Life after College
 

I'll be graduating this May with a bachelors degree and kinda wondering and worrying what the heck i'm going to do. I've put out a lot of resume's but face it no one wants to hire someone with little to no job experience and pay them a decent salary. I just got back from spring break and while i was on the beach drinking and doing nothing i began to think of what the hell everyone else has done since they graduated. Did you live at home with your parents for a bit, did you get a good job off the bat, did you get your own apartment ? I'm getting scared to graduate but happy at the same time so that i can make some money. I guess that i'm just looking to see what other people did after they graduated.

Re: Life after College
 

nope, you are right there. My advice is find a job you like that doesnt pay, rather than a job you hate that doesnt pay. Becuase unless you studied engineering and rocked it hard, you aint gonna get paid ----. You will start making more money pretty quick, though, so dont sweat it if you arent making much to start.

Re: Life after College
 

well my one buddy that got a bachelors degree and was supposed to start out making good money is making 8$ an hour in the field he went to school for. My other buddy with a a degree in something was flipping burgers at mc donalds for about 2 years after he got out of college. Now he is working at wal mart as a tech for like $10.30 an hour
I sit back and laugh because while they were in school, I worked my ass of and now make 21$ an hour doing what I love....Car audio/video/security/advanced installation. Im a firm believer in that experience is better than book education.

Re: Life after College
 

There are certain things that you cant learn without a real education. For example: after 20 years of experience with what you do, you still wouldnt know the basics behind how the TVs you install in head rests work. You make $21 an hour and thats probably close to the ceiling for what you do. Whereas when you have an education, your cieling is typically much higher.

Also, there is a high possibility that your buddies were dousche bags in college and really didnt learn anything. A lot of people work summer jobs and intern while they are in college so they gain experience while they go to college.

Re: Life after College
 

Yea most people want to hire experiemced workers so it sucks finding a job, did you do an internship or anything like that? I did and I got hire by them and well I'm not making goreat money but its what I want to do and there is more pay with more experience...I'm living at home saving to buy a house and ---- rather than waste money renting an appt...It is scary I was worried I wasn't going to finda job but if you get hire getting paid nothing you are gaining experience so in like a year or 2 you can apply for a job that pays better, yea you can make better money working at Mcd's but do you want to flip burgers forever or possible make trip figs? You gotta put in the time and earn it nothing is handed to you and I think a lot of people just want the easy way, welll thats my rant, and I just graduated in May last year if you were wondering, good luck and atleast try a job in your field if you spent 4 years studying it and who knows how much money

Re: Life after College
 

dude do what im doin, take some cocaine and turn it into crack, then you sell that ---- to innner city kids. I got a year to go and used to freak about what the ---- ill do. If you freak out bout this ---- youll end up without hair man, youll find something. That or die broke and unloved

Re: Life after College
 

There are tons of people working outside of their degrees right now, like i know one guy who was working for redbull and now hes working for monster still selling sugarwater but he makes more money doing that then he probably would doing mechanical engineering around here. Another girl i know got her bachelors and shes working in a job she hates but shes just gonna do it to get a little experience then do what she wants to do... My guess is youre gonna end up doing one or the other, but it usually works out either way. I went to school for 2 years for electronic tech and realizing that ET guys dont get paid ANYTHING (i had job offers for $8 an hour) i joined the ibew.

Re: Life after College
 

no collage here either, but i now make pretty good money welding and installing auto glass, i have my own house, and i like what i do so i dont got much to complain about

in some things actual experience will be whats best but there are some things you cant just jump into and learn so book education has its own place as well

Re: Life after College
 

What waws your degree? Sorry if you already said it and I missed it.

I'm in mechanical engineering, and nobody wants an engineer with no experience. That's why I am in SAE (It's like the holy grail of a club an engineer can be in a put on their resume) and I will also have done an internship for a semester before I graduate, which will take care of the experience to start off with. One thing about engineering interns that is much different/better than any other field is that you make good money, around here it is 70-80% of a full-time engineer's salary. A friend of mine did an internship last year for one semester and pulled in about $24k.

Re: Life after College
 

oh yeah, you're gonna get far in life :3

Re: Life after College
 

I'm going to graduate with bachelors in Criminal Justice and a minor in Psychology. I applied to a place somewhat local and it pays $13.00 an hour plus benfits and vacation the day you start, and they were impressed and told me to contact them a month prior to graduation. It's not what i want to do forever, but a start i guess.

Re: Life after College
 

if you wanna make alot of money, somebody go to school so they can be matteneclipse's lawyer. Jago your new avatar is wierding me out

Re: Life after College
 

I know matt, I highly doubt he's serious :-\

Re: Life after College
 

i have a year left for my bachelors and i work as a junior software engineer... i know my ---- and my previous work (non-professional) helped me get the job... and yes HMT was part of my portfolio 8)

Re: Life after College
 

bullshit.. economics or finance degrees followed up by a certification or two can net you nice right out of college

Re: Life after College
 

I'm not even doing anything related to my major and I rent a room from my parents :-\. If I wanted to move out I could but then I'd be dirt poor and continue to work a job I hate just to make a living. I hate my job, labor unions, and large companies w/a passion. I'm using all my vacations days in summer, sucking my benefits dry and then going back to school for business and possibly finish that degree in psychology I started too. The added debt will be worth it though, I'm not gonna put off a career for a "good" job.

Re: Life after College
 

What, you don't like my donkey lips???

Re: Life after College
 

im just sayin if your so worried do somethin about it. or sell drugs, ---- scareface did and he was doin good, for awhile

Re: Life after College
 

yea, when you got work... it usually pays very well.... You can always go for your PhD :-)

Re: Life after College
 

the whole selling drugs thing is sad. but it works like none other.

You guys are disapointing me about going to a full university. Im worryed im going to have to get some corporate faggity paperpusher job making 24k a year maybe i should have just went for a trade or joined the airforce :1

Re: Life after College
 

Military for me. Pretty much everyone in my family ends up doing construction weather they have a college degree or not (its a family business) so I figure the military will be the only way I will ever be able to travel around and see all the places I would like to before I settle down to a labor intensive 50 hour work week. :(

Re: Life after College
 

what branch. are you enjoying it?

Re: Life after College
 

military for me. after this enlistment though im done. I will have 8 years in and hopefully will transfer to another DOD or Govie job after this and when im 39 I will be retired. I have been to a ---- load of countries, prolly done things most people wouldnt even think about doing and I can honestly say I pretty much enjoy what I do. The military has taken pretty good care of me and my wife. The hours suck ass though. im up at 5am everyday and I am still at work right now at 5:10 in the evening. I also usally work a saturday or 2 at this command per month.

Degree.....yeah, its alright, but when it comes down to it, experience is where its at. An example, my brother is a welder, been doing it for a few years, and makes more than the wyo tech graduate at the same level he is. My sister-in-law and brother in law both have degrees and both dont use them. One has a degree in comp programming, and the other has a degree in graphic design and marketing...both dont use them. money and years of a life well wasted IMO.

Re: Life after College
 

Well welcome to the real world it sucks.That being said you will take it dry for the first 5 years or so until you build some experience and then it will pay off in the end.The benifit of education is that in the long run you cane move up the ladder to make the 70+K.For alot of us that are in trades etc you avoid the big student loans etc and make good money within the first year but you end up topping out at say 35-60K and unless you pursue Supervision/Project Management etc most will never get to make the big bucks.It basically comes down to how hard are you willing to work and what you put into regardless of what path you choose.

Re: Life after College
 

buy a chinese welder.
hahaha i mak emore a week now than my mother, who saves lives and gives people needles ect.

amen for china welder

Re: Life after College
 

i graduated in december

i haven't done ---- since. maybe i'll find a job tommorow

Re: Life after College
 

I'm still in school now actually, but I will be doing marines min. If I can get my act togeather and get into a bit better phycical shape though I could probley get the test scores to do whatever I wanted.

Re: Life after College
 

its Marines. you better get a little pride in yourself also. ;)


so...your in school as in college or in school as in high school?

Re: Life after College
 

If you get really lucky sometimes you can find a company / corporation that provides nice benefits like tuition reimbursement. My mom got ahold of a company that provides that and now she's got her masters and landed a few semester or two long teaching jobs at EIU and some community colleges.

I haven't quite decided what I'm going to do yet. I'm looking more into schooling for certifications rather than degrees since I figure I'll always have a certification to fall back on, rather than a degree. The certifications I've been looking at typically are much cheaper than a full 2-4 years of college at a university.

I'll probably get an ASE sooner or later, since those guys can always find work, if nowhere else then at a dealership or something. I really want to get into the IT field though, but the outlook for that field of work around here is kind of grim.

Good luck with whatever you do, though.

Re: Life after College
 

I'm gonna have to agree with the military thing. I was going to UTI (hotrodU) in phoenix for auto and diesel technology and then I got sick of my lights getting shut off, realized the school was an outright ------- scam and joined the Army. I'm a mechanic in the Army now, which doesn't pay as well as a good mechanic normally would, but hey, I made almost 36k tax free this year being deployed (which you WILL be if you join the Army or Marines). It sucks I hate it, I've been in for 2 and a half years now, and I'm done in less than a year. If you have a degree you can become an officer and they make REALLY good money, just google 2006 officer pay charts. Officers don't have to do any manual labor or anything but are generally regarded as douchebags.

Upsides are the kickass benefits I get with VA loans and everything. I got my ASE Master Cert, I have people offering me jobs already, I write for a magazine. I have around 15k dollars saved up and I'm 22. The 3 and some odd years I gave were kinda shitty, but I'm definitely set up better than any of my friends who didn't join....

I'm with somebody else, I'll take experience over education. Let's face it, most men make their money working blue collar jobs like construction, mechanics, warehouses workers. I know I'm not the type of person that can sit behind a desk and I realized that at the age of 15 or 16 (when I decided that I wanted to be a mechanic). Pick something you're happy with and take that as far as you can.

Re: Life after College
 

you paid for a piece of paper, most of us on here worked to gain real knowledge.

while you were paying to read books and listed to old fucks wearing depends i was making $42K/yr when i was 20years old. and even when you do start making money , it isnt even yours if you still have to pay off loans

Re: Life after College
 

You did good, but that's not the usual, if you don't have some type of higher education, you usually end up cleaning toilets, or flipping burgers. Sure work is work , but I rather be sitting on my ass and making money. The amount is reletive to where you live. $50k a year in let's say Iowa might make you rich, $50k in California and you are poor.

That's one thing. Now it took me 2 years to find a Job after school. Why? because like you said they would not want to hire someone with no experience. I took a job making less than I should, but more than my old retail job to start gaining that experience. You probably will have to start like that, at the bottom of the line. It happens. The work your way up.

In the next 3 years I have doubled my pay, and in 3 weeks it will be my year anniversary working for this company. I will get a raise again, and I can actually keep moving up and around. But I like it here, great company, big established and growing.

It can be scary, but just jump out there and find something. If you are new, no one will expect you to come out and put out like a pro, it will take some time to learn their system and what they do, but companies know that, so don't worry.

Re: Life after College
 

I'm still stuck with the problem of not knowing WTF I want to do

Re: Life after College
 

I still have no idea what i want to do, I have a few ideas, but thats about it. School has been great and all but i'm realizing that i need to grow up and move on.

Re: Life after College
 

I'm not even sure of what to do for a major. I was thinking of just getting my 2 year "general studies" degree then venturing from there and trying to figure out what I want to do by doing different jobs.

Re: Life after College
 

$13/hour kinda sucks for a bachlors but i would still take it as a last resort, keep this job for a few months if you dont find any better starting offers and just find something better later on. You just have to play bitch boy for the first few months/years to jump start a career, go online and submit your resume and see if you can find somethin better. Oh and BTW congrats bud, i got two more years to go to get my business degree

Re: Life after College
 

even here $50k isnt much but for a young person w/o educataion its doing damn good. average salary around here is $75K + and some people say its pushing it living on that. we (me, my fiancee, and our 2 daughters) are swinging it because we arent material like most of the spoiled brats around here who have had everything handed to them. its all what you make it. i'm not saying college is a bad thing but is far from a nessesity. hard work and swallowing your pride can go a long way.

Re: Life after College
 

75k isnt enough? cost of living must be high as ----!

Re: Life after College
 

Average income in my town is ~25k a year :l

Re: Life after College
 

That's why I'm saying it all depends where you are from, evem $13 an hour, like in florida, is a decent job. You won't be rich but it's enough to live. You have to take your chances and start low. Then work your way up.

You gotta look at the pay in your area and decide what is good and what's not.

College makes it alittle easier, but hard work will be the factor deciding between who moves up and who stays down. Bullshit talking, and sucking you boss' dick also help.....I don't do this its hypocrite. I work hard, if you like it good, if not good. I'm not a bitch boy....but being one if you can handle it will help you move up. :3