In the past couple of days, some topics we have been going over in our economics class, and specifically had a quiz about, include; positive statements and normative statements. Positive statements are based on facts that can be proven, while normative statements are based off opinions and talk about what 'should' be.
The article that I have chosen in relation to our recent studies, is called "The College Degrees With the Highest Starting Salaries" This article contains a national survey about the different types of college majors and average starting salaries after graduating.
After analyzing different colleges, a national survey showed that more
than half (53.6%) of new grads were jobless or underemployed
Graduates in some majors like petroleum
engineering which is the top bachelor’s degree have a starting salary of
$96,200
The next two highest-paying majors are also
engineering degrees: computer engineering at $70,300 and chemical
engineering at $66,900.
As
you can see, a high percentage of these majors are engineering majors aside
from management and computer science.
We also looked at direct and opportunity costs.
Opportunity cost is related to this because
people used the time to get the degree, pay to attend school, and graduate but
were not pursuing their dream by getting employed in their desired position.
The same example is used from earlier, about a national survey which
showed that more than half (53.6%) of new grads were jobless or underemployed
This is saying that these graduates from certain
different majors are either not finding jobs at all, or not finding jobs in
their chosen field.
There are obviously different reasons for this,
such as new graduates not even being able to cope with reality. The students
don’t understand that governments subsidize degrees, so there are more degrees
than the world needs, or can accommodate. It basically screams out how arrogant
some people can be, and they don’t realize that because you qualify for a job, doesn't mean you’ll get it. Some people can go hard-core in their studies,
racking up 4.0 GPA’s but then when they graduate, they will go apply for that
one job they always wanted with the $120,000/year to start, and they won’t
even get responses from certain employers, and they will go into a state of
disbelief and realize that all these years of studying, and paying thousands of
dollars for a major went to waste.
This is clearly a real-world example of
opportunity cost that occurs daily because of poor decisions by arrogant
people.
The direct cost in this example, is the idea of going to college and spending money on tuition fee's, textbooks, and the time invested into obtaining your degree.
The direct cost in this example, is the idea of going to college and spending money on tuition fee's, textbooks, and the time invested into obtaining your degree.
*example provided in explanation*
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THE POTENTIAL SOLUTION
What
they have to do is think, why, what, and how will I get this job. The people
obviously have to do something more than just get good grades in university or
college, because there will always be competition for jobs, especially the high
paying ones. Obviously some employers prefer experience over education. One
idea to get around that, is to have a part time job during your school and have
something that relates to what you want in your future, so that when you are
applying in a few years for a great job, your resume can consist of more than
just a college degree, but also some gained experience while you were in
school. This will definitely set sparks for certain employers, because you
aren’t only either experience or education, you are a slight combination of
both, and you will definitely have some more preference during the job hiring
process.
I’m
not trying to call out all those failed graduates that are currently
underemployed, or I’m not trying to discourage them, and don’t get me wrong, it
still pays to get a degree but what I’m saying is that they have to be educated
about what happens after they obtain their degree. They have to know about how
high the demand for hiring people in their specific field is. If it’s a low job
demand for that particular field, than they obviously have to create plan b,
and be prepared for the worst if plan a fails. They have to realize that there
is always competition for jobs, and they need to prepare to be the best
candidate. They need to be more open-minded for other jobs or some kind of
related experiences in their desired field, or completely choose a different
career which has a high demand for hiring people, and will give them an
opportunity to try and start something new.
That
picture really made me think about reality...
Some
people will truly believe with all their heart that their ‘real-world’
experience and an advanced degree would make them very desirable to hire, and
be very successful in the field they love. But after sending hundreds of
resumes, and getting rejected from multiple employers after obtaining a
master’s degree, you can really start to feel degraded and realize how that
degree was a waste of time. They start to feel like a total failure, and you
start to feel like you went too far down one path to turn back and start on a
new one (especially when another degree would not guarantee anything), and
overall, it becomes a very hard situation to deal with and obviously your
self-esteem and hope for the future diminishes. People just have to be more
patient and realistic with their goals and not overdo certain things because it
will cost you money and time in which could have been used to pursue something
even greater or more possible.
So
just be realistic with yourself, have good judgement, and give yourself time to
think about what you really want, and be sure to educate yourself about
post-graduation opportunities in your desired field of work in the future.
- Mati Jankowiak
