Tuesday, October 4, 2011

College isn't designed to find jobs

I'm one of the lucky ones. I saw through college long before most other people I know. But, even though in my head I knew college wasn't the answer to my chronic job-dissatisfaction, in my heart I always hoped I was wrong (kinda like I hope I am wrong about WWIII).

I guess I am in a sour mood. Chronic unemployment is my excuse, fair or otherwise.
I have deep-seated frustration/anger at anything to do with the Ivory Tower of academia, and really it isn't completely justified. But not completely unjustified, either. University education was falsely advertised to me (and many thousands of others) as a direct means to emploment. That, in turn, was mostly a response to the popular (and equally false) misunderstanding of colleges. Colleges were never quite intended to do anything more that self-actualization, and any employment benefits derived are a matter of personal talent.

There are a few exceptions, I suppose. But for the most part, if college prepares someone for the employment arena, that is because a student prepares him or herself. In my case, university education gave me tools, tools I used to make myself quite prepared...but it didn't help. Much.

The interesting point here (to me, anyway) is that except for the marketing people (and their masters) we (meaning: I) should hold no grudge against academia. It's not at all their fault they teach self-actualization. That's what they've been doing since the time of Chaucer. It's largely society that has placed foolish faith in them. But it's also a failure on their part to modernize and cater to the actual needs of students, rather than simply lip-service to job-preparedness.

5 comments:

  1. Nicely written. Very true statements.

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  2. Thanks, baby. For me, I am trying hard to remind myself not to spew venom to those in academia that I meet (like at game night)

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  3. Hi Rich, not sure where your talents lie, but I read in the Journal that Inmar Enterprises is accepting applications for ~120 jobs starting today at https://www.inmar.com/Pages/About_Us/Careers.aspx. Maybe there's something for you?

    -Doug

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  4. Thanks Doug. I just finished submitting my application with my tweaked resume highlighting what I needed to. To answer you: I would love to have these jobs, but I would loath them each and every day. But, I won't tell them that.

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