Posted on 08/03/2009 7:42:38 AM PDT by ConservativeStatement
NEW YORK – A New York City woman who says she can't find a job is suing the college where she earned a bachelor's degree.
Trina Thompson filed a lawsuit last week against Monroe College in Bronx Supreme Court. The 27-year-old is seeking the $70,000 she spent on tuition.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
A common mistake.
One attends college to acquire an education.
Job training is another story altogether.
I attended Florida Atlantic and Temple Universities. I wish I could have every minute and every dime I wasted back. They were both dominated by activist leftists... so much so that I became one and remained one for years.
Two thoughts:
First, in this economy there are many IT people looking for jobs that have both experience and degrees from better known institutions than Monroe College. She needs to hunker down and get her foot in the door doing something responsible to be prepared when (and if) the economy bounces back.
Second, I’m really tired of people taking shots at the liberal arts. In many institutions the “liberal arts” major has come to be a general studies program that allows students to assemble a cafeteria plan of unrelated classes. Originally, the liberal arts were basic education for free citizens. It is supposed to be (and still can be) a broad education that emphasizes the finest thought of our civilization. Young people need to appreciate the value of civilization and the role that civic virtue plays in preserving it. In my heart I really do believe that if every one of our college graduates had read Thucydides, Livy, Machiavelli, and Locke, we wouldn’t be in the mess we are in.
Yes, the special favor in bankruptcy is that student loans are non dischargable.
This is where four-year degree programs differentiate themselves from these two-year certificates. Nowhere on her curriculum are courses that demonstrate proficiency in communications' skills--no English, business writing, etc.; there are programming courses, but no courses in math or logic.
There are also very specific technologies referenced in her coursework: Oracle and Cisco. This is OK, those are very widely-used throughout industry. But what if a potential employer is a SQL Server shop? My point is, sometimes it's better to be more of a generalist--you understand the concepts and can apply them just about anywhere.
Just a few observations. But I do agree with many of the other posters - there's more to this story than a woman who has a degree, but no job offers. Maybe she has no communication skills, and is a poor interviewer. Whose fault is that? Maybe she's received offers, but is unwilling to relocate, or won't accept less than an ideal salary and benefits.
Forgive my cynicism. I am sure there is much more to this story than what we are seeing, but I just get a little irritated when I see this kind of thing. My nephews are graduating right now and though one of them is quite bright and had good grades all through college, it will be the one that’s graduating from trade school having learned how to weld every kind of metal and use a dozen different welders that I will probably see go on to a successful career. I was going through some of my father’s things this summer and found a box with a 300+ page Master’s and his even longer Doctoral Dissertation. Both typed by hand, in triplicate by my Mom with zero errors. Now days, these colleges give away Master’s for a 50 page thesis and dissertationless PhDs and it makes me sad to think how low our University Systems have sunk so they can make more money and focus on Liberalism and Collectivist Indoctination.
Well, an IT degree isn’t worthless ... but look at the courses that she’s taken - this is little more than an introduction to a number of computing-related topics.
I work as an IT senior consultant in a large chemical company (my educational background is engineering). We have rather few IT degrees in our IT department - mostly they get out of IT or wind up in management (one of my ex-bosses had an IT degree). Generally, they’re not prepared to compete with Computer Science majors in programming or other highly technical aspects of computing.
My son has a BS/MS in Computer Science from two highly rated colleges. While his more advanced math classes were in different subjects than mine, he took just as much math as I did in an engineering curriculum. Much of it looked downright difficult, too.
My son took the software route and my daughter, the electrical engineer, took the hardware route. Those are both rather HARD compared to an IT undergrad and much more specialized - but the employment possibilites are different as night and day.
It makes no sense at all unless the college gauranteed her a job. Who is going to want to give her a job now. Nodody!
She would have been better off getting industry certs like MCSEs and/or Cisco's line of certs, these are what we look for. A degree is great but we want someone who can hit the ground running and I would trust a CCNP over a recently received sheepskin.
I don't know what she's looking for but you don't get to be CIO as your first job. After you've paid your dues, funny how people don't understand that concept; they think someone who busted their butt is going to let someone walk in without some experience, then the degree will matter. Keeping up with the cert chase is also good in the IT world unless you become a manager like me (after 15 years as a Sr. Network Engineer and many many days working 12 hour days for salary). Get some successful projects under your belt and you go far. Sit and reset passwords all day without any ambition to rise higher also is noticed.
From the Monroe College website on the IT major:
“Courses will provide graduates with the management, team-building, communication, critical-thinking, and technical skills needed to keep current with ongoing and rapid advances in technology and will make them eligible to explore a varied array of career choices. These career options will include: system analysis, database administration, security analysis, network operations, web technologies, and application development and design.”
It’s a survey degree that qualifies one to be a trainee in any of the specific paths. Additional training in Cisco, Oracle, or Microsoft (all available for a very small fraction of her investment in college tuition) would give her the boost that would get my attention were I again a hiring manager. Sadly she may need a name change in order to get hired by anyone who reads the news.
Agreed that there is more to the story here. One of the best things the career center could have done for her is teach her to interview.
He’s probably tell her - get some training to be a bartender!
Thank you for the advice. My son is only 13, but he needs to start thinking and planning now to prepare for college admission into the major of his choice.
I understand the cynicism completely. IMHO, college is not necessary for everyone. Where I tend to disagree with many people here is that: I believe anyone can reach the higher standards if he is interested and willing to invest the time and effort. Otherwise, it's not necessary for him to attend college. The standards shouldn't be lowered because people aren't willing to invest the time and effort to reach high standards.
At one time, a high school diploma meant something. The result of more and more people attending college is that now a high school diploma means very little to employers. And, with so many people attending college, the standards are far lower. So, I agree with you there.
As for college vs. trade school, I've always admired "can-do" types of people. (And I say that as someone who always was more of a bookworm.) What always impressed me were mechanics, builders, farmers, hunters, survivalists, etc.
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