Best comment about this video gets to spend a week with Stucky fixing up his house.
Best comment about this video gets to spend a week with Stucky fixing up his house.
At least our colleges are graduating millions of smart, critical thinking, rational young people with degrees in practical fields like engineering, science, math, and accounting. Right?
Guest Post by Monty Pelerin
I taught for about ten years at the college and graduate school level. That ended about twenty years ago and things were bad then. However, the sad state of education has only become sadder.
Periodic feedback from former friends and colleagues never fails to amaze me. Each new bit of information trumps what preceded it. The nonsense that now passes for education is unrecognizable by anyone who has been outside of college for a couple of decades or more. The sad state of education appears to have changed to the sad state of time wasting while inflating one’s own and colleagues egos. Omphaloskepsis (“contemplation of one’s navel as an aid to meditation”) would be more valuable than what passes for scholarship these days.
Here is a blurb from Louisiana State University regarding their latest attempts to advance knowledge for the benefit of mankind (er, I should say personkind):
The English Department Works in Progress Series is happy to present
Amandine Faucheux
presenting her article-in-progress
“The Afrofuturist Queer: Race & Sexuality in Nalo Hopkinson’s Oeuvre”
on Monday, October 26
2:00-3:30 / Allen 202
As is our practice, Amandine has graciously agreed to circulate her work in advance. For a copy, write to either Philip Keel Geheber ([email protected]), Isiah Lavender ([email protected]) or Mary Pappalardo ([email protected]).
Read the work, and come enjoy the snacks and exciting conversation!
ITT Educational Services is just another taxpayer scam. Corinthian, University of Phoenix, DeVry, and every other for profit college that spend more on advertising than the annual revenue of Ivy League business schools are nothing but government enriched phony educational fronts. The billions of loans doled out to “students” by our beloved Obama haven’t made anyone smarter. Most of this money has been absconded by these fake colleges and the fake students who pretend to go there.
WTF? Over 52% of all the students who enroll in these clown colleges drop out within one year. The graduation rates are about 20% and the number of graduates who get a job in their field of study is about 2%. Where does the money go. No one seems to know, because that isn’t the point. Obama is perfectly fine with these fake students using the money to prop up the economy by buying iGadgets and burritos. It’s all good. When the government declares each of these “colleges” to be a fraud, they’ll relieve all the fake students of their debt.
That means they’ll write off hundreds of billions and hand you the bill. Isn’t Obama’s ‘Murica great?
ITT Educational Services is facing new restrictions on its financial aid funding from the Department of Education.
The Department sent a letter to ITT’s chief executive, Kevin Modany, on Monday, outlining tightened financial controls on the company. The new restrictions are a response to ITT’s “failure” to meet its “fiduciary obligations” to the Department since the 2009 to 2010 financial aid award year, Michael Frola, the director of the Department’s multi-regional and foreign school participation division, wrote in the letter.
Under the new restrictions for ITT ESI, -5.21% it will be required to prove to the Department that a student actually began attending classes before the company can disperse the aid to the student. Typically, schools are allowed to disburse financial aid up to 10 days before the first day of classes. The company will also face additional reporting requirements on its enrollment and disbursement of financial aid.
Since the 2009 to 2010 financial aid award year, ITT has struggled to reconcile the amount of financial aid money it pulled from the Department with the charges students actually incurred, according to the Department’s letter. The discrepancy could be an indication that a large number of students withdrew from the school after ITT had already tapped the financial aid dollars dedicated to the students, said Elizabeth Baylor, the director of post-secondary education at the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank.
When Baylor worked as a staffer on the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee, she said her team found that of ITT students who enrolled during the 2008 to 2009 academic year, 52% had withdrawn one year later. The average withdrawal rate for students at for-profit colleges was 54.5% that year. ITT was “falling down on its fiscal responsibility” because it was unable to even identify how quickly its own students were withdrawing, Baylor said. “That in and of itself is a huge cause for concern.”
Continue reading “ANOTHER FOR PROFIT DIPLOMA MILL CAUGHT SCREWING THE TAXPAYER”
This is fucking ridiculous. The taxpayers of this country fund the bloated government run public school systems in this country to the tune of $11,000 per kid per year. Billions are spent supposedly educating our youth. The spending has risen astronomically since the early 1970s. The government has imposed a warped socialization agenda in the public schools taught mostly by mediocre union teachers. The result is there for all to see. SAT scores have sunk to new lows as spending has reached new highs. The control freak liberals screaming for more money to fund bloated teacher salaries, benefits and pensions don’t give a crap about your kid’s education. They want to fill their union coffers with your hard earned money.
The bigger disgrace is the fact that only 28% of all high school graduates score at a level that would predict at least a C average in college. Then why are 66% of all high school graduates enrolling in college? It’s because Obama and his minions care not whether the kids are intellectually capable of succeeding in college? Everyone gets a loan. No child left behind from student loan slavery. So we have millions of bone headed morons with billions in debt, and even smart kids who won’t get a job in this shitty economy, with unpayable levels of debt.
You the taxpayer have dumped hundreds of billions into the government public school system, which has produced a nation of idiots, and now you the taxpayer will be on the hook for hundreds of billions in bad debt student loans made to the idiots by Obama and his liberal minions. What a fucking country.
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 09/03/2015 11:52 -0400
Three years ago, we noted the dumbification of America was accelerating as SAT scores hit record lows. It appears the need for the Derek Zoolander Center For Kids Who Can’t Read Good And Wanna Learn To Do Other Stuff Good Too has never been greater as Bloomberg reports that students in the high school class of 2015 turned in the lowest critical reading score on the SAT college entrance exam in more than 40 years, with all three sections declining from the previous year.
The mean score on the math portion of the SAT, 511, is the lowest since 1999. The highest possible score on each section is 800.
The reading score of 495 is the worst since 1972, according to data provided by the College Board.
The test administrator reported the lowest score for the SAT’s writing section since it began in 2005.
* * *
But apart from that… “I am Cait” is on later…
I’ll be off-line for the rest of the day as we take Jimmy up to Penn State to start his college years. We’ll be down to one at home now. Avalon will be shedding tears later today as she leaves her baby.
Take the day off from doom and relax. I’ll be doing an 8 hour round trip on the PA Turnpike.
Submitted by Michael Krieger of Liberty Blitzkrieg
A Professor Speaks Out: How Coddled, Hyper Sensitive Undergrads Are Ruining College Learning
Things have changed since I started teaching. The vibe is different. I wish there were a less blunt way to put this, but my students sometimes scare me — particularly the liberal ones.
I once saw an adjunct not get his contract renewed after students complained that he exposed them to “offensive” texts written by Edward Said and Mark Twain. His response, that the texts were meant to be a little upsetting, only fueled the students’ ire and sealed his fate. That was enough to get me to comb through my syllabi and cut out anything I could see upsetting a coddled undergrad, texts ranging from Upton Sinclair to Maureen Tkacik — and I wasn’t the only one who made adjustments, either.
The current student-teacher dynamic has been shaped by a large confluence of factors, and perhaps the most important of these is the manner in which cultural studies and social justice writers have comported themselves in popular media. I have a great deal of respect for both of these fields, but their manifestations online, their desire to democratize complex fields of study by making them as digestible as a TGIF sitcom, has led to adoption of a totalizing, simplistic, unworkable, and ultimately stifling conception of social justice. The simplicity and absolutism of this conception has combined with the precarity of academic jobs to create higher ed’s current climate of fear, a heavily policed discourse of semantic sensitivity in which safety and comfort have become the ends and the means of the college experience.
– From the Vox article: I’m a Liberal Professor, and My Liberal Students Terrify Me
The article at the center of today’s piece is truly excellent and demands much thought and introspection. One of the main themes here at Liberty Blitzkrieg since inception, has been the contention that the American population has turned into a nation of coddled, fearful serfs.
It’s not quite clear to me when this transformation actually happened, but the first undeniable evidence within my lifetime was the public’s reaction to the terror attacks of September 11, 2001. I’ve written about this before, most specifically in the post, How I Remember September 11, 2001. Here’s an excerpt:
When I graduated from college in 1986 it was easy to get a job. The economy was booming and 82% of college graduates had a job. The other 18% were probably raising kids because their college educated spouse made enough to raise a family. The mantra for my entire life has been – go to college and you’ll get a good paying job. It seems something went wrong on the road to riches. The percentage of college graduates with jobs has been falling for the last 30 years and has been plummeting since 2008. It is now at an all-time low of 74.3%. Shouldn’t these people have obtained jobs since the government tells us the unemployment rate has dramatically dropped from 10% to 5.5% since 2009?
Not only is college graduate labor participation at record lows, but those getting jobs didn’t need a college degree in the first place to get that job, in the majority of cases. A new Careerbuilder survey indicates that though the majority of Class of 2014 college graduates are currently working, 51% of that group are in jobs that don’t require a degree. This is up dramatically from the 38% found in the 2010 US Census survey. The Careerbuilder survey also found that only 36% of 2014 college graduates had obtained full-time permanent jobs. The findings are as follows:
Colleges across the country have mailed out acceptance and rejection letters for next year’s incoming class of students, which means many high school seniors will have to confront being denied admission to their top schools and figure out how to stay positive. Here are some tips for coping with a college rejection letter:
As a former college professor, I find it interesting to follow what is happening in the universities. Unfortunately, little good is occurring. The trends that I abhorred are now ingrained and de facto policy. Things like grade inflation, lack of accountability and even integrity issues have deteriorated dramatically from when I was a student and probably shockingly since I last taught.
Ron Lipsman is a man who’s views I respect. Thus, I was surprised to see a sentence like the following from him:
The university has traditionally played a societal role in converting callow youth into mature and responsible adults. Let us not subvert that role by giving in to immature and irresponsible behavior.
In my opinion, that sentence was applicable three or four decades ago. Today’s universities, at least the ones I am familiar with, abandoned his first sentence long ago. Now they behave more like overly permissive babysitters who cater to their wards’ wants, wishes and shortcomings. Students who are failing are not considered at fault. The professor has not “reached” them. More innovative teaching methods are necessary. Easier grading should be used. Etc. etc.
I am pleased to say that the majority of Mr. Lipsman’s article I am in agreement with. It is reprinted below:
The Age of Entitlement Comes to Campus
The spring semester recently concluded at the large state university campus where I still teach part-time (even though I am formally retired). The students in my post-calculus, differential equations course – a sophomore math offering taken mostly by engineering students – performed at a level commensurate with what is normally seen in this course. Thus the grades I issued conformed to the usual bell shaped curve and so one saw roughly 10% A’s, 20% B’s, 40% C’s, 20% D’s and 10% F’s. (Alright, I am not immune from the ubiquitous phenomenon of grade inflation – the actual grade distribution was definitely skewed somewhat higher.)
The students who failed the course largely knew that this was the likely outcome before even sitting for the final exam and – since their performance on the final confirmed their hopeless status – I had virtually no blowback from these students. But from the D students, an avalanche of email cascaded down upon me as soon as the grades were (electronically) available. The avalanche is explained in part by the following: despite the fact that D is considered a passing grade, the Engineering School will not give credit for the course unless the student obtains a C or higher grade. Thus, students who earn a D feel that, in spite of the fact that they did “good enough,” their effort was unrewarded and they are resentful that they have to repeat the course to get credit toward their degree.
Here is a typical example from the slew of emails I received – almost all of which matched this one in tone and content:
I am a second year chemical engineer and I need at least a C to pass the course. I honestly put a lot of time and effort into your class and I felt like I learned more than my course grade is reflecting. While studying for the final exam I spilled milk on my laptop, rendering it unusable. My father had to take me to the Apple store for repair. This whole ordeal took up most of my study time. I don’t mean to make excuses, but due to these circumstances I had a very short amount of time to study for the exam, and my performance was impacted. I honestly put a lot of time and effort into your class and I felt like I learned more than my course grade is reflecting. Considering all the good I’ve done throughout the semester, I think I should at least get a C. I will get kicked out of my major if I do not get a C in the class. Please reconsider my grade or even allow me to do any work to boost my grade. Once again Mr. Lipsman, I am asking out of the kindness of your heart please bump my grade up a little more, please! Please, if there is anything that you can do, I would very much appreciate it.
My typical response is a polite email, which points to the course web site (available to the students from the first day of class) that contains the grading scheme for the course; and then I highlight the specific poor points of performance on the student’s part that account for the unfortunate grade. (Conversations with colleagues reveal similar strategies.) That usually settles matters; but in a small number of cases, a student persists in pleading/demanding/scheming for a higher grade ex post facto. In that case, I turn the matter over to department or college administrators. On (fortunately, rare) occasion, matters can become rather unpleasant.
Even when I avoid such unpleasantness, I find these emails quite disturbing. Such an approach to a professor by a student would have been unthinkable two generations ago. But this kind of plea bargaining/begging for succor phenomenon has become increasingly common over the last decade or so. In fact, I believe this university student phenomenon reflects patterns of behavior that are prevalent throughout modern society. In this regard, universities reflect, as well as inaugurate and instigate various unwholesome features of our current culture.
In order to illustrate, I will identify the main themes that emerge from the email cavalcade that I endured:
- The student claims to have worked hard on the course. In some instances, this may be true; but in many, I know that it is not. Too many students have a warped idea of what hard work actually entails.
- The student is always a victim of some special circumstance (illness, accident, family crisis, poor advice, exceptionally challenging workload, etc.). The victim card is played often and instinctively. “It’s not my fault!”
- The student asserts his “right to pass.” Implicit is the belief that if he is properly enrolled, in good standing and pursuing a legitimate degree program, then he is entitled to be passed through this checkpoint in his journey – regardless of performance. He is entitled to a C merely by his legitimate presence in the course.
- “If you don’t give me a C, my future is in jeopardy.” Not only is he entitled, but the penalty for depriving him of his right will be severe. The resulting consequences for him will far outweigh any moral anguish suffered by me for distorting the legitimate outcome of the course’s process.
- Finally, “You, professor, can fix this.” No notion of personal responsibility enters the equation. The burden of this unfortunate affair lands on my doorstep to correct the injustice. The student inhabits a cosmos in which he is not in control of his destiny.
I propose that each of the above five manifestations of the student entitlement mentality is reflective of patterns present in society in general.
- Admittedly, this might be too heavily concentrated among government employees, but who hasn’t encountered an employee that complains of being overworked at the same time that both his inbox and outbox are suspiciously empty.
- We’re all victims these days; of racism, sexism, ableism, and other isms you haven’t yet recognized. We’re being screwed by big corporations, small businessmen, unscrupulous co-workers, bad neighbors, even members of our family. We are all categorized into boxes according to race, gender, age, geography and so on. And we are certain that those in the other boxes are working feverishly to limit opportunities for the occupants of our box.
- As a victim, my rights are being violated. I speak not of the rights granted to me by the Constitution, but instead those guaranteed to me by politicians. These include my right to a great paying job, a fine home, the best medical care, a secure retirement, an exceptional education – not to mention nice clothes, top notch appliances, a month’s annual vacation and a great set of wheels. To all this, I am entitled because … well, because from FDR to Obama, I’ve been told so.
- And if I don’t have these things, then not only are my rights being violated, but my life is being ruined.
- Finally, it is the primary responsibility of the government to ensure that my rights are not violated and that all the things promised to me by government are delivered to me by that government.
Well, perhaps I’ve engaged in a bit of hyperbole to make a point. In fact, most students are hard-working, conscientious and respectful. But the fact that the number who are not is increasing is troublesome. That they are increasing in number could be a reflection of unhealthy trends in society in general.
Dealing with these societal issues is a topic for another time and place. But the university is equipped to cope with their manifestations on campus. I have communicated to the Department Chair, College Dean and Dean of Undergraduate Education some recommendations to do exactly that. They include:
- It should be explained emphatically to new students at freshman orientation that grades are not a commodity to be bargained for or negotiated over. Grades express faculty evaluation of student performance over an entire course. They are not an opening bid in an auction. They are arrived at carefully by faculty based on specific course performance criteria spelled out in detail at the start of the course. On most campuses, faculty are already obliged to make these criteria known to students at the outset of the semester.
- If a student feels very strongly that the grade he was issued violates the terms of the criteria, he may politely ask the faculty member for a clarification. If, after the reason for his grade is outlined to him by the faculty member, he is convinced that the faculty member has violated his own rules, then the student may file a formal grievance above the faculty member’s head at the Department or College level. American campuses have long experience in setting up structures to administer such a procedure. However, also at freshman orientation, it should be stressed to students that grade grievances should only be filed in the extremely rare instance that a faculty member has manifestly behaved unjustly.
- Students should also be apprised that anyone who files more than one grievance over the course of an academic career will be called in by the Dean of Undergraduate Education for an interview. At that time it can be pointed out to the student how multiple grievances are telltale signs of one or more of the unhealthy societal behaviors outlined earlier. The student would then have an opportunity to confront, evaluate and perhaps alter his cultural axioms.
The university has traditionally played a societal role in converting callow youth into mature and responsible adults. Let us not subvert that role by giving in to immature and irresponsible behavior.
This essay appeared in a slightly abridged version, under the title “Give Me a Better Grade — I Deserve It” in Minding the Campus
Everywhere you turn experts are predicting that the world is heading into some very troubling times. At every level, they say we are heading into a period of history that will see major upheavals in economics, politics, education, food production, housing, jobs, and basically everything. These major changes will effect everyone on earth. That is why so many people are trying to prepare for these changes before they happen in full force, and most experts agree the best way to prepare to meet the challenges of living in this kind of future is to have a skills-based education rather than following the traditional model of theory-based education.
That is why it is better to learn to become self-sufficient rather than spend your precious time and money going to college, at least for now. In fact, if you follow this alternate path of education, in order to be best prepared for the new reality, in four years time you will be well on the way to financial independence; you’ll also be healthier, have a nest-egg to invest, and have well-developed multiple skills. You will be at least a decade ahead of your high school pals who went directly to college.
Recent college graduates are looking at spending the next 10 to 15 years of their lives working just to pay off the Federal student loans they took out to pay for their expensive college educations. Graduating into an economy that has 25% unemployment for college grads, most are not finding jobs in their chosen field of study and instead are consigned to work that pays $10 an hour or less. Is there any wonder why so many are forced to move back into the homes of their parents? It is currently estimated that fully 1/3 of college grads are living at home with Mom and Dad. How can they afford to live on their own and have an apartment, as well as pay for rent, utilities, food, transportation, and still have a life, when student loans must begin being repaid immediately after graduation?
According to CNN, in 2012 the average student loan debt is $29,400 and is expected to take 10 to 15 years to repay. By the time the loans are paid off, current college graduates will be entering middle age. How will many of them ever be able to save enough to pay for a home of their own, marry, or have children, let alone afford a new car and have any extra disposable income to pay for vacations, dining out, movies, or pursuing hobbies?
Here’s what you should be doing during the next four years, to be better prepared to meet the emerging “New Realty”:
The goal of accomplishing the list above is to:
The best way to accomplish all of this is to think of it as your “real education” and to commit to working your plan for four years as if you were attending college, only this is your practical education. Without a real commitment to accomplishing each step of the plan, you won’t reap the benefits it will deliver. So resolve right now to commit to the process.
Committing to the process means you will not allow yourself to be sidetracked! There will be many who will want to sidetrack you. You will have to discipline yourself to stay focused on the prize of becoming financially free and not let anyone talk or shame you out of it. Don’t listen to the naysayers or those who love to poke holes in your dreams. They only do this because they don’t have what it takes to accomplish it. So, rather than watching you suffer while you get there and accomplish something great through sacrifice and self-discipline, they will do all they can to bring you down and get you to abandon the idea altogether. Don’t allow this to happen! Commit to the work, do the work, and stay focused on the goal!
At the end of your real education you will:
Let’s assume you just graduated from high school. Your immediate task will be to get a job to earn money. It may seem to be a hard thing to do, given that many of you are living in households where parent(s) are having trouble finding work! However, you have more options in job selection then they do, because you can afford to not be picky.
Some of the best jobs are the jobs nobody wants. Jobs, such as working as a dishwasher at a restaurant, or cleaning rooms at a motel, or being a farm or ranch hand might be available to you. In fact, some of the least sought-after jobs can be the best ways to achieve your four-year goal. How’s that? Well, there are jobs that will pay you money, in addition to providing you with room and board. An example is being a farm or ranch hand. Many farms and ranches need workers who can do the manual labor required on a farm or ranch, such as milking the cows, mending the fences, feeding and watering livestock, stacking the hay bales, driving the machinery, tending the chickens, and gathering eggs. According to estimates released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, farm animal caretakers, such as ranch hands, earned an average wage of $11.56 an hour (as of 2012). Many ranches include giving workers a free place to sleep and all meals. Some ranchers may adjust pay to their workers to cover these items, but because good hands are very hard to find and keep, wages remain competitive. Since you won’t have to pay for room and board, you can save all the money you earn.
Do the math: Figuring a 30-hour work week, and after all taxes and FICA taken off your wages, at the end of four years, you could save $40,000–$60,000.
What if you want to stay closer to home? The best jobs are the ones that will pay you more, based on your own effort, sooner rather than later. Being a wait person at a restaurant is one such job. Food service type jobs, where you wait on tables and take orders, pay at least minimum wage as a base income, but when you give great service with a smile, you can earn tips from your customers that will boost your earnings! If you work where the minimum wage is $8 an hour and you work 30 hours a week, that equals $240 a week, but you could average tips of an additional $10 an hour more.
Do the math: Base wages are $8 an hour plus approximately $10 more per hour for tips equals $18 an hour equals $540 a week equals $2322 gross wages a month. After state, local, and federal taxes are taken off your pay, at the end of four years you could save $60,000-$90,000!
If you can’t find a job, then create a job for yourself. Here are a few ideas: There is always a need for someone who can clean houses, clean and re-organize garages, do yard work like mowing lawns, trimming bushes, picking up yard debris. Are you good in math? Then hire yourself out as a math tutor. You can earn more money by organizing a Math Tutor class, with two to four students in each class.
Another way to go is to find things people don’t want and sell them to people who do want them, making a profit for you through the transaction. I’ve heard of people making a very good living finding broken things, repairing them, and then putting them up on Craigslist and selling them. If you are a gear head and can do oil changes or auto tune-ups, advertise in the Nickle Ad Shopper or Penny Saver newspapers, and offer to do these services at people’s homes, instead of them coming to you. If you charge less than what retail outlets charge for this service, your phone will be ringing!
Offer to babysit, pet sit, farm animal sit, or plant sit. Offer to clean the bathrooms at every gas station in town and get them under contract for this service. Do it for $20 a week. You can earn an extra $100-$200 a week! Offer to deliver food for several restaurants. Do it for 15% of the total order. Many times you will get an extra tip at the door when you deliver the meals!
Can you sew on a sewing machine? Offer to re-size clothes, do minor repairs, and alterations. Sew hems on cut-off jeans, or make long-sleeved shirts into short-sleeved ones.
If you can create simple websites, offer your services to new businesses. You can get the list of all the new businesses who registered and paid their license fees with the city. Just call City Hall to get the list. Then contact each new business owner and pitch them your service. Offer to keep the cost under $300. (Most new businesses can’t afford pricey websites.) Just keep it simple and classy. Then make sure you deliver the website on time and for the price agreed to. Do a good job, and you will get favorable word of mouth advertising and a lot more experience. This will lead to more jobs and more earnings.
One job you create is better than no job at all! Of course, while you work your created job, keep looking for full-time work. Eventually you will get hired.
While you are looking for a job, talk with your parents about continuing to live at home. Offer to pay rent each month or to help with more housework in payment for room and board. It’s vital you negotiate a fair but cheap rent! Remember you are saving every penny you earn above your living expenses. Whatever you agree to do, do it! If you negotiated a lower rent in exchange for doing more housework and you don’t do the housework, then you are simply practicing being a liar. Pay attention boys! Boys are particularly notorious about promising to keep the room clean and then, due to laziness, end up trying to schmooz Mom or Sis to do it for you. It’s time to grow up and start doing what you say you will! It’s great practice for your first paying job.
If you know what you want to learn to do, then try to find ways to save money there, too. For example, if you are a gear head and you want to become an auto mechanic, then offer to work for a Master Mechanic as a shop gopher to start. Try to work as many hours a week as possible, even if for minimum wage. You can learn to become a mechanic very fast being essentially a paid apprentice. Don’t immediately think to attend a turn-key college that will teach you to be a mechanic, because those types of colleges, while every bit as valid, are still expensive and make more money off you as a student, if they can get you in by Federal Student Loans. That means more heavy debt for you. Don’t go there! Get in as a gopher-worker-apprentice somewhere with a Master Mechanic and save the tuition. You’ll be paid to learn.
Same thing works with wanting to be a chef. Offer to start as a dishwasher at a restaurant. Always be on time. Always be a conscientious employee. Then progress to food prep and side dishes. Observe the head chef and every one under him or her. Ask questions. Show an interest. People love to share what they love with others who are interested! You will learn to be a chef in four years or less this way. Why pay a culinary academy $25,000 a school year when you can be paid to learn the same things?
How many other professions can you think of where you can be a paid apprentice while you learn the trade? Apprentices can work in heating & air conditioning, electrician, plumbing, home building and remodeling, printing press operator and quick copying, meat processing, commercial delivery-driving, and commercial driving a long haul truck. If you want to design clothes, offer to make the costumes for the local theater production. There are so many ways to gain experience! Experience leads to higher paid work.
What if you can’t get into a trade apprenticeship? Then create a job! Don’t be idle. There are many ways to earn money, if you are willing to do the work. Be creative in thinking up ways to earn money while costing next to nothing to start. Try window washing. It costs almost nothing for buckets, squeegees, and window cleaner– $3 total at a dollar store. Use free newspapers to dry the window once cleaned. Start on a street filled with businesses, and go store to store. At each store, offer to do all their windows for $20 dollars. Even if it takes you an hour to do the windows at each store, that is only 5 hours a day of work for a full-time income.
Tell them you want to come back each week (or every other week) to clean the windows again. Try to pick up five customers a day, who will be repeat customers. At $20 a store, that equals $100 a day and $500 a week in profit. This is a gross income of $26,000 a year! You should be able to save at least $20,000 of this each year. In four years that will be $80,000. There are many communities where this amount will more than pay for a house. Ask yourself, are you willing to clean windows for four short years so that you can buy a house free and clear?
You might decide that you want to reach your four-year goal in three years. That may mean working more than one job. Do whatever it takes, and stay focused and committed! If you can earn money while learning a trade, go for it! If you can earn money while also being given free room and board, go for it! The money you save will help you achieve your goal that much faster!
This is where it gets really fun.
When you get your first paycheck, sit down and do some figuring. Take your paycheck and figure out what you will earn per month. Then deduct for your room and board, if you have to pay for this. Allow a little bit as fun money, but when I say “little” I mean it! If you have a car, budget for the gasoline for the car, to get you to and from work. Once all of your obligations are written down including your fun money, deduct them from your net monthly pay. What’s left is what you are going to save, religiously and without fail, each and every week.
Check out all the local banks and credit unions and decide which one is the best for you, with respect to opening and managing a personal account. Research the costs involved. Is there a minimum balance required? What are their bank fees and debit card and overdraft fees? Credit unions usually have less fees for their members. Once you have decided which financial institution to use, go there and open an account. This is something to do in person. Introduce yourself to the banker. Get his or her business card. This will be a valuable relationship to you, especially in just a few more years when you buy your real estate property. They’re not for you to borrow any money from but to use as references. So, get to know them now. Often, in large real estate transactions, using bankers as references can help you. Keep the business cards and make note when someone gets promoted at the bank or someone new is hired. Always introduce yourself to the new people and get their business card. Cultivate these business relationships!
I advise you open only a savings account at first. Checking accounts are too easy to tap, and once you start tapping that money, the faster you lose everything you’ve saved. This is going to be a real test of how self-disciplined you are. This is the time in your life to master money. The sooner you do this, the better for your financial future. Seriously, don’t be tempted to blow the money on a depreciating asset. (A depreciating asset is one that loses value over time, like a car or motorcycle.) And for heaven’s sake, DO NOT buy anything on credit! Making monthly payments is DEBT, and you end up paying more than whatever it’s really worth. So, just open a savings account. Once you feel you can trust yourself to not touch any of your savings, you may open a checking account and only place your “fun money” there. Use the credit card that comes with the account to spend the fun money, which will help build your credit score. You want to start on the right foot and build your credit! Just don’t overdo it. Purchase only what you have the money in the account to cover immediately. Remember: Do not go into debt for anything. Paying immediately for something you charge will help you gain a high credit score. A high credit score will help you when you are ready to buy your real estate. Just stick to the savings account as the place where you put most of your earnings.
There’s something magical about seeing the amount in a savings account increase over time. What starts as just a few hundred dollars, quickly turns into more than a few thousand dollars. You have big plans for this money. If you take any out and think you’ll replace it later, forget about it. It won’t happen. You will only be practicing stealing from yourself, so don’t go there. Stay the course, and don’t touch that money! Concentrate on the large amount you will need in just a couple more years and what you will be able to do with that money. Keep your eyes on that prize! Learn to master money; don’t let it master you!
If you can discipline yourself to save money and not be tempted to spend it, even when others are encouraging you or guilt-tripping you to spend it, then you will be successful! Remember that you have really big plans for this money. In fact, your plans will make you rich beyond your dreams, but if you can’t discipline yourself to save the money and spend only what you allow yourself to spend, you will never realize your goals or finance your dreams. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. You will not get anywhere if you rob Peter to pay Paul.
Your goal is to find a job and save money so that, in four years, you can buy real property to live in. Notice I said “real property”, not a “house”. I want your to think in terms of owning something outright and not “financing” it. Financing it means you go into debt. You don’t want to be in debt. Avoid debt like the plague! You want to buy something outright– free and clear. In other words, once you pay for it, the only thing you will need to pay will be your property taxes and upkeep. Once you know what that amount will be annually, divide it by 12; then you will know what your “housing” costs will be each month and can then budget accordingly. Why do you want to own something outright? Because if you can greatly reduce or eliminate this expense, you can spend what you would’ve spent on housing on other things. Your cash flow will improve. You will have more money to save and invest! You can have financial freedom when you own a home free and clear. This is your ultimate goal.
That’s okay. Buy what you can buy, in that price range, so that you own it free and clear. You may only be able to buy a small piece of undeveloped land. Don’t despair! You will be able to live there; it will just take a little longer. Alternatively, it may be that you will need to re-think what you consider housing in the short term, in order to reap a great financial benefit in the long term.
Here’s what I mean. You have worked and saved for four years, but you can only afford to buy a piece of land for $20,000 outright. That’s alright. You did your homework. You know there are no codes or covenants that force you to build a certain type of house on the land; therefore, you are free to live in a tent there, if you want. However, you may want to park a used RV on your land, until you’ve saved enough to build a house. Remember, the RV you buy to place on the land is to be purchased free and clear. There are many used RV trailers for sale under $1000 on Craigslist everyday. In fact, it’s possible to find RVs and travel trailers someone would be willing to give away for free, so long as you haul it away!
Now you have 1) land, and 2) a dwelling to live in for free. You’ve now eliminated the biggest item in most people’s monthly budget– the cost of housing. Your monthly expenses will be utilities, food, and annual taxes. That’s it! For most people, (and depending where you buy), those costs could be under $400 total every month. A good rule of thumb is this: Try to keep your cost of living below 1/4th of your monthly net income. Save the difference between your monthly income and your expenditures, and you will be able to make improvements on your land in no time. Remember to pay for everything with cash as you go. Always make sure to own it free and clear. If you do that, you can’t go wrong.
Learning to save for and then buy something you want, so that you do not go into debt to pay for it, may be the hardest thing to do, but it is absolutely the most rewarding way to go. In fact, it was THE way most Americans did things as little as 75 years ago.
Seventy-five years ago, World War II was just starting in Europe. People in America were still living with the effects of the Great Depression, where 25%-30% of the working-age population were unemployed. Back then, there was no safety net provided by the government. People helped each other. Churches and benevolent associations took care of the poor and needy. People found ways to create their own work. They spent less on groceries, by planting and cultivating gardens. They learned to barter with farmers for fruits, vegetables, and meats. They had backyard chickens and a cow for milk. They learned to can what they didn’t immediately eat and store the extra for future consumption. This is a mind-set and a skill-set different from today, where people are used to going to the grocery store for food one to three (or more) times a week.
Today, grocery stores do not keep as much inventory on the premises as before. The logistics of food distribution has become so sophisticated that stores can replenish their shelves in one to three days. The large trucks on the nation’s highways are actually warehouses on wheels, bringing goods and perishables to stores on a “just in time” basis. In America, this process has become so efficient we have become lulled into believing it will always keep going.
It is difficult for us today to imagine a time when people grew most of their own food, created and repaired their own clothes, and even built their own houses. In fact, the modern mortgage banking system, where you save for a down-payment and then are loaned the balance of the purchase price at an interest rate based on your credit score for a term of 30 years, is a fairly recent phenomenon. Prior to this model, most folks negotiated a home purchase with the owner directly and maybe with the help of an attorney drawing up the agreement. People routinely paid all-cash for land and then set about building their own homes. Most able-bodied men in America at that time were capable of laying a foundation and completing the construction of a house. This was done to stay out of debt and make it easier to live. If you owned a home and some land, you did not have a mortgage payment to meet every month. You had a roof over your head already paid for. You had a yard for a garden to grow food to feed your family. You may have enough land for a chicken coop, or a small grazing pasture to keep a cow or small herd of cows. By owning your own home, you had no monthly mortgage payment. There wasn’t anyone, who owned the mortgage note, who you had to pay or risk losing your home. No one would think of purchasing a home unless they had the money to buy it outright. It wasn’t done, because it wasn’t prudent. It wasn’t good for the homeowner to go into massive debt to have a home, precisely because a situation could arise where you could lose the home.
Today, housing costs take up the largest monthly outlay in people’s budgets. Whether you rent or have a mortgage, you pay roughly 30-40% of your take-home income on housing and housing-related expenses. Failure to make those payments will get you evicted from your home. If evicted, ALL the money spent on keeping that roof over your head was spent for nothing, including the interest on the home loan you were paying. Interest alone adds nearly three times the purchase prince, paid over time. So a home price of $150,000 will actually cost three times that, or $450,000 over 30 years, all due to interest payments! The difference between $450,000 and $150,000 is money that you could have spent on other things for yourself, instead of enriching a banker. If you buy a house this way, you are agreeing to mortgage your own future and are robbing from your future self to pay for it! You are making yourself a slave to that debt. You are a slave to whoever loaned you the money. You must pay it back. There are no other options, other than bankruptcy, which is worse. ANY large debt you agree to pay back later makes you a slave to whoever gives you the loan. This includes the college students who have made themselves slaves to the Federal Government, because they are on the hook for all of the student loans they are taking to pay for college. They are making themselves vassals of an overlord who has draconian means to force them to pay the student loans back, via the IRS. New federal laws actually empower the IRS to get involved and confiscate your future earnings in order to pay back your student loans. This all begs the question: Do you really want to do that to yourself? Why would you willingly make yourself a slave, especially since a degree does not guarantee a job? This is why it is better to learn self-sufficiency now, while you can still do something about your future. If you’re right out of high school, spend the next three or four years getting yourself financially established, mastering money, saving, and saving some more. Then get your housing squared away. Pay cash. Don’t go into debt. Try to find free or low-cost ways to learn any desirable skill. Once you have the housing cost eliminated, THEN you can think about college, if you still want to go.
Via Complex.com
At 18-years-old, you have no money. You have no game. Your life experience is limited to getting fired from a part-time gig at the driving range and totaling your mom’s Saturn Ion junior year. In sum, you’re a lost little douche who’s still five or six years away from paying their own cell phone bill.
Besides a Facebook network and the freedom to butt chug, college offers an opportunity to reinvent yourself. For many an awkward, pigeonholed high school kid, the first day on campus is a chance to re-introduce themselves to the world. In most cases, this is an unfortunate occasion.
Grab a pencil and take notes, this is an important lesson on the 10 Types of Douchebags You Meet in College.
There’s a new sheriff in town and at 22-years-old, he patrols the fifth floor of Morris Hall in sweatpants and a pair of worn Crocs and still expects to be taken seriously. When it comes to spotting red cups, this guy has a laser-like focus that’s unrivaled. If you crank that Taylor Swift a decibel too loud, he’s kicking down your door and serving your ass with a “quiet hours violation.” When he’s not on Brazzers.com in his deluxe dorm suite, he’s following the faint stench of a bong hit through the halls like bloodhound in John Wayne Gacy’s crawl space. If there’s one thing this asthmatic virgin knows how to do, it’s regulate.
There’s something about incurable venereal diseases and exorbitant tuition costs that creates an unyielding devotion to college sports teams, especially for the jackass chock-full of school spirit. Look, your college is already charging you $100K for a worthless bachelor’s degree, don’t degrade yourself further by sporting a neon body sock in the bleachers and bragging about next year’s “ridiculously talented recruit class.” There’s nothing more pathetic than being a groupie for teenage, amateur athletes. Get a grip, dude.
This is a Complex public service announcement. Before you rush a fraternity for philanthropic and beer funneling reasons, understand that you’ll spend a semester getting hazed by a college senior who’s two or three internships away from landing their first entry level job. Cleaning the vomit-soaked toilet at the Pike house with a toothbrush is hardly worth an invite to the Theta formal. Calling beers “sodies,” having a membership at LA Tan, and an affinity for dubstep remixes are not becoming of a kid who got a 29 on their ACT. Also, khaki shorts don’t always have to be paired with boat shoes. You’re in college, bruh. Think outside of the box.
It’s amazing how one introductory course in environmental science can turn a 20-year-old into an Biofuels expert. The problem with college kids is that they’re ignorant to the browbeaten realities of living life in a cubicle and they have nothing but free time to get jacked up on MotherJones.com articles about oil companies. By your 29th birthday, you’ll realize that you can’t change the world, especially when your idea of “activism” is nodding along with like-minded bozos in a campus coffee shop.
The bar floors are sticky, the drinks are watered down, and the air is permeated with Axe body spray and petrified vomit. To the rest of the world, he’s just a college town “lifer” who extracts tapeworms from keg lines for a living. But he can pull rank to get a free round Jello shots, and that makes him intensely popular with the Tri Delts. Universities boast Nobel Prize winners and Rhodes scholars, but none of them are as popular as the guy who can pull a group freezing Kappa Deltas to the front of the wrap-around line on “Thirsty Thursday.” And that’s pretty douchey.
There’s a thin line between being a fun drunk and acting like an extra in a Ke$ha video. And that line is typically crossed while chasing a handful of Molly’s with Skol Vodka out of the plastic bottle. You like to party, we get it. We just saw you gracelessly thrash about a fraternity basement to “Thrift Shop,” pee behind an alley dumpster, and now you’re crying on the phone with your high school boyfriend. After some regrettable drunk texting and a trip to the 24-hour Taco Bell, you’ll vomit in a hamper and pass out. In the morning, all you’ll have to show for yourself is a shattered iPhone screen and the sad realization that you’re an enormous douchebag.
There’s something about a khaki and polo combination that turns even the most delightful of people into instant douchebags. From Best Buy employees to dads on the golf course, and every high school football coach in between, pleats and a tuck-in are guaranteed to turn otherwise pleasant people into total cornballs.
The campus tour guide pounds a four-pack of Red Bull and tries to sell the college experience with scripted saccharine and hackneyed punchlines. After some lame team building activities and a few made up stories about campus life, you’ll have a totally superficial idea of what it means to be a Spartan or a Wildcat or whatever strange animal is your prospective school’s mascot.
Your college got a blue chip prospect. Finally. While you brag insufferably about this being “state’s year!” this dude’s going to be fleecing boosters and running a foul of NCAA regulations. After sleeping his way through a semester’s worth of gen-ed’s, leading your school to a 4th place finish in the NIT, and subsequently hocking his game-worn sneakers on eBay, the NCAA’s Rule Committee is going to crater the program with crippling sanctions. While your school struggles to get back on its feet, this guy’s cashing a game check in the league and Instagram-ing his bottle service receipts. It makes us sick just writing about him.
If you go to a large school, your professor will be too busy chasing grant money to be bothered with class. So you’ll end up at the mercy of a frenzied graduate student who takes attendance and grades on a curve. Look at this guy. You can see a 40% fail rate in his eyes. Any guy brazen enough to pull off those glasses is definitely assigning a term paper over Spring Break. This can’t be life.
There’s something to be said for getting your sea legs in high school. If one goes into college with 18 year’s worth of 8 p.m. curfews and nightly breathalyzers from their overbearing parents, all it takes is a few unsupervised nights in the dorm to turn the captain of the math team into a teenage version of David Lee Roth. This guy beer bongs and promptly projectile vomits his parents tuition money away. He texts every girl in his phone “What r u up 2?” at 1 a.m. nightly and brags about “getting totally wasted last night” like it’s a unique accomplishment. After failing his first set of finals, he’ll have to enroll in a community college near home and trade in his drunken, late night Chipotle runs for Sunday afternoon grocery trips to Costco with mom. We’d feel bad if it weren’t so funny.
We’re going to see John Fogerty tonight at the Borgata Casino in Atlantic City. My family isn’t as psyched as me. Creedence Clearwater Revival is one of my favorite bands of all time. But they were only together from 1967 to 1972, when I was less than nine years old. I became a fan later in life. My first real introduction to John Fogerty was when I was in college at Drexel University in West Philly. I lived in a dump at 33rd and Baring Street with two friends in 1985 and 1986. We lived in the bottom two bedroom one bath unit in this three story unit. The neighborhood was iffy. A black dude once came through the bedroom window with a knife on a Sunday afternoon. The MOVE standoff, which had happened a few years before and resulted in the death of a Phila policeman, occurred a block away from our humble abode.
Music always brings me back to a time in my life. John Fogerty released the album Centerfield in 1985. I was 22 years old. I realized that life was good. College is a great time in a guy’s life. I put in the time to keep a 3.7 GPA in accounting, while having plenty of time to play sports with my buddies, go to frat parties, and spend time at our college bars. We were all poor, but you could get drunk on $10 in those days. Our bar was called The Jailhouse. It was connected to Cavanaugh’s Bar. They were located between 31st and 32nd on Market Street. We lived on hot dogs and instant mash potatoes for most of the week, but on Thursdays Cavanaugh’s had an all you could eat buffet for $3 and $2.50 pitchers of beer. Let’s just say we got our money’s worth on Thursdays. Sadly, these bars were knocked down a few years after I graduated and replaced by a university building. You can see from the picture they had real character – also known as college dives.
Intra-mural sports was our main form of recreation in college. It’s a surreal time in a guy’s life. You have no money, no attachments, no real responsibility, and no real stress. You have your friends and a few hours per day of school work. My buddies: Paul, Mac, Jay, Bill, Mike, Peez, Rich, Joe, and few others all loved sports. We formed teams to play intra-mural football, basketball and softball. I was 170 pounds and could run full court games of b-ball for three hours with ease. Those were the days. Studying, music, drinking and not worrying about the future, not in any particular order. It was 1985. The internet was only used by scientist geeks. The Apple Mac had just come on the scene. Virtually no one owned a desktop PC. Laptops didn’t exist. Cell phones didn’t exist. Cable TV only had 100 stations with nothing worth watching. Young people interacted by sitting around and talking. We actually made eye contact and had to verbalize what were thinking.
It was 1985, Reagan’s Morning in America. I voted for the first time in 1984 and bought into the Republican storyline. In retrospect, I was clueless about the world, politics, finance, the Federal Reserve, women, and just about everything. Americans were convinced that the Soviet Union evil empire was still a threat to our security. In reality, they were on the verge of collapse. America had entered the delusionary debt boom that continues to this day. I didn’t care about any of these real world issues. I was living in a bubble. I loved sports, music and hanging with my friends. And that brings me to John Fogerty. Our Intra-mural softball team had a bunch of excellent ball players, with yours truly playing shortstop. Drexel is located between Walnut and Market from 32nd Street to 34th Street. Their ball fields were located at 45th & Market in the heart of the West Philly slums. Low income housing tenements towered over the ball fields. It was a beautiful setting for sports.
In college there are a lot of good athletes. We faced some good competition, but our team was stacked. Over the course of a few weeks we defeated every opponent. We reached the championship game and won a close tense game to be crowned intra-mural school champs. There were no fans to carry us off the field. The only people who knew we were champs were us. We did what all great champions do. We headed for The Jailhouse to celebrate our victory. Ten guys, a dark college bar, $2.50 pitchers of Schmidt’s, and a juke box. John Fogerty had been out of the public eye for about a decade. Then he roared back on the scene with his album Centerfield. The song lends itself to banging on tables and singing the lyrics at the top of your lungs while being very very drunk. The song has one of the best opening riffs of all time. You can’t get the chorus out of your head:
Oh, put me in, Coach – I’m ready to play today;
Put me in, Coach – I’m ready to play today;
Look at me, I can be Centerfield.
As the evening progressed, the empty pitchers piled up on the table. We probably played Centerfield on the jukebox 10 times. I do remember Mike Philips dancing on the top of our table while we sang the song. I also remember him falling off the table. I haven’t seen him since the day we graduated 27 years ago.
The Jailhouse didn’t put much money into maintenance or upgrading the décor. The tables were 50 years old and you sat on benches. The men’s room was upstairs. It consisted of a room length trough for dudes to piss in. On this particular night cigarette butts or some other object must have been blocking the drain. The trough was filled to the brim with piss. It was overflowing onto the floor. We were drunk and not particularly concerned about Jailhouse plumbing issues. We just pissed in the trough and returned to singing Centerfield. Later in the evening as we were running out of gas, I witnessed the consequences of an overflowing piss filled trough. As you recall, the bathroom was upstairs, directly over the tables below. It seems the piss leaked through the floor above and soaked the drop ceiling tiles below. I watched as a piss soaked tile came crashing down with a thump a couple tables over. It was a fitting end to a memorable evening. Of the ten guys in the Jailhouse that night, I only keep in touch with one. I long ago lost contact with them. Life has a way of creeping up on you. You meet the love of your life, have kids, and get tied up in your career. Before you know it, 28 years have passed, you’ve added 40 pounds, lost most of your hair, and you’ve turned into a cranky 50 year old anarchist blogger.
Every time I hear this song on the radio I’m transported back to a simpler, happy time in my life. No cares. No pressure. No responsibility. No worries. Just friends, fun and beer. It’s a melancholy feeling. I’m very happy with my life and my family but sometimes, like Eddie Money says – I wanna go back. In a few hours when Fogerty goes into the opening riff for Centerfield, I’ll close my eyes and get transported back to that night at The Jailhouse.
There are two other songs from that album that I like as much or more than Centerfield. I love listening to the sax in a rock song.
This one rose into the top 10.
Time is a funny thing. It slips away when you weren’t looking. Find some time to enjoy yourself today and remember the good times, with good friends, good (???) beer, at a good bar.
And you run and you run to catch up with the sun, but it’s sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in a relative way, but you’re older
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death
Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over, thought I’d something more to say
Pink Floyd
I sure hope Kevin doesn’t major in one of these subjects. He’s starting out as a computer sciences major.
College is a great place to learn and have fun. But let’s not kid ourselves, some degrees are as useless as the plot in a Michael Bay film. Here’s a list of 10 degrees that may be interesting, but do jack shit for you in the real world.
10. Art History
Why It Won’t Help You Get a Job: With an art history degree you could maybe curate an art gallery or work at a museum or .yeah, that’s it. That’s all you can do. And seeing as how every art gallery and museum I’ve ever been to has exactly one dude sitting quietly at a desk reading a New Yorker and eating a food that requires chopsticks, I’m going to go ahead and assume there’s not a lot of positions open in the field. That means you’re going to have to venture out into the corporate world. And let me inform you, when you’re interviewing with Bob from the HR team at Wal-Mart who’s wearing a tie that has the twin towers smoking with writing underneath that says “We Will Never Forget, your art history degree says to him “I’m a commie a-hole who thinks I’m better than guys with 9/11 ties.
What Job You’ll End Up With: After your parents boot your ass from your bedroom to make room for anything that’s not your bedroom, you’ll wander towards the nearest coffee shop and get a job there, which will allow you to meet artists who will thank you for allowing them to put fliers by the cash register that inform people of their upcoming show that touts “the combination of art and flute.
9. Philosophy
Why It Won’t Help You Get a Job: This isn’t ancient Greece: No one is going to pay you money, or allow you to sodomize their attractive son, in exchange for your knowledge of existence. Never has there been an employer who’s said “Man, we’re having all kinds of problems, I wish we had someone on our team who could reference and draw conclusions from the story of Siddhartha that would pull up our fourth quarter numbers. I took many philosophy classes and it involved reading and smoking a shit pile of weed. You don’t need to pay 20,000 dollars a year to do that. All you need is twenty dollars and a library card.
What Job You’ll End Up With: Thanks to your extensive knowledge of philosophy, you’re now self-aware enough to know that most jobs out there will make you totally miserable. So most likely you’ll wait tables part time and hope someone starts paying you for the bi-monthly entries on your blog.
Why It Won’t Help You Get a Job: If you’re not named Achmed or Bjork or G’Day Mate this isn’t a degree, it’s the last 18 years of your life. If you really want to study us you don’t need to go to some stupid class, you need only to sit back and watch a two-hour block of Must-See TV to understand The American. After doing my own research, it seems that this mysterious creature is a pot-bellied humanoid with a hot wife and bad credit who has a penchant for low-calorie beer, Chilis, Applebees, TGIFridays, Denny’s, McDonald’s, Taco Bell, Dave and Busters, Steak and Shake, Chilis (again) and Red Lobster. Oh and he can totally demolish a White Castle Crave Case in, like, 20 seconds. OK, now give me my degree.
What Job You’ll End Up With: To take your American Studies degree one step further, you will be qualified to do 40-50 years of “graduate work cleaning tables and taking orders at a Chilis, Applebees, TGIFridays or Red Lobster. Or possibly Denny’s.
Why It Won’t Help You Get a Job: I didn’t even know this was a major until I found it on the Appalachian State website. According to their actual explanation of this major: “Music therapy is the scientific application of the art of music within a therapeutic relationship to meet the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual needs of individuals. Which is a big, fancy way of saying “We’ll teach you how to make a mix tape. I guess I, too, am a qualified music therapist because my “Summer Jams “95 tape I made in the 10th grade totally rocked my house party. All my friends told me that kicking it off with Wreckz-N-Effects “Rump Shaker followed by Coolio’s “Gangsta’s Paradise totally met their physical, mental and spiritual needs to help them get wasted on my dad’s Schnapps and Drambuie.
What Job You’ll End Up With: After realizing that yoga studios and elderly homes don’t pay people just to come in and set mood music, you’re sadly going to end up putting your degree towards burning a fire to keep warm because you are homeless.
Why It Won’t Help You Get a Job: Go into a communications class on any given day and it’ll smell like dried semen and booze. Reason being, communications is the major for anyone who wants to graduate, but doesn’t want to stop getting totally wasted on weekdays. Here’s the bad news, if an employer is going to hire someone to help decipher how human beings communicate, he’s going to hire someone with the letters “Dr. before their name, not the person who first checks to see if a class is offered online, then when they find out it’s not, let’s out a “gaaaaay bro.
What Job You’ll End Up With: You’ll go to several job interviews that turn out to be pyramid schemes, even though at first you won’t realize this and come home and tell your parents, who you still live with, “They said I’ll probably be making six figures in less than a year just by selling these beer cozies.
Why It Won’t Help You Get a Job: Despite what “Dancing with the Stars and “High School Musical may tell you, there aren’t a lot of dancing jobs out there,so you better be good because there aren’t any gigs for mediocre dancers. Outside of New York City or some crap in LA there is absolutely nothing you can do with a dance degree that doesn’t involve actually dancing for money. And since the Des Moines interpretive dance movement hasn’t really taken off yet, you have a better chance landing a job as an 8-Track repairman or a member of the Beatles.
What Job You’ll End Up With: After moving to New York and trying out for Hello Dolly! or Damn Yankees or any of the other seven Broadway plays that want dancers and not landing a single one because you got your dance degree from Ball State, you will find ample opportunity to show off your choreographic skills at one of the city’s many strip clubs. You’ll just need to change your name to Crystal or Bambi and you’ll be able finally live out your dream as a dancer. (Mom and Dad will be so proud!)
4. English Lit
Why It Won’t Help You Get a Job: If someone can spend a weekend with a box of Cliff’s Notes and have only a slightly less conversational knowledge of what you spent 4 years studying, you probably don’t have the most employer friendly degree. Having an English Lit degree is like being a member of the Kansas City Royals: No one cares and the best you can hope for is every once in a while someone buys you a beer because of it.
What Job You’ll End Up With: You can read and comprehend, so that gives you an advantage over 99.5% of the people that peruse Craig’s list job listings. Therefore, you’ll most likely end up landing an entry level position at a random small company, or showing up to your interview and being raped repeatedly by a group of masked men.
3. Latin
Why It Won’t Help You Get a Job: Not only does no one speak this language anymore, but we already have all the Latin that exists in the world. There’s no new Latin that’s hot off the presses that needs immediate translating. I’m no business major, but majoring in a language that doesn’t exist anymore doesn’t sound so good for job security. And I’m sorry to break the news to you, but the world doesn’t need someone to translate The Bible or the inscription on the side of a Post Office or El Loco Latino’s “Latin House Party.
What Job You’ll End Up With: Since you majored in something that doesn’t exist, you’re going to have two jobs. Your first one will be as the annoying pretentious guy who gives everyone the Latin etymology of every big word he hears at every dinner party he attends. Your second, and most lucrative job, will be as a Subway Sandwich Artist.
2. Film
Why It Won’t Help You Get a Job: No one in hollywood gives a shit that you made a short film about an alcoholic albino that discovers the meaning of life through the help of a retarded child. Unless that retarded child was played by the son of Harvey Weinstein, your film or degree will be as pointless as the last three seasons of Lost
What Job You’ll End Up With: If you’re lucky, you’ll have an uncle who can get you a job as a production assistant on CSI Miami, where your time will be spent making coffee runs and finding whores that will let David Caruso pee on them.
1. Religion
Why It Won’t Help You Get a Job: Sorry God, but a major in Religion is about as worthless as St. Brice (The Patron Saint of Stomach Aches.) Even Duke University can’t put a solid sell on this degree: “A major in religion offers intellectual excitement and can be a pathway to a liberal education. OK, you sold me. So now I get to shell out about a hundred thousand dollars so I can know what to wear to a Shinto ceremony and learn how many virgins Allah will give me if I blow myself up in an Israeli square? If it’s OK with you, I’ll keep my money and stick to my sinning-a-lot-now-and-repenting-on-my-deathbed plan.
What Job You’ll End Up With: This one is tricky. On one hand you’ll probably end up working behind the desk of a Christian Science Reading Room. But on the other, you may end up with everlasting peace and spiritual enlightenment. Let’s call it a draw.