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

[Anonymous]

OP, I was an English major. Thinking that an English major = jobs on media/publishing is a fantasy, unless there are family connections/trust funds.
Your daughter is competing with students who majored in media/communications, and were hustling for internships and coops since freshman year. Many did communications internships for their university during the school year, possibly even for credit (so while taking fewer classes). They are graduating with meaningful experience in their resumes.

Just because your daughter rocks at dissecting metaphors doesn’t mean she’s bound to snag a job at Condé Nast. I don’t love how pre-professional college has become, BUT students need to work on resume building during college. This what what the successful job applicants are doing, and they are her competition.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is a thread that all college students should read.

It's also why I am not willing to paying $200K for a degree where there is no ROI.

+1

No theatre majors, for example.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My wife graduated in 2010 with a degree in English from University of Virginia with ZERO experience and never had a job in her life. She took off one semester in her senior year and attended as many technology conferences as she could even though she knew nothing about technologies other than powering on/off her Apple macbook. Many of the conferences let her in free of charge, I guess because of her good look, and she made her "networking" there. At one of those conferences, she met my mother, who was an SES in the federal government at the time, over lunch and they quickly became friends. My now wife told my mother that she was looking for a job so my mother picked up the phone and called one of the government contractors that reported to her and asked them if they were willing to hire someone with an English major for technical writing documentation. They of course said yes and paid her a salary of 80K per year. When my mother left the government for the private sector, she took my now wife with her and promoted her to Technical Project Manager (TPM) and her salary went from 90K to 150K. I met my wife at my mother's Christmas party and the rest is history. My wife is now a SVP at a F500 company through one of my mother's friends. It is about connections. YMMV.

The point here is that technology companies need English majors too, not just Engineering and CS. OP's kid needs to go to technology conferences and meet people and it will definitely help. He/she only needs one person to say yes and go from there. Most of the time, it is the English major people that do well in technology companies. Someone needs to manage those tech people.

OP—

This is the post you should share with your child.

—DP

You mean to tell her that she can get a job through nepotism? What if nepotism does not work out?

Read the story...he got his wife through nepotism, but she got the job on her own.

[Anonymous]

Huh. No. We paid $55k (total, not per year) for my daughter's degree and she's had no issue finding well paying, full time employment. But we also thought about job prospects and that kind of thing BEFORE, y'know, signing the check and her picking a major. People who don't do the tiniest bit of legwork upfront on majors, job outlook, etc. and then act all "surprised Pikachu" face when they find out that, surprise surprise, their/their kid's expensive English degree doesn't just automatically result in offers for $70k jobs get no sympathy from me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My wife graduated in 2010 with a degree in English from University of Virginia with ZERO experience and never had a job in her life. She took off one semester in her senior year and attended as many technology conferences as she could even though she knew nothing about technologies other than powering on/off her Apple macbook. Many of the conferences let her in free of charge, I guess because of her good look, and she made her "networking" there. At one of those conferences, she met my mother, who was an SES in the federal government at the time, over lunch and they quickly became friends. My now wife told my mother that she was looking for a job so my mother picked up the phone and called one of the government contractors that reported to her and asked them if they were willing to hire someone with an English major for technical writing documentation. They of course said yes and paid her a salary of 80K per year. When my mother left the government for the private sector, she took my now wife with her and promoted her to Technical Project Manager (TPM) and her salary went from 90K to 150K. I met my wife at my mother's Christmas party and the rest is history. My wife is now a SVP at a F500 company through one of my mother's friends. It is about connections. YMMV.

The point here is that technology companies need English majors too, not just Engineering and CS. OP's kid needs to go to technology conferences and meet people and it will definitely help. He/she only needs one person to say yes and go from there. Most of the time, it is the English major people that do well in technology companies. Someone needs to manage those tech people.

OP—

This is the post you should share with your child.

—DP

hm.. I work for a FAANG, and the people who manage tech people are not English majors. YMMV.

+1 it is one of those played out internet tropes

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My wife graduated in 2010 with a degree in English from University of Virginia with ZERO experience and never had a job in her life. She took off one semester in her senior year and attended as many technology conferences as she could even though she knew nothing about technologies other than powering on/off her Apple macbook. Many of the conferences let her in free of charge, I guess because of her good look, and she made her "networking" there. At one of those conferences, she met my mother, who was an SES in the federal government at the time, over lunch and they quickly became friends. My now wife told my mother that she was looking for a job so my mother picked up the phone and called one of the government contractors that reported to her and asked them if they were willing to hire someone with an English major for technical writing documentation. They of course said yes and paid her a salary of 80K per year. When my mother left the government for the private sector, she took my now wife with her and promoted her to Technical Project Manager (TPM) and her salary went from 90K to 150K. I met my wife at my mother's Christmas party and the rest is history. My wife is now a SVP at a F500 company through one of my mother's friends. It is about connections. YMMV.

The point here is that technology companies need English majors too, not just Engineering and CS. OP's kid needs to go to technology conferences and meet people and it will definitely help. He/she only needs one person to say yes and go from there. Most of the time, it is the English major people that do well in technology companies. Someone needs to manage those tech people.

OP—

This is the post you should share with your child.

—DP

hm.. I work for a FAANG, and the people who manage tech people are not English majors. YMMV.

+1 it is one of those played out internet tropes

No it is NOT. There are plenty of non-tech companies with non-tech people manage techies, especially in the government and finance. FAANG is just a small segment of tech companies.

[Anonymous]

Define underemployed.
English major here but I graduated before the publishing industry was decimated which helped me. Always worked in tech-related writing, initially for technology trade publications and later in competitive intelligence for the tech industry.
Great field but not easy.
I would not recommend the major today unless the student wants to write or teach. Or pick a second major (e.g. something business-related).

[Anonymous]

200k for four years is sadly now a mediocre lower tier school.

Cough up $350k for a good school.

[Anonymous]

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.

This is a problem too. English isn't "fuzzie"? It's a demanding art that can also be very precise and technical? Some of the best fiction is almost mathematical in its precision.

I'm getting the feeling that your kid may not have a job because the kid isn't working hard for one.

[Anonymous]

Tell your kid to become an expert in ChatGPT and then look at AI Prompt positions.

Too many of the "success" stories listed above are in positions that won't exist within 2-3 years. Technical writing is easily replaced by AI, although someone will have to know when the AI "hallucinates".

[Anonymous]

PSA for those in the back. Internships. Internships. Internships. More important that than the major or the school name (though major and the school name can affect the ability to get internships). Your kid should have 2 good ones before they graduate, even if they are in area that they don't think is for them. Internships lead to jobs, not degrees.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Come on don’t blame the “career center.” Finding first jobs can happen quickly or take a while, obviously, depending on the industry and the approach that someone takes to jobhunting. Colleges have resources, but they’re certainly not responsible for handing anyone a job.

+1

Did the kid get any internships/do research? What was the kid's major? If you are in CS/Engineering, finding a job is fairly easy. Major in Russian lit and you have to work a bit harder to find a job---there are not job postings for that. Search for jobs that just require any degree and TAKE ONE. It may not be perfect, but you cannot expect that with certain degrees.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, I was an English major. Thinking that an English major = jobs on media/publishing is a fantasy, unless there are family connections/trust funds.
Your daughter is competing with students who majored in media/communications, and were hustling for internships and coops since freshman year. Many did communications internships for their university during the school year, possibly even for credit (so while taking fewer classes). They are graduating with meaningful experience in their resumes.

Just because your daughter rocks at dissecting metaphors doesn’t mean she’s bound to snag a job at Condé Nast. I don’t love how pre-professional college has become, BUT students need to work on resume building during college. This what what the successful job applicants are doing, and they are her competition.

+1

[Anonymous]

I'm so curious to hear back from OP about what their child would like to do, or has done in the past workwise. I was an English major a long time ago, and it's likely my kids will follow similar paths. I know things have changed a lot, but really do wonder what their experience and expectations are.

[Anonymous]

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.

What exactly do you mean by "not willing to be underemployed"? Your kid needs to take any job that requires a college degree. And go from there. Sometimes jobs in media/publishing might be unpaid internships. They may need to do one of those for 3 months to get some experience and work their way into a paying position. Ideally they should have done that during the summers in college