College Matters

My AmeriCorps VISTA experience has concluded, so I’m no longer working 60+ hours per week. It has indeed been a life changing experience. It’s been a path of self discovery and purpose. I’ve finally found a place to call home: Belfast, Maine. I’ve been going through letters from the last year - which I’ve continued answering, just haven’t had time to bring them out of email onto the site - and decided, in light of finally finding “home”, this one is relevant. A college graduate and job seeker wants to move to the land - any land! - of far, far away. She doesn’t understand why she can’t find a job, despite not being bound by geography.

As I told her, in the current economy, being open to relocating only broadens your potential interests. It does not necessarily broaden your serious prospects, especially as a new graduate. A company takes a big risk hiring someone who must relocate for the position, whether or not the company pays for the relocation. What if the person hates the new location? What if it’s somewhere they’ve never been before, and they have no family or friends for support? These are personal questions that an employer simply cannot ask, but are extremely relevant to an employee’s long term potential. A company also takes a big risk hiring a new graduate with little or no work experience. Put those two risks together, and the likelihood of getting hired across latitude and longitude lines decreases significantly.

Does that mean she’s stuck living in one place until the pendulum of the economy swings the other direction? Definitely not! I know I’ve blogged briefly about AmeriCorps and the Peace Corps, but my next several blogs will be much more detailed, related to my year of experience and the benefits - both the selfish and the unselfish. You’re a college graduate? Want to move? Try out a new life? A year - or two, or three, or a lifetime - of service to your fellow man is a fantastic way to do it.

Calling all English majors out there! What have you done, or what do you plan to do, with your degree? A student is considering the option and requests advice.

Check out the latest post, about a senior in high school stuck on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. What do you think? Should he pursue the military, game design, or should he rethink altogether?

I’m currently in Houston, Texas, visiting my grandparents before I move to Maine to work with an AmeriCorps program. As many of you already know, I’m very excited. The particular program is called The Game Loft, and it’s a youth program that utilizes non-electronic gaming (from Risk to historical war games to Dungeons and Dragons and everything in between!). I’m actually a little envious; I would have been really grateful to have this kind of organized gaming community during my especially crazy teenage years - I’m telling you, most people should get a medal for simply surviving adolescence.

During this “grand finale family tour,” as I’m calling it, I’m reminded of the evolving nature of family influence. I’m independent, and have been for many years. Often broke, but not to the point of requiring financial support of family. I’m unwilling to do that, and have been since I turned 18 - which is why I used federal financial aid to get through college (a mistake, but hindsight is 20/20). I didn’t want anyone to tell me what to do. And now, in my twenties, my family certainly can’t give me orders, and they know it. If any of them said so much as “Don’t go to Maine” I’d tell them exactly where to put it. I’m exaggerating, I would be nice and reasonable, but pretty direct: “I’m going to Maine. Period. Love you, please come visit, see you soon!”

However, if I relied financially upon anybody, I would definitely have to answer to them. To repeat the above used euphemism, “Period.” End of story. And this is why, at 18, if you go to college with financial support from your parents, you are essentially taking the next step in high school. It doesn’t matter that you’re “legally” an adult. Financially, you’re not - just like this student. So they have a say (rightfully so, too) about where you live, what you spend “your” money on, and yes, even your chosen course of study. That’s not a terrible thing - you probably won’t make the mistake of getting a fine arts degree with an emphasis on the deeper meaning of play-doh while under economic parental supervision.

If you’ve been completely dependent on your parents through high school, especially to such an extent that you’ve received an allowance rather than working part-time, you’re not ready to make your own decisions at 18 anyway. Want to learn to make your own decisions so that you don’t have to adhere to your parents’ directions? Get a 40-hour a week job and move out for at least a year before making the trek to college. Otherwise, they get a say. And parents, listen up: yes, you have a right to tell your kids what to do, regardless of age, if you’re financing the operation.

Write an original resume, just like every other college graduate. Make it unique, just like everybody else. Don’t use a template, but make sure it’s organized succinctly. Do not pass “go,” do not collect $200, take some Prozac for your job hunting stress levels and find your way to Boardwalk. Or at least the orange properties…

Argh. The whole process is such a ridiculous game. Universities should require all seniors to take a three-hour resume writing course. Moan and groan, no one wants extra coursework added to the degree plan – fine, it should be a substituted for one of those elective underwater basket weaving courses.

Resume evaluation “services” feed all of us the same exact spiel. They tell you not to use a template (especially the kind on MS Word) as they’re writing or reading you their standard evaluation template! Then the innovative advice continues: your resume doesn’t stand out. Make it original. Make it uniquely like every other college graduate’s “unique” resume. Then, when asked how to do that, the standard response is an offer to write your resume for you at some overpriced sum.

The irony, as I told this student, is that the person “evaluating” (by that I mean sending a slightly tailored form email) and potentially re-writing your resume hasn’t themselves achieved success in the traditional job market. It’s a freelance writer – and I have respect for freelance writing, since that’s what I do, but it doesn’t qualify me to write someone’s resume.

I can, however, give honest advice regarding where to go for thorough, free resume assistance. First, every campus has a career services department. It’s there to advise current students as well as alumni, and I urge everyone to take advantage of it; your fees pay for it anyway, so make those fees count for something. Next, visit the human resources department(s) on campus, and specifically seek out the people that handle hiring university staff (not faculty, department heads and committees do that and the process requires an entirely different type of resume). Speak candidly with those that hire staff, and ask what a successful resume looks like. How did they get hired? Would they be willing to let you glance their resumes? Most will be flattered and at the very least offer to look at yours.

Additionally, look for up and coming websites that offer free examples and advice. The people that start these websites often do so because they see the deficiencies in mainstream contemporary sites. If you want straightforward, specific advice, with an irreverent sense of humor, check out Psychotic Resumes. Another great new resource I’ve found is Career Guide 101, which embraces a more traditional style of organization on the site – so take your pick, based on your personality and career goals. Both offer diverse and helpful perspectives, and will offer advice beyond the ubiquitous and generic “Be original.”

Today’s “life after graduation” question is from a sociology major about to finish an M.A. with little to no work experience. The pending master’s degree puts the student in a uniquely difficult position; it actually decreases his marketability in the general job market. Both of his degrees are from the same university, so a career in academia will be difficult to achieve without first seeking a second master’s degree elsewhere (followed by a PhD from a third university). His “regular job” options will be limited if he includes his education on any application; employers are likely to feel threatened by his graduate degree and/or assume that he’ll come into the workplace with some sort of “know-it-all” attitude.

He could swallow his pride and leave his graduate degree off of his applications and resume altogether. Of course, that leaves a gap that he’d have to explain, and what’s he going to say? “Um, I lived off my parents for awhile, spent a lot of time at bars…” He could explain it as a period of time in which he pursued entrepreneurial efforts, but an employer would then expect evidence of such attempts.

Many people are in this exact situation – and many more, in response to the recession, are choosing graduate school when unable to immediately find jobs. This is a BAD idea, as demonstrated by the sociology grad – most graduate degrees aren’t going to further job opportunities, at least not in the immediate future, and in many cases they actually limit your job opportunities.

I have some alternative suggestions for everyone. Most students in graduate school are completely broke, even with the assistance of scholarships and loan money. If you’ve decided to go to grad school, you’ve already resigned yourself to being broke for two more years. In which case, why not take a break from school and contribute to the betterment of society, all while gaining resume fodder as well as having school loan interest paid by the government? That’s the deal with AmeriCorps, which just received a vast increase in government funding, with largely bi-partisan support. Whether or not you’re critical of this spending, why not use it to your advantage? Help an impoverished community, learn how to work behind the scenes in a government agency and/or non-profit.

College is supposed to be about the improvement of society as a whole, not just about you as the individual; the higher the level of education, statistically, the more we feel compelled to help our fellow man. I’m happy to say that I discover more people who have realized this every day. For your personal career interests, do check AmeriCorps and the Peace Corps (for international interests). And if you’re still in college, find some ways to contribute while in school. On Twitter, I’ve recently discovered a really neat website that’s using a contest to encourage charitable involvement – Better World Books. They’ve got a way to use your time and website navigation to contribute to your favorite charities, and are even offering entrance into a drawing for an iPod as a thanks for your time and efforts.