Occupy Wall Street Protests

Okay. Fine. She'll give you that.
:D

Last night during my study group~

some older guy was saying that the people taking part in this are bunch of people who majored in fine arts, philosophy and other related fields. He was ranting on about this and the thing that he said which got stuck in my head was this:

"what did these kids expect to do when they major in fine arts, english, philosophy? Write lesbian sex novels?"

our colleges are over-run with these kinds of individuals.
but i'd imagine his perspective on it is a rather limited scope like mine own.

I honestly hope these people are looking for a job while they're protesting~ Extra money never hurts

i'd say they're probably just protesting and gathering money to survive on through donation. these people can't protest and have a job at the same time. only one body, protesting is going to be the more important of the two for the sincere ones.

a couple groups of people in my area tried to make an occupied movement and it was just a glorified cry for attention and 15 minutes of spotlight in the area, place completely cleared out and hasn't had anyone do anything with it since the day they started. some people are just out for it being a social club, i don't think that's expressive of the majority in the least, but i think this happens with EVERY protest group, be it the "hippies" of yesteryear or the occupiers or tea partiers.

Isn't that horrifying? So much for privacy. :/

If you have a cell phone with a battery in it that is registered to you they can pretty much track you whenever they want anyways. Cell phone Companies are selling our geographical data along with browsing history to companies so they can market to us based on our likes and locations.

Creepy. :-( My phone is about 6 years old and very basic. No pictures, poor texting, can't add a ringtone, nothing like that. I was unaware that I could be tracked with such an old phone since it doesn't have a GPS that I'm aware of. Creepy that I could be tracked just from the battery!

I meant that the battery just had to be in the phone. Even if you turn it off.

My point is that companies like that can already track you and such and that you're not only a customer but you're a product as well.

It's always so easy to put people into boxes. The intellectual laziness is astounding.

I've been down to OWS myself and there are more than just people who majored in liberal arts and philosophy. There are college professors, men and women who lost work thanks to their careers being outsourced, retirees who recognize the need for change in our government due to the rampant corruption, people with jobs that realize just because they're employed doesn't mean that everyone else is lazy. This is amongst the other fellows who each come with their own personal agendas good and bad.

We pushed in this country throughout the mid80s-90s to go to college, get an education and you could at least make the middle class yet now everyone wants to write that off and chastise individuals for taking the path they believed would lead to prosperity. Hindsight is 20/20 as it were and shame on those who truly believe that every college student is a lazy sod who doesn't want to work.

The entry-level positions that used to be the pavement of a career have been rapidly going overseas meaning valuable experience required for a job can be difficult to obtain. Some individuals entered college with the intention to go into a booming career only to see the opportunity dry up over the 4 years and still others found a job but are being paid so little that your options become taking another job or accepting some govt aid. Ouch.

I saw some excellent post about that. Something like

I hate the old generation. They told us that if we didn't want to flip burgers, to go to college. So, we went to college, and now the same people say we're lazy because we don't want to flip burgers.

This is the tragedy of Gen-Y, they are just following directions and expecting to be rewarded. Not that I place all the blame on them. It's the result of "helicopter moms", intramural sports leagues that no longer keep score, and the banning of red pens and the honor roll cause they create too much stress on those who don't perform.

When the baby boomers told you to goto college they didn't mean just show up. They meant learn something you can make money from. There are so many people who goto college because they think they need it, they think its an admirable trait. I have no doubt as to the wholeness a college experience can provide someone. But if you go there just for the experience and aren't smart enough to recognize you need a degree you can do something with after you get out (see fine arts degree). Then all you did was experience college for 4 years and rack up ten of thousands of dollars in debt. Not a very smart move.

http://www.youtube.com/embed/OAOrT0OcHh0?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&showsearch=0&showi

I find it amusing that people knock on fine arts degrees when all cg is done by somebody who probably has a fine arts degree.

It depends what one does with it most definitely though.

edit:

I hope people are starting to realize that there's more people than jobs for a reason, technology replaces entry level jobs and people can't make a living without knowledge.

But it begs the question: with the technology we have, why are people still busting their *** to just "work for a living?" people are doing more for less reward, it's sad.

Fine arts is the "generic" college degree, its hardly a specialied piece of paper. I would be willing to bet those in the CG industry place pretty much zero weight on their BFA and would probably admit the classes they took geared towards it were just about a waste of time.

Are you really suggesting that scholastic computer programing courses deliver more than ~5% of practical knowledge to the people who take them? I graduated with an architecture degree and by the time I got around to taking the "Autocad" course in my studies, it was a complete waste of time.

I guess my point is, if you want to be a programmer, I'm sure there some far cheaper certification that you can get which will get you through the door to the industry. Isn't that a much better idea than spending +$100,000 on a BFA?

I didn't go to college, sad that I haven't got the said "experience" of it, happy I don't have the debt. I might take a few classes at a local college in the future, not necessarily in pursuit of a degree, more in pursuit of bettering my craft as a writer, though I don't in any way consider it to be something that I'm going to necessarily make bank on, it's going to catapult me into many different careers and collaborations with other acquaintances be it music, screenplays, video game plot design, fiction...etc.
Definitely have to try everything these days(or back in the day really) to be successful. I also plan to do most of this while maintaining my current place of employment as an added bonus so no real loss there! :P

Well, along the lines of the college major argument here, I'm a creative writing major. On paper, it just says I'm an English major, BA English. With that, I could write stories, comic strips, be a technical writer (which is an actual in-demand job that pays well), be a secretary, be a receptionist, be any sort of non-tech office worker, be a librarian, write articles for internet sites or newspapers, be an office assistant or personal assistant. I believe certain gaming companies like Bungie back in the day hired English majors to write game story lines and dialogue. English majors can be scriptwriters for just about anything that needs a script, actually. There's a bucket ton of things you can do with an English degree.

However, most of the things that you can do with an English degree that are well-paying full-time jobs with benefits require previous experience. It's very rare here to find someone hiring a technical writer who will take a fresh college grad. They want at least a couple years' experience. And that makes sense, you want to hire someone who knows what is expected of them. But what it also does is keep college grads from getting good jobs, and keep fresh talent out of the work force, especially when most places here don't take on English students as interns or anything like that to get experience while they're still in school.

I'm very lucky, there's a company about a day's drive away from me that contacted me for technical writing projects. It's temporary, part-time work, but it's good pay and I work from home. Many English majors don't have the luxury of companies coming to them with job offers, and most companies that do contact them won't necessarily be giving them free job experience for when their projects are finished and they have to move on to find the next thing.

And even with the part-time job and all the options, I'm nearly out of places to try for when my projects run out. I've even applied at Starbucks and Wal-mart, to really no avail. And places that I am fully qualified for without being over-qualified for are taking their sweet time getting back to me. It was several weeks ago that I applied to be a transcriptionist, listening to interviews and transcribing them. I've done that sort of work before for newspapers and class projects, and I'm fairly good at it. But after not hearing from the company for several weeks, I have to assume they aren't interested and keep looking.

People here aren't hiring. You walk through the mall looking for any old part-time, minimum-wage, no benefits job, stop into any store you like, and they'll all give you the same story. "You can fill out an application for seasonal work, but we're not hiring right now." It's not that my degree is useless. It's not as useful as it could be, but there's still plenty I could do with it. It's that no one is hiring.

I just find the whole concept of needing a degree to be more hinderous than not in a way. You can get just as far without it with a good work ethic, studying, and talent without the debt tagged on.
Not saying that to diss your choices or anything Liela, more just rationalizing my reasoning for not trying to enter the college-sphere. I try to work off my drive and ambition which both pushed forward my studious nature and my aims for talent.
Creating a body of work is the biggest thing you can do being a writer and is probably the best thing to do if you go to college for it so I believe skipping the college step doesn't necessarily hinder things in regards to being a successful writer in todays industry. With either course of action you gotta work hard at it to survive lol.

Oh don't worry, I don't think you are dissing my choices at all. I think you are right actually. College isn't for everyone, and I don't think it was the right choice for me. I didn't want to go to begin with, but thought it would probably be best to go, for the sake of my future children if nothing else. Of all the places I've worked, I honestly liked working at King's department store best. I like jobs where I can go sit in a corner somewhere and put price stickers on products, or straighten shelves, or even walk around sweeping aisles. I enjoy things that keep my hands busy while leaving my mind free to wander and let me think about whatever I want to think about. And so I think going to school to get a degree in something that was going to sit me behind a desk somewhere and make sure I only thought about one thing and that I concentrated just on that was really stupid of me.

Most people don't understand that at all. Most people say they want a job that stimulates their brain or makes them smarter or challenges their minds. Which, idk, maybe it makes me dumb or lazy or unmotivated that I don't really like that. I find most things that 'stimulate my brain' to be fairly boring, I had extreme difficulty staying awake during most of my classes that 'challenged my brain' and I think if I want to get smarter, then I'd want to choose to study something instead of a boss somewhere choosing to make me study something.

My favorite thing ever to do on a job was attach price stickers. The little price guns are fun and easy to use, you can get lots of things priced and placed on shelves to feel like you accomplished something, you can be just by yourself without crazy customers, and you can think about whatever you like during that time. Of course, let's not mention the fact that monkeys could easily be trained to do it, or robots. Or the fact that my husband would probably make more at his electrical engineering job in a day than I'd make attaching price stickers in a week.

I wanted to go to college so that I had the means to fully support myself and any future children should anything unfortunate happen to my husband. To be honest, going to work at Wal-mart and building myself up the ladder there would probably have gotten me that goal just as well, without racking up $16,000 of debt while I was at it. And to be honest, I probably would have enjoyed it more than any English job I'm ever going to get. I hate writing. ._.

College is a gigantic scam. Rack of thousands in debt to attend a bunch of classes the majority of which will have zero impact on what you will end up doing once you leave college.

Kids are bombarded from a young age with the message that you have to go to college to be successful in life and to make a living. Such BS. All this has done has flooded the college system with more people that dont need to be there and forced those that do, to have to go longer and acquire even more debt.

Meanwhile tuition costs have gone through the roof at astronomical rates for seemingly no reason other than the fact that colleges can charge whatever the hell they want since everyone believes they have no choice but to suck it up and pay it.

The system is so broken its no wonder the people in and leaving college are pissed the hell off.

<-has a sit down job and stimulates his brain regularly.

I was making 10 dollars an hour during college. finished my 4 year degree - got a job a month later. Now i make almost 70k a year and every year that goes up at least 4%. Just saying.

But the question is, do you need your degree to actually perform the functions of your job? A lot of people don't. For them, their degree is their ticket into the job and not much else.

Like where I work - when I started, it was a pretty small company. At the time, they hired anyone who seemed intelligent enough to do the job. Now, they hire people with advanced degrees* to do the same work. The work has evolved, sure, but no one needs a Master's to do it - just to get hired.

*Have been doing it this way for years - not just as a result of higher unemployment.

My business degree does nothing but take up space on the wall in my office. It is rather pointless otherwise (did nothing for getting me hired, nor dictates my pay). I feel that my Master's will be different.

Exception to every rule.
:D
that's why blanket assumptions don't really apply to everyone in general, though i suspect there may be a blanket assumption that does..like maybe "we all need oxygen to breath" or something like that.

Okay, here we go... College is not a complete waste of time. It can be if you make it that but it is not a waste of time. Here are a couple of misconceptions about college.

1) if I go to college I will get a great paying job on the way out! false. Things rarely if ever fall into your lap. A lot of people I knew went through four or five years of school and then applied a month or two after they were out and expected to get the job. You still need to work your *** off to get that job as well (not saying some haven't). When applying for a job first make sure your resume is put together well. If you send in a resume and looks like a 3rd grader did it they're not even going to look at it. Follow up. You may feel like you're annoying them but following up is important. It puts your name in their heads again and lets them know hey he/she really wants this job. prepare, prepare, prepare for any interaction you have with your possible employers. Showing up not properly dressed, not properly greeting or not having any idea what to say or do is a very bad sign. If you show up late... well you better have a great excuse but if you're making excuses already... College isn't a hey come take me and you will be autonmatically give a wonderous job. You still have to work just as hard but I gaurantee you that having a college degree on your resume helps and opens doors that wouldn't have been there without it.

2) College doesn't train you for the exact job you will do! Of course it doesn't and I don't see how it possibly could. Trade schools might do that. But colleges are there to give you a well rounded background in the field that you want to enter. As a businesss admin major you learn all kinds of things about the business atmosphere how companies are structured, operations, how to handle yourself in meetings with peers,bosses, and subordinates, we ran faux businesses and all other sorts of things. Is it exactly what I do now? No, but it definitely gave me a background in the industry. College also gets people to broaden their knowledge. Many liberal arts colleges add basic sciences, literature, speech, critical writing, foreign language and such to broaden peoples horizons.

Personally I wouldn't have the job I have today without my degree. I know my dad always told me that he would never have been allowed to progress as far as he did in his company without one either. Sometimes people only want people with degrees at a certain level. It is also true that college is not for everyone. It really depends on what you want to do, how far you want to go and what kind of company you work for. Trade schools are great for some. Others do well without school but it can be a lot harder to advance. Is college a gaurantee that you will get a great job? No. Can it help you advance and open doors that would otherwhise be shut? Yes. Do you still have to work your *** off when you're out? Yes.

In todays job market its even tough because companys have learned to do more with less and therefore there aren't as many positions open. I paid $26,000 a year in tuition and I am debt free atm. I'm 27.

@Vinnv While it is true you can do well with a good work ethic and some talent. Its not always enough to get you to where you should be or where you could be. As for talent? Unless you turn your talent in to skill thats all it is is talent.

depends on the person, and nothing is a waste of time if you learn something.

Also BFA is not "generic" in any sense but whatever...

Programmer =/= graphic designer, and over $100,000 lol...

You may not need the degree to do the actual work but from reading what you just wrote the company you work for at first hired anyone who seemed intelligent enough and now they're only hiring people with advanced degrees to do the same work. As they're not hiring just anyone intelligent enough to do the work you can logically assume that having the advanced degree got them that job over someone else that didn't have it whether or not they needed it to actually do the work.

College isn't a complete scam. There are many jobs that require college education. For instance:

Architects
Engineers
Doctors
Nurses
Lawyers
Scientists

These are career paths that require college specified study. I'm sure I'm missing a few but for most other job fields, you probably don't need to rack up 10s of thousands of dollars in debt in order to participate in them.

The whole reason college is so overpriced now is the notion that "everyone needs to go to college" and the fact that people buy into it. Much like the previous idea of "everyone needs to own a home", all it is, is a way to artificially create demand a particular sector of the economy. "Dump a bunch of money here, we promise it will be worth it in the long run." In the end, you'll have just been scammed into taking on MASSIVE debt that will only weigh you down as you strive to get ahead.

I fail to see why the OWS crowd, if they are so pissed off at the banks, aren't pissed off at the colleges, because what is going on there is the exact same thing.