Who is responsible for all these useless liberal arts graduates?

**These thoughts were inspired by this article: Hipsters on Food Stamps, which is very, very long and goes on to talk about a myriad of things, including the epidemic of liberal arts educated “hipsters” who are now on food stamps. As anything written by a human, you must sift through and find your own gems. Some of it is interesting, some boring, some agreeable, some of it head-shake inducing. (Hopefully also true of anything written by this human below).

         The above article began by calling out an English major (hi, that’s me) for having the audacity to major in something as useless as English and expect to get a job afterward. Problem is, when I applied to college, and attended, there WERE jobs for English majors. The economy was such that the skills I learned (mainly the art of BSing) were still considered valuable. Critical thinking was an important skill to have. Four years into my real adult life, however, companies downsized, some of us got laid off, and now we find ourselves many years out of college, beyond grad school (just as useless), and utterly unemployable.

                  I have been trying for months to get a job being a “college advisor” for students, specifically first-generation students. These are students who, like me, are the first in their families to go to college. Here’s the thing about first-generation college students though, and why a position like “college advisor” is even necessary: we do NOT know what we are doing. We haven’t the faintest idea what qualities are important in an institution of higher education. All we know is that we’ve got to go. In order to do better than our parents before us (or even as good as, these days), we need to go to college. We don’t know what majors to choose; we only know what we were good at in high school. We are 17 years old and have no idea what the job market is like, or which majors are fluff and which majors may eventually pay out. We don’t even really have a concept of what college even costs and that we will be paying for it for most of our adult lives (student loan payouts may as well be made of Monopoly money). This is why it is important for people who have been there, done that to be there, and tell that to high school students looking to go to college. We first gens don't know any of these important things, and after graduating, getting a job, feeling awesome, but getting laid off... we don't know what the hell to look for in graduate school either. We just don't know. We have no experience to work from, and then we end up $86K in the hole (which is actually less than a lot of people), and have NOTHING to show for it.

According to the above article, maybe both?

         As it suggests in the title, the article above is focused on “hipsters.” I am not a hipster (and I'm not even saying that in the way that actual hipsters are supposed to deny their hipsterdom, because once admitting you are a hipster, you are not a hipster anymore – or that sort of thing), I am a normal human who tries not to be TOO pretentious about my interests, and I don't say I am into certain things to gain street cred. However, as an unemployed person with a liberal arts degree who can't get a job, I feel that this article is aimed partially at me. This article mentions these on-the-dole, drains on society not taking jobs they don't want, and I will say that I have applied to MANY, MANY jobs that I don't want. I've done my best smoke-blowing in cover letters (English major BS skills at work), and those people STILL will not hire me. Trust me, I will do anything to glean even a fraction of the self-worth I felt at my first post-college job with the 401k, health insurance and vacation time. Oh, the rent paying was nice too. 

         This article hit me a little too close to home. In the past seven months of fervent job applying, I've been wondering: what ARE my skills? What CAN I do? What DO I bring to the table? I lament, because had I stayed in publishing, I would have built up innumerable skills related to a specific trade. But I got laid off. I decided to travel the world, figure myself out. I wanted to answer the question, “What would make me feel more fulfilled than sitting in a cubicle?” The answer was NOT completing a Master's Degree that taught me far less than the $60+K I paid for it, followed by getting a new, terrifying, and challenging job where my supervisor felt the need to tear me down to try to salvage his broken ego instead of giving me any constructive feedback. Then, after leaving that job and refusing to be bullied, I became even MORE unhirable due to a red flag now on my resume that doesn't mean what people think it means. It is also incredibly difficult to explain away that red flag when I am not given the chance to interview (society is essentially telling me to lie on my resume, which I do not want to do). None of that is more fulfilling than sitting in a cubicle and being given the chance to create something, I guarantee it. Yes, the grass is always greener, and especially with me. But, come on. While I could never regret my travels,

Take this back? Not on your life. 

I do find it regrettable that I am 30 years old, with a Masters degree, and I am not even qualified to earn half of what I earned at my first job out of college.

         In "Hipsters on Food Stamps," the author goes on to state that many of us, students and parents alike, were tricked by the system – the system that tells us that higher education is worth at all what we’ve paid for it. We have definitely been tricked. My anger at higher education is palpable; at least at the fact that we have this product, one of the most expensive products out there (barring, maybe, a home), and there is absolutely no system for holding it accountable. Accredited is accredited, and there is no way, as an applicant, to hear the real-life reviews from the people who came before you. Sure, you can talk to a panel of students who were picked by the university based on the chances of them giving a favorable review, but you'll never hear from someone who was less than thrilled with the product they received. We are being duped time and time again into buying into this "higher education," which may or may not provide anything other than very expensive busy work.  

         I believe in college. I believe in what it was originally intended to do, and I especially believe in it so far as it is necessary for continuing human socialization. It is often easy to pick out the people who went to college and those who didn't just by conversation or mannerisms. Learning to socialize appropriately with fellow humans is important. If it weren't so damn expensive, I would also believe in the liberal arts education, because I do believe critical thinking is essential. However, going to college is so unbelievably costly, one should be able to say they are going to get some of that back when it's all said and done. Those heading into college should have all the facts about the majors they may choose and how those will look after they graduate.

         Education, when it was invented, was for all the right reasons. It was for the betterment of self and society, THINKING about the world – why it is the way it is and how we can make it better, and studying history so we are not doomed to repeat it. Now, education is business, and there is nothing to keep that business in check. Higher education is about selling a product to a consumer, and whether that is reasonable or not, I'll save for another time. If this is the case, and higher education is, in fact, for profit, then the commodity it supplies should be quality controlled. There should be a system of checks and balances. When someone goes to buy a house, they hire an inspector. When someone wants to buy a car, a computer, or even a phone, often that person will check reviews, ask their friends, and compile facts and opinions about which item will fit best in their lives. We check the quality of all of these purchases, yet will pay thousands upon thousands of dollars for a product that the only information we have about it was given to us by the “company” itself. I have fallen victim to this scheme twice now, and millions of people continue to fall for it. We need to wake the hell up.

         A liberal arts degree, while enjoyable and sometimes mind-opening, doesn’t seem to hold value in our world today. Critical thinking is no longer valued in this society the way it once was. If you do not learn some marketable skill in college, you will not be able to find a job in this economy. Similarly, in elementary and high schools, critical thinking is often thrown to the wayside in favor of memorizing facts so students can get a certain score on a test. I believe this will come back to bite us, because sometimes unpredictable things happen and without critical thinking, we will not have the tools to persevere. That is not to put down the skill-based degree. That is a choice that we are all given at the beginning of our undergraduate careers, and it is an important one as we all are skillful in different ways. However, as I look back on my experience with higher education, and reflect on my current job-hunting experiences, I find myself wishing that I had chosen a more “useful” degree. Both times. Though, as the author of the above article said, “the 30 year old chose his pointless major when he was 17 and you think the outcome is all his fault?  A 17 year old can kill two people and still be considered too young to be criminally responsible.” We are forced to make these life-altering decisions when we are too young to be charged for committing a heinous crime. Ask anyone out there with a tramp-stamp or other regrettable tattoo, 18 is too young to be making some important decisions all by yourself.  

         Unlike the “hipsters” in this article, I do WANT to be a productive member of society. I WANT to contribute something (with any luck something more than superficial) to the betterment of the world. However, I am realizing, after a master's degree, that I am trained for dick-all. At the age of 30, I am seemingly either unqualified or too-qualified. I know what I would be great at, but apparently I do not know how to articulate that in a way that would make employers see past this alleged “red flag” that really just means “stood up for herself, her students, and her sanity.” So, now come the options. Do I attend even more useless school (um, no)? How do I make myself marketable again? As a first-generation college student, maybe the world is proud that I “did it,” I “beat the odds.” But maybe, if I had known what I was doing, if I had someone who had already done it helping me along the way, maybe I’d be in less of a pickle. Maybe I’d be doing more for society than daydreaming about the jobs I believe I should have and bellyaching because no one will hire me. They can say that those of us with liberal arts degrees wasted our time (and money), and maybe we did, but I think we had the right idea about what it was we wanted to learn. Now we just have the struggle of figuring out how to make it applicable in a skills-based world.