You hear the same marketing crap all the time: you’re in college to better your future.

Of course, having a Bachelors doesn’t really do anything anymore. I’ve heard about a ton about people who have their Bachelors and are working at a Domino’s or something. Getting a Masters seems like the next logical step, for students and apparently their parents. So is it such a bad thing that I really don’t want to go?

Being around a ton of people who are all talking about getting recommendations and narrowing down their grad school list makes me realize more and more that grad school really isn’t for me. My mom’s look of horror when I told her this one day this summer is the only thing I see when I talk about wanting to go into vet tech after I get out of school. Issue is, as an English major, I’m mildly suffering with what-do-I-do- with-this-diploma? syndrome. Publishing and editing are options, sure, but I don’t want to deal with that crap. It seems that some people assume that because a field has something to do with your major, you will inevitably want to be a part of that field.

And of course, there’s that inevitable money issue breathing down the necks of graduates. Do you stay in school for another two years so you don’t have to pay off loans just yet? Everyone seems to sort of just assume that jobs are lining up to grab college grads, but with the economy the way it is, I’m thinking that this is somehow far from the case. More and more of my senior class seems to be regretting their major because there’s nothing they can do with it to get money. What ever happened to going to college to just learn? Read More »

When I was in high school, my parents always told me that the only way I was ever going to do anything in life is if I went to college. NOT going wasn’t even discussed. You had to go to college if you wanted a job. If you wanted to work at McDonald’s or WalMart forever, then fine, you could skip out on college - but everyone knows (at least according to my parents back then) that working at WalMart wasn’t really a job as much as it was a sentence to the worst life ever.

Well, I went to college, and I even did my parents one better and went to graduate school. Armed with both a BA and MFA, I was certain I could pretty much get any job I applied for, and would get paid 35K at the minimum.

Ha. Ha. Ha. And I’m not alone. Not only have most of my friends with MFAs scrambled to find anything to pay the bills post graduation (working at Borders, in a file room…with freaking MFAs!!), but it seems like degrees in general are losing the battle to inflation.

According to this really long and slightly boring article from the Wall Street Journal, college degrees no longer carry a promise that you’ll immediately grab a job and get paid in awesome wages.

“What employers want from workers nowadays is more narrow, more abstract and less easily learned in college. Read More »

Last week, I warned you that the grad school application process is quite a time consuming effort. Well guess what folks? You’re going to need to put ample time into choosing your prospective grad schools too! Sure, this might seem a bit obvious, but this columnist doesn’t always think things through.

For me, grad school was a roll of the dice, and six possible schools came up for me: Georgetown, Rutgers, Ohio State, North Carolina State, San Francisco State, and the school I eventually chose, hereafter refered to as X University.I chose these schools on a whim. Georgetown was my “reach,” and the closest I could get to Ivy League while maintaining a glimmer of hope for acceptance. Rutgers was relatively close to my hometown (by close I mean a 5 hour drive); Ohio State is a party school notorious for it’s tailgating parties (I swear, that’s why I applied- don’t judge); North Carolina State was an hour from my only other friend attending grad school; and San Francisco just seemed like a cool city to live in, as did the location of X University.

Rule number one in choosing grad school? Don’t be superficial when planning your future! Read More »

Con-graduation! The time has finally come to snag that piece of paper you have had in your sights for the last 4 years. As I am sure you have heard, graduation can be an incredibly tiresome and boring process. It’s a whole lot of hurry up and wait, so knowing what to wear and what to bring can make all the difference on this ever-so important day.

Andrea from NYU gives the lowdown on the fashion do’s and don’ts of Graduation. Check it out.