Gen Y: Educated and Jobless

[aggieAXO]

I think a 4 year degree is also not as valuable as it use to be. I majored in biomedical science-what can you do with that degree?-pretty much nothing-it is mainly a gateway to grad school. I have worked with several girls that have that degree (and did not make it to grad school) and they are techs working for 11-15$ an hour-same as the techs without any college education. One is thinking about going to chiropractor school.

[33girl]

Originally Posted by aggieAXO

I think a 4 year degree is also not as valuable as it use to be. I majored in biomedical science-what can you do with that degree?-pretty much nothing-it is mainly a gateway to grad school. I have worked with several girls that have that degree (and did not make it to grad school) and they are techs working for 11-15$ an hour-same as the techs without any college education. One is thinking about going to chiropractor school.

I think that's an issue with your degree in particular, not with degrees in general. Some degrees are like that. That's not a new thing - one of my sisters (20 years ago) was a psych major and she knew going in she'd have to get a master's to get ANYWHERE in her field.

[AGDee]

Originally Posted by 33girl

I think that's an issue with your degree in particular, not with degrees in general. Some degrees are like that. That's not a new thing - one of my sisters (20 years ago) was a psych major and she knew going in she'd have to get a master's to get ANYWHERE in her field.

I agree. There are some majors where it is obvious what your career path will be (nursing, accounting, teaching, engineering) and then there are majors that, when I hear them, I think "And what are you going to BE when you grow up?"

There are pros and cons to both. For instance, after being an Occupational Therapist for 13 years I decided it was time to do something else. It required major re-training and now work on a Master's in a completely different field to keep moving forward. I was almost too specialized and it left me no other options, really. The proverbial "they" say that the average person has 3 careers over his/her lifetime now. Usually, that's going to require some major re-training. Even now, while I'm specializing in an IT field, I'm thinking about what I think my 3rd career will be.

And, I initially started working on a Master's in Clinical Psych 20 years ago and was realizing while working on it that without a PhD, I still wasn't really going to get to my end goal.

[cheerfulgreek]

Originally Posted by aggieAXO

I think a 4 year degree is also not as valuable as it use to be. I majored in biomedical science-what can you do with that degree?-pretty much nothing-it is mainly a gateway to grad school. I have worked with several girls that have that degree (and did not make it to grad school) and they are techs working for 11-15$ an hour-same as the techs without any college education. One is thinking about going to chiropractor school.

LVTs are way underpaid. IMO.