In defense of the (revised) liberal education

"This is a tough time to graduate from college. While unemployment is high across the board, recent grads face a brutal 9.3% unemployment rate -- the highest that statistic has been for them since the Great Recession began. Worse yet, studies have shown that fewer than half of recent college students are finding jobs that relate to their majors, and just more than half felt their jobs made use of what they learned as undergrads."

I came across this article by DailyFinance.com's Bruce Watson, thanks to an FBF and it made me think about how much things have changed since I was a starry-eyed student.

The old saw when we didn't have gray hair was that college was less valuable for what you learned and more valuable that you "learned how to learn." As a grad of communications, back further than I care to say, the attrition rate was appallingly high. Maybe 1 in 10 still working in the field. The one thing I got right back in my youth was that "you really have to want it" and I did. And I do. So here I am, still working in a field that is every bit as tough as it was when I got out of school, if not tougher.

Mr. Weiss's Wild Ride

Some years I scrape by, some years I get what I feel I deserve for my abilities and the assets I offer my clients. Lately it's been day to day and week to week. This has been a good week. Old clients have come back. They are affirming the value I bring to their projects. I'll close the year out busier than I've been all year and 2012 is looking decidedly upbeat. Today is a good day.

Back in the day when unemployment was below 5% people graduated with "worthless" degrees but found themselves in retail or on the job management training. They applied the "learn how to learn" skills they learned at the U and made lives for themselves. It may not have been their dream job, but it worked and so did they. There was room to slosh around, to experiment and "find yourself."

I think it's the rare 18 year old who knows what they want to do with their lives with such specificity that they can march through U and come out on the other end at four or six years with a bankable major and a job. There are fewer bankable majors than when I was a kid. There are fewer jobs. Yet we pressure kids to make "the right choices" knowing that today, more than ever before, that they can't afford to "make mistakes."

Let me talk very candidly, particularly to any young person out there who might be reading this about "my biggest mistake." I went into and came out of school with a singularly arrogant commitment "to do" not "to teach." I did not pursue a masters or a doctorate, believing that I would prove myself "in the field" and that academic credentials were not as important. I looked at the meritocratic nature of filmmaking and thought the only important thing I could do was to amass a kickass portfolio. 

It took hitting 50 to realize how wrong I was, for here I am now with a deep desire to mentor and give back of what I've learned from life and my profession and the larges barrier is the lack of academic certification. I do the occasional workshop or guest lecture, but I want to do more. I am capable of so much more. If I had earned a teaching degree, there's no doubt in my mind that I would still be doing everything I'm doing now, but would have the opportunity to live my recently emergent passion to "pay it forward" and nothing to sneeze at, would have another, steadier source of income.

Live and learn.

Double Up/Double Down

So, instead of kicking myself, (with some justification), I continue to pursue alternate avenues. I'll let you know how this works out, but in the meantime, take it from an oldtimer. Whatever degree you pursue, also pursue a "bankable" minor or dual major. Ideally, one that is synergistic with your major, your first love. I have no idea what the market for your "first love" will be once you get "out into the field" but I can tell you from experience that there's nothing like the clarity of hindsight and whatever you pursue, that the wisest choice of all is to always hedge your bet.

This table, which comes from the linked, downloadable PDF, really bears out the "cost of making mistakes."

The study, from The John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers, offers a very compelling snapshot.

Highlights:

• 47% of college grads not finding work.
• 10% drop in mean salary, post recession
• 0% impact differential between public and private school earning power
• 20% salary bump for pursuing "the right major"
• 24% salary bump for doing an internship

For me, the biggest shocker was the bolded statistic.  The old saw about "going to the right school" no longer seems to apply in today's thorny economy. It's about making the right choices in whatever school you go to. Add to that the huge pricetage differential between private and public schools and caveat freakin' emptor.

Let's call it making the right choices.  Let's not call it mistakes anymore. Because if we do, we play into the judgmental hands of conservative moralizers who cast today's environment as all about personal motivation and character. It's not about character. It's all about the dismal science of economics, made ever more dismal by the usurious cost of college and the dismal prospects for those without the specific technical skills still in demand in today's economy. 

If you want an even more drilled-down version of what majors "work" in said economy, you need go no further than this Wall Street Journal chart. It's clickable, sortable, sobering and scary. Very illuminating. A must-view.

I just had an abridged version of this discussion with my HS Senior son. He gets it. Dad pays it forward. Mission accomplished. Today, yes, it's a good day.