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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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?

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.