Thu 08 Jul 2010 – 14.34
There is a minor scandal brewing over a New York Times article entitled “American Dream Is Elusive for New Generation“. To sum it up: a young man went to college, but is not back with his parents, unemployed. It’s a story that is all too familiar in the 21st century. The new plight of the aspiring middle class. And the whole fucking point of this blog.
The controversy is pretty one-sided: the liberal-leaning commenters, who ordinarily like to share in a bit of middle-class whining, skewered this young man for being spoiled, lazy, complacent, greedy, etc. Oh, did I mentioned he was offered a job with a $40,000/year salary, but turned it down for the pursuit of something better?
I don’t know where to stand on that criticism. Clearly, a job offer is a sure way out of unemployment, and even at that salary, out of your parents’ house. But I absolutely know the terror that can follow when a young person, at the start of his or her career, is “stuck” in a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad job. It’s almost better to be unemployed at home — at least you don’t have a landlord breathing down your throat.
Readers, where do you stand? Are we college graduates spoiled for living at home and taking a less urgent approach to job hunting? Should we all “suck it up” and work menial unskilled jobs? Is there a cosmic injustice for a college-educated man to be delivering pizzas, or is it just a sign of the times? Did you live at home with your parents after graduating? Well, 60%+ of American graduates share that fate, so don’t feel bad.
Read the Article, and share your thoughts.
posted by Scott in careers,education,life,personal finance.
Blog Resources for Twentysomethings
Fri 19 Mar 2010 – 15.07
From the always-lovely Kristen Fischer, author of Ramen Noodles, Rent, and Resumes: an after-college guide to life, comes a quick glut of blogs relating to life as a twentysomething. These are, apparently, from 100 Blogs That Should Be Required Reading In College, from OnlineDegrees.net.
And to make my life easier, here is a straight up copy of her curation of the list.
- 20 Something Finance: Read this blog for posts about the worth of your degree, managing credit and debt, investment tips, and even retirement, so that you can start thinking about how you’ll save after college.
- Grad Money Matters: This blog understands that you’re well-educated but that you might need some extra help when it comes to PF.
- Lindsey Pollak: Lindsey Pollak is a career and workplace expert for Generation Y, and her site features videos, articles and more resources to help you establish yourself in the workforce.
- My Path: This career networking site also features a blog and videos about getting a job, retaining your edge, and more.
- On the Job: This is the blog for Anita Bruzzese’s syndicated column. Recent posts include “How to Move from Temporary Work to a Full-Time Gig” and “5 Ways to Avoid Freaking Out About Networking.”
- The Anti 9-to-5 Guide: If you’re thinking about freelancing or managing your own creative career after college, read this blog from expert Michelle Goodman.
- Newly Corporate: Read Newly Corporate to get an idea of what your first entry-level job may be like.
- College Student Blog: This blog has information about growing careers, planning your job search, and living frugally.
- Sweet Careers: Read this blog for all kinds of tips about job search etiquette, career planning, interviewing, researching successful companies, and more.
- Career Rocketeer: Find practical and conceptual job advice on this blog.
- Entry Level Living: Learn about all kinds of entry-level work, including nonprofit jobs, entry-level jobs in New York City, and more.
- Career Rookie: Get advice for finding and landing jobs and internships here.
- College health guide: This resource on Revolution Health includes mental and sexual health tips and healthy living guides.
- Em & Lo: Sex, Love and Everything in Between: This blog for women has dating advice, sexual health news, funny stories, an advice column, and an ask the guys section.
- Life Optimizer: Find study tips, advice for staying positive and improving your focus here.
- You Already Know This Stuff: Get practical advice for finding success professionally and in your personal life.
- Imagine, Connect, Act: This is the blog for Idealist.org, the international volunteer project network.
- Hack College: Find lost Word documents, be productive during Spring Break and learn fun drinking games on this blog.
- The College Solution Blog: This blog covers a range of topics, from budgeting to college life, to doing better in class.
- My College Guide: Incoming freshmen and college students will find helpful tips for preparing for interviews, remembering your notes, dealing with stress and more.
- Say Campus Life: Recent posts here feature a guide to college majors, tips for spotting a scam school, and career tips.
- College and University Blog: Get higher education news, relationship advice, fitness tips and more.
- College Guide: Washington Monthly’s blog keeps tabs on what’s going on at schools around the country, and new trends in higher ed.
- Campus Grotto: Find money tips, job search information, campus trivia and more.
- ONE Campus Challenge: This blog tracks the competition between universities to see which student body “has the most effective global poverty-fighting campaign.”
- College Candy: Find real-life stories, quizzes, relationship tips, money advice and more from this hilarious — and sometimes raunchy — blog.
- Life Without Pants: Learn effective, productive ways to live life according to your own rules.
- Quarterlives: Head to Quaterlives for entertainment, health, personal development and career news geared towards 20-somethings.
- Gradspot: Turn to Gradspot when you want to learn how to cook, move into a new home, write a resume or start a new workout routine.
- The Lemon Life: The Lemon Life is another post-grad website full of articles and resources about dating, working, and living on your own.
- Think Simple Now: In addition to some personal life stories, this blog has tips for reading faster, improving focus and more.
- The Happiness Project: Read this blog everyday to remind yourself of all the reasons to be calm, confident and happy.
- Graduated Learning: Life after college: Find tips on buying a house, saving money, using social media, and more.
•• via Ramen, Rent, Resumes »
posted by Scott in education,health & fitness,life,personal finance,relationships.
Fri 26 Feb 2010 – 14.21
This crap has been going around the Internet for a while, but I thought I’d report on it. Pew Research has cooked up a little online quiz where users may determine for themselves how “Millennial” they are. That is, how much they have in common with us, the generation born after 1981. (nevermind that some of us in that age range already have kids in middle school!)
I’m 86. Probably would have been more if I had a tattoo or if I had played video games in the last 24 hours. Dunno if my parents’ marriage negatively affect my Millennial-ness, but that’s also a question.
Go take the test for yourself »
A study from The Oracle in synthesizes these and similar results, concluding that Millennials are more liberal, more confident, but less employed. And presumably more depressed. Or maybe that’s just me.
posted by Scott in careers,education,health & fitness,life.
Thu 07 Jan 2010 – 15.52
There is a feeling of rage mixed with exhaustion mixed with disappointment that comes from realising your own job prospects are dim. It’s almost a state of mind, where you view yourself in the third person, weighing events with both rational and emotional views, yet not being able to govern yourself with either faculty.
What can be done when you’re laid off, facing an impossible job market and ruthless competition? How can you come to grips with your own self-worth when the world around you says you are worthless? And how does one pay rent?
Recently, a friend relayed to me these feelings, in not so many words. She had been laid off from a job she didn’t exactly like, but now faces the task of finding something new. Being a middle twentysomething, it is difficult to assert expertise in a given field, but holding a degree (in her case, a Master’s too), you can’t market yourself as a penniless learner.
I, and she, have both found ourselves previously in such terrible job situations that we’d rather have no job at all. In my case, I quit this job in favour of the generally unfavourable lifestyle of a freelancer. In hers, she was laid off as a gesture of professional half-mercy, finally cutting her free from a job that was more trouble than anything else. (although the pay was good). But neither of us are eager to jump back into a job that we know isn’t brilliant. Or rather, we can’t tolerate that level of frustration again at such a critical time in our lives and careers.
Being a working twentysomething is a powerful thing. We are energetic and eager to learn, we don’t have personal baggage (mortgage, kids) so we can move from city to city, we don’t mind the late hours and enjoy making connections with co-workers, we’re plugged into the latest technology and can spew knowledge of all subjects in a manner unlike our parents. We have a lot to give. But in return we do have some requirements — simple requirements — for a fulfilling, or even tolerable, worklife.
We need to be taught. Resourcefulness can only bring us so far, especially when we are new to a field of specific role. We need to find a rhythm, even if that rhythm is a sort of managed chaos that may come from certain professions like journalism, (or blogging). We need to be led, for there is nothing worse than a spiteful boss who is constantly monitoring you, telling you what you’ve done wrong. We wouldn’t mind an industry-appropriate salary and maybe even a day off. And we need to know that there is, in fact, a tomorrow — that every step brings us forward. These requirements are somewhat philosophical, but with these in place the rest is just details.
What do we do now?
Should we just quit our jobs and hide out until the economy gets better? Should we travel or live on a farm? Should we move back with our families and write a book? Should we go back to school? (I would advise against that, though, unless you’re studying to be a nurse or engineer)
In the 4+ years since finishing grad school, I haven’t been able to shake these feelings. I haven’t managed to find the instant answer to finding workplace happiness and the general answer to career happiness. I don’t have iron-clad advice for weary friends and I don’t know how to un-fuck myself from the current situation. The feelings persist.
And yes, the title of this post is inspired by the James Taylor lyrics to “Shed a Little Light”… there is a feeling like the clenching of a fist / there is a hunger in the center of the chest. …
posted by Scott in careers,education,life,personal finance.
Job Prospects in the Recession
Mon 21 Dec 2009 – 9.33
The very excellent BBC Business Daily podcast has tackled the sensitive subject of job-hunting during the recession. While clearly it sucks, there are some subtitles in play. According to the program, workers who are hired during a recession are often hired in lesser roles, for lesser pay, and then have a harder time throughout the length of their careers. A scary sentence indeed.
Yale economist Lisa Kahn remarks on one point with which I strongly disagree: that a graduate degree strongly improves your likelihood of finding a job. While the theory has been sound for generations, the practice observed by peers and colleagues (and by myself) is that the extra degree doesn’t matter for shit. In many cases a graduate degree is viewed simply as another line on a resume — easily skipped.
I write this now from behind the desk of an office where I am consulting. In many ways, I have found a job, but as the podcast reiterates, most of the hires in the last 18 months have been temporary, conditional, freelance, or otherwise non-permanent.
This all comes through the lens of my bourgeois middle-class existence. There are folks out there who literally can’t afford to look for work. The transportation, dry cleaning, printing, etc. are too expensive. And what about those factory and farm workers who are out of work. Unless there’s another factory or farm, their prospects look bleak.
So as I sit here on Madison Ave., dressed in a crisp shirt and tie, I wonder, how has your job-hunt been going? Are you out of the woods yet? I’m getting there.
•• Check out the episode entitled “Your future job prospects? 21 Dec 09″ »
posted by Scott in careers,education,personal finance.
Graduate Student Lives in a Van
Tue 08 Dec 2009 – 15.31
Well, the headline kind of says it all. Today I uncovered the story of a Duke graduate student who, in an effort to save money and avoid debt, lived in his van while he attended classes.
If it weren’t an English major writing, I surely would not have read. Here’s a taste.
The idea of “thrift,” once an American ideal, now seems almost quaint to many college students, particularly those at elite schools. The typical student today is not so frugal. Few know where the money they’re spending is coming from and even fewer know how deep they’re in debt. They’re detached from the source of their money. That’s because there is no source. They’re getting paid by their future selves.
posted by Scott in education,health & fitness,personal finance.
Thu 15 Oct 2009 – 18.56
Imagine that one day you’re working at a successful magazine, making $50,000 per year, and living the life in New York City. A twentysomething fantasy for many. But then suddenly you’re laid off. Now, with the market for journalism shrunk to a caricature of its former self, you’re forced to scrape by with freelance gigs and unemployment checks in search of a job that may or may not exist. Stinks, doesn’t it.
This isn’t fiction, it’s the story of Amanda Ernst, a twentysomething former magazine writer and editor of FishbowlNY, a blog about advertising, media, and journalism. Amanda recently went under the microscope and talked about her adventures on NBC’s Today Show, even disclosing figures to help align her struggle with viewers who may be suffering the same drama in their lives. Read the chronicle of events from her point of view on FBNY. (for her efforts, Amanda was blog-slapped, lightly, by Gawker) The result, in this case, is positive: Amanda survived, and is doing alright, although it definitely didn’t happen automatically.
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Amanda Ernst discusses losing her job and coping with the financial strain
The thesis is fairly well-known: if your income suddenly drops (especially from getting laid off/fired) you need to restructure your life accordingly. Drop the expensive gym membership, cut back on lattes, quit buying fancy clothes, and of course keep track of all your spending so you know where every penny ends up. I’ve discussed personal finance at length, and even recorded a podcast episode about the cost of living.
But the struggle for employment and the fight against idleness stress more than the wallet, they tug at the very fabric of our existences. At least, they should for most of us twentysomethings, who are trying to establish ourselves in the world, trying to make sense of our careers and relationships, as well as finances. I suppose it’s like Maslow’s Heirarchy of Needs — after we satisfy our ability to eat and sleep, we start looking for more, and that usually means we need a satisfying work life.
This is the topic constantly discussed on the Chief Happiness Officer blog, which I highly recommend. For a more academic, but heartily interesting, perspective on work and life, check out the new book from Alain de Botton, The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work. And if you’re one of these Internet bloggy people, try this post from Serena Renner, a co-worker of Amanda, no less.
The great sea of the economy may be swollen and unsteady, but it will calm in time. But no matter the condition, twentysomethings will look out onto the horizon and wonder what awaits. Our careers, and our lives, are in constant motion, with waves and tides that will surely shake us loose when we least expect it. But isn’t that part of the fun.
For an amusing diversion from the often-depressing existence of twentysomething unemployment (or perhaps, non-employment), check out this article which outlines in most pityous detail, the plight of the upper class, who are struggle to pay all those private school tuitions, and whatnot, in this sour economy. Lifestyles of the Rich and Needy »
Perhaps a solution to it all is to work a different job literally every day. I know that folks change jobs more frequently in this, our new century, but this is taking things to the extreme.
posted by Scott in careers,coffee,education,health & fitness,life,real estate.
Thu 30 Jul 2009 – 14.50
It’s a fair assumption that as twentysomethings, we still remember our school days. We may still be friends with our school chums, we may still have our old school clothes, and chances are, we miss our summer holidays.
Obviously, summer is a good time to be outdoors. We love the sun, the heat, wearing shorts, running around, playing with dogs and children (since those lucky bastards are off from school). There’s outdoor movies and concerts, you can sit at sidewalk cafes, and the sunlight lasts all night. Too bad you’re stuck inside.
There is a dreadful cycle of guilt and pleasure that comes from skipping out on work duties to go outside, only to return and realise how much work you’ve got to do. Generally speaking, the two are mutually exclusive — you can’t bring your office to the park, and even with a laptop, you’re only half working. If only I could knock down the entire wall of my office and work at my desk, while enjoying the outdoors.
Working holidays are tempting, but somehow end up as a fiction. When you arrive at your summer destination, the last thing you want to think about is work. And then somehow you suffer the same summer guilt for not getting things done while you’re still on vacation. Not exactly relaxing.
Plus there’s that whole unspoken competition of who has a better tan. When did that become a measure of one’s worth?
We’re hard-wired from all those years of education to view summer as play time. This is especially troubling for freelancers and those who are less-than-traditionally-employed, who are forced to be their own time-managers. Looking for work, following up with clients, managing projects, and otherwise not slacking off can be Herculean labours when placed into the arena of a July heatwave. Plus when friends start calling planning trips and weekends, it’s all the more tempting to shove work aside.
So how do we break the cycle? How do we enjoy the summers while still fulfilling the duties of our life and careers? Is summer simply a lost season, where we should expect to get nothing done, or is it an opportunity to take the lead over the other slackers who are off sunning and prancing?
posted by Scott in careers,education,health & fitness,life.
Congress Offers Relief to Student Debtors
Mon 06 Jul 2009 – 20.10
If you’re like me, and the millions of others who are burdened with many thousands of dollars of student debt, then here is a bit of good news: the US government will take action to make loan repayments proportional to earned income, and will forgive loans after 25 years of faithful repayments.
The terms are highlighted in an article from The New York Times dated last week.
… the interest rate on new federal Stafford loans, the most widely used federally guaranteed student loan, will drop to 5.6 percent, from 6 percent. By 2012, the rate will fall to 3.4 percent, under a schedule mandated by Congress.
… The extended payment program, called “income-based repayment,” limits what borrowers have to pay to 15 percent of the difference between their gross income and 150 percent of federal poverty guidelines. After borrowers make payments on loans for 25 years, the balance is forgiven. (The Education Department already offered an “income-contingent” repayment plan, which was similar, but less generous.)
There’s a ton of charts and numbers to comb through, so if you’re interested, definitely check out the Times article, and poke around the links.
This scheme appears to be similar to one that is offered in Britain, where students aren’t obliged to repay loans until they are earning at least £10,000 per year. That isn’t a great sum, about $18,000, but it implies that if you’re properly unemployed, or only working part-time at the local pub, you aren’t going to be burdened with a monthly payment for that expensive education you’re not “using.” Then again, in Britain tuition fees top out around £2500 per year for UK students, so I don’t feel too sorry for them.
Is this finally a chink in the armour of the American college capitalist system? Is the government inching slowly toward the European-style socialism that our population so desperately craves (whether we know it or not)? Will this new plan help prevent education from being the next bubble to burst?
Your thoughts:
posted by Scott in education,personal finance.
Is Higher Education the Next Bubble to Burst?
Wed 01 Jul 2009 – 10.33
It’s almost a taboo to speak of colleges and universities as businesses. The decisions they makes aren’t based on profits, they’re based on academics, right? Well, sort of. Higher education is a business, where the “products” are the graduates, and the effort is to sell those graduates to the world with the goal of getting more raw materials, students. And money. And prestige. It’s tricky.
But in America, as well as other nations, higher education carries with it a massive pricetag; attending is a sure-fire way to start your young adult life in debt. While most parents and economists alike will tell us that it’s an “investment” in our future — one that will increase the earning potential over our lives as a whole — the upfront costs are painful enough to warrant some evaluation. After all, the most basic laws of capitalism show us that if the the price of goods and services gets too high, people will stop buying! This even applies to supposéd critical purchases like gasoline, clothing, food, and now education.
I read recently, for the first time, the notion of higher education as a bubble that will soon burst. An over-inflated industry taking risks on its own future, which is now less-than-certain. The main point here is about the ever-rising costs of tuition and fees, making education unaffordable for all but the super-rich. Here’s a sobering statistic:
According to the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, over the past 25 years, average college tuition and fees have risen by 440 percent — more than four times the rate of inflation and almost twice the rate of medical care.
posted by Scott in careers,education,personal finance.