What My Degree Got Me

I am going to start this off by saying I believe education has value and that it is important to become educated as a free thinker. Instead this is my personal experience with higher education.

In 2008, after five years in college, I graduated with a Bachelor’s of Arts in English. Thanks to my parents who allowed me to live with them while I went to school and a summer job that offered lots of overtime as well as a part time job during the school year, I managed to graduate with zero student loan debt.

I had just bought a house the year before and so I was on top of the world, ready to go forth and make the world mine. Of course reality had a different course for me. The housing market tanked and the place I was working closed its doors.

Entry Level Jobs

Jobless and with a house worth less than I owe I knew I needed to find a job. I found a retail job and after a few months managed to work my way up to management. This was a job I enjoyed at first but that quickly turned around as I was asked to do more and more all while being written up for not being ‘social enough’ with the employees.

Truth be told I was plenty social with my coworkers outside of work (we went bowling together and drinking), I just kept it professional at work. This upset some of the higher level management and soon I found myself looking for work again.

As I applied and interviewed for jobs I found that things were stacked against me. My employment history had a lot of part time jobs (due to attending college) which got me turned down from lots of entry level jobs for fear that I would not stick around.

Added to that fear was my degree. Hiring managers saw that and did not want to take the risk of hiring me because they did not think I would stick around. They were sure I would get a better offer and quit. I was even asked in an interview why they should hire me because I had a degree.

It quickly become obvious that I was not going to gain an entry level job because I was too educated.

Mid-Level Jobs

I tried a new approach to finding a job. Yet all the jobs that called for the level of education I had did not want to hire me either. This was due to my education no being the right kind of education.

I was told over and over again that if I had a degree I would be able to get just about any job I wanted. Of course this was true for the people who were offering me this advice. They were of an older generation and it was true for them when they were in the job market.

Times changed, no one wanted a degree in English no matter how much I tried to tie it into whatever job I was applying too. I even tried to get a job in a book store, thinking my education and retail management experience would make me a shoe in. Sadly this was not true.

These Mid-Level jobs were looking for specific education and they could demand it due to the high level of unemployment.

High Level Jobs

Again when I tried to apply for these jobs I was in no way qualified for them. They wanted my education but they also wanted experience. They wanted the experience you get from Entry Level jobs as well as a degree.

Of course my degree disqualified me from these entry level jobs. Again my degree did not help me but instead hurt my chances at these jobs. Looking back now, I was not qualified for these jobs, but I felt that I was because I had a degree.

Reality and Hindsight

Reality hit me hard, but I also hit back. After taking whatever job I could I finally found a place that was willing to take a chance on me. I spent a few years in production but thanks to my hard work and dedication I made it into a mid-level job.

Growing up all I heard was go to college and you will get a good job, it does not matter what degree you get. Reality did not reflect that statement. My degree actually hurt me in the job market.

The advice I should have been given was, get a degree in something people are looking for or go to trade school. I would tell my younger self to find a job that you enjoy and get an education that will help you advance in that job/industry.

Though my experience was personally a bad one I found that I was one of the lucky ones. I wasted five years and a lot of money but at least I did not end up weighed down in massive debt or as an activist mouthpiece for ideologically corrupt professors bent on forcing people into their version of a socialist utopia.