Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wonder if OP attended a school that was not super pre-professional? I was a MC kid who went to a top 10 in the late aughts. Agreed that the internet became a HUGE resource at the turn of the century and I buy that getting this information would have required some - but not exhaustive - effort to obtain via visiting the career center etc in the late 90s. But even if I hadn't had the internet around, I was in clubs and classes where affluent students talked about finance/consulting/the path to professional school. I saw students walking around on campus in suits every winter/spring. It was just really hard to miss.

Maybe OP went to a school where most of the class wasn't that interested in Goldman/McKinsey/Harvard Law? And there was a huge emphasis on more do-gooder work? I could see that being the vibe at Brown or a SLAC.

Also OP, I wouldn't let DCUM convince you that everyone who goes to an elite school earns $500K+. I'm a late 30s HYS grad making $225K in house after several years in Big Law. Hoping to make the leap to $300K+ in a few years when my kids are older. My former classmates making $500K are in big law. Even the in house lawyers aren't really there yet. If I had to guess, I would say most of my class, including public interest, are $100-300k range, again outside of Big Law. My friends who went to more normal schools are probably $50k-150k. So I wouldn't agree that anyone with a college degree, moderate effort, and a pulse makes $200k easy. It's a lot harder than that.

I’m sorry but I make a little more than $200k and I’m in my early thirties. It wasn’t that hard at all.

Anonymous wrote:I wonder if OP attended a school that was not super pre-professional? I was a MC kid who went to a top 10 in the late aughts. Agreed that the internet became a HUGE resource at the turn of the century and I buy that getting this information would have required some - but not exhaustive - effort to obtain via visiting the career center etc in the late 90s. But even if I hadn't had the internet around, I was in clubs and classes where affluent students talked about finance/consulting/the path to professional school. I saw students walking around on campus in suits every winter/spring. It was just really hard to miss.

Maybe OP went to a school where most of the class wasn't that interested in Goldman/McKinsey/Harvard Law? And there was a huge emphasis on more do-gooder work? I could see that being the vibe at Brown or a SLAC.

Also OP, I wouldn't let DCUM convince you that everyone who goes to an elite school earns $500K+. I'm a late 30s HYS grad making $225K in house after several years in Big Law. Hoping to make the leap to $300K+ in a few years when my kids are older. My former classmates making $500K are in big law. Even the in house lawyers aren't really there yet. If I had to guess, I would say most of my class, including public interest, are $100-300k range, again outside of Big Law. My friends who went to more normal schools are probably $50k-150k. So I wouldn't agree that anyone with a college degree, moderate effort, and a pulse makes $200k easy. It's a lot harder than that.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wonder if OP attended a school that was not super pre-professional? I was a MC kid who went to a top 10 in the late aughts. Agreed that the internet became a HUGE resource at the turn of the century and I buy that getting this information would have required some - but not exhaustive - effort to obtain via visiting the career center etc in the late 90s. But even if I hadn't had the internet around, I was in clubs and classes where affluent students talked about finance/consulting/the path to professional school. I saw students walking around on campus in suits every winter/spring. It was just really hard to miss.

Maybe OP went to a school where most of the class wasn't that interested in Goldman/McKinsey/Harvard Law? And there was a huge emphasis on more do-gooder work? I could see that being the vibe at Brown or a SLAC.

Also OP, I wouldn't let DCUM convince you that everyone who goes to an elite school earns $500K+. I'm a late 30s HYS grad making $225K in house after several years in Big Law. Hoping to make the leap to $300K+ in a few years when my kids are older. My former classmates making $500K are in big law. Even the in house lawyers aren't really there yet. If I had to guess, I would say most of my class, including public interest, are $100-300k range, again outside of Big Law. My friends who went to more normal schools are probably $50k-150k. So I wouldn't agree that anyone with a college degree, moderate effort, and a pulse makes $200k easy. It's a lot harder than that.

But I don't get that either. Even first-gen/low-income students at, say, Brown understand that the do-gooder jobs are for rich kids and working class kids have to grind it out in STEM. OP should've picked up on this even if she was at a crunchy do-gooder college like Brown.

So maybe this is just something you’re too privileged to get, PP. Some of us don’t know what we don’t know. That applies to the privileged too. You’re just so sure that’s what’s obvious to you because your life has included certain things is obvious to everyone. It’s not. Just like many things that might seem obvious to me are not on your radar and possibly beyond your ability to truly comprehend.

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.

I went to college the same years you went. I found the college I went to online. It was in a different state and I’d never heard of it (one of the big SUNY schools). I had Ethernet in my dorm room. I used Amazon, but only to buy books. I was Googling to get sources for my papers.

Just because you didn’t use the internet doesn’t mean it wasn’t real. People need to stop making declarations.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wonder if OP attended a school that was not super pre-professional? I was a MC kid who went to a top 10 in the late aughts. Agreed that the internet became a HUGE resource at the turn of the century and I buy that getting this information would have required some - but not exhaustive - effort to obtain via visiting the career center etc in the late 90s. But even if I hadn't had the internet around, I was in clubs and classes where affluent students talked about finance/consulting/the path to professional school. I saw students walking around on campus in suits every winter/spring. It was just really hard to miss.

Maybe OP went to a school where most of the class wasn't that interested in Goldman/McKinsey/Harvard Law? And there was a huge emphasis on more do-gooder work? I could see that being the vibe at Brown or a SLAC.

Also OP, I wouldn't let DCUM convince you that everyone who goes to an elite school earns $500K+. I'm a late 30s HYS grad making $225K in house after several years in Big Law. Hoping to make the leap to $300K+ in a few years when my kids are older. My former classmates making $500K are in big law. Even the in house lawyers aren't really there yet. If I had to guess, I would say most of my class, including public interest, are $100-300k range, again outside of Big Law. My friends who went to more normal schools are probably $50k-150k. So I wouldn't agree that anyone with a college degree, moderate effort, and a pulse makes $200k easy. It's a lot harder than that.

But I don't get that either. Even first-gen/low-income students at, say, Brown understand that the do-gooder jobs are for rich kids and working class kids have to grind it out in STEM. OP should've picked up on this even if she was at a crunchy do-gooder college like Brown.

So maybe this is just something you’re too privileged to get, PP. Some of us don’t know what we don’t know. That applies to the privileged too. You’re just so sure that’s what’s obvious to you because your life has included certain things is obvious to everyone. It’s not. Just like many things that might seem obvious to me are not on your radar and possibly beyond your ability to truly comprehend.

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.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op, I was like you until I met the right mentor—in my late thirties. At 41, I jumped to a leadership role in a growing tech company. It can happen, op, if you find the right mentor and keep working hard.

That’s amazing. I’ve been trying to transition into Big Tech, but only offers I’ve had are at startups for LESS pay.

How did you find the mentor, what made them decide to invest in you even as you worked for different organizations?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wonder if OP attended a school that was not super pre-professional? I was a MC kid who went to a top 10 in the late aughts. Agreed that the internet became a HUGE resource at the turn of the century and I buy that getting this information would have required some - but not exhaustive - effort to obtain via visiting the career center etc in the late 90s. But even if I hadn't had the internet around, I was in clubs and classes where affluent students talked about finance/consulting/the path to professional school. I saw students walking around on campus in suits every winter/spring. It was just really hard to miss.

Maybe OP went to a school where most of the class wasn't that interested in Goldman/McKinsey/Harvard Law? And there was a huge emphasis on more do-gooder work? I could see that being the vibe at Brown or a SLAC.

Also OP, I wouldn't let DCUM convince you that everyone who goes to an elite school earns $500K+. I'm a late 30s HYS grad making $225K in house after several years in Big Law. Hoping to make the leap to $300K+ in a few years when my kids are older. My former classmates making $500K are in big law. Even the in house lawyers aren't really there yet. If I had to guess, I would say most of my class, including public interest, are $100-300k range, again outside of Big Law. My friends who went to more normal schools are probably $50k-150k. So I wouldn't agree that anyone with a college degree, moderate effort, and a pulse makes $200k easy. It's a lot harder than that.

But I don't get that either. Even first-gen/low-income students at, say, Brown understand that the do-gooder jobs are for rich kids and working class kids have to grind it out in STEM. OP should've picked up on this even if she was at a crunchy do-gooder college like Brown.

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I agree - this stuff was incomprehensible in 1998 without internet communities - and especially among women, who don't talk about jobs. Nonprofit "fun" jobs paid $24k out of college. And corporate jobs were paying $40k. That difference was triffling back then, and we didn't know that the nonprofit job was still paying $55k 20 years later while the corporate job is paying $175k. People act like all this was common knowledge, and being discussed by students on campus or with families. But the students in my circles were not discussing those things back then, and if you didn't have families in those worlds, you just weren't even thinking to ask these questions. WHen i went to law school 5 years later, it was a total different ball game - all the information was publicly available and widely discussed among students. But not in undergrad in the 90s.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow this resonates for me! It feels like shit that people without guidance or role models can often end up making all of the wrong decisions out of pure class ignorance. It sucks because everyone thinks there is something wrong with you.

I don't get it. If you were really working class/middle class, why did you major in English? Pretty much all the non-wealthy students at my Ivy majored in STEM or went to law school or finance.

OP here. I majored in STEM. But a field of STEM famous for low salaries; I loved the science behind it and was prioritized "interesting" and "meaningful" work and an interesting places to live -- without understanding the costs that accompanied such places. A lot of engineering fields outside of CS have higher starting salaries with a BS but plateau very quickly and much lower than the salaries discussed here.

Law/medicine? The prospect of taking out more debt than 4x what parent's house was worth? That was unimaginable. And its a huge risk for LMC students -- what if you get to year 3 of med school and can't complete for whatever reason? It's not like the debt is forgiven...

This is definitively not true. My med school class was filled with LMC kids (disproportionately Asian-American). And "not completing" your MD or JD is just simply not an option for working-class kids. The fact that the idea of quitting med school/law school even crossed your mind shows that you are weak-willed.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wonder if OP attended a school that was not super pre-professional? I was a MC kid who went to a top 10 in the late aughts. Agreed that the internet became a HUGE resource at the turn of the century and I buy that getting this information would have required some - but not exhaustive - effort to obtain via visiting the career center etc in the late 90s. But even if I hadn't had the internet around, I was in clubs and classes where affluent students talked about finance/consulting/the path to professional school. I saw students walking around on campus in suits every winter/spring. It was just really hard to miss.

Maybe OP went to a school where most of the class wasn't that interested in Goldman/McKinsey/Harvard Law? And there was a huge emphasis on more do-gooder work? I could see that being the vibe at Brown or a SLAC.

Also OP, I wouldn't let DCUM convince you that everyone who goes to an elite school earns $500K+. I'm a late 30s HYS grad making $225K in house after several years in Big Law. Hoping to make the leap to $300K+ in a few years when my kids are older. My former classmates making $500K are in big law. Even the in house lawyers aren't really there yet. If I had to guess, I would say most of my class, including public interest, are $100-300k range, again outside of Big Law. My friends who went to more normal schools are probably $50k-150k. So I wouldn't agree that anyone with a college degree, moderate effort, and a pulse makes $200k easy. It's a lot harder than that.

But I don't get that either. Even first-gen/low-income students at, say, Brown understand that the do-gooder jobs are for rich kids and working class kids have to grind it out in STEM. OP should've picked up on this even if she was at a crunchy do-gooder college like Brown.

Anonymous wrote:I wonder if OP attended a school that was not super pre-professional? I was a MC kid who went to a top 10 in the late aughts. Agreed that the internet became a HUGE resource at the turn of the century and I buy that getting this information would have required some - but not exhaustive - effort to obtain via visiting the career center etc in the late 90s. But even if I hadn't had the internet around, I was in clubs and classes where affluent students talked about finance/consulting/the path to professional school. I saw students walking around on campus in suits every winter/spring. It was just really hard to miss.

Maybe OP went to a school where most of the class wasn't that interested in Goldman/McKinsey/Harvard Law? And there was a huge emphasis on more do-gooder work? I could see that being the vibe at Brown or a SLAC.

Also OP, I wouldn't let DCUM convince you that everyone who goes to an elite school earns $500K+. I'm a late 30s HYS grad making $225K in house after several years in Big Law. Hoping to make the leap to $300K+ in a few years when my kids are older. My former classmates making $500K are in big law. Even the in house lawyers aren't really there yet. If I had to guess, I would say most of my class, including public interest, are $100-300k range, again outside of Big Law. My friends who went to more normal schools are probably $50k-150k. So I wouldn't agree that anyone with a college degree, moderate effort, and a pulse makes $200k easy. It's a lot harder than that.

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.