Posted on 10/26/2007 2:09:03 PM PDT by Zakeet
Think you've got problems? Let Ken Ilgunas offer you some perspective. Ken's got problems, and the Buffalo News has generously offered him space to tell the world about them:
I am 24, live with my parents, can't find work and am floundering in a sea of debt five figures high. I think of myself as ambitious, independent and hardworking. Now I'm dependent, unemployed and sleeping under the same Super Mario ceiling fan that I did when I was 7.How did this happen? I did what every upstanding citizen is supposed to do. I went to college. . . .Upon graduating, I was helplessly launched headfirst into the "real world," equipped with a degree in history and $32,000 in student loans. Before ricocheting back home, I would learn two important lessons: 1) There are no well-paying--let alone paying--jobs for history majors. 2) The real world is really tough.
At one point, Ken was so "desperate" that he even considered working for a bank or an insurance company!
"I had hit an all-time low. Could I surrender my soul for health coverage and a steady income? Could I sacrifice my ideals by falling into line?"
Our hero stood firm.
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...
This picture must have been taken before “reality” smacked the stupid smirk off his face.
Complete and utter BS! I know first-hand, as I gotta history degree!
God bless him. He’s my brother now. I proudly served in the Marines from ‘55-’79. He’ll be in harms way, to be sure, but I always thought an impious little saying we had in Vietnam summed it up just right: “Yeah, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil— ‘cause I’m the toughest mother in the valley.”
Thanks for your prayers. We are incredibly proud of him!
Idea #1) Be willing to relocate somewhere outside of Buffalo.
Personally, I'd introduce his a$$ to the curb. My kids knew it too, which is why they didn't choose to become career bums.
Thanks for your words of support. We’ll worry until he comes home, but know he can count on his fellow Devil Dogs.
Have you looked at Dilbert lately?
ML/NJ
My parents would have bounced his a** down the front steps if he tried that with them. We knew that if we went to school we could live there for free if we had good grades and we were expected to support ourselves afterwards. If we didn’t choose a well paying job, well good luck with the student loans. If we didn’t go to school, we went to work and paid rent if we chose to live at home. All of us paid for our own educations and weddings. Best of all, we are all independent, appreciate our lives and now help take care of our parents.
I was a geography major in college in the early nineties. We had one student in the class who was in education. He was offered a job teaching geography at a high school in Wisconsin BEFORE!!! he graduated. With no masters degree.
Congrats. She sounds like she’s got her act together. My niece at 19 decided home was “stifling” her, and she was going to “live the high life, because she was an ADULT” so she moved out.
Yeah, she lasted 3 weeks. Found out her boss expected her to be at work on time, people still told her what to do, and she had to pay for everything herself. Now, she’s back home and going to the local CC full time.
I love history. If I were to go back to college to get another degree, I would get one in history. But then I would go on to get my masters and phd. We need more conservative historians.
Do you suppose that is even part of the equation?
A hundred years ago, the typical purpose of a college degree in the liberal arts was to prepare the children of the wealthy to be able to socialize and have intelligent conversation.
People who actually needed to work for a living went into the business world, worked, and studied at night school or correspondence schools. There mostly was no silliness with degrees in the business world -- you either knew things or you didn't.
The requirement to have a degree in order to get your resume read came from the EEOC's quotas, and businesses need to ensure that the applicant pool had people who could actually read and write
It could be worse.
He could have majored in Philosophy.
Dear Ken’s Mom And Dad,
You are doing young (?) Ken no favor by assisting him in protecting his integrity.There will come a day you won’t be there..and what compromise will Kenny have to make in order to eat? It will be hard on him, Mom and Dad..very hard because he has had no practice.
The guy almost sounds like a 1960’s wanna be. The difference being, most of the rebels of that time had no home to go to. For the most part, they got a hair cut and got a real job...because they had to!
Agreed, some of us end up managing technology training departments on college campuses. I joke that I've been rather expensively educated for a really cool hobby!
I read an article a few years back that showed the trajectory of various college graduates careers. After twenty years many of them had jobs completely different than what they got their degree in. If a person is smart enough to get through college, they are probably smart enough to learn and adapt to something different that comes along. Except maybe for people like Ken who appears to have the maturity of an infant.
>>You can read more about Ken’s travails at the bottom of the page — including his belief that he is better off unemployed than “compromising his integrity.”<<
That is LITERALLY the attitude of many of the derelicts living on the streets of Seattle.
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