Posted on 04/04/2006 9:58:28 AM PDT by stainlessbanner
My husband jokes that I should have been an electrician. In this age of outsourcing and job insecurity, the trades seem to us to be the best professions of the future. To be sure, most aren't glamorous and are often physically demanding. But a number seem to have financial security and stability, and their job portability doesn't hurt, either. Many of us white-collar employees don't get to choose where we will live; we must go wherever our employer requires us. Many folks in the trades can command a good income, choose their own hours, and put down roots in a community and stay as long as they choose. I wish I had this luxury.
Both my husband and I are Ph.D. chemists. I'd once wanted to be an opera singer. I come from a long line of writers and musicians, but I had the (mis)fortune of being good at science. In college, the thinking was that the sciences (and an advanced degree) would guarantee me some sense of employment security. Pursuing opera would subject me to the unemployment line, I thought, at least until my career took off. I could sing on the side, but by making medicines that make people well, I could make a meaningful difference in the world.
I could never have predicted the difficulties that I'd face. I followed my husband from Virginia (where we went to graduate school) to Maine, where my husband found a job, and then to Oregon, where we live now. In Maine, I was out of work for almost a year. I went to four temp agencies before I found one that would place me. I was turned away from administrative-level positions because I didn't have "admin experience." I worked retail and part-time jobs. Eventually, I learned to leave my Ph.D. off my resume, which helped me land my first serious job. It didn't pay well, but at least it was serious.
When we moved to Oregon, where my husband had accepted another job, and I found myself interviewing again. I worked for a biotech company, handling their patents and licenses, but this company didn't care about my expensive chemistry degree. I now work at an advertising agency where I (Shhh!) barely earn above minimum wage. The agency ran an ad for the assistant position I now hold and received 60 applications the next day.
It just doesn't seem right. I was valedictorian of my high-school class of 600, summa cum laude from my university, and graduated with distinction from graduate school. And none of this seems to have made the least bit of difference in helping me to build a career. At age 30, I feel grateful to have a job at all, because there are few in my part of Oregon.
My situation is hardly unique. My husband and I know plenty of people with advanced degrees (Ph.D., MS, J.D., and MBA) who have had this problem. In many cases, it's the "two-body problem," where both spouses hold advanced degrees. For some, it's because they choose to live in smaller cities, where opportunity is limited. But often it seems as if the job market isn't able to absorb all the advanced-degree holders at the pace colleges and universities are churning them out. Where are all these people going to work?
I am planning to go back to school this fall. Another doctorate. I have decided to make use of my Ph.D. in medicinal chemistry and become a pharmacist. I still dream of being able to make my own destiny, to carve my own path. A person of some intelligence who worked hard and had the right attitude used to be able to do that. Right now, my Ph.D. and $3.65 gets me a Cinnamon Dolce Latte at Starbucks, and not much more.
My dad often used to say, "Life does not reward us for efforts expended." I have learned the hard way that there are no guarantees in life, and that you can have all the determination in the world, and sometimes the opportunities just aren't there.
In this new world order, where jobs of every stripe are outsourced, and job security or opportunity can be a scarce commodity, one could do a lot worse than to be a electrician.
No kidding, man. I don't know what it was about the U of C that encouraged that. Were they that way before, or did they become that way? And why were their apartments always so nasty?
But mostly, I wonder why they thought Hyde Park was the greatest neighborhood in Chicago.
I'm already in my Plan B - self-employed in a market with virtually no competition, working as a consulting engineer both locally here in Hawaii and with my old clients in Arizona.
See my Post #162 in this thread - you probably noticed that construction is booming here. Kauai has become a favored location for early retirees and the affluent looking to have a second or third home. I turn away as much work as I am doing, and could have a virtual monopoly if I pulled the right strings. I was in the right place at the right time when and found an untapped niche.
The admissions process was focused purely on academics. I got in on the strength of my transcript, my SAT scores and my essay. That's it. I had no bells or whistles on my application.
The kids in my high school who got into the Ivies in several cases had weaker numbers than me, but they did all the window dressing stuff - elected captain of a varsity team through aggressive campaigning, served in student government, created their own charities just to put on their application, nominally joined twelve extracurricular activities to pad the resume, got recommendations from their parents' prominent friends in Congress, academia etc.
U of C students were admitted on raw brains for a rigorous core curriculum where a grade curve and grade inflation were unheard of.
As a result, you got the student who was the smartest kid to ever attend the local high school in their hometown. The kid who only cared about intellectual pursuits and spent his afterschool time building a PC from spare parts in his basement or teaching himself to read Akkadian.
When these kids arrived in an environment where their parents were far away, where they were forced by necessity to interact socially with other kids almost 24 hours a day, were swamped with a load of the first classes they had ever in their life found challenging, and were no longer special (what had enabled them to endure the pain and loneliness of high school was their secret smugness: "They're all bastards to me, but I'm smarter than every one of them!") many of them just lost it.
I mean, I like to think I'm not a dumb guy, but since I went to an exclusive high school for "gifted" kids I was very used to not having the highest IQ in the room when I arrived at college. That saved me from having any psychotic breaks.
But mostly, I wonder why they thought Hyde Park was the greatest neighborhood in Chicago.
Because most of them had never lived in a place as "hip" as Hyde Park before. I went to high school in Manhattan, so I was not impressed by colorful homeless people or used book stores.
I moved to the North Side as soon as I finished my first year and commuted to the U of C after that.
With a little bit of talent, some luck, lots of self-training and a larger amount of personal initiative, there is plenty of opportunity out there.
Ah, that self-training part! Why should it matter how or where you learn, only THAT you learn???
"This woman's whining is pathetic. If you have a working brain you can get a good job in the US. Unless you're lazy."
...or socially inadequate to the point that everyone despises you and your arrogant intellectually superior attitude, requiring you to find a similarly flawed group of individuals to give you comfort and ego-stroking: local chapter of ELF/Progressives for Hillary/New Trotskyists, etc.
Yeah. Teaching some real life skills would help. A real Home Ec, not just cooking and house keeping, but also how to balance a check book, make and stick to a budget, select investments, buy a house, etc. Or how about classes on running your own small business?
My son has a PhD in physics. I advised him to get a job in the defense industry, he did in the LA area. He's still at Northrup-Grumman but is making more money 'flipping' houses on the side.
But that's a whole other story. Anyone who "flips" houses is simply immoral, or maybe amoral. No hope for them, no reason for what they do. Pure evil.
They should just be glad we have a nice house in a nice neighborhood with a good high school. Of course we pay a lot more in property taxes to pay for that school. Is that greedy too? Should we sell the house and move to a poorer neighborhood? That way, the lower property taxes would leave us with more money to spend on those higher priced goods that are so important.
LOL!! Buying and selling, how could they???
A good number of them take it on the chin in the end, but that is small consolation.
You think they might be . . . retiring? [gasp] ~ 1rudeboy
Some are, but many, like me, have been shoved aside by H1-B's and less expensive recent graduates.
I'm not complaining, in the case of young graduates, the free market is selecting inexpensive recent graduates with theoretically more current education over expensive on the job hard earned skills. Although I have tried very hard to keep current, no one can work full time and stay totally caught up.
Companies select candidates that they perceive provide the best bang for the buck. Usually that's a freshly minted engineer, not a beat up and battle scarred veteran.
H1-B's skew the job market, as the program is misused to keep the US wages depressed.
On paper, H1-B's are supposed to only fill positions Americans can't. In practice, at least here in Silicon Valley, they fill jobs that their US colleagues used to receive 50% higher wages for doing.
The kicker is that once someone has earned a higher wage they become radioactive! No one will consider offering them less, because "they'll leave as soon as a higher paying job comes along"...
Excellent! I didn't have a Plan B. I love engineering so much that doing anything else just doesn't appeal.
I'm in the process of starting a company with an old boss. If it doesn't go, I'm moving out of the area taking my home equity and becoming a slumlord. *sigh*
Most high school graduates have no idea what they want to do, so they just go off to college because that's what's expected. There is likely also a built in bias against 'blue collar' folks among teachers. They think kids should be aspiring to professional jobs, except for the 'voke kids' of course. Not everyone is cut out for the professional life, but don't know it until they've spent some time there. Then they start casting around for something else to do.
Personally, I'm lobbying for an auto mechanic. I'd happily accept plumber too.
I dunno...maybe to provide food, clothing and shelter for yourself? Life isn't quite as complicated as some people think.
Which schools are your PhD and her MBA from? The problem with some degrees (especially MBAs) is that if they're not from top schools in the country, they are only valuable in the local region. I don't know if this is true for PhDs, but I'd be interested in hearing your experience. I'm hoping to go in that direction, and I certainly want to be able to find a job.
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