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Posted on 04/23/2012 3:37:01 AM PDT by tobyhill
The college class of 2012 is in for a rude welcome to the world of work.
A weak labor market already has left half of young college graduates either jobless or underemployed in positions that don't fully use their skills and knowledge.
Young adults with bachelor's degrees are increasingly scraping by in lower-wage jobs — waiter or waitress, bartender, retail clerk or receptionist, for example — and that's confounding their hopes a degree would pay off despite higher tuition and mounting student loans.
An analysis of government data conducted for The Associated Press lays bare the highly uneven prospects for holders of bachelor's degrees.
Opportunities for college graduates vary widely.
While there's strong demand in science, education and health fields, arts and humanities flounder. Median wages for those with bachelor's degrees are down from 2000, hit by technological changes that are eliminating midlevel jobs such as bank tellers. Most future job openings are projected to be in lower-skilled positions such as home health aides, who can provide personalized attention as the U.S. population ages.
(Excerpt) Read more at google.com ...
McDonalds Essay
Go to work for McDonalds and consider it as going to school. Rather than come up with a bunch of bucks for tuition, Get a job at MD and pay extreme attention to what is taking place. Get paid for your efforts in the process. Set a limit. Go one year or maybe a year and a half. Be dedicated to the task the same as if you were paying thousands of dollars at a college.
The concept involves looking at McDonalds as an industrial microcosm . Mc Donalds is very much like a factory with hundreds of employees except smaller. MD also has a retail arm in addition to the manufacturing arm. To grasp how things are done in the manufacturing and business world, MD is small enough to observe all the operations that can be studied in detail and the study extrapolated to the world. MD is chosen because it is truly a global company and one if not the very best successful business to be studied.
The big question, the goal of the going to MD as school, is to discover in detail what is MD? Why does it exist?
As a study aid, a laptop computer would be beneficial. The computer can be used to keep notes and to make and record lists. Homework is making notes and expanding the lists, making entries into the big list of things learned and things to be explored further
Most McDonalds employees don’t flip burgers, they are in sales. At McDonalds if you apply your self and study what is happening you can develop a good understanding of sales and customer service. The front line, the people on the counter, have an opportunity to meet and greet a wide cross section of customers, of people. The very act of asking” how can I help you” engages the customer in a business transaction. The customers can be observed and then studied in the abstract. Make a list. What kinds of customers, what do they want, what do they need, how does MD meet their wants and needs, what wants and needs are not met, should every want and need be met?
If you clean up, study the various chemicals and cleaners. Read the MSDS documents and learn a lot about OSHA, chemicals and government regulation. Learn what they do and why they do it. Learn why someone made and effort to obtain each of the specific cleaning products. Understand the process and how it relates to government regulations. Learn why MD wants the task not only performed but the reason for doing it. Learn if there is and external requirement such as a local or federal regulation. Learn about the regulation and why it exists. Learn if MD made the rule and how the rule makes the product better.
Somewhere there are posters. The posters are mandated by the government and outline the various employment laws. The posters are the basis for the interaction of business and government. They might seem overly complex and quite boring but they are a major part of the lesson. Study the posters and develop a total understanding of what they mean. Learn how the government and business interact and why.
Hang out with the manager and study and learn the flow of goods. Learn the basics of purchasing. study the inventory flow and learn how inventory management keeps the company rolling.
A typical Mc Donalds store is a mega industry on a micro scale They obtain raw materials hire labor and manufacture a product to very tight specifications. The process is typical of all manufacturing, only the product, the manufacturing equipment and size are different.
The principles of how raw materials are obtained, moved around, stored, and used apply to all business and manufacturing. A thorough understanding of the various tasks and processes involved will be useful elsewhere. The lessons can be expanded to a basic understanding of product quality and quality control The business and all the jobs there are absolutely dependent on the quality of the product.
Tight specifications, what are the specifications, where did they come from, why have the specifications, how are they met, who enforces the specifications and assures consistent quality? These are all valuable lessons to be learned in the micro factory. The answers can be learned by paying attention and carefully watching what is actually happening throughout the place..
The subject of raw materials is very important area of study. One of the lists or perhaps several of the lists would be of various raw materials or raw material categories. . Just what and how many raw materials is required to keep the place running? A list describing the material, where it comes from and exactly how the material is used can provide extremely valuable insights.
Then there is the matter of human resources. A one year study of the flow of people in and out and retained could result in a master’s degree paper on proper use and abuse of labor resources.
The concept of a crew, a team (for further development)
Then there is cash. A study of cash management could provide a detailed insight into cash, banking and the importance of plastic payments to a small business.
The MD school you choose might be near home or across town but it is merely one of many. A whole nother different course of study is what happens at and to MD outside the local operation? How does your store relate to a regional and national and global network of stores.
Back to the big question. Why does your school exist? Why do we have Md’s. The answer to that question applies to each and every business and manufacturing operation in the country. The answer is to make the owners a profit. Each and every item on all the various lists that will be developed in the school process is there to assure a profit. Proving that statement is the goal of the school and learning the reasons is the way the proof is obtained
It is all there for free. as a matter of fact one can get paid while at this school. All it takes is a proper frame of mind and a desire. Everything there is something to be learned
An interviewer will be blown out of her shoes when the lessons set out and learned are recounted in extreme detail.
I’m going to save this and continue to expand for the next time the issue is raised.
I wonder how many of these umemployed graduates voted for Obama and who they will support this time around.
-—Most future job openings are projected to be in lower-skilled positions such as home health aides, who can provide personalized attention as the U.S. population ages.-—
Nothing wrong with these jobs, but a nation of retirees and home health aides is a dying nation.
We have to get the govt boot off the neck of the private sector yesterday.
-—The average bank teller in this area makes barely over minimum wage!-—
They dress up though.
Excellent analysis Bert.
I saved that for review and sharing. Well done.
what is a ‘creative writing degree; — do you need a degree to be able to write? How many successful fiction (or even non-fiction) authors of today have these “degrees”?
The kid who made this statement obviously never learned to speak English correctly! No wonder he, and so many like him, can't find jobs. This is the quality of college graduates today.
I saw this coming over 25 years ago when I ran a resume service business. Every spring the upcoming college grads would come in for help with their resumes. They could not spell, couldn't write a logical sentence, had no idea how to structure a cover letter (including the mechanics of where to put the date, address, etc.), had no actual working experience, and spoke as though they were in grade school. Yet they wanted high paying jobs, would not settle for entry-level positions, and were not a bit hesitant to go back home to live with mommy and daddy and be supported while waiting for that "perfect position" that college advisers had promised would be there when they graduated.
Now our country is glutted with so many more college grads, who were admitted to college because of "quota" requirements, and, after four years, have ended up with no viable skills. We have colleges to blame for our culture of young people who are only well-qualified to "Occupy" America - and not build or better it.
The overly hyped promotion of college...as the only key to a better future...has been the downfall of our country. Trade schools, or places where students could earn an education in two years and gain worthwhile, marketable skills...and be productive...have, for too many years, been considered less "acceptable." Parents have wanted to brag about where their child was attending school, and kids have been excited about the freedom to live away from home and party away from their parents' watchful eyes, more than they have been encouraged to become independent. So every kid, whether they were good students or not, were enrolled and accepted at four year schools - financed mainly on student loans, (or given sports scholarships to attend) rather than work and save money for school, or work part-time while in college, or go to a trade school and be done in 18 to 24 months. The idea of spending a fun four years and "finding oneself" at a distant campus was promoted to high schoolers more than the idea of being focused and becoming self-sufficient in two years.
In college these students have been coddled and pampered while they have lived in isolation from the real world. Over the years, by offering easy subjects and "degrees" in fields that have left graduates unprepared for hard work, and with blown up ideas about their own worth, colleges have produced the most self-serving, self-focused, inept group of graduates that we see rampant today. Hence, the culture of the #Occupiers was born and nourished. And we are surprised?
Bookmarking your excellent post.
I guess the writer got the brilliant bank teller example from Obama. ATMs have been around since the 1970s, so whatever might be happening to bank teller jobs doesn't have much to to with any 'more high-tech age'. The constant mergers and acquisitions might be impacting all sorts of jobs in banks.
The article scratches the surface on many current circumstances faced by college graduates, but doesn't seem to explain very much.
Or any job if approached in the manner that you describe.
It would be advantageous to anyone that would show the same kind of individual enterprise and apply it to their job.
A general comment: I remember reading articles in the late ‘60s about how the demand for college graduates by businesses was so great that many corporations were hiring liberal arts majors and training them to do jobs within their firms. This was, of course, before the post-Vietnam recessionary period.
I think the trends that have produced the job market now faced by recent college graduates have been building since the 1960s, and trying to explain it based on more recent economic events won’t work. Our failure to produce our own energy, trade policies, automation, and large scale legal and illegal immigration, and other factors have come together to create excess workers at many job skill levels and that won’t change for a good number of years, or at all unless government policies change in many areas.
Doctorate in Social Justice at UMass/Amherst!
B.S Creative Writing = Barista
Sounds about right.
“You could get the same sub-pay with a community college degree (two-year associates degree)”
Actually, with the right 2-year degree, like diesel mechanic, HVAC, etc., you’re going to very quickly be making more than any B.S. in BS if you’re on-the-ball at all.
David Neumark, an economist at the University of California-Irvine, said a bachelor's degree can have benefits that aren't fully reflected in the government's labor data. He said even for lower-skilled jobs such as waitress or cashier, employers tend to value bachelor's degree-holders more highly than high-school graduates, paying them more for the same work and offering promotions.
Ah. Brings back memories of the cabbie I met in Madison, Wisc who had a Ph.D. in Medieval Philosophy.
A great reply and food for thought (no pun intended) in analyzing the world around me in general.
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