Wishful Thinking

After reading SpellChecKing’s blog this morning I got to thinking a bit.  Usually when I think I strain myself and usually I need a beer and a three week vacation to recover, but this one was rather straightforward if when you break it down.  The United States is providing absolutely no incentive to go to college right now.  Students must strive to stay motivated regardless of what is thrown at them, but there are three entities that are working against them every step of the way: universities, employers and the government.

First, universities are too caught up in trying to create ‘well-rounded individuals’ instead of graduating students with actual job skills.  It seems absolutely bonkers to me that you can spend $160,000 on a degree to come out and not actually qualify for any specific job.  A great deal of this falls on the student, and rightfully so.  However, as I can remember from my experience as a student, students are often misled.  There is a delicate balance in college between being a responsible adult and trusting in your educators.  Let’s face it, we go to college to learn, and part of learning is often trusting in the opinions of professors and counselors to guide you in the right direction.  Often times though, they are not critical enough of our choices.  As much as I loved my advisor in college, she never really pushed me to tell her what I wanted to do after graduation, and in hindsight I really wish she had, because I might have realized much sooner that I was setting myself up to be screwed.

Second, employers need to tap the creativity of college graduates.  I am an incredibly intelligent and gifted individual, but since I have graduated not one employer (that actually wasn’t a relative) has even given me a chance to show what I can do.  It is as if as soon as I am hired they forget everything that was on my resume and just put me into a repetitive motion, never to change, and I know I’m just one of many.  While there are many more college grads today than ever before, let’s not forget that it still takes quite a bit to get through it.  There is so much potential that is being wasted by taking new grads and putting them in jobs that stifle their drive.  Employers, please, for the love of God, listen to your employees ideas and get them on projects that will give them the opportunity to prove they are more than just a drone for editing excel spreadsheets.  America needs these ideas to reinvent itself and taking the conservative approach will ultimately lead to complete stagnation.

Lastly, the government just doesn’t seem to care about keeping college grads on US soil anymore.  The government just seems to have this opinion that graduates are going to stay in the US because there is nowhere else to go.  WRONG.  Without efforts to keep highly gifted individuals here you are going to see talent move to Asia in droves in the next few years.  It is already happening to a large extent with Indians and Koreans that come here to learn but then go back home.  I can’t say I blame them, I’d want to live in my home country too, but if they are taking great ideas over there to bloom, the job demand will grow, and eventually American students are going to stop accepting mediocre jobs in their home states and go after greater opportunity.  It is a lot to leave your home, but if the opportunity is there that is what Americans have done for over 200 years.  The government needs to make it a priority to keep talent in this country.  That topic is largely for people who know more about economics than I (I know very little sadly), but I do have one suggestion.  Create programs similar to military recruitment for other government jobs and actively recruit juniors and seniors and in exchange for 4-8 year contracts forgive federal loans or simply pay towards the recruits education.  I’d love your feedback on that idea in particular, as I’ve discussed with a few people before.

Coming out of college, which is supposed to be a prestigious affair, has to reclaim some of its fanfare.  When a graduate from a top notch university is fighting just to eat, but a garbage truck driver of the same age is buying a home and a new pickup it’s sending a dangerous message to high school students.  That message is if you work very hard and you take on near insurmountable debt that you will spend at least a fair portion of your life miserable and begging for scraps while your friends that smartly became carpenters and plumbers are enjoying life.  Don’t get me wrong, we need carpenters and plumbers, but if this country is not to fall to the side of the road and be overtaken by China we need the innovation that can only be achieved by educated individuals.  So America, don’t take pity on we graduates that are struggling now.  We don’t want your pity, we want your respect, and we want to be paid a fair wage for what we bring to the table.  Stop impeding us and call it character building!  If you can not, or will not, do that, then I dare say we will have to get used to the idea of being the falling empire.