The song that this is usually attached to in Avenue Q needs a bit of editing, but I found of version of just "What do you do with a B.A. in English?"
After what should seemingly be four years of intensive training on how to find the best answers, you would think college graduates would find the answer to "what's next?" quite easily. While there are those who do, it seems like I'm talking to more and more people who feel that their path is not only unclear- it's nonexistent. When did finding a career become such a challenge?
I feel like there is an intellectual inflation which has been rapidly increasing in recent years. When I read of the old universities, how difficult it was to get in, and the rigorous training they received, I can't help but be a bit disappointed in what we have in higher education today. Somehow, things have gotten to the point that someone can claim, "Four years of college and plenty of knowledge have earned me this useless degree. I can't pay the bills yet, 'cause I have no skills yet."
I feel like I got lucky with the degree I chose- people have said to me, upon learning that I'm studying chemical engineering, "oh good. You're going to have a bachelor's degree that is still worth something." With that statement comes the implication that there are myriad degrees which aren't. People spending (often times inordinately) great amounts of money and years of their life, to be told that their degree is not really applicable.
One of the semi-solutions that it feels like is emerging is the glorious "master's degree". I can't help but feel like that is just a band-aid for a broken bone. Something is obviously happening to our undergraduate studies, but rather than fix it, we simply have to keep studying. A random man on the light rail told me once "stay in school as long as you can. A master's is the new bachelor's degree." The more that I see, the truer that seems to be.
I honestly don't know what kind of solution is out there for this problem. Heck, I don't even know what the problem really is. Rather than ranting on about entitlement and the decay of traditional American values (which is probably where I would take this), I'll just say that I hope to get a job before things get any more crazy, cause
the world is a big scary place.
In the end it is all about perspective and attitude. I, a holder of a BA in English, do not have a successful job and cannot currently support myself. I sometimes joke about the uselessness of my degrees only to those who also do not use their degrees. I say things to others about how I was supposed to find my way in college. This is all a front! I went to college to better myself in writing and heck to better myself as a person. I worked my butt off and finished with honors in 3.5 years. I became a better person than I ever could have imagined I could be because of the refiners fire of college. I am mostly scared to use my skills because there is no set job and I am scared of failure. But when i think of the work I did in college I KNOW I can do anything I WANT to do IF it is what is meant to be. The Lord has greater plans for us than we realize. Me, I had to learn to slow down,that it is okay to change courses, or not have a set of plans but to go with life not pave so much against it. I needed to learn that the hard way. Sure some days i could have blamed that on my degree, but I was kidding myself. A degree is something that might be a piece of paper that was hard work and lots of money, but that paper is not the point. It is what is in your heart and mind that matter most about that time spent. Where are you when its over and where were you before? If there is no difference then yep your degree was basically useless. Its up to everyone how useful that degree is. Just thought I would share what I have learned through my soul searching on the subject.
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