People who majored in fields that "doesn't guarantee employment", how are you doing now?

Destin · Jun 21, 2018

normalwolverine said: ↑

Anyway, what I ended up doing that got my career off the ground is...lying on my resume about my work experience.
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I really hate the idea of lying on a resume, but yeah this works for people. So much that one of my professors actually tells people if they can't find a job after graduating to put him down as a work experience reference and say they worked in his lab and he would confirm the lie if the employer called him to ask about it. He's apparently helped like 20 people find jobs that way.

It's pretty ridiculous that employers expect all new college graduates to have work experience right away. Especially in the pre-med world, people get screwed badly if they can't get into a medical professional school. They're extremely intelligent people but because they had to spend such an insane amount of time doing pre-med stuff and studying to get all A's to build a good application there's no time left to have a job during college. Then if they don't get accepted and try to find a job with their degree they get rejected for no work experience.

If someone can get A's in chemistry and biology then they're smart enough to learn on the job. They really don't need work experience. It's ridiculous to reject them just because they didn't have some random part-time job at McDonald's during college.

Nightlight · Jun 21, 2018

normalwolverine said: ↑

Because they are.

For one thing, you have too many people chiming in who are from different countries--pretty much none of them being your country, if you're in Asia. What country you're talking about matters; the worth of education, the importance of personality, being good at what you do/know and job prospects upon graduation...these things are not the same in every single country. You can't really just ask a question like this on an international forum and get a universal answer or an answer that applies to where you live/want to work.

For another thing, you have everything from current college students to Ph.D candidates to 30-somethings to 40-somethings chiming in. My experience is--and I'm in my upper 30s--older people and people who haven't been in school for decades or who haven't had to hunt for their first post-grad job in decades really have no idea what it's like today in school or looking for that first job. I graduated from graduate school 10 years ago, and from what I read online not much has changed in terms of what you need to major in for job prospects and establishing a career or getting that first job after graduation. But for people who haven't been in school or looked for their first job in 20 years or more, a lot has changed. Of course, my perspective is only about what it's like in the US, so it might not apply to you at all--that's what you need to understand about what people are saying in this thread. And even in the US, we have a lot of disagreement about these things.

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For me in the US, I graduated from college 15 years ago with a psychology degree and minors in English/philosophy, and it was ridiculously hard after that to get a job--and I graduated from one of the best universities in the US. For about two years, all I got was rejection letters basically telling me I didn't have the work experience they were looking for. I got not even one interview. Some employers would even write me and tell me my background was impressive, in terms of the university I attended and that kind of thing, and that they were sure I'd find something. It was always about work experience.

I think the same thing is true today, with one tweak--that's what PatrickUK mentioned about personality. Personality is so huge here in opening doors, to the point where I'd say the three most important factors in getting a good job in the US are 1) personality, 2) knowing the right people/connections and 3) what your previous work experience consists of. After that, I don't care what field you're talking about--really, nothing else matters. There are some fields where a degree is a requirement, but the degree is merely necessary but not sufficient--you have to have the right personality or the right connections if you have no real work experience, and you have to have the right work history otherwise.

Other than that, degrees really don't matter--that has been my experience, and that is also what I've seen a bunch of people experience, unfortunately. I think the idea of education for the sake of knowledge, growth and all of that is how we all should think in this country...but, unfortunately, this is not how most American universities think--education is a business to them. Unfortunately, it just costs too much money to attend college now if you can't afford it out of your own pocket, in large part because we're being taken advantage of with this idea that degrees open doors career-wise and everyone "needs" a degree to get a good job and to make more money. Truthfully, I owe a ridiculous amount of money because of all this (and all of this talk about only certain majors/fields paying off started after I graduated from school--it's common for people to push that idea nowadays, but back when I was attending college the idea was more about going to the best schools, which I did), and being in debt in the US affects you in so many negative and unimaginable ways, including your dating life and romantic prospects. So...

And my graduate degree is in one of those fields everyone thinks earns everyone 6 figures, and when I graduated--from another prestigious university--it was basically just like after I graduated from college, i.e. tons of rejection letters, very few interview requests, people telling me "you're definitely going to get something" because of the university I attended. It was one of those cases where the degree was necessary but not sufficient. I'm far from the only person to come from a graduate program like this and end up struggling to find work and swimming in debt. My parents have helped me a lot.

Anyway, what I ended up doing that got my career off the ground is...lying on my resume about my work experience. I never got caught. I knew I wanted to work in the technology field (which I never studied in school, i.e. no IT, no Comp. Sci, etc) and that I knew enough to do a good job in that field. So I made up fake work experience, applied for some jobs, got one that got my foot in the door. It really hasn't been that hard for me to get jobs since. I do great in job interviews personality-wise, and now I have a resume with the kind of work experience employers want to see. In fact, I have recruiters and employers contacting me on a regular basis through LinkedIn about jobs--just had a phone conversation with one yesterday. If I wanted to move to another city, I could get a job making really good money in my current role or being a full time programmer, but I'm not ready to move again yet. It took a long time to get to this point, though, and it probably never would have happened if I hadn't lied. I also believe I could have gotten to this point without ever going to college, and probably sooner, and if that were the case I would be in a great spot right now financially. Instead, it's still a bit of a struggle financially.

In psych and English, yeah, the professors were into it. Those class environments--particularly the small ones--were great, and I loved going to those classes in college. The first English class I took in college--the professor, the environment and the books we read are how I ended up minoring in English, because it initially was just philosophy as a minor. I loved that class so much that I ended up wanting to double major in psych and English, but it really was too late to add a new major because I was about to be a junior in college and only had that one English class. I think the philosophy professors were into their subjects, too, but I just hated most of those class environments. In most of those classes, I think the environment of the class grated on the professors, too. It just seemed like there were always 4-5 know-it-all students who completely took over the class and never actually understood the works we were reading, and it was just a complete waste of an hour dealing with their pseudo-intellectual babbling (and, sometimes, their arguing).

Just my experience and perspective based on my experiences.
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I've heard most of the things in my country as well, but they just didn't come up very often. I was expecting 2 answers. 1) Get a "practical degree" 2) Do what you love. As far as I remember from reading this thread, those two answers were given and I didn't expect "People skills matter" to come up. Here at where I live, #1,#2 were the most common ones. I think all of the answers apply to my country, which gives me something to think about.

Thanks for you input EC!

Nightlight · Jun 21, 2018

One more thing, it's hard to find an internet forum as civil and insightful as this one. Both English and Korean web combined. (Also I wouldn't be here if I was straight)

People who majored in fields that "doesn't guarantee employment", how are you doing now?

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People who majored in fields that "doesn't guarantee employment", how are you doing now?

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