maybe you can read this, and then tell me I'm crazy again.
I know former co-workers of mine (not PhDs) - working at Lowes. One guy went into homebuilding.
and the free traders come on and say "oh, just retrain". sure, retrain a tech PhD to be a roofer or a plumber.
Any job where you have to use your hands and get dirty someone will always want to pay you to do it instead of them.
Well, it does...if you expend your effort in a direction for which there is demand. A PhD in medicinal chemistry sounds like a fairly narrow specialization which leaves one at the whim of market forces. An PhD (or even an MS) in computer science or mathematics and a few years of developing derivative software algorithms for an investment firm in New York would have paid off much better, for someone with her brainpower.
It doesn't pay much, but at least she'll be able to buy her Cinnamon Dolce Latte at Starbucks with her own money.
The more advanced your knowledge, obviously there are fewer places to employ it. It sounds like this lady is letting her husband pick his market, and if it's different than medicinal chemistry, she has been limited even more. They need to work as a team to figure out what cities can employ both of their degrees if they want to use them.
PHD = Piled Higher (and) Deeper.
In a more serious vein, this woman and her husband are over-educated for the average corporate job as a chemist. Most PHDs obtain their higher degree in the expectation that they will become college professors. As a pharmacist, the woman will be employable almost anywhere, and no longer be limited by her husband's job locale. I have a BS in Engineering and have been fully employed or worse (60 to 70 hours a week for the last 15 years) since graduating from college.
And based on the incompetency of some of the tradesmen I have encountered, there is plenty of room for the skilled blue-collar worker to succeed. Here on Kauai, electricians make $50 per hour and carpenters $35 per hour.
Very few of the people I know that have college degrees actually work in the field they majored in (myself included). Entrepreneurship is the key to financial and mobility freedom.
I am planning to go back to school this fall. Another doctorate.
Question: If the first PH.D. is not working out for you, is it really wise to attempt a second?
Also, if it is really that difficult to find a well paying job, should one spend $3.60 on something that can be made at home for 10 cents?
1) Nobody's stopping her from becoming an electrician.
2) What does she expect, living in Oregon?
3) Having a Ph.D. in a research field won't do much good if you aren't a whiz at research.
Credentials do not guarantee a good job. Work ethic and the desire to be successful does in my opinion. The but I am above those people and should make more crowd may have not put the effort into their job that the seemingly lower blue collar worker did.
You'd like this one A.Pole.
Good grief, how do you make that one fit into those little boxes on the rebate form?
Secondly she seems to have the attitude that if you have a degree, then you are entitled to a job. The degree simply states that you have met the minimum requirments for a degree at a university. It says nothing about your work ethic or your ability to hold a job or to follow orders in a real world job. All it says is that you are at a certain level of education in that field, a level that many people who go into that field right out of high school are more proficient at after working as lower level technicians in the field.
Typically, she is blaming everyone else for her inability to find a job. Well there are plenty of jobs out there. Not likely in rural Oregon, but if she's willing to work in a large city there are going to be a lot of opportunities. She does not seem willing to start at the bottom or to leave her precious environment. Hence she is unemployable.
I used to have a job as a Janitor at a high school in a very desireable and liberal university town. I was the only janitor in that school (other than the head custodian) who did not have an advanced degree from a university. Everyone except the head custodian was a college graduate. The problem was that being in beautiful and desireable university town, there were more degrees than jobs. Anyone who wanted to use their degree to earn a living had to leave. Eventually we all did -- except the head custodian who was there because it was the best job he could get with his qualifications.
Science and high tech are todays buggy whip industries.
Slim's Rule of Employment:
Never take a job you're qualified for, it's boring.
I assert that one should not look upon their education as a path to a career. Rather it should ultimately lead one to become an entrepreneur in the field they have chosen.
You become an engineer to one day manage many engineers and ultimately an engineering business.
How many doctors spend their whole career working as a hospital employee, rather than as a partner in a medical firm?
Mostly this is because college and advanced degrees are often worthless---literally.
I agree that a really intelligent person who has a good business sense can do REALLY well starting his own business in the trades. This is why so few young men are going to college these days---the education stinks and, by starting work out of high school, they can pick up a degree along the way while they're years ahead of the game.
The folks in India and China will, though. So they'll come up with new ideas and innovations. We will fade into third world serfdom.
I suppose the free traitors will then be happy.
The heart of the article. I should have her problems. If she wanted to she could probably get a job at any high school or humbler college in the country. She'd make a lot more than minimum wage. Or, since she thinks being an electrician or plumber is all beer and skittles, she could become an apprentice. But she'll have to get used to being looked down upon by Ph.D.s who make minimum wage, though.