Home > Insight

Please hire us
By Drake Scott
dscott38@mscd.edu

As a nontraditional student, let me offer some thoughts.

Everyone has been to the fourth-grade assembly in the gymnasium. No, not the solid educational one where they bring in the professional hackie sack team for a demonstration of how to stall a 4-ounce bean bag on your head. I’m talking about the one where they plant outrageous ideas about our futures in our young, impressionable minds. Where they brainwash us into believing crazy things like everyone will grow up to be police officers, firemen or presidents. If we’re not careful about our plans, it’s more likely we’ll become less glorious parts of the working system, like sewer plant janitors, assistant managers at Little Caesar’s or vice presidents. We are led to believe that as soon as we graduate with a degree, employers will be standing at the end of the commencement line, signing lucrative contracts with the new workforce.

At the commencement ceremony in which I received my first degree, I was disheartened to discover there was no diploma in my fancy new diploma holder. There was, instead, a letter from the alumni association asking for money. They knew they had very little time before my career optimism, and therefore my financial generosity, would soon be crushed.

The only people who think everyone gets these picture-perfect jobs and are old enough to have a W-2 instead of allowance are actually police officers, firemen and the president. Yes, the same deluded president who says our economy is doing better than ever. Even better than the late 1920s!

However, if you don’t work for Wall Street or the government, you know that it’s about as easy to find a decent job as it is to find used copies of all the textbooks you need. You may also know there is a wage gap that is widening as fast as Bush’s disapproval rating, and getting a college degree doesn’t necessarily mean that you will be in the top percentage of that gap.

Whatever type of job you are looking for, connections are often more valuable than qualifications and experience.

My purpose here is not to completely crush your hopes for finding a job and a happy future. It’s just to squash them a little bit. There are many different paths that may lead to your destiny. The majority of people who graduate college don’t end up having a career in the field of their degree. Just look at all the entertainers that ended up as politicians and all the politicians that ended up just being entertaining.

Think about the quote from comedienne Lily Tomlin: “I always wanted to be somebody, but I should have been more specific.” So here is my advice to you while you invest these years laying the foundation of your future: Spend time figuring out the future of your degree, make a plan and then don’t expect it to work. If you are interested in the presidency or entertainment, I hear there is a position opening up in 2008.