<p>The more lucrative major comment could also be said about more competitive colleges & universities which get a lot of recruiter activity from Fortune 500 management training programs & elite law firms for paralegal positions. The focus is often on the quality of the school & not one’s major because both the companies & biglaw law firms train the own. They seem to just want the right branding.</p>
<p>lje, if it makes you feel any better, my S majored in a foreign language, and has decided he wants to be a writer. :)</p>
<p>On the other hand, he has finally found the thing that motivates him to be entreprenurial and outgoing. I was astonished to hear him interviewing people from the alumni network about the field that interests him. Two years ago, it was unthinkable that he would have the nerve to approach such people. He’s reapplying for an internship for which he was the runner-up, and emailed the person who interviewed him last time (and urged him to reapply), telling him that he was applying and updating him on what he has done since. A year ago it would never have occurred to him to take such a step, never. Self-promotion and putting himself forward has never been something he would do.</p>
<p>You never know. It sounds as if your D has excellent skills and attitude, and is poised to make a breakthrough. :)</p>
<p>Thanks for the kind words . Believe it or not, it is encouraging to know that NOT everyone here in the parent cafe has children who graduated from college and had fabulous jobs waiting for them , paying big bucks !</p>
<p>My daughter has a degree in studio television / production.
Yes, that…
She had some awesome internships , but nothing that led to a paying job
She has great leadership and problem solving skills and can do attitude. Just bad timing , like so many others</p>
<p>swimcatsmom, I enjoy reading your post #39.</p>
<p>As most parents know, the kids will automatically tune out whatever their parents say to them when they are at a certain age. This is a part of their “growing-up”/“independence seeking” process. For some parents, this difficult period is short; for some other parents, this period is long.</p>
<p>I didn’t read every post–maybe someone has suggested this already.
You mentioned that she did some substitute teaching her first year out of school.
Did she like teaching? Not the greatest paying job, but could be a much better schedule, and more intellectual/personal satisfaction/respect than retail. She could go for a master’s/teaching certificate.
(S who also graduated in 2010 is teaching at a private school, applying to grad school now. He had never considered teaching while he was in college, but he loves it.)</p>
<p>It can take time. They say things are worse these days, but when DH and I were out of school nearly 40 years ago, it wasn’t as though most of us were on the fast track in a career. A number of us were working as baby sitters, volunteers, waiters/waitresses, you name it. It took a while back then. Nothing golden about that age. We were together with former classmates this summer and reminising about the group housing that we had in those days and crazy life styles. It took many of us a lot of time to get into some thing self supporting, much less what our education and aspirations were.</p>
<p>OP, it is so hard to establish in the entertainment industry and it takes time. Believe me that at the end it will work out. Your D should be just trying and trying. The door is narrow and difficult, I know, because I worked in ABC TV for several years and I saw people come and don’t leave often.</p>
<p>Having said that, your D looks like has a personality that will succeed in sales, not the retail sales, but a true sales job on commission only. Basically she is working on her own, the first year will be tough and she will need your help, but once she gets over the hoops, she will be fine. It can be real estate, insurance or any other disciplines.</p>
<p>@atom…yes, she loved teaching and was encouraged to go into it by multiple teachers she worked with…and she thought about going to grad school but has put it on hold for now. She got cold feet when she was faced with the debt she would have to take on.
@artlover , she didn’t get any response to the ENDLESS resumes she sent out over a period of over two years. She started looking into other fields , mostly in admin / support and has had a lot more action there, though all temporary positions.
Unfortunately, we aren’t in a position to help her anymore financially…the last few years have been hard for us in our business . two hurricanes in two years have been a big hit for us</p>
<p>And of course the downside of getting a teaching certificate is that teaching jobs have grown very scarce. I know the district we’re in is downsizing whenever it can. We’d love to move to your end of the state, lje, but there’ve been no openings in H’s area since we started looking, over 4 years ago. So I understand her hesitation to take on debt for that. </p>
<p>It is really tough out there!</p>
<p>But if this thread helps in no other way, I think it’s been good for a lot of us to know that our kid isn’t the only one without the “fabulous” job straight out of college, or even years later.</p>
<p>There are things that make this a different time then in the past, part of what you see out there today is not cyclical, but rather represents structural changes in how companies hire and such, it is a different world, but all times have their rough spots. 40 years ago in tech fields and the sciences there were bloodbaths, the cold war after Sputnik emphasized tech and science degrees, but when the space program was cut back, when military research was cut back and so forth, along with the grants that went along with this, it could be hard to get a job in the sciences or engineering when people were being laid off. There was a contraction after the .com bubble burst in the late 90’s, lot of people looking for jobs in tech fields made it tough to get something, and so forth. In a lot of fields, you are finding they have cut back on traditional paths (like management training programs as the management structure has become leaner/flatter), for example, and in some cases certain types of degrees (like general business degrees) have become overbought in terms of what kids are studying, whereas at one point business degrees were the hot ticket. There is also international competition, too, 30 years ago tech and engineering were hot fields, today, thanks to both outsourcing and visa programs, a lot of the jobs are going to people overseas or shipped in, so it can be hard as entry level to get a job, because they are filling them using another channel. </p>
<p>One thing hasn’t changed, it is a matter of figuring out what you want to do, and tailoring your experience to get your foot in the door. It takes networking, it takes being creating, even where your job skills are directly relevant, with hiring these days, it isn’t like it was that I remember, where they would hire a bunch of kids out of college and then let attrition cull out the ones they didn’t want, these days, every position is hired for with a lot of effort, it is def a lot more intense then I remember. But on the other hand, opportunities lie all over, not on the standard track. I interviewed formally through my college’s placement office when I graduated, yet the job I got came from a book of ‘miscellaneous’ jobs the office had in this binder, and it turned out to be a springboard to a career that has lasted over 25 years:).</p>
<p>“There are things that make this a different time then in the past, part of what you see out there today is not cyclical, but rather represents structural changes in how companies hire and such, it is a different world, but all times have their rough spots. 40 years ago in tech fields and the sciences there were bloodbaths, the cold war after Sputnik …”
-Yes, times are very different. And while we were against them, now we are following them, and this is exactly the problem. And now they are laughing and calling us illiterate because of decisions that are made here without any kind of knowledge of history and its course. This is all together very different story. However, the point is that unemployment and the way companies hire will not be good for a very long time and most likely will never improve as improving will require turning direction of the the whole USA economy and it will not happen. So, huge adjustment in attitude is required.</p>
<p>op, let her get into sales while working as a temp. She can have two jobs, although difficult. Lets say real estate, she can take the license test and get a license, it is no brainer with her aptitude. She can work in the evenings, time not working or weekends. She can join a RE agency and work on the open houses that no one wants to attend. She can knock on the door, send out the flyers… while sustain herself with the temp job. It will take longer, but it will come. Once established, you can quit the regular temp job. Same as Insurance. It it tough at the beginning, but at the end it is sweet.</p>
<p>Personally, I worked in the hardest part of the real estate industry, not selling houses, but raw land. One deal takes two to four years to close and get paid. And I know how hard it is to go through the hoops and humps. I live through the toughest era in the industry with 3 years without a closing, but at the end, it was sweet.</p>
<p>Just let you know, I bought my own home in cash and still have two investment properties to play with.</p>
<p>There are a lot of the problems, but those advocating the tea party approach also have their head in the sand; not that budget deficits don’t matter, but rather the idea that gutting the government is going to bring back a golden age. Among other things, the tea party radical disdains government funding of research as ‘a waste of money’, while promoting military spending as ‘creating new opportunities’, and both are bogus. I have been to meetings of the tea party types (to try and knock sense into them, forget it), and I asked these basic questions:</p>
<p>-Who invented the transistor, one older guy said “It was ATT”…which is correct, it was at Bell labs, but the research was paid for by Uncle Sam,. not ATT</p>
<p>-Who invented the integrated circuit…usual answers were IBM, ATT, Motorola, Intel…answer was it was a researcher at TI, but it was paid for by Uncle sam.</p>
<p>-My favorite, who invented the internet? (course getting the response “Al Gore”)…usually answer? Why, of course, it was IBM…<em>errr</em>…most of the technology that makes up the internet and network technology was developed from grants by the government, mostly DARPA (DOD, but for pure research), including TCP/IP, ethernet networking, packet transmissions, and what is now Wi Fi…</p>
<p>but they would cut this as ‘fruitless’…and directly military spending, other then Darpa (which costs about 1 billion a year), actually generates very little for the overall civilian economy, though obviously military spending does stimulate the economy as any government spending does. Most military technology is a lot of the times well below cutting edge, and most of it is not directly transferable into civilian technology (there are exceptions, in materials science titanium allows, nickel/chromium steel alloys, were originally developed for the military, also some of the carbon fiber technology now common).</p>
<p>A lot of it is also going to be when companies realize that globalization is not the bargain they thought, for a number of reasons, among which is if you keep shipping good paying jobs to third world countries, you suddenly find out there is no one to buy your product, paying 50c an hour to assemble a cheap product might seem like a godsend, but those workers cannot buy even the cheapest of products, not to mention issues of intellectual property theft when you manufacture in places like China (ask Toyota about that, Chinese cars are running engines and a hybdrid drive package that are direct copies of toyota designs). Companies love to argue that it is unions, regulations, and taxes that make them go offshore, but the real reason is they can use 100 year old manufacturing technology that has low capital costs along with labor at early 20th century wage rates and no benefits, to give their bottom line (and stock price), a big zing. </p>
<p>Reforms are needs, and the answer is neither in big government or in the 19th century economic model proposed by the radical tea party types, assuming business is wise enough or smart enough to run things is foolish (ask the Chinese government about that, or the Japanese government), it takes a partnership. There also are real world issues to be dealt with, like perhaps taking away the incentives for executives that makes immediately boosting stock price as the goal of a company, rather then long term profitablity (for a start, make stock grants and options more long term compensation for executives via tax policy, to stop the incentive to boost stock price in the short term or give power to stock analysts). It also is going to be convincing mega corporations that they actually have incentives in the economic health of the countries they operate in.</p>
<p>More importantly, in the US, it is going to be tax policy and other incentives towards small business and get rid of the subsidies to huge mega corporations. Small business is the engine for new jobs and for creativity, large corporations are about as creative as a CPA and in terms of job creation are laggards, always have been, instead of giving mega corporations huge tax incentives, especially those making it beneficial to send jobs overseas, we should be encouraging small business by a variety of means. The government cannot and should not run the economy, whether it is the GOP idea of government stimulus through hugh military spending or some on the other side that government spending is everything, but it has the tools to incentivize real innovation, not playing funny money poker with key economic assets through non regulation.</p>
<p>The fact is not what is right and what is wrong, the fact is that current direction has been tried in many places and there is no single example of it working. So, most of these countries are getting away from it. And if you read media in other languages, then you would know something that would never ever be translated into English, given the current climate, it is censored out, do not even search for anything like that. They all are lughing they heads off… very shameful actually…
But again, it is not waht we are discussing here. It is important fact though, because it should make everybody very grounded. Be thankful for all opportunities, grab them, do not question. So, any job is a huge plus as less and less people will have it. The goal is to increase government dependency as mush as possilble, to have energy as expansive as possible…all moving in the same direction.<br>
OP’s D. is great, her approach to life is absolutely correct.</p>
<p>OP: Can’t say whether or not you’re wrong to be upset because the college or university attended by your daughter has not been revealed. Based on your daughter’s major, yes, you are wrong to be upset. I know of a couple of schools that “warn” or, if you prefer, “inform” parents & students selecting this field of the average salaries.</p>
<p>musicprnt, another post for the ages. Thank you.</p>
<p>Has your D looked into masters/teacher certification programs that are tuition-free? These involve teaching full-time for two years, taking classes in the summer (or evening/weekend classes depending on the program). They usually include tuition, stipend, insurance. Some include housing and summer room/board. (I’ll PM you about what S is doing. . .)</p>
<p>Retail is only dead-end if you don’t have the education, drive and skills to go far in it.</p>
<p>Not saying that your D wants to or should have a career in retail… but there are certainly lucrative and exciting careers in that field. Retail executives are well compensated in a variety of fields - marketing/advertising, merchandising/buying (the visionaries who figure out what all of us are going to want to buy), real estate, strategy, operations, legal …</p>
<p>So… if she likes the field, taking this type of position is not a bad move. Top retail executives almost always started “in the store.” Check out Mickey Drexler’s career… Okay not eveyone is going to be Mickey Drexler but there are lots of middle and upper management positions to be filled in every major retail corporation.</p>
<p>Yes… she could have gotten a retail job out of high school, but she would not have had the ready possibilities for advancement that she could now be positioned for.</p>
<p>So now a few months have passed and it turned out my daughter DID get a promotion, which was short lived until she got ANOTHER promotion , this time being full time with pretty impressive benefits package. The pay is ok , not great but the health insurance makes up for it, I think. They do like her there and I think she could still have some opportunities for more advancement there.
Somewhere in this thread there was a suggestion that she look into grad school for a business degree. That might be a good idea.
I am happy that she is fully supporting herself now , especially since I hear more and more about her peers having no jobs or still under- employed.</p>
<p>Congratulations. It is a good feeling when they are self supporting.</p>