there were some rumblings of very basic posts online giving some tips regarding what grades you needed to get into different law schools. It was bare bones info even then. People weren't posting the minutia of stuff like how to work summer jobs, or what info to include in your application essay. But back in 1999 - webpages were like a corporate logo with a "contact us" icon. Big difference in time. By 2004 i was doing my law school on campus interview process all through online applications. Huge change in a short time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP. When i was at a big public school 1997-2001, literally no one i knew was networking, sending letters, tracking down internships, etc. I remember there being on campus job fairs periodically. I don't know anyone who went. We should have been. And we were lazy. But this was pre real internet. As others have said, you don't know what you don't know. I don't know how we all thought we were going to get jobs. Most of us lingered in non impressive jobs until we went back to grad school within a year or two. Summer jobs we usually found after we went home. We worked in lawn care and camps and other jobs that were summer only.

In hindsight, if i'd put any effort into creative job hunting back then, it would have been SO easy to end up on an amazing job path. Because no one else was doing it.

I actually probably put more legwork into it than others, solely because i tried to find a job a few weeks before my first summer (which rehired me in my second summer). And i did seek out an internship in a different city during my third year summer, and that turned into a job post-school. But you want to know how i found those jobs? The one i got for my first summer.... my sister had finished college a year prior and was looking to change jobs. She went to the "job center" in my home town and happened to see a bulletin board posting for a summer job that she thought sounded interesting for me. A bulletin board job posting at a job center. In 1998. By the time i found my internship two years later, i was able to search online. I found a webpage with DC internships - it was literally just a text based repository, non-alphabetized, not filtered internships throughout DC. I had to submit by resume by paper.

In any event, i'm a new poster and i don't like the crap people are dumping on OP. I think people don't realize what a different world it was before the internet existed.

Sure but you were at a public school. The recruiting at the ivies has always been intense. That’s the whole point ivies gave you opportunities.

+1000

Seriously, did you not see the people running around you junior fall in their poorly-fitting blazers for corporate recruiting?

Like i said, i was at a big public. I never saw someone on campus EVER in four years wearing a blazer or a work interview outfit.

So your experience is not relevant. We are talking about OP going to an Ivy and not taking full advantage of the opportunities offered.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was at an Ivy starting 2002, and everyone my freshman year knew what’s up, even the middle class ones. And Internet was already a thing then.

+100

Same here. Graduated from HYP in 2006.

I don't think these last two posters realize the difference in the internet in 2002/2006 versus 1999 (which is when i'm assuming OP was still finishing school, since she was employed in the dot com bust).

Not only were jobs and internships not reliably available online. More important, there was zero community online. By the time i applied to law school in 2002, there were some rumblings of very basic posts online giving some tips regarding what grades you needed to get into different law schools. It was bare bones info even then. People weren't posting the minutia of stuff like how to work summer jobs, or what info to include in your application essay. But back in 1999 - webpages were like a corporate logo with a "contact us" icon. Big difference in time. By 2004 i was doing my law school on campus interview process all through online applications. Huge change in a short time.

And what the posters are pointing out is that even without the internet recruiting on these elite campuses were intense and with some small effort a student could find out relevant information about careers. Not everything is served up on a silver platter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was at an Ivy starting 2002, and everyone my freshman year knew what’s up, even the middle class ones. And Internet was already a thing then.

+100

Same here. Graduated from HYP in 2006.

I don't think these last two posters realize the difference in the internet in 2002/2006 versus 1999 (which is when i'm assuming OP was still finishing school, since she was employed in the dot com bust).

Not only were jobs and internships not reliably available online. More important, there was zero community online. By the time i applied to law school in 2002, there were some rumblings of very basic posts online giving some tips regarding what grades you needed to get into different law schools. It was bare bones info even then. People weren't posting the minutia of stuff like how to work summer jobs, or what info to include in your application essay. But back in 1999 - webpages were like a corporate logo with a "contact us" icon. Big difference in time. By 2004 i was doing my law school on campus interview process all through online applications. Huge change in a short time.

And what the posters are pointing out is that even without the internet recruiting on these elite campuses were intense and with some small effort a student could find out relevant information about careers. Not everything is served up on a silver platter.

I don’t think you understand that there was no discussion about salary with any of my peers, no one mentioned that the job I pursued would top out at 100 K. Meanwhile other careers will go up to have $500k+. It just was not something you talked about. Everyone was starting out within the same narrow range for starting salaries, which was more money than my parents had ever earned together. Likewise COL in metro areas wasn’t really available — especially when you filter for school quality or commute; you might find a magazine article listing metros by average housing prices over the entire region.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was at an Ivy starting 2002, and everyone my freshman year knew what’s up, even the middle class ones. And Internet was already a thing then.

+100

Same here. Graduated from HYP in 2006.

I don't think these last two posters realize the difference in the internet in 2002/2006 versus 1999 (which is when i'm assuming OP was still finishing school, since she was employed in the dot com bust).

Not only were jobs and internships not reliably available online. More important, there was zero community online. By the time i applied to law school in 2002, there were some rumblings of very basic posts online giving some tips regarding what grades you needed to get into different law schools. It was bare bones info even then. People weren't posting the minutia of stuff like how to work summer jobs, or what info to include in your application essay. But back in 1999 - webpages were like a corporate logo with a "contact us" icon. Big difference in time. By 2004 i was doing my law school on campus interview process all through online applications. Huge change in a short time.

And what the posters are pointing out is that even without the internet recruiting on these elite campuses were intense and with some small effort a student could find out relevant information about careers. Not everything is served up on a silver platter.

So recruiters candidly talk about salary ranges and growth potential? I certainly don’t remember that…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was at an Ivy starting 2002, and everyone my freshman year knew what’s up, even the middle class ones. And Internet was already a thing then.

+100

Same here. Graduated from HYP in 2006.

I don't think these last two posters realize the difference in the internet in 2002/2006 versus 1999 (which is when i'm assuming OP was still finishing school, since she was employed in the dot com bust).

Not only were jobs and internships not reliably available online. More important, there was zero community online. By the time i applied to law school in 2002, there were some rumblings of very basic posts online giving some tips regarding what grades you needed to get into different law schools. It was bare bones info even then. People weren't posting the minutia of stuff like how to work summer jobs, or what info to include in your application essay. But back in 1999 - webpages were like a corporate logo with a "contact us" icon. Big difference in time. By 2004 i was doing my law school on campus interview process all through online applications. Huge change in a short time.

And what the posters are pointing out is that even without the internet recruiting on these elite campuses were intense and with some small effort a student could find out relevant information about careers. Not everything is served up on a silver platter.

So recruiters candidly talk about salary ranges and growth potential? I certainly don’t remember that…

Salary may be taboo but you could certainly ask questions about growth potential and get an idea. But even seeing which booth have the longest lines would give you an idea what was in demand.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was at an Ivy starting 2002, and everyone my freshman year knew what’s up, even the middle class ones. And Internet was already a thing then.

+100

Same here. Graduated from HYP in 2006.

I don't think these last two posters realize the difference in the internet in 2002/2006 versus 1999 (which is when i'm assuming OP was still finishing school, since she was employed in the dot com bust).

Not only were jobs and internships not reliably available online. More important, there was zero community online. By the time i applied to law school in 2002, there were some rumblings of very basic posts online giving some tips regarding what grades you needed to get into different law schools. It was bare bones info even then. People weren't posting the minutia of stuff like how to work summer jobs, or what info to include in your application essay. But back in 1999 - webpages were like a corporate logo with a "contact us" icon. Big difference in time. By 2004 i was doing my law school on campus interview process all through online applications. Huge change in a short time.

And what the posters are pointing out is that even without the internet recruiting on these elite campuses were intense and with some small effort a student could find out relevant information about careers. Not everything is served up on a silver platter.

I don’t think you understand that there was no discussion about salary with any of my peers, no one mentioned that the job I pursued would top out at 100 K. Meanwhile other careers will go up to have $500k+. It just was not something you talked about. Everyone was starting out within the same narrow range for starting salaries, which was more money than my parents had ever earned together. Likewise COL in metro areas wasn’t really available — especially when you filter for school quality or commute; you might find a magazine article listing metros by average housing prices over the entire region.

Also, $100k sounded like a LOT of money! I truly didn't have a sense of scale. I still don't, honestly, I read DCUM posts saying a decent college degree and moderate effort should get you $200k mid-career easy and I'm like...what?