Graduation is Here

So What’s Next?

By: Frank Panzer and Andy Brown

It is time for another round of BSU grads to head out into the real world and look for a start in the career they have worked so hard for the last 4 years.  Kids enter college wondering what in the world they should do with their lives and graduate adults with a plan and goals.  The only problem with continuing the American dream past college is the lack of job opportunities in graduated fields.  Graduates are reverting back to what they know, returning to childhood jobs, or getting wrapped up further than intended in current jobs, jobs that were only meant to help get through college.  College grads, degree in hand are collecting gas money, flipping burgers, and waiting on tables, not necessarily unhappy about it, today it stands to even have a job is an accomplishment, but rather confused as to what the time they spent and debt they collected over the last few years was really for. 

Seventy percent of college graduates today are either unemployed or working somewhere doing something that has absolutely nothing to do with their major.  Job market is certainly part of it but a deeper more concerning cause may be surfacing.  College drop-out Brandon Martell said “I was lucky, I realized I wasn’t doing what I wanted, I was going down the path my parents thought best for me, they wanted it more than I did.”  Pressure from parents, especially if they are helping with tuition or book prices, can be a real stress on students and perhaps lead them somewhere they don’t really want to be.  Brandon, now an employee at Northwestern Minnesota Juvenile Center continued, “I get paid well and enjoy what I do.  Plus all I hear is everyone talking about their debt I feel pretty lucky to have avoided it.”  Parents may not know the added pressure they are putting on their kids and of course they mean and want the best for their children but the need to please those who mean most to students sometimes outweighs personal goals and possibly even ends the possibility of chasing a dream. 

Parents are of course not solely to blame as a number of people including former student Justin Blanford felt as though it may be a case of unpreparedness, a lot of complaining about just all around lack of expectancy and urgency in the real world, “Things like effectively job hunting, not just turning in applications where ever there is a help wanted sign, and putting together a resume that not only garners a second look from an employer but lets them know you are worth meeting, and lastly, if you are lucky enough the interview process.”  All these things can be improved through courses and workshop at BSU, you just have to have the time to participate.  Time is legitimately a concern for some people and things can’t be moved around obviously but it became increasingly more obvious, on top of all the factors stacked up against a college kid, their own worst enemy turns out being themselves, lack of true motivation, lazy, very non-committal when it comes to things that you shouldn’t have to think twice about doing.  Not to take advantage of mock interviewing or training courses on how to make your resume move your consideration for a job to the top, but not to take advantage of these things really is the move of someone who cares enough to be around but not put in the extra work.

There are certainly things that are just going to be out of a student or graduates control, it’s life, but that doesn’t mean you just sit back and coast, you have to go out there, put yourself out there, and work harder than the rest to first graduate and second move on to a great job you worked so long and so hard for.  No one out there wants to see numbers like at one local Bemidji fast food establishment where the majority of their closing crew has either graduated or are very close to it and have no plans beyond the magical fast food kingdom.  A mixture of lack of preparation, the current standing of the job market, laziness, and similar contributing factors whether you think can really contribute or not are making a college degree look like a joke.  Certainly people with college degrees on average are making more than those without degrees but its not quite as big of a gap as you would think.  The idea of an education is not becoming worthless in our world but it certainly is being made less and less important very subtly it appears and perhaps not on purpose but it is happening.  It just makes more sense to get right into the job market, start working and not bury yourself under some incredible debt, debt that you built up to get a degree and maybe end up doing the same job you were going to pass up school for.  If all this were really true however schools would be closing down and degrees losing merit when in reality it still stands that if prepared well, able to compose a resume worth looking at and performing well in the interview the degree will get the job over someone without almost if not every time.  Go to college get your degree just remember it takes more than the fancy paper in todays world, get up, get out there, get prepared, and don’t give anyone a reason to tell a college graduate no when an opportunity comes along.