Best advice on career education/training to offer someone?

[c-record]

Nooch's thread got me wondering, and I didn't want to hijack, what advice those here would offer to someone trying to sort out their education or career training? Given the current economy there are many grads with lots of debt and not a lot of prospects. Forumites will likely have unique insights and opinions on micro-trends. Where would you tell someone to put their efforts and training to be confident going forward in a career for the next 20 years?

[c-record]

I have noticed that law school seems to be a very popular hold-over spot for people who I don't think would have gone to law school if the current economy/jobs out look were otherwise.

Medical field seems strong but the amounts of debt people are graduating with recently is pretty astounding. I wonder what kind of shake-ups will occur there with insurance reform/cost control efforts in the next 20 years or sooner.

An employee of mine is looking at mechanical engineering which seems safe. A friend recently had to make a major move to find similar work when his engineering team was terminated due to changes in contract work they had with the aerospace industry. Caught a lot of them by surprise when the entire team was let go. I still hear many people feeling nervous about the current situation.

[tannhauser]

I think IBM's Watson is going to make human beings superfluous.

[1centaur]

I don't think confidence is possible, but generally:

Love what you do and don't love something that's not going to be done anymore or will be done in China.

Learn social and networking skills because those are far more effective in landing jobs than technical skills. Be social with successful people.

Be willing to move - insistence on living in Flint, Michigan because you are already there is a lifetime income killer.

Write, talk and calculate well. Most average jobs use those skills and promotions/hiring goes to those who communicate clearly and easily over those who don't, which are most people.

Get in a good organization even at a low level and you will do better than being in a bad organization a little higher up.

Gravitate to competent, energetic and decent people - good things will happen.

Pick your school based on their placement ability not their academic reputation - there's increasingly a disconnect between how schools see themselves and how outsiders see them.

And if you absolutely must look at industries, biotech, health care, education (particularly educational software) and Net stuff are likely to grow at higher than average rates.

[eddief]

there is still lots of movement and opportunity for go getters. not as in 5% unemployment times, but check the stock market (today :)) and subsets of the economy are doing just fine.

1. healthcare
2. energy exploration
3. software development of all kinds (write an ap)
4. zipcar, facebook, google, apple are some that i follow

i suggest to my clients that they get a list of the top 25 employers in their geography and check the websites. they are often blown away by the number of job openings. either those would be ones they are qualified to do or ones they could use as targets for training into.

a company in which i used to own stock has not been a hit lately in the stock market. they are in biz of carbon fiber and they have a ton o jobs open:

http://www.zoltek.com/careers/

[c-record]

I think IBM's Watson is going to make human beings superfluous.

That's a great response!

[rugbysecondrow]

Be flexible and open minded. Also, don't carry debt, it is an anchor and will force your decision making. Don't be afraid to work and work hard. Be willing to start over. Be willing to start at the bottom. Be willing to shadow or intern. Stay away from negative people. Have integrity and exhibit integrity.

Most importantly, choose a great spouse or partner, they will make or break you. They will either help you achieve your dreams or they will kill them. I have a great spouse and I hope she thinks I am one. It is a partnership that will allow people to achieve.

[c-record]

Centaur, excellent points. You're certainly right that there are successful people everywhere. About the job moving to China part though...

I wonder if we really will see some industry swing back to domestic manufacturing etc.

Eddie,

I was blown away by the opportunities out there in energy exploration. A masters in petroleum engineering seems like a very solid ticket.

Thanks for the input everyone.

[c-record]

Be flexible and open minded. Also, don't carry debt, it is an anchor and will force your decision making. Don't be afraid to work and work hard. Be willing to start over. Be willing to start at the bottom. Be willing to shadow or intern. Stay away from negative people. Have integrity and exhibit integrity.

Most importantly, choose a great spouse or partner, they will make or break you. They will either help you achieve your dreams or they will kill them. I have a great spouse and I hope she thinks I am one. It is a partnership that will allow people to achieve.

Ruby nails it. :) You sound very wise.

[oldpotatoe]

Nooch's thread got me wondering, and I didn't want to hijack, what advice those here would offer to someone trying to sort out their education or career training? Given the current economy there are many grads with lots of debt and not a lot of prospects. Forumites will likely have unique insights and opinions on micro-trends. Where would you tell someone to put their efforts and training to be confident going forward in a career for the next 20 years?


Military, particularly for a college grad(altho anybody who has been in knows the place is run by the senior enlisted). BUT great training, pay, retirement. Travel to exotic places.

-former Phantom Phyler, USN

[jds108]

My little sis finished med school a couple of years ago. No huge debt burden.

The idea that somebody can't get through advanced education without a huge pile of debt at the end is false. It's just hard to live within your means when loans are so easy to get at that point in life.

Find something where personal interest and a decent potential career intersect, then keep an inquisitive mind, constantly learn, be pleasant to work with, and do a little more than expected and everything will be fine.

As someone who has been managing people for a few years, it's amazingly difficult to find people who put in 8 hrs/day and can/do think on the fly.

-Jeff

[MattTuck]

I think IBM's Watson is going to make human beings superfluous.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204224604577030562170562088.html?m od=WSJ_hp_LEFTTopStories


If you're not passionate about college and a career that requires it, I'd suggest a trade school. Learn to make something or repair or install something, those services that can't be imported from China or outsourced to there.

Massage therapy, automotive technician, etc. Learning to do renovations to houses might also be good, considering not many houses are actually selling now and people may be more inclined to renovate existing.

[c-record]

My little sis finished med school a couple of years ago. No huge debt burden.

The idea that somebody can't get through advanced education without a huge pile of debt at the end is false. It's just hard to live within your means when loans are so easy to get at that point in life.

Find something where personal interest and a decent potential career intersect, then keep an inquisitive mind, constantly learn, be pleasant to work with, and do a little more than expected and everything will be fine.

As someone who has been managing people for a few years, it's amazingly difficult to find people who put in 8 hrs/day and can/do think on the fly.

-Jeff

I have several schoolmates that are dentists and I saw a new dental school opened up in my state. It's a private institution, but get this: $80K/year!

Great job on your sisters part. Sounds like we're in for a shortage of upper-level health care providers in the coming years.

[fourflys]

healthcare, hands down... the baby boomers are a huge population and with people living longer, there is a huge need that will continue to grow...

if you don't want to get your hands dirty with actual patients, take a look at medical administration... there are tons of regulations in healthcare and someone has to keep track of them... this is my career field now, just not sure I want to do it after I get out of the military after 30 yrs...

Chris

[c-record]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204224604577030562170562088.html?m od=WSJ_hp_LEFTTopStories


If you're not passionate about college and a career that requires it, I'd suggest a trade school. Learn to make something or repair or install something, those services that can't be imported from China or outsourced to there.

Massage therapy, automotive technician, etc. Learning to do renovations to houses might also be good, considering not many houses are actually selling now and people may be more inclined to renovate existing.

The problem I see is that many young people (my age included) expect to live large. That's a hard lesson not all have understood. I can't believe how many people in my town live in houses that are almost embarrassingly extravagant. I think that many youth expect that they will hit the workplace making six figures, get the big house with the boat parked next to it. They know many trade jobs won't get them there.

A housing development near me is full of families my age in McMansions. A retired couple built in the development and were surprised at how young all their neighbors were. I was too.

[eddief]

1. public speak - this scares the crap out of a huge % of the human race.
2. run a great meeting - ask yourself how much time you and everybody else you know wastes in crapily run business meetings. there is a way to do it and a skill worth its weight in gold.

these guys invented a set of methods many years ago:

http://www.amazon.com/Make-Meetings-Work-Michael-Doyle/dp/B000NJMMT0

[WickedWheels]

I completely disagree.

Insurance companies are killing the healthcare field.

healthcare, hands down... the baby boomers are a huge population and with people living longer, there is a huge need that will continue to grow...

if you don't want to get your hands dirty with actual patients, take a look at medical administration... there are tons of regulations in healthcare and someone has to keep track of them... this is my career field now, just not sure I want to do it after I get out of the military after 30 yrs...

Chris

[tannhauser]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204224604577030562170562088.html?m od=WSJ_hp_LEFTTopStories


That's a good story.

Sorry to drift, but can you or someone explain to me bond trading backed by student loans? I understand the default rate heavily influences the incoming funds, but wonder just what the mechanics and logic are.

[fourflys]

I completely disagree.

Insurance companies are killing the healthcare field.

so just because insurance companies are killing the healthcare field means that people are going to stop getting sick and quit needing healthcare? Regardless of what insurance does, people will still need doctors, nurses, dentists, lab techs, etc and there will still be a need to manage all of those people... now, there may at some point be a shift in the salaries of medical professionals, but the need for the care will still be there...

[MattTuck]

That's a good story.

Sorry to drift, but can you or someone explain to me bond trading backed by student loans? I understand the default rate heavily influences the incoming funds, but wonder just what the mechanics and logic are.


Just like mortgages... the individual student loans get rolled up and securitized. So, let's say 1000 loans are rolled up and then pieces of that are sold off (like pieces of a company are sold as shares). Each student pays their monthly payment, let's say 1000 bucks. So you have 1,000,000 coming in each month, the servicer takes a percent for managing the whole thing and distributes the rest to those that bought the securitized product.

If defaults are high, people aren't paying, then buys will be unlikely to pay as much for the product as when defaults are low.

[yngpunk]

If you want to go strictly by the numbers, the following from the WSJ show the unemployment rate by college major:

http://graphicsweb.wsj.com/documents/NILF1111/#term=

[WickedWheels]

so just because insurance companies are killing the healthcare field means that people are going to stop getting sick and quit needing healthcare? Regardless of what insurance does, people will still need doctors, nurses, dentists, lab techs, etc and there will still be a need to manage all of those people... now, there may at some point be a shift in the salaries of medical professionals, but the need for the care will still be there...

Sure people will need doctors. That doesn't mean that doctors need to earn more than mechanics, in the long run. I know plenty of dentists that are barely earning 6-figure salaries, for example, and are paying off $300k+ loans.

Technical services like lab work is being outsourced. Billing services are going to be outsourced soon. There will be a reduction in the number of doctors as they are being forced to see more patients.

I'm not saying it's a dying field. I'm saying it's a field that currently barely justifies the cost of entry and it's not headed in a good direction. I wouldn't go into it purely for the monetary aspect, that's all.

[Nooch]

I should mention, since my thread sprung this, what my situation is (not sure if it helps in the grand scheme of the discussion)..

I dropped out of college after two years having previously been studying Journalism. Came home, licked my wounds, found full time work at home depot, then a bank, and now for the payroll company I work for (for the past 5.5 years). While in my current position I went back to the school I started at and did a bachelor's completion program, while not in Journalism, in communications and media studies, as it accepted my journalism credits.

I have for the most part, no idea what I want to do with my life, beyond knowing that I want a family and the income to support them.

I took a sport psych class as part of my undergrad coursework when I returned to school, back when I was a 285 lb pack-a-day smoker who could hardly fit in the desks. Later that year I took up cycling, turned my life around, finished my degree, got married, and now I'm sitting here in the same job doing payroll with a degree that's not going to get me anywhere (especially not in my company) in something that I don't know how much I love anymore.

But I keep going back to the sport psych class. I reached out to my professor and she started giving me a little guidance, which prompted my original post. I'm looking to figure out a way to do something I love while having it be modestly profitable, so I'm doing my research and going to move forward with this -- it's the only thing that's made sense to me (career wise) in the last 27 years..

long story short -- I just didn't want you to think that I actually had anything figured out! But I'm trying.

[fourflys]

. I wouldn't go into it purely for the monetary aspect, that's all.


agree with the monetary aspect... my point is it is a solid future as far as having a job... as far as stuff being outsourced- you still need a skilled person to do the work... a lab tech is a lab tech regardless if they are in a hospital or Quest Diagnostics... a MedAdmin person is still MedAdmin (paperwork) regardless of location...

I think it's a long time coming before we see a physician making the same or less as a mechanic... just my opinion...

[akelman]

Plastics.

[tannhauser]

If defaults are high, people aren't paying, then buys will be unlikely to pay as much for the product as when defaults are low.

Excellent, thanks.

So there's less $ going into the securitized property that can't be predicted, according to the article, so fewer buyers (?) for the product. The handlers make less but need to know exact default numbers to minimize holding on to too much debt? I don't know anything about finance, obviously.

[yngpunk]

Given the current and ongoing focus on bio based and renewable chemicals used for making plastics, that's not bad advice... :beer:

[54ny77]

Pimpin ain't easy.

[azrider]

I'd love to know how many people with college degrees are actually working jobs that pertain specifically, to said degree.

[Aaron O]

All decisions involve a trade off. Money, time off, happiness, freedom...you don't get it all. You have to figure out which balance works for you and find something that fits your choices.

Another important thing to realize is that your balance might evolve, or change - and if that happens, it might be time to reboot.

For me law school was a lot of time and a lot of money on the front end. The potential pay off was great, but the kinds of things that interested me weren't typically the ones with the payout. It was a balance that I felt worked against that choice.

[MattTuck]

Excellent, thanks.

So there's less $ going into the securitized property that can't be predicted, according to the article, so fewer buyers (?) for the product. The handlers make less but need to know exact default numbers to minimize holding on to too much debt? I don't know anything about finance, obviously.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Securitization

That's probably going to do a better job than I could do. But I think you have it right. Investors obviously care about getting paid, so if the product they're being offered has dubious backing (student loans backed by dead beat or under qualified students), the prices that they're willing to pay for that stream of cash flows will incorporate the risks involved, and thus be less than if the stream of cash flows was going to be more stable, better risk.

For instance...

if you knew me, and knew I was honest, and I told you I was going to pay you 100, each month for the next 10 years, you could calculate the value of that stream of cash flows. Using normal finance formulas. If however, we were talking about another individual that might be a bigger credit risk, you'd have to figure that risk in and you'd arrive at a lower value for that stream of cash flows.

If you're interested in understanding this in more detail, take a look at the concepts of present value, time value of money, rate of return, etc.


The primary concerns in finance are the following 3: Fear, Greed and Impatience. Everything boils down to these three. All other things being equal, people prefer less risk over more risk (fear), more money over less money (greed) and money sooner rather than later (impatience).

The reasons for all these things are very varied, things like inflation risk, credit risk, etc. but you can directly map those emotions to the key finance formula, that of present value. PV = C / [(1+i)^t]

PV= present value of stream of cash flows
c= cashflow in period t
i= interest rate
t = period

cash flow --> greed
interest rate --> fear
time period --> impatience

[EDS]

My little sis finished med school a couple of years ago. No huge debt burden.

The idea that somebody can't get through advanced education without a huge pile of debt at the end is false. It's just hard to live within your means when loans are so easy to get at that point in life.

Find something where personal interest and a decent potential career intersect, then keep an inquisitive mind, constantly learn, be pleasant to work with, and do a little more than expected and everything will be fine.

As someone who has been managing people for a few years, it's amazingly difficult to find people who put in 8 hrs/day and can/do think on the fly.

-Jeff

How did she get through med school with minimal debt? All my friends who have done so were lucky to have their parents pay their way.

[c-record]

Nooch,

You're young and I'd say the world is still your oyster. You have time to improve training, find something you can tolerate doing every day and enjoy your family and a couple of hobbies. What more could a person ask for?

I like this forum.

[c-record]

I'd love to know how many people with college degrees are actually working jobs that pertain specifically, to said degree.

Not me or most people I know.

[c-record]

Plastics.

Tell me more?

[biker72]

I'd love to know how many people with college degrees are actually working jobs that pertain specifically, to said degree.
Bike shop employees where I work:
Bike builder-Chemical engineering degree
Salesman-Lawyer
2 Salesmen with business degrees.

Part time sales:
2 Electrical engineers
1 Software engineer
1 Petroleum engineer

[c-record]

Potatoe, you're the outlier. I mean that in the best possible way and as a compliment. What you've done is unique and probably directly attributed to your skills and personality. That doesn't stop you from having valuable advice on the topic.

[c-record]

biker72,

Wow.

[Nooch]

Nooch,

You're young and I'd say the world is still your oyster. You have time to improve training, find something you can tolerate doing every day and enjoy your family and a couple of hobbies. What more could a person ask for?

I like this forum.

That's what I'm going for. The only thing is figuring out how to see it through. At least, for the first time in a long time, I feel like I've got some direction. A *long* talk with that Sport Psych prof got me there, along with a few good friends and something that started as a few ideas over beers..

[oldpotatoe]

Tell me more?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSxihhBzCjk

[oldpotatoe]

Potatoe, you're the outlier. I mean that in the best possible way and as a compliment. What you've done is unique and probably directly attributed to your skills and personality. That doesn't stop you from having valuable advice on the topic.

I had to look that up...thanks, taken as a compliment.

[tannhauser]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Securitization

That's probably going to do a better job than I could do. But I think you have it right. Investors obviously care about getting paid, so if the product they're being offered has dubious backing (student loans backed by dead beat or under qualified students), the prices that they're willing to pay for that stream of cash flows will incorporate the risks involved, and thus be less than if the stream of cash flows was going to be more stable, better risk.

For instance...

if you knew me, and knew I was honest, and I told you I was going to pay you 100, each month for the next 10 years, you could calculate the value of that stream of cash flows. Using normal finance formulas. If however, we were talking about another individual that might be a bigger credit risk, you'd have to figure that risk in and you'd arrive at a lower value for that stream of cash flows.

If you're interested in understanding this in more detail, take a look at the concepts of present value, time value of money, rate of return, etc.

I did look up the wiki entry for "security" but it was so full of jargon as to made it unreadable. Thanks for dumbing it down for me.

I'll look at those terms when I've had a carafe of coffee.

[tannhauser]

Bike shop employees where I work:
Bike builder-Chemical engineering degree
Salesman-Lawyer
2 Salesmen with business degrees.

Part time sales:
2 Electrical engineers
1 Software engineer
1 Petroleum engineer

Yep, Chem E here. I mean there.

[bluto]

Bike shop employees where I work:
Bike builder-Chemical engineering degree
Salesman-Lawyer
2 Salesmen with business degrees.

Part time sales:
2 Electrical engineers
1 Software engineer
1 Petroleum engineer


C'mon now......somethin ain't addin up there. Not saying you're not tellin the truth but wow. That's really hard for me to understand, wrap my head around

[biker72]

C'mon now......somethin ain't addin up there. Not saying you're not tellin the truth but wow. That's really hard for me to understand, wrap my head around

The part timers are retired from their companies but the others are not.

[benb]

The WSJ chart looks suspicious.. is that all workers of all ages with those degrees or is it kids who graduated in the last 5 years? Does it include people with those degrees who are working in the field only, or if someone is a waiter does that still count as employed?

It's not really showing much difference between STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math).. and much softer stuff.

Most of the press has been about massive growth in "soft" college degrees granted while science, engineering, and math have had shrinking enrollment while total college attendance has gone up dramatically. Communications is usually the degree that is listed as being extremely popular these days with a massive oversupply of degreed individuals in the market.

Where I work over the past 5 years we have never stopped hiring people with Computer Science degrees.. we've only managed to hire 2-3 new grads in our office the entire time, there just aren't enough of them. (With the caveat that kids with low GPAs are still screwed.) We've had several times where we were supposed to be hiring 2 millennials to junior positions and after months of looking we gave up and hired one baby boomer or Gen X person to a senior position instead. I don't really know anyone in my field who has really been out of work with the exception of executives.

Granted not everyone is willing to do the work to study STEM fields, not everyone can enjoy them, etc.. but the jobs are there and have been.

Petroleum engineer working at a bike shop? They must either want to work in a bike shop or not be willing to move because some areas of the country undergoing energy rushes have massive shortages of PE's and are paying huge salaries.

[Gummee]

I'd love to know how many people with college degrees are actually working jobs that pertain specifically, to said degree.I'm not.

I have a BA in History. Only thing you can do with that is get a piled higher and deeper then teach.

I useta get asked 'what are you going to teach?' when I was in school. At that point in my life, I woulda gotten myself into trouble. Mouth off to ME willya?!

I got into financial advising and mortgages. Realized I WAS teaching people. I was teaching em something that they NEED to learn. As a side benefit, I get paid well to do it.

If I had to run someone towards a field, it'd be entrebenuership. If you learn to make your own businesses, you're not dependent on as many people.

HTH

M

[Fixed]

do something you love
life is too short not to
cheers imho

[slowgoing]

Don’t do what you want to do right off the bat. There are no jobs or good pay in that because everyone else also wants to do what you want to do.

Do something you’re good at that pays the bills. The important thing is to get yourself grounded so you can make a living.

Later you can try to transition to something you want to do. It may or may not be possible. But at least you’re making a living and your life will not be on hold while you try to make a transition.

[roydyates]

I'd love to know how many people with college degrees are actually working jobs that pertain specifically, to said degree.
It's a small fraction, particularly for undergraduate degrees. For the professional graduate schools (law, medicine etc), the percentages are of course higher. In my own field (Electrical Eng), almost everything you learn beyond basic principles will be outdated 5 years after you graduate.
However, learning basic principles is a good reason to go to college.

[Charles M]

-



Avoid the cycling industry




-

[bluto]

I would say the number of people that I work with who are doing something with their "actual" degree is very, very small. That is if they have a degree to begin with.

I work in a sales role at a leading Technology company and work with; Design Engineers, Developers, Product Managers, and Pre Sales Consultants/Engineers who got into the industry via "certifications" they obtained on their own or trade school (think ITT tech) or Community College.

I learned quickly that in Technology related professions it's very black or white. One either knows how to do it or you don't, there is no gray area. Whether you learned how at a Community College ($$) or a State University ($$$$) it doesn't matter. As long as you know what to do, how to do it, and can execute.

[eddief]

http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sby/acc/2694336572.html

[Wimpy]

I should mention, since my thread sprung this, what my situation is (not sure if it helps in the grand scheme of the discussion)..

I dropped out of college after two years having previously been studying Journalism. Came home, licked my wounds, found full time work at home depot, then a bank, and now for the payroll company I work for (for the past 5.5 years). While in my current position I went back to the school I started at and did a bachelor's completion program, while not in Journalism, in communications and media studies, as it accepted my journalism credits.

I have for the most part, no idea what I want to do with my life, beyond knowing that I want a family and the income to support them.

I took a sport psych class as part of my undergrad coursework when I returned to school, back when I was a 285 lb pack-a-day smoker who could hardly fit in the desks. Later that year I took up cycling, turned my life around, finished my degree, got married, and now I'm sitting here in the same job doing payroll with a degree that's not going to get me anywhere (especially not in my company) in something that I don't know how much I love anymore.

But I keep going back to the sport psych class. I reached out to my professor and she started giving me a little guidance, which prompted my original post. I'm looking to figure out a way to do something I love while having it be modestly profitable, so I'm doing my research and going to move forward with this -- it's the only thing that's made sense to me (career wise) in the last 27 years..

long story short -- I just didn't want you to think that I actually had anything figured out! But I'm trying.

You are in an interesting position. Young enough to still make a change but old enough so that making a change can be a real PITA.

Sport psych is likely a growing field but if you are going to invest serious time towards it make sure there is a specific end game job that will pay the bills. Many of them in that field won't.

Nursing or some kind of Med Tech is a sure thing and in the big picture you will be doing more good than you ever can as a sports psych.

If working is what you love, than find a job that you love.

If living is what you love, find a job you don't hate, that pays the bills and find fulfillment at home where is matters.

Raise a family, coach youth sports, be a good friend and try to leave people happier than you find them.

[benb]

Seems like it would require yet another trip back to school but if medical is where the jobs are and sports is your interest physical therapy sounds like a good option...

And at least in my experience I would much rather go to a physical therapist who was heavily involved in the sports world if I'm recovering from a sports injury.. they know how to treat & motivate an athlete who works hard at fitness differently from someone who injured themselves by not taking care of themselves.

[fourflys]

Don’t do what you want to do right off the bat. There are no jobs or good pay in that because everyone else also wants to do what you want to do.
.

I get what you're saying, but I've loved every one of my 18 yrs in the Coast Guard and plan on 12 more... did I know this was a career when I joined in '93? nope, but it worked out to be one...

[biker72]

-



Avoid the cycling industry




-
Index funds.
No cranky customers.. :)
No suppliers raising prices overnight.
No employees to manage.
Lots of time to ride..

[VTCaraco]

The WSJ chart looks suspicious.. is that all workers of all ages with those degrees or is it kids who graduated in the last 5 years? Does it include people with those degrees who are working in the field only, or if someone is a waiter does that still count as employed?

It's not really showing much difference between STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math).. and much softer stuff.

I would agree that some background criteria would be needed to help that make sense.


Where I work over the past 5 years we have never stopped hiring people with Computer Science degrees.. we've only managed to hire 2-3 new grads in our office the entire time, there just aren't enough of them.

I'm a math teacher...had some kids at WPI's Invitational Math Meet about a month ago. In their presentation to teachers/coaches, they stated that 4 of the top 5 job fields (I don't remember the source or the criteria, but it felt fairly robust in the moment) were math related.
The faculty member went on to quote a hiring representative from IBM who had visited who answered the question "do you prefer hiring computer science majors or math majors?" with "it's easier to teach a math major to program than a computer scientist to think".
Granted he was speaking to a bunch of math teachers, but he was a math guy who found his way to mathematics through computer science. Pretty funny/interesting comment.

He went on to say that the linear programming opportunities in industry are amazing. That he's overwhelmed with demand where he's analyzing systems that are averaging 35,000 variables. Pretty darn fascinating stuff!

[1centaur]

I did look up the wiki entry for "security" but it was so full of jargon as to made it unreadable. Thanks for dumbing it down for me.

I'll look at those terms when I've had a carafe of coffee.

Thread drift but in case it's interesting to anyone:

Securitization is a major driver of why we are where we are and how we will get out of it. It's important to realize why securitization exists: to get the loans off the books of the people who make them, because it's more profitable to make a loan and sell it than to make a loan and keep it along with required capital reserves to pay for any losses. Different types of loans have different risks - student loans, mortgages, credit card debt, auto loans - but all can be securitized (a whole bunch of them put together and then the loan payments re-divided up among investors with different risk tolerances). A major key to securitization is that rating agencies (S&P; Moody's) study the likelihood of repayment over time and then rate the parts of the securitization - AAA, AA, and so on. Investors tend to buy the ratings and the yield rather than really understand the repayment odds of the loans themselves. The interest they receive reflects the rating on their piece, and the higher rated pieces are first in line for money (generalization) while the lower rated pieces are further back in line. The willingness of the most risk-seeking investors (yield hogs) to buy the lowest rated pieces helps make the whole structure work. When S&P modeled US home prices never to decline nationally, they supported AAA ratings on lots of mortgage securitizations. When that proved not true, we had a global credit crisis, because so many levered and critical financial institutions had a lot of money tied up in AAA-rated securitizations against which they held minimal reserves - whoops, there goes the capital base. And there was a lot of collateral (pun) damage that sprang from there - leverage upon leverage. Literally if S&P had rated mortgage debt more harshly, many securitizations would not have been done and subprime loans would have been priced out of the market so the real estate bubble would have been smaller. There were many ways to stop the crisis; that was just one. Not politics, just the arithmetic of securitization and the reality of what big banks and insurance companies are encouraged to buy by their capital regulations.

The firms that service securitizations (take in the money from borrowers and pay it out to investors) generally are not much hurt by changing default rates (that's a complex topic not worth following up on for the yeah buts).

With student loans, there have been many years of data on repayment rates across large populations, so most investors are comfortable with the ratings of the securitized debt they hold - as they were with real estate. If there is a real political movement to forgive student debt because the students don't get a job that pays well, a lot of highly rated securitizations would get crushed, as with the subprime crisis. So if that plan is pursued, it probably has to grandfather the existing securitized loans. One of the major problems with real estate prices in the US and foreclosures is that loan modifications really mess with the cash flows of rated securitized mortgage pools. If these loans were sitting one by one on bank balance sheets, modifying them would be much simpler. Much of the regulatory focus in the near term is trying to figure out how to have lenders keep more skin in the game when they make loans, rather than just doing a transaction and selling it into a securitization and washing their hands. We saw how that worked.

Yes, I do what I went to college for. I went to undergrad business school because I wanted to make money (no greater ambition) and I decided I wanted to be a money manager while taking intro to investments at age 20. Super lucky I made that decision and could work my way into the profession, though it was an indirect path - straight out of college with the #1 GPA in Management I took a job as a part-time waiter. Coming out of my MBA program, I had nothing. Followed a lead from my placement office 8 months after graduation and got an investing job, and then I tried like hell to be great at it. 23 years later, I still do.

[rphetteplace]

Tell me more?

hey I'm in plastics!

[bike22]

i went to college, graduated, now i work in the bike industry.

wish i could get a job in my field (conservation), but i realize every day i continue doing what i'm doing the chances get smaller and smaller that i will ever be doing what i think i want to do.

my biggest problem is that i just can't find any job listings or openings for what i want to do with my education, interests, past experience, etc.


+1 to never work in the bike industry.

[tannhauser]

Thread drift but in case it's interesting to anyone:

Securitization is a major driver of why we are where we are and how we will get out of it.

Second excellent thread post.

S&P downgraded the US's credit (?) rating because of debt, I remember. But I forgot why the S&P had an ulterior motive for high mortgage securitization ratings, and now forget what it is for the US downgrade.

[rugbysecondrow]

i went to college, graduated, now i work in the bike industry.

wish i could get a job in my field (conservation), but i realize every day i continue doing what i'm doing the chances get smaller and smaller that i will ever be doing what i think i want to do.

my biggest problem is that i just can't find any job listings or openings for what i want to do with my education, interests, past experience, etc.


+1 to never work in the bike industry.


Sometimes you can't wait for the listings to pop up, you have to create your own opportunities. Network, take people to lunch, offer to intern or ask to shadow for a day or week. Be present. Let it be known this is what you want, be the guy they think about first when job becomes available. Learn to sell yourself.

[1centaur]

S&P downgraded the US's credit (?) rating because of debt, I remember. But I forgot why the S&P had an ulterior motive for high mortgage securitization ratings, and now forget what it is for the US downgrade.

In a sense, downgrades are always because of too much debt :) I don't think ulterior motive is the right way to think of it. Ratings agencies make judgments, which they hope are informed judgments. For a country that can print its own money, credit ratings are sort of a nebulous concept (one can inflate away debt at will, but in some real sense that is like a default). On mortgage models, I think (based on working with a really smart real estate guy who went and talked to S&P about their models) they just made bad/careless assumptions. Their ratings on other securitizations have actually proven to be pretty decent.

Agencies are paid to be pretty much right. Making ratings changes for reasons other than arithmetic/judgment would break their business model. When they're wrong, they're wrong for reasons other than ulterior motives. And BTW, if agencies were TOO conservative, credit formation would be severely hampered and economic growth along with that. While it's nice to imagine a world where unlevered growth works just fine, that's not the world we live in today. The banks are not granting credit and a functioning securitization market makes credit cards and auto loans much more readily available. That's what I meant in the first post about needing them to get us out of this. In moderation, and with accurate ratings based on stable assumptions, they're a good thing.

[happycampyer]

Second excellent thread post.

S&P downgraded the US's credit (?) rating because of debt, I remember. But I forgot why the S&P had an ulterior motive for high mortgage securitization ratings, and now forget what it is for the US downgrade.I don't think that the ratings agencies had any ulterior motive to assign overly optimistic ratings to mortgage-backed securities. One of the things that happened during the late '90's through the middle of last decade was that property values kept rising, which resulted in abnormally low default rates across all mortgage classes, and in particular for subprime mortgages. The models that rating agencies (and banks, investors, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, etc.) use to determine the probability of default (and therefore assign a rating) are like the computer models that are used to predict the weather—they are very complex, and can be flawed either in the model itself or in the inputs (i.e., values, with underlying assumptions) into the model. It wasn't just the rating agencies that got it wrong, it's just that they were the ones assigning the ratings.

Regarding the downgrade of U.S. debt, I don't think that S&P had an ulterior motive. In fact, a number of large institutional investors (fixed income money managers, insurance companies, hedge funds, etc.) had assumed that the US debt was AA+ long before the U.S. was downgraded.

(oops, didn't see what 1centaur posted while I was typing)

[tannhauser]

In a sense, downgrades are always because of too much debt :) I don't think ulterior motive is the right way to think of it. Ratings agencies make judgments, which they hope are informed judgments. For a country that can print its own money, credit ratings are sort of a nebulous concept (one can inflate away debt at will, but in some real sense that is like a default). On mortgage models, I think (based on working with a really smart real estate guy who went and talked to S&P about their models) they just made bad/careless assumptions. Their ratings on other securitizations have actually proven to be pretty decent.

Agencies are paid to be pretty much right. Making ratings changes for reasons other than arithmetic/judgment would break their business model. When they're wrong, they're wrong for reasons other than ulterior motives. And BTW, if agencies were TOO conservative, credit formation would be severely hampered and economic growth along with that. While it's nice to imagine a world where unlevered growth works just fine, that's not the world we live in today. The banks are not granting credit and a functioning securitization market makes credit cards and auto loans much more readily available. That's what I meant in the first post about needing them to get us out of this. In moderation, and with accurate ratings based on stable assumptions, they're a good thing.

I remembered what the knock against the S&P ratings was: conflicts of interest, tied to the GOP. Possibly the bad decision making is tied to political deals?

[jds108]

How did she get through med school with minimal debt? All my friends who have done so were lucky to have their parents pay their way.

Car as undergrad gift, live one step above ramen noodles, work/save a few years before med school, get grants, go to osteopathic school, get a little help from parents and top it off with loans. Keep in mind that there is a small salary in residency/ internship. I didn't ask for all of the numbers, but I don't see how folks think that the big debt is a given. What's a state school cost for a resident nowadays?

Even Stanford's tuition is only 41k and there is almost always some help along the way. I'm getting old and grumpy - seems to me that students are racking up the big debt on lifestyle, not room/board/tuition.

[1centaur]

I remembered what the knock against the S&P ratings was: conflicts of interest, tied to the GOP. Possibly the bad decision making is tied to political deals?

Uh, no. If you listened to the rationale for the downgrade, it was pretty much duh! stuff that lined up with what they do to other countries. They signaled it well in advance, using criteria that were no surprise to any serious credit investor, and then actually followed through. A tempest in a teapot that had more to do with the grave and serious responsibility (I say that tongue in cheek) that agencies appear to believe they have to call it like it is than anything political. It was spun that way, briefly, by politicians who know regular people don't know much about credit agencies, but really, again, this is just arithmetic - debt to GDP, the ability to service debt when interest rates rise, the built in escalation of future obligations, etc. S&P merely memorialized the arithmetic for everybody to see and some politicians did not like it.

There was also an assertion about ownership of S&P by the Koch brothers. That was specious.

[PacNW2Ford]

I'd love to know how many people with college degrees are actually working jobs that pertain specifically, to said degree.

Me. Going on 27 years. True though that the book of stuff I didn't learn in school is bigger than the ones of stuff I did.

[ORMojo]

OK - my sincere apology if the length of this post irritates anyone. That is what happens with me when the wife is out of town and the 2-year-old finally goes to sleep. The evening is empty, so I either read or write. Tonight I wrote (too much?) here . . .

If you are just out of high school, or still in the first years of college or a career, slow down, way down . . . even to the point of taking significant time away from college/career. I absolutely believe the statement above – “the book of stuff I didn't learn in school is bigger than the ones of stuff I did” – is true for everyone, but can work to their advantage if you know this and realize that there are ways you can gain more out of school than in, be that through life experiences, work experience, or some combination thereof.

It took me 10.5 years after graduating high school to complete my bachelors, and I did that in only ~3 years of actual school time. And even that isn't the whole story - after 11.5 years of straight A grades, I got so bored/pissed off during my senior year in high school that I walked away, while filing a lawsuit against my high school principal and the school district for violating my First Amendment rights (I was self-publishing & distributing a newspaper at school, they didn't like what I was saying). The ACLU took my case, and we won. And I decided never to step foot back in the school. So I didn't graduate . . . but did go to the epic graduation party!

I decided to travel, and spent the next 1.5 years living in West & East Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. Then I suddenly decided to give college a try, just because, and in the space of 3 weeks I returned to the USA, obtained my GED, and enrolled full time at a private college (had some inside help with that!).

To shorten this story considerably, that first enrollment in college lasted exactly one term, and then I was in & out of college, traveling & living otherwise, until completing my bachelors 9 years later.

The point is - now nearly 30 years later, with benefit of full hindsight, etc., I wouldn't change a thing. It was the easiest/best period of my life to be able to travel and follow other whims, to experience whatever I wanted/needed to experience. Don't rush to a degree & a career. Live for a while.

While it is true that older unemployed workers are having a particularly hard time reentering employment right now, I don't think that will affect much-younger folks nearly as much - or it doesn't have to. There is a glut of 22-year-olds right out of college. And those that can't find career employment are either unemployed, or under-employed. When they reach 30, they won't have any more going for them in their job/career search then they did when they were fresh out of college at age 22 - perhaps less if they spent the intervening years waiting tables, or, sorry, working in a bike shop as a stop-gap. But if, as an alternative, you reach 30 with the degree, international volunteer or work experience, a network, and some other qualities that set you apart, then you will be in a better position . . . and have enjoyed yourself more getting to that point.

To bring the story around full circle, my children grew up knowing full well my story, and they have followed the same path. My oldest child is now 23. With my full support & encouragement, she went off to live in Thailand for a full year immediately after high school. In the 4 years since returning from Thailand, she has spent six months living in Spain and six months living in China. Right now she is again on leave from college, working full time in an amazing job doing what she loves at a place she loves, and will return to George Washington University this January to graduate this May with two Bachelors in an honors program. A lot of hard work, but interspersed with a lot of living, and all of it contributing to her discovering what she loves and wants to do. With complete fluency in four languages, and the degrees, experiences, etc., she can write her own ticket, whether that be where she is working now, or wherever in the (work) world she chooses to go.

And, both I (many years ago), and my oldest daughter followed our paths on our own, paying our own way without debt.

The college graduates with the best prospects are going to be those with good credentials and something unique to offer. There are a lot of applicants with good, or less, credentials, but those with multiple languages, with life experiences that they can creatively refer to, with networks & references from wide-ranging sources, will stand out.

Again, the point here is to take the time to live life away from the education/career path when you are young, and use that at least in part to discover what you want going forward.

You have time to improve training, find something you can tolerate doing every day and enjoy your family and a couple of hobbies. What more could a person ask for?
A hell of a lot more, that’s what. Why would you set the bar at tolerating what you do every day? I took my time, to ensure I could enjoy, not tolerate, every day of those first 10.5 years after high school, and what came after, and then worked my ass off doing stuff I loved during the next 20 years, and then retired. And during those 20 years I worked my ass off, I never, ever, spent more than 40 hours a week doing the work, and even though I loved it, the work was not my life – my life was my family, and all the things the family engaged in. Yes, I am fortunate. Yes, I still do some consulting, sometimes small, sometimes large contracts, but it is all up to me.

I have noticed that law school seems to be a very popular hold-over spot for people who I don't think would have gone to law school if the current economy/jobs out look were otherwise.
This irritates me as much as the “tolerate” comment. Assuming you don’t have unlimited funds to pay for law school and living (and your observation already noted that these people really weren’t interested in law school/career), why would you waste 2, 3, 4 years of your life in a hold-over spot? Go volunteer (or work) at something you can do good at, and use; better yet, do that in a foreign country and pick up another language. There are all sorts of things you can do with 2-4 years of your life that don’t involve putting your life on hold, will be lot more interesting/fulfilling, won’t leave you further in debt, and can be useful in your career/life plans.

+1 to the multiple comments about writing & speaking well. I regularly speak in front of people, from small groups to 1,000s, and the skill/confidence to do so has much less to do with the speaking side of it than with being confident in your content. If you know & believe in what you are speaking about/to, then you can speak well.

+1 to the social/networking comments. But similar to the speaking, be genuine & confident – in a natural way. Let people know who you are, as much as, if not more than, what you can do.

Like where you work, and who you work with, as much as, if not more than, what you are doing.

Absolutely intern, shadow, volunteer, whatever. Give of yourself to establish yourself both in the profession/firm, and as a person.

About the job moving to China part though...I wonder if we really will see some industry swing back to domestic manufacturing etc.
Yes, that is already happening in some small way. However, +1 to the “be willing to move” comments. Since we are talking career-level jobs here, be good enough, and willing enough, to assist the company’s expansion or move to China, India, wherever. What an opportunity in many ways!

A masters in petroleum engineering seems like a very solid ticket.
But, honestly, does it hold any (long-term) interest for you? If not, that’s not a ticket, it is another [paying] hold-over spot.

[Tonger]

Lots of opinions here, here's mine.

In terms of optimizing the training investment, job demand, and lifestyle triangle - I would also suggest healthcare but as a NP (nurse practioner) or a PA (physician's assistant) in a subspecialty field such as anesthesia or ortho.

When finished you enjoy quite a bit of autonomy, make six figures, get to work directly with patients, and generally don't have to deal with much call. Besides the med/mal attorneys are more likely to target the MD's. The training path is also substantially shorter and less expensive than med school. From what I've experienced there is also quite a bit more sustained job satisfaction than for the RN group which is quite subject to burnout.

FWIW, this is what I'd tell my kids.

Good luck!

Tonger

[TimmyB]

I decided to travel, and spent the next 1.5 years living in West & East Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East.

My oldest child is now 23. With my full support & encouragement, she went off to live in Thailand for a full year immediately after high school. In the 4 years since returning from Thailand, she has spent six months living in Spain and six months living in China.
As a soon to be college grad... I am certainly intrigued by the idea of traveling for the next couple of years instead of immediately joining the workforce.

I am curious though.... How did you/your daughter afford all of these travels?

If you / she worked, what did you do?

Or, were you lucky enough to have a benefactor whom supported your travels?

[oldpotatoe]

i went to college, graduated, now i work in the bike industry.

wish i could get a job in my field (conservation), but i realize every day i continue doing what i'm doing the chances get smaller and smaller that i will ever be doing what i think i want to do.

my biggest problem is that i just can't find any job listings or openings for what i want to do with my education, interests, past experience, etc.


+1 to never work in the bike industry.

It's a labor of like to be sure.

[DogpawSlim]

i went to college, graduated, now i work in the bike industry.

[...]

+1 to never work in the bike industry.

I worked in the bike industry out of college. I learned a lot about leadership and dealing with different personalities. I think doing something I was interested in before I started to focus on a career was a good decision.

[ORMojo]

As a soon to be college grad... I am certainly intrigued by the idea of traveling for the next couple of years instead of immediately joining the workforce.

I am curious though.... How did you/your daughter afford all of these travels?

If you / she worked, what did you do?

Or, were you lucky enough to have a benefactor whom supported your travels?

No benefactor for me 30-40 years ago. I became independent & self-sufficient at age 15, but had the advantage of living rent-free at my brother’s place and working a full time job while I [almost] finished high school. 3 years later I easily had enough money saved up to travel. That said, traveling throughout Europe, etc. back then was relatively cheaper than it is now. And I did it on the cheap – standby flight to London, hitchhiking, hostels, etc. – and worked on & off as I went. Great jobs that I enjoyed at that time of my life – including bartending, etc. in Belgium for about 5 months, 2 seasons of grape harvesting in France – whatever came up. As I recall, I only slept on a bench once during that 1.5 years, outside the Zurich train station, and only because I missed my overnight train (another great way to save on lodging expenses).

I repeated that pattern for 10 years, working to save, then spending it on either college or travel.

My daughter did it a bit different. She wanted to travel, but not take as long as her dad did to finish college! So a lot of what she has done was focused on polishing up her languages, and making contacts. She is a fearless traveler, whether that means experiencing the most remote/”native” of locales & experiences, or walking into a University or firm and asking to talk to someone for an hour just to learn from them – two of those turned into serious international business/career contacts. And she does this only with some truly minimal cash help from me – only to fill gaps she couldn’t cover herself – every time she asked me for some assistance, she always presented me with a budget showing what she needed, and how she would be covering everything she could.

She traveled/lived in Thailand/Asia through a combination of living with native families and teaching English. She was/is very proud of her self-sufficiency, and also did it on the cheap. She took one 5-week trip through SE China, Tibet, and Vietnam for a total of about $600, taking the cheapest local buses, staying & eating “local,” renting a motorbike to explore northern Vietnam, etc. She loved living that way. Her Spain & China trips were largely paid by her savings, teaching English, and staying with families of college classmates (she is in an international program at GWU, so lots of opportunities there). Her college was largely paid for by grants & scholarships – if I remember correctly, she applied for over 80 before her 1st year – and work study & summer jobs.

I would say that 3 keys to pursuing this are traveling where and when it is cheap (much of Asia meets that criteria right now, I spent 2 months in Bangkok last year and averaged $35-40/day for expenses, and you can do it for at least half that in rural Asia), being willing to live cheap (not live poorly – eat well but local, sleep & move cheap, and realize what you are there for are the experiences, not the luxury hotel), and working as you go. Asia, again, presents lots of opportunities to teach English. Both myself decades ago, and my daughter recently, worked manual labor day-to-day for food & lodging. My daughter spent a couple of weeks planting rice in NE Thailand – backbreaking labor for a lifetime, but something she truly treasured for a short period of time.

Good luck!