"The Magical Myth of College"

After being out of college I have come to somewhat of a disheartening realization that in many cases that college degrees mean little or nothing in the real world. There are what I consider “hard” degrees out there like Education, Engineering, Nursing, and Physical Therapy are the only ones that provide any kind of future. Some of which you don’t have to shell out your money to a four year degree to attend.

Just look out how aggressive colleges go after high school seniors and its clear that colleges see students as customers not as students. They want to get them in, take their money, than send them out in order to bring in the next crop of sheep. In addition most universities have made it nearly impossible to actually get done an education in four years.

Now I don’t want any sympathy from anyone at all. However I just don’t understand why our society is so obsessed with sending our nation’s youth to get degrees. From that minute we are young we are told if we ever want to be a grown up that we should go to college. So by the time you are done high school most people start thinking about which college they should go to. Most people think that the ones that choice college for the work force will be at an advantage over the ones that finished their education after their senior year of high school. However, most college students get directed either by their common interests, or lack of direction into various worthless majors. These majors don’t prepare them or qualify them for next to nothing in the real world.

My personal journey started me out in Camden County College since it was close and affordable. I don’t really know why this school gets such flak and people say you don’t get a real education there. I swear my professors were much harder on me there than later when I transferred to Rowan. The professors actually gave a damn about their students unlike at Rowan. Rowan professors are notorious for not showing up to class many times simply because they don’t feel like that or make other jobs a priority.

The professors at Rowan were a bit off to say the least. I had one woman who told the entire class that George W. Bush had a 40 year-old son who hid during the 2000 election to appear younger. She insisted that this was true even though I raised my hand and told her that I never heard any such thing. Actually that would make the President a mere teenager when he had a son apparently (according to her) by a woman other than Laura. I finally got her to admit to the class that it wasn’t true and she said she might have been thinking of his nephew. Another professor I had didn’t show up if a single snow flake fell. Yet another spent most of his time in Africa and made every chapter of the American History book into an African history lesson that had nothing to do with the assigned work. Of course we had various other bleeding heart liberals that just wanted to spread their opinions and brainwash gullible students into buying into their personal ideology.

Anyway I will admit the Public Relations program is very demanding of time and effort. The professors there are seemingly great “practitioners” because they manage to convince roughly 70 graduates of the school that it is a worthwhile major. Half way in I realized the truth the entry level positions for the job are less than the amount of students the crammed into the requirement classes add in all the other PR majors from rival schools and you got yourself quite a lock jam. I unfortunately was a commuter student and had to work my though school so I didn’t have time for their after classes clubs. This mainly consisted of a bunch of girls who reminded me of the girls I hated in high school and bundle of tools.

My experience after getting my degree has been tough. I opened my playing field to various other jobs with promising futures and growth potential like corporate sales. I consider corporate sales to be any job where you are doing Business to Business sales, most of these jobs have you in a crowded room on the phone for 60 hours a week trying to get your company’s product purchased by other companies. However I couldn’t get one of those jobs to save my life. To be honest I don’t even know if I wanted half of them considering I don’t know anyone that would actually want their product and in some cases didn’t even know what their product even exactly did.

I don’t regret going to college really I grew as a person there, and its no ones fault but my own in regards to what major I decided on. I only wish I could warn the students each fall to either get a “hard” major or drop out do something worthwhile such as becoming an electrician. You could argue that I am one that just slipped through the cracks, however I know many others in my major that to date who have yet to land a “college” job. Heck I have two friends who have Criminal Justice Degrees that aren’t remotely close to stopping crime. Another in Biology which if you are lucky you can land a teaching job, but its lot harder than going the traditional route.

This past week I left my Sears job changing jobs for the first time in over 5 years. The job I have taken is on the even plane as Duke’s Kelly’s job I guess since I don’t plan on making it a career. I did know however that jobs that you are told you can receive with a Public Relations Degree, Liberal Arts Degree, Marketing Degree, Communications Theory Degree, Economics Degree, and Criminal Justice Degrees are few in far between if not flat out myths. Now I have made the decision to put Sears in the past use this job as a stepping stone. I have no idea if this will be the right decision for awhile and its not unlikely I could deicide quickly to quit this one too. All I know is what I am looking for isn’t the Sears Outlet. I recently put my last name tag away as memento of my years of service. Its already been misplaced somewhere in my room though collecting dust as it never existed in the first place same as my degree from Rowan.