Any parents out there who paid $200K+ for college, kid did great, and now can't find job?

[Anonymous]

Time for OCS.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:My niece is one of those "expensive" kids. Her parents paid a fortune for her to go to U of Michigan Business school. Majored in Finance. Cannot keep a job. Every few months she is either let go or fired. My sister is heavily in debt because of her.

What a shame; she has a good degree from a great college. Do you know why she can’t keep a job? Hopefully she will get a dose of maturity quickly.

Because she doesn't understand when she needs to shut up and listen. I work in Finance and I witnessed her interactions with her superiors. She is oozing anxiety and at the same time, arrogance and "know it all" attitude. She tries to suck up to people and they are uncomfortable. I tried giving her pointers only to be rebuffed and scolded by my sister "ooh, you are adding to her anxiety". FWIW, my DD went to a state school, got degree in accounting and had the same job for the past 3 years that is now paying for her masters. I used her college fund as a downpayment for HER condo. My niece still lives with her parents.

Glad to hear your daughter is doing well, my son is in a state university in business. Is not going for accounting (didn’t listen to my suggestion!) but has a good head on his shoulders so far. Hope your niece finds her way.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:OP here - major was English -- a beautiful major. The world needs more English majors.... especially from schools well known for their English & humanities departments. That should translate into many jobs in media, publishing, etc. And yes, with what we paid, no guarantees, but I would expect better assistance from the career center. The kid has worked so hard looking for a job and is not willing to be underemployed.

I appreciate the tecchies, but not everyone is made to do that work. The world needs some fuzzies, too. More than ever actually.

BTW - middle class burb family that has worked hard for it.

your kid made college a fun hobby. why would you pay that for an English degree? just read a bunch of books from the public library. you don’t need an english degree to come out with the same result.

You obviously neither have an English degree nor understand the value of one.

There is no value. Check the stats the colleges all track by major and then employment 3 months out and average income. English is abysmal. But hey a good hobby!

Why would you major in a language you speak natively. It's like majoring on how to take dump

[Anonymous]

English majors are AWESOME - I and almost all my hiring managers LOVE them. Esp. if from a top school. Nobody can think and write anymore these days.. English majors/LA majors have that ability to process. Not that Engineers/Attorneys are dumb but something about writing and thinking go together I'm a corporate recruiter.

The thing is, it's harder to "break" into the corporate/white collar world being LA/English. You really have to be willing to start from the very beginning. Temping is a really good way - it's the potential of someone who majors in this field that will catapault them upward but it does take time. Sorry!

Other majors you hit the ground running - I'll do college recruiting for EE and CS all day because it's tech and you either know/don't know it. But with LA/Eng, it's about your ability to think through things and it's more a general talent so to speak so you have to find your groove over time. Rest assured, your kid will!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP your daughter needs to get a job in HR or Sales and marry a professional. English degree is Mrs degree.

You sound old. Regardless of your chronological age, this is such a dated, limited Boomer mindset.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:English majors are AWESOME - I and almost all my hiring managers LOVE them. Esp. if from a top school. Nobody can think and write anymore these days.. English majors/LA majors have that ability to process. Not that Engineers/Attorneys are dumb but something about writing and thinking go together I'm a corporate recruiter.

The thing is, it's harder to "break" into the corporate/white collar world being LA/English. You really have to be willing to start from the very beginning. Temping is a really good way - it's the potential of someone who majors in this field that will catapault them upward but it does take time. Sorry!

Other majors you hit the ground running - I'll do college recruiting for EE and CS all day because it's tech and you either know/don't know it. But with LA/Eng, it's about your ability to think through things and it's more a general talent so to speak so you have to find your groove over time. Rest assured, your kid will!

My Fortune 500 company has many thousands of jobs open and only two Tech Writer positions want English majors. And frankly, those tech writers don't need to come from a "top school", pretty much any school will check the box. Don't pay big bucks for your kid's degree, we don't care.

So... we don't think we need English majors to "think and write". You can teach an engineer to write well enough to get by, you can't teach an English/LA major to do tech stuff.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP your daughter needs to get a job in HR or Sales and marry a professional. English degree is Mrs degree.

You sound old. Regardless of your chronological age, this is such a dated, limited Boomer mindset.

The main problem is that no young man in his right mind wants to marry an English major who has tens of thousands of dollars in student debt. She needs to get out of that hole before she's MRS-worthy.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:My sister works in tech and the hiring is pretty tight these days.

There is always a bull market somewhere in tech...right now it is Machine Learning Engineers and the AI folks if you have any skills.

Know a recent grad in this sector, not happy, hoping to stick it out until vested, but that’s 5 years and what goes up can came down

Sounds employed, though...yes? I assume OP would be ecstatic for their kid to be complaining about their highly-paid ML job.

DP. I can’t imagine the employed friend is an English major. Also tech runs on cheap money so I don’t even buy the premise that ML is booming in terms of hiring at these interest rates.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My sister works in tech and the hiring is pretty tight these days.

There is always a bull market somewhere in tech...right now it is Machine Learning Engineers and the AI folks if you have any skills.

Know a recent grad in this sector, not happy, hoping to stick it out until vested, but that’s 5 years and what goes up can came down

Sounds employed, though...yes? I assume OP would be ecstatic for their kid to be complaining about their highly-paid ML job.

DP. I can’t imagine the employed friend is an English major. Also tech runs on cheap money so I don’t even buy the premise that ML is booming in terms of hiring at these interest rates.

That’s correct, point is all tech hiring is down, even hot fields. True, not an English major, but like OP, did go the expensive small school route rather than UMD. Had all the writing and core requirements that big school engineering students typically avoid. Who’s to say, but the gamble worked—has the hot job, feels fortunate, but trapped in place for now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My sister works in tech and the hiring is pretty tight these days.

There is always a bull market somewhere in tech...right now it is Machine Learning Engineers and the AI folks if you have any skills.

Know a recent grad in this sector, not happy, hoping to stick it out until vested, but that’s 5 years and what goes up can came down

Sounds employed, though...yes? I assume OP would be ecstatic for their kid to be complaining about their highly-paid ML job.

DP. I can’t imagine the employed friend is an English major. Also tech runs on cheap money so I don’t even buy the premise that ML is booming in terms of hiring at these interest rates.

That’s correct, point is all tech hiring is down, even hot fields. True, not an English major, but like OP, did go the expensive small school route rather than UMD. Had all the writing and core requirements that big school engineering students typically avoid. Who’s to say, but the gamble worked—has the hot job, feels fortunate, but trapped in place for now.

Where is your kid physically? I don't disagree that the hot field can turn quickly, but if you have decent AI/ML experience and you are in SFO right now, you are highly sought after. Yes, it is a lot of start-ups poaching from other start-ups (although Google, FB, etc. are expanding their AI workforce...FB just said it was a high priority hiring area even while cutting elsewhere)...but some of those start-ups will become the next Google or get bought by another company...or yes, flame out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Any parents out there who paid $200K+ for college, kid did great, and now can't find job?
Kid graduated from top 20/30 school with honors and career center was completely worthless.

At any decent university, the career center will get a kid summer internships and a position them for job. A Goldman Sachs or Bain consulting job? No, probably not -- those $100K+ gigs go to hyper-competitive college kids with perfect grades, perfect college ECs, and competitive summer internships each year of college. But this can't be led by the parent. You helicopter parents are looking to blame someone when it's your lazy, apathetic and/or unmotivated kid. And your kids are lying to you. They want you to do it all because you've probably been doing it all ("snow plowing") since they were teenagers.

[Anonymous]

My kid did a lucrative CS internship at a small company but with latest hiring freezes at even the bigger tech companies, he didn’t get a return offer (hopefully “yet” as they expect the freezes should lift in the new year).

He has a couple of prospects as a Plan B back up; both pay less than the internship company. And one is in a location that we are not as excited about. But they will do for a “job”. We were betting on him getting 120K+ salary for the 50K we put in per year. Obviously we could afford it; but he’s bummed because he has been doing the math for a new Tesla as his graduation gift to himself.