Grad School Not A Good Way To Spend 100k

From the mouth of someone who has taught grad school, "Grad School May Not Be the Best Way to Spend $ 100,000".  Let's review what she lists out.  Here big three bad reasons to go to graduate school are:

• You don't know what you want to do with your life.
• Because your career has stalled.
• Because you applied and you got in.

All in all these aren't bad reasons, though I could list many more.  The fact is that she is someone who has a vested interest in individuals going to grad school, after all she doesn't denounce it as a whole, and I am not going to take her to task for that. I don't hate professors or academics but I do know many personally and I understand that they are simply human beings like everyone else. And human beings have a tendency to be unable to separate what is good for them from what is good for everyone else.  Most professors don't want to shunt in people off to degrees that will leave them massively debt and near unemployable; in fact I believe most professors are largely oblivious, or only dimly aware of, this reality that many face. They earnestly believe, not all together untrue, that education yields tremendous benefits. It is true but their mistake is assuming that getting degreed and getting an education are synonymous; they aren't.

This is something that you, as an individual, have to determine. When considering whether or not you should get a bachelors, masters or PhD you need to think about the education, not the degree.  Does going to get you university and taking courses in a particular programs advance your skill sets? Will you learn valuable information or processes that is applicable to a future career? Do you actually learn how to do a job or are you simply learning generalities?  This is why an accounting degree, and to a much lesser extent, a finance degree, is more useful than a marketing or a business management degree. 

In accounting you learn the concept of GAAP and actually apply those concepts in various classes, be it inventory accounting, accounts receivables accounting, or learning to equal out a balance sheet.  While it is true that much of this could simply be learned on the job the reality is that if you want to do accounting for a major company they will require a degree. It is an unfortunate reality of credentialism that we have to deal with but that isn't my point about accounting degrees. Accounting degrees will actually import information, and a skill set, that make you employable. Contrast this with a management degree where you will study the theory of managing employees or businesses without actually ever doing of that. It's all theory text book knowledge and when it comes down to it, who wants that?  If you wanted to build a rocket who would you pick, the person who has a degree in rocket science but no real experience with rockets, or the person who doesn't have a degree but has successfully built and fired rockets before. It's a no brainer.

In the end while knowledge is great to have, experience will trump it every single time.  How does a university education get you the experience you need to do the job you want to do?  In many instances the answer is, it doesn't.

If You Got An Degree In Liberal Arts

Then for the love of God do not compound your mistake by going for a post-graduate level degree. But hey, don't listen to me, listen to a PROFESSOR OF HUMANITIES telling you not to go.  What I find most interesting is he accurately points out why most individuals end up pursuing those types of degrees anyways.

With the prospect of an unappealing, entry-level job on the horizon, life in college becomes increasingly idealized. They think graduate school will continue that romantic experience and enable them to stay in college forever as teacher-scholars.
 

In a nutshell, they don't want to deal with the real world. It's incredibly rare to find someone who is able to disassociate what benefits him from what is actually good for the student.  Far, far too many college counselors, teachers and professors are unable to do the same. In fact an entire industry of individuals has been created around one of the most evil scams of all time. I have even meet 'freelance college advisors', who were in their 20s. I'm still trying to conceptualize how a something like that can even exist. Think about that for a second, you have someone who is barely out of college themselves, advising an 18 year old on perhaps the most important decision of their life which is to go or not go to college. 

Now giving advice, be it father/motherly or brotherly/sisterly isn't a bad thing; I did it for my brother and I like to think that it is why, when entering his college, he only considered accounting or engineering as his two choices and is now doing accounting. My problem is that college advisers, whose only experience is either being a student or a college advisor, is incredibly stupid because, due to their experience, every answer to every question will invariably end with them saying "You have to go to college" because they no one is going to pay someone to say "eh..maybe you shouldn't go to college. Maybe you should learn how to use a wrench instead."  That would get them fired.

 

 

Good News For Liberal Arts Majors!

Some good news for liberal arts majors. It turns out that two of the jobs that most often employ liberal arts majors have been the largest growing employment sector since the recession! Those jobs? Retails salesperson and cashier with a median salary of around $ 25,000 a year. Assuming you accrued the average national student loan debt of 27,000, a 10% down payment for $ 270,000 home or a low level luxury sedan, and depending on how you chose to payback your loans, you would have to take an additional $ 2,040 to 3,480 a year off your paycheck for about 10 to 25 years.

Now imagine, that instead of acquiring that degree in creative writing, and you simply started working a retail job, perhaps studying on line on the side or simply practicing your craft, and you took that money you would have spent on college and instead invested it in an investment with a 3% return rate; I know that is asking for a lot considering how expensive some parts of the country are. After ten years you would have had between $ 23,386 to $ 39,894 in wealth. After twenty five years you would have had $ 74,376 to $ 126,878, enough to start your own coffee book shop or whatever.

Bump that up to 5% and you would could conceivably have $ 166,090 after twenty five years. More importantly, ignoring the possibility of becoming a successful writer because you actually took the time to practice rather than simply study your craft, or ignoring the prospect of pay raises and promotions, and assuming around $ 20,000 in living expenses, you would have 8 years of living funds racked up.  Considering that retail is a job where large periods of unemployment wouldn't hurt your prospects for future employment, you could live large for those 8 years, or do whatever you want that makes you happy.

You may really want to be a writer/actor/artist and you may really not want to study math. Fine, most likely you will work a low wage job while you pursue your dream; nothing wrong with that. But you are an absolute fool to get a college education in a field that yields you no greater employment prospects in a field where the information can easily be gained for free or simply acquired through practice.

Things I Wish Someone Had Told Me When I Was 18

I used to belong to one of those head hunting organizations that specifically focused on finding jobs for recent college graduates and I still occasionally receive emails. I recently saw a request for an accounts payable specialist, offering the prospective employees a whopping $13.50 an hour, for a temporary job that could potentially turn into a permanent hire.  The requirements for said job were a 4 year degree in either finance or accounting. It's unbelievable isn't it? Those 4 years of education is required for a job that pays only $ 28,000 a year.

I'm not faulting the head hunting agency, they do have connections so college grades can at least get jobs, nor the company, they are offering the current market price, but it serves as a reminder. In this glut of college attendance simply going to college and getting a worthwhile degree, Accounting, Nursing, or STEM, is no guarantee of a decent job out of college simply due to the number of degreed individuals. We live in an age were even receptionists, who simply take calls and organize files, are required to have a degree in some instances!

The competition is very fierce, and after I left college it took years for anyone to find any sort of job that was relevant to their degree; and I am talking about individuals who took accounting, finance or a STEM degree. Here are some things I wish individuals told me when I was 18 years old.

1) If you aren't a 100% sure of what you want to do when your 18 then don't go to college! Take a year or two to figure things out, and I don't mean dick around to find yourself, I find some work and live your life like an adult. Chances are you will either find what you want to do via work, or figure out what you want to do. You will also have the benefit of having lived in the real world and will have much more drive because of it.

2) For the love of God do not get a liberal arts degree. I tell this to every young millennial I meet: "I am one of you, a millennial, just a little older, so I know exactly you will experience. And as someone who has gotten both a finance and a humanities degree, I can tell you, no one, who is in a position to employee you, outside of the humanities cares at all about your humanities degree. Outside of your freshman and sophomore year levels it is nothing but a propaganda indoctrination program. If you want to learn how to critically think then save your money and elect to take some sub-200 level philosophy classes in college, or better yet, go on the Internet or the library and read the classics.

3) Unless your private institution is real good and finding paid internships that will get you real world work experience, or a great track record with post graduation job placement*, or is one of the top 3 schools in the country for whatever degree you are getting, that isn't a liberal arts degree, then don't go to a private university. A big name state school will serve you better in the state and region, and will most likely save you money if you are not an out of state student.

4) Minimize your students loans. Try to pay your way through college. You will appreciate what you are learning a lot more.

5) Network. This is something I learned the hard way. The fact is that most people who get decent jobs right out of college either, picked a degree in a field that is in high demand, or were superstars in their program, or had familial connections of some sort or networked profusely.  The college counselors got one thing right, employers want a well rounded individual. And by well rounded I don't mean you spent a lot of time volunteering for puppies. I mean that someone who is smart, outgoing, and driven. A superstar in short. The days of someone quietly working away and achieving perfect grades landing the killer job are over, for 99% of you, the field is intense.

6) Think long and hard about college athletics. This is something I did in college, and admittedly enjoyed it, but in this ever more cutthroat environment you are potentially shooting yourself in the foot doing college level athletics. It's not that I dislike them, I love them, but the fact is that all those hours spent training could also have been spent developing skills that will help you later in life.  I'm not saying you shouldn't do college athletics, but you should think about it first.

7) College is full of morons. Your high school teachers will sell youths wonderful nirvana that college is, full of bright, young, intelligent, and knowledge hungry individuals. Where thoughtful debates flourish and ideas are examined.  Couldn't be further from the truth. Fully 60% of the people I encountered had no business being there, either they just weren't ready, or they were just stupid. As cool as you may think it when one of those morons wastes your class time getting the teacher off track, or asking a million questions because they didn't bother to do their reading, you need to realize that every minute wasted is dollars down the drain. College is full of pseudo-intellectuals who like to feign intelligence, but if they weren't spoon feed opinions, then they would absolutely have nothing to say. Their opinions, deep thoughts, and ideas begin and end with what they heard from some professor or some pop-culture intellectual.

8) Take everything your grandparents and parents say about how college opens doors with a grain of salt. Or in other parlance, don't listen to most anyone over 40. There are exceptions, but by and large, most of the advice I have heard given to young guys like me, and even younger guys and gals like you all, is terrible. It isn't out of maliciousness that you are misled, it is simply out of ignorance. The world was a very different place when they were young, and it truly didn't matter what degree you received back in the when your parents went to college. But what was true then is not true now and you need to remember that.

There is a lot more I could tell you, but instead, I will also direct any young millennial to go to Amazon and buy Cappys book. It might save you a lot of heart ache.

It Beats Washing Cars

Courtesy of my girlfriend, another article on how college degrees are becoming worthless. I love this quote from a law firm partner, whose company requires a college degree for a $ 10 an hour mailing job.

“College graduates are just more career-oriented,” said Adam Slipakoff, the firm’s managing partner. “Going to college means they are making a real commitment to their futures. They’re not just looking for a paycheck.”

I don't even know where to start...

MBA's And The Chinese

I hope they don't buy that kind of schlock like we did in the states. I once considered an MBA program, and then while studying for it, I realized that it would have been a colossal waste of time. How exactly do you teach management and leadership skills in a program? The answer is you really can't. The best way to learn is on the field from someone you think is a good leader, it's far cheaper than a degree, and far more effective.

Don't Get a Finance Degree

Diploma burning has replaced
flag burning as the youths protest
of choice

Meeting with an old friend I hadn’t seen in a while when I heard some interesting news. He had recently changed jobs, which in of itself isn’t an item worthy enough to blog about, however, what his new job was is interesting.  You see my friend recently was employed at a major bank/investment firm to do investment work, once again nothing too interesting, and he doesn’t have a degree in math, finance, or accounting.  He has a degree in criminal justice, originally wanted to be a cop and probably would have been a good one too, and a master’s in public administration, he worked for local government for a little while but arguing down his boss from spending $2,000 on garbage receptacles grew tiresome.  This is interesting because as someone with a finance degree I had no illusions that my chance of even obtaining an interview, much less being hired, at any one of those big companies was next to nil.  How he get his job would give the Captain an aneurysm but considering that I know him to be a very capable individual it illustrates something.  Most business degrees are not worth your time or effort.

The fact that I, as someone who focused on finance, couldn’t even get my foot in the door as a bank teller when I first left college, and that someone with no mathematical experience whatsoever could work for a firm, illustrates this fact all too clearly.  And this isn’t to chastise or wave my finger at my friend for using connections to get a job, that would be hypocritical since after almost two years of unemployment I was forced to do the same thing for my previous job, it’s to illustrate an important reality that all too few college kids think about.  Who you know is extremely important, more so than what you know. The other is that your business degree isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on.

Plenty of articles have cropped up about how it is difficult to find work if you have a liberal arts or some other soft degree relative to a hard knowledge degree; however, people fail to realize, that outside of accounting, business is just as nebulous as a liberal arts degree.  Now some of you might say I am leaving out economics, I intentionally did not lump it with accounting, and finance.  With finance, while it may have one point been a good degree to get, it’s the simple fact that:

a)      There are far too many of them. It was easily the most popular business degree at my university and perhaps the most popular degree outside of liberal arts.

b)      Outside of highly leveraged investing they don’t teach you anything that you couldn’t learn on the job in a couple of weeks.

Though as my grandma would say, the proof is in the pudding, and while I could try to drum up some sort of statistics I am going to allow myself the liberty of anecdotal evidence.  The three things I noticed with finance degrees are that

1)      After failing to land a real analyst job they end up becoming, or continuing, to be a teller a bank

2)      Go back to get an MBA

3)      End up working in ‘investments’, and by investment I mean they become a salesperson with title like ‘investment coordinator’, ‘client accounts representative’, ‘personal banking broker’  or some other ludicrously long name for a salesman.

Now there’s nothing wrong with sales.  But sales jobs do not need a degree, and I highly doubt that people getting a finance job want to end up in sales.  They simply end up in those jobs because they are the only ones that will accept their applications after college, believe me I know as I sent out hundreds of applications and only one that I got a response back was for an actual analyst job while the rest were sales of some sort.  If you are like my brother who is the greatest bull shitter and networking I know, he somehow leveraged a 6 month ‘job’ in Germany from someone he me with and corresponded with over email a few times, then this kind of job is great.  However, if you’re more introverted or analytically minded then these jobs are nothing sort of a sentence to a living hell.  But mark my words, if you major in finance, then you will most likely end up in sales.

The other reason it is hard to get a good analytical job is simply that a college degree just doesn’t mean anything because anyone who isn’t functionally retarded, or simply lazy, can get one if given enough time.  Have you noticed how it is taking more and more individuals longer than four years to get a degree?   Part of it is the ever increasing requirements to take worthless classes such as basket weaving, or that it is simply harder to get the classes that one needs. But the other aspect is that you have more people going to college who simply are not up to the challenge, at least at that point in their life but colleges will not flunk all but the most slothful of students.

If you don’t believe me then try and recall how many of your friends who attended college washed out?  Remember the stereotypical dull professor saying ‘look to your left; now look to your right. One of them will not be here in four years’? The idea was the college was so difficult that there were individuals who simply could not handle the load.  No longer, remember colleges are businesses, as now the university system will hand hold you the entire way through.  If you have a finance degree and don’t have anything better than a 3.7 GPA then expect to have a more difficult time finding good financial work.  You could have a 3.2 GPA but because of grade inflation and hand holding you might as well have a 2.5 GPA because of it. I routinely applied for jobs that stated that any resume with a GPA less than a 3.5 wouldn’t even be looked at, regardless of work experience.

The other aspect not thought about is what university you went too.  You could have graduated magna cum laude and been the valedictorian of your class, but if it was in a university that no one outside of you state would know about, then you will struggle mightily outside of that area. If you want to work in Wall Street you better hope you went to somewhere like Harvard, Yale, and NYU or else you are going to be sorely disappointed.  The pedigree of your degree matters, regardless of whether or not the pedigree that academic institution have is still actually warranted. I am of the personal opinion that most schools are pretty equivalent to each other when it comes to teaching hard sciences and mathematics, but sadly my opinion doesn’t rule the day.

What this means is that if you want to get that investment job you either need to go to a really prestigious school, at least for your neck of the woods, and work your ass off. Or you need to network like crazy.  Because it doesn’t matter if your bright or highly competent.  Outside of being a wunderkind, that isn’t enough. It matters far more who you know or where you went.  Because if you know the right person, aren’t a moron, and interview well then it doesn’t matter what degree you get.

I won’t lie, I was a bit jealous when I heard the news. Though knowing him I am sure he will do very well and excel in his new job. And to be honest, knowing what I know now I am actually worried for him.  A lot of people are employed in a sector that is going to be hurt very badly when the boomers start retiring and they will have a hard time finding the same kind of lucrative jobs once the financial sector goes through a much needed generational correction.  He’s got a family and kids to look after, one of my few millennial friends who are married with kids by the way, and he needs a well paying job far more than I.