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Yes it’s an arts degree, and yes the arts are in dire straits right now, but uhhh I at least feel fulfilled having tried to make the most of my passion— which I recognize doesn’t pay the bills, but made me feel validated and boosted my self-esteem, which I don’t think any job would’ve ever done for me nearly as much.
…so anyways, how’s that reset going, is your machine back up and running? Great. Thanks for calling tech support have a nice day.
Society prizes art above all else (its like 90% of what we remember about ancient cultures if you count stories as art) but hates artists with a passion.
I wish we lived in a society where all basic human needs were provided, to give people an opportunity to just engage in culture instead of being so focused on the future of consumption
I agree that our society could deal with less of a focus on consumerism, but the problem that wishing that all basic needs were magically provided is that you cannot get around the fact that someone needs to do the providing.
I think that the most realistic way forward to get some of the same benefits is for us to start reducing the length of the work week, certainly to 4 days and possibly even to 3 days.
Just wanting to point out the irony of making fun of artists' life choices… below a comic.
Sorry, I should clarify those were my own choices I was referring to. I’m the one who has a film degree and now works in tech support.
I meant to be empathizing more than making fun of op.
I think anyone not looking for reasons to be angry could read you were speaking about yourself, don't mind them!
Those corrupted morals of exploiting other humans and living things need to get justified somehow. Have a little compassion. ;)
Here’s the thing… I remember some years back that (I think it was) Denmark had the best educated population or the most college degrees or some such, so your cashier or barista could very easily have a college degree.
The difference is that they get paid far better than retail in the US, get all the benefits of social policy, and from unionization. Vacation time, health care, maternity leave, etc. that retail positions in the US would be highly unlikely to have. I’m sure there’s some social stratification to blue collar positions vs white collar in such a country, but I’m sure it takes a lot of the sting out of it when you’re taking your two weeks vacation on the mediterranean coast.
I live in Austria, where it's not even quite as nice (well, similar benefits, but no federal minimum wage). It's deeply engrained in our culture that education doesn't have to be prep for a job. I personally know many people who pursue or have completed uni education that's completely unrelated to their like of work. Some have degrees in other areas, some don't. We have some pretty 'bad' statistics for how long People take to finish their degrees because people are, like, full time kindergarten teachers and taking 10 years to do a political science degree on the side purely because it interests them. People value education for its own sake and I love it. Unfortunately though, capitalism has this culture on the decline, and not even that long after education became open to most people.
No minimum wage, but we do have collective bargaining, for anyone who's interested.
I remember working retail and having angry customers tell me to go to college and do something with my life when they didn’t get their way. Little did they know that I, like a majority of the workers there my age, were in college and just working a summer job. Some people are just dicks and my experience in retail has shown me that anyone 50+ yrs old is most likely to be an asshole for no reason. Idk why but the older generation here in the US is full of self-centered cunks.
Lead poisoning damage to their brains has made them genuine psychopaths.
I too believe this is a major reason for the downfall of society
They are probably full of regret around their younger years and just projecting their own bullshit onto others.
I hate the idea of considering college/uni as just job training. Seriously, why can't our society just encourage people to go learn just to LEARN. Oh yea because wage slavery.
Oh, for real! I went to school for pharmacobiology/biochemistry (very affordable in my country) and it changed my outlook on life, my thought process, my ideas, my horizons, etc. Even if I don't use any of it at my current job, I don't regret it one bit. Life is too big to live it in ignorance is my motto.
If I'm going to spend a few years of my life in full time study, I'd expect there to be a payoff in terms of future income.
Learning for the sake of learning is good fun, sure, but life is expensive.
That's exactly their point. The pursuit of knowledge for the sake of knowledge should be encouraged. Whats considered mankind's greatest societies all encouraged the pursuit of knowledge not only for financial gain but because it's important for society as a whole
The primary goal of a university is teaching the next generation of academics. That's it. The entire goal is teaching and research.
But like everything else in this society, it must become a profit-driven endeavour and if it doesn't contribute with the revenue of some company, it's not worth it.
I graduated 20 years ago with a really good mark from a really good uni and shitloads of extra curricular stuff. It was worth nothing then and I deeply regret doing it.
Same happened to my roommates. 1 had to get new completely degrees, second forced to get phd, and other works at local grocery. Took 6 years for my SO to find a job paying decent and its still pretty low.
"These jobs are below me! They should belong to the peasants!"
I firmly believe we all should take turns doing the shit jobs so that some are spared from having to do it all the time.
The CEO should spend a few hours a week scrubbing toilets. Citizens should go on say, a two-year tour of duty in their young years to do the stuff depicted in the comic. A benefit is that they'll treat service workers better later in life.
And more importantly, we should question how much of this is actually necessary. It seems all most of it does is make a couple people rich beyond morality.
Discomfort pay. I think doing disgusting or hard jobs should carry EXTRA pay.
Or. You could just pay them more. Which would be politically way easier.
These people are the "peasants" or close enough the distinction doesn't matter. We were all told the way to move up was to go to college pay all that tuition and you'll more than make it up longterm. If you end up working min wage stuff anyway it's better to just do it out of high-school. The warehouse guy probably makes decent but is also working shit hours and slowly destroying his body, again something college is supposed to help you avoid.
More that these jobs do not pay enough to pay for the degree, or even enough to simply afford a place to live without a second job.
US millennials were told growing up that literally all you had to do was get a bachelors, because that’s how it worked in previous generations. We had to take out ridiculous loans to pay for this, because even in-state tuitions have been out of control for about two decades now. Now, the job market is shit (and really has been since we entered the job market.) It doesn’t matter how smart or capable you are. The US doesn’t want smart or capable right now.
I remember getting my first check as a teacher. When I calculated the amount of time I spent working, and my pay bump from being a fast food supervisor to yah know, a degreed professional expected to work 80+ hour weeks didn’t mean jack or shit, especially when I had to buy my own supplies.
It’s fucked up.
Everyone's experience is different, and things ARE absolutely more difficult in recent decades than many decades ago.
That said, I remember around the time I was graduating and how it felt like the vast majority of everyone I knew was baffled by my willingness to move far away (for the job), and how many of them refused to move away from home (where there weren't many job options for degrees).
There's also choices to make to do projects or a thesis around real productive ideas to build something to show off to employers. There's opportunities to practice interviewing, shadow careers, and make yourself presentable and stand out for your field, and again I just remember very few who actually put in the effort and wanted to appear well-rounded amd with a portfolio of sorts to distinguish themselves. Most of my classmates seemed to just want to check boxes and expect a career to happen.
Some people in my personal experience seem unwilling to do what's necessary to make their degree worthwhile.
Yeah you may be able to get [insert degree] at [random local college], but a lot of the good careers are not going to be where you got the degree, amd you really have to find ways to convince employers why you're different.
Then on top of all of that, there's just some luck as well. And I know in some ways I also just got lucky in landing a job.
Meanwhile, ever since I moved and started a career, I have been surrounded by incredible degree-wielding people from all over the world. So clearly lots of people do find success and they are doing great jobs.
Great jobs? Doing what? Licking boots?
Uprooting your entire life, saying goodbye to all of your friends, family, community, home, all for the pursuit of some dollars, that's insanity. Only in a sick world where money is our master is that viewed otherwise.
Uprooting for adventure is one thing, uprooting for work is not the same.
Your comment sounds like some AI generated LinkedIn status and it makes me feel sick.
There's more to careers than just money. The distribution of jobs in different industry sectors, job specialties, etc. aren't going to be uniform throughout the world, so many types of jobs will require people to move.
It's not even about money. It's about wanting to work in something specific that isn't as easily available in the town you happened to be born in.
that's insanity
makes me feel sick
That's a pretty strong reaction to the simple idea that maybe living your entire life within a 30 minute drive of where you were born isn't the best way to experience this life. You don't have to want it, but is it that much to ask to simply understand that some other people want it?
My hometown is, like, fine. I could've stayed. But its state government is insane, the dominant local industries and companies don't really fit my moral framework, and the social aspect pushes people into a car-based lifestyle that I'm not particularly interested in. I left for a job, but I also was just looking for a reason to leave.
Learning to live as a stranger and reintegrate into a community is a fun experience for many of us though. When we have the flexibility to travel to work we gain a huge competitive advantage. I think OP brings up the most important point though, many people are too lazy or on cruise control to make themselves interesting.
Doing things slightly outside your comfort zone and outside your expertise makes you standout. Employers want to hire interesting people as well. It's not "boot licking" to create a diverse portfolio of skills.
I picked up Portuguese as a hobby, then later in life my job had a business partner in Brazil, so they paid for me to take classes on company time, sent me to Brazil, then let me act as our liaison with them.
I didn't do anything to hunt down money. I traveled for work and have never stopped learning. I never wanted to stay in my small town. This allowed me to create an interesting story and I rarely open at an interview with my qualifications, but they always remember who I am.
Boot licking is chosing to stay home and making a pittance at one of the few dead end jobs available when the outward move could have been expontially better and resulted in you moving back with your family, with more resources, later on when possible.
You're basically judging / telling people to get stuck because in your ideal world they wouldnt have had to.
In case you haven't noticed, this ain't that.
I put myself through community college, got 2 AAS degrees. I'm doing pretty good for myself. Before college, I usually worked around minimum wage and hated every single soul sucking job I had just to barely scrape by. This was early 2000s... we had real dollar menu meals and $5 footlong subs, ya'll who be out there surviving these days you're built different and you have my respect.
Anywho, if I hadn't gone to college and did something with my life, I promise you I would have ended myself. That's not hyperbole, I had 2 failed attempts before college already.
I wish people would stop demonizing college. Especially in the US, we have more and more uneducated people because you have people on the internet (mostly on video format) telling people, "Oh yeah, college was a scam, I dropped out and I make millions, and speaking of millions, this video is brought to you by....."
It saddens me to see terrible advice like this meme, implying college was a waste. Or that hundreds of people upvoted it.
And yes, I know, college is fucking expensive in the US. It was expensive when I went and we were arguing about it then and I know it's gotten worse. But we shouldn't be celebrating ignorance, we should be fighting to get our education back.
Yup I can relate with N4 100%. Not only a degree, but two years experience in the field. And yet here I am, with a customer service role. I've been searching for work for two years now. It sucks
I worked at a gas station while I was in college so I could pay my rent. I remember my girlfriend at the time was in the store talking to me and some bitch was like "I wish my boyfriend worked at a gas station". She went to the same school as me but didn't know and had the nerve to treat me as less than her because she was in school. People are fucking idiots
Yeah, they are. I don't think people understand the fiscal realities of living in America, but I'll tell you one thing. I just get gas at the gas station. Maybe some sigs. No Red Bull, no Monster, I go home and make instant coffee. If this is the nation of the lowest common denominator, then I'm gonna fucking lean into it. I don't eat fast food. I don't go to the movies. I don't go to the mall. I don't do any of this Yankee shit. I constantly educate myself 24 fuckin' 7. It's the only thing that keeps me sane. Relative to what I do mostly, the library is one of my frequent places though. No Coachella for me. No Disney land. No toys like Star Wars figures. Just integrated circuits, code, and knowledge. With some mathematics that I fucking stumble the fuck through. If something breaks, I learn how to fix it. I go outside and pick the weeds before I would ever spray. I plant food. I eat that food. I grow my own weed in a legal way. I cook my own food. I am 40 years old. The world just gets worse. And I feel it's because we feed the problem. No more fucking war. Israel is committing a genocide. Religion is for Idiots. If I buy music, I have to have a hard copy and I rip it to my devices. If I cannot do this, I will sit in fucking silence staring at the wall. For I am an unmovable object. I am not perfect. I don't want to be perfect, I also don't want to be a cuck. or an insensitive idiot. But I will tell you the truth.
Everyone had their own experience.
My degree got me into "real jobs"/career jobs. Before that I even with nearly 2 decades in IT I could barely make headway.
Getting my degree let me actually pursue my passion in environmental work.
I still hate I NEEDED to get the degree and loans and and whatever but it DID help. Also I did enjoy school. I like learning.
Cool story. Which degree?
Surely you didn't spend all that money on some degree that is unemployable, would you?
Meanwhile everyone are begging for electricians, plumbers, math teachers, chemists etc etc etc.
electricians, plumbers
Doesn’t require a college degree. May require trade school or an apprenticeship.
math teachers
Requires multiple degrees but they are extremely underpaid and while I do think the US could use more and better teachers, the funding of the public school system does not reflect that.
chemists
Probably ok prospects right now but the job market in general kinda sucks right now so you still might have trouble.
etc etc etc.
Computer science was an extremely desirable degree from an employment perspective up until a couple years ago, but now the computer science bubble is popping. But also in general the job market is awful right now. A lot of people I know with “practical” degrees like computer science, business, physics, and engineering are struggling to get jobs in the fields they majored in. And that’s not even getting into how awful the US system for becoming a doctor is…
but now the computer science bubble is popping
It's more of an anti-bubble where companies are keeping salaries down in an unsustainable way. Software development still has at least a decade of good salaries to go.
It's not the first time this happened.
This is dense. College degrees are still very profitable. They aren't working in any of these roles in mass.
Absolutely made up propaganda for those without the ability to verify the simplest of facts.
I'm not sure why the above comment was down voted so hard. This community should encourage insightful comments.
It seems like overall college degrees are still a worthwhile financial investment on average.
If you disagree, dialogue.
Compared to the average high school graduate, the earnings premiums were:
$495,000 over a lifetime for people who completed an associate’s degree; $1 million for those who completed a bachelor’s degree; and $1.7 million for those with a graduate degree.
https://www.bls.gov/careeroutlook/2021/data-on-display/education-pays.htm
For example, workers with a bachelor’s degree had median weekly earnings of $1,305 in 2020, compared with $781 for workers with a high school diploma. And the unemployment rate for bachelor’s-level workers was 5.5 percent, compared with 9.0 percent for those whose highest level of education was a high school diploma.
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/18/median-return-on-investment-for-a-college-degree.html
the typical college graduate can expect a median 12.5% return on their investment in higher education
