4 ms·

It seems like it’s just sensationalism repackaged under disguise for educated masses.

by moltar 8y ago

jschwartzi 8y ago
Having graduated in 2008 and being totally unable to find employment in education with a STEM degree, it's not totally sensational to me to say that I spent several years with extremely low earnings as a result of having to take any job that would hire me. There's probably $250,000 of lifetime earnings that I've lost so far because I graduated a year too late. And the things I had to do at that point to survive have made me extremely cautious about building up a safety net and not taking on debt. For reference, school districts in my area were not hiring mathematics teachers. I had to take a job clerking in a warehouse for a technology company, and I spent the next 4 years working my way over to their engineering team. I was incredibly lucky, and I suspect there are a ton of people in my cohort who are still severely underemployed. So no, it's not total sensationalism. It's just not rigorously scientific, which is not the same thing.
- jorts 8y ago
  Not that it detracts from everything else you said, but graduating a year earlier likely wouldn't have made much of a difference.
  - eaenki 8y ago
    or later for that matter.
- everdev 8y ago
  I got laid off in '08 when the market crashed. I looked everywhere in SV for jobs and had a solid resume, experience and education but hiring was frozen. To pay the bills I was forced to start my own business which ended up being very successful. I know my experience was a vast outlier from the norm and how seriously the downturn affected mass amounts of people. But the downturn left me no choice but the option I had been too scared to pick before: being an entrepreneur. In a successful economy I would have happily sat in my 5-figure job for years. The downturn helped motivate me like I never had been before. When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose.
  - jschwartzi 8y ago
    Yeah, and I was willing to take jobs that I would never have considered in the past. I labored for a production framing contractor, lumped boxes in a receiving warehouse on swing shift, and all kinds of other stuff to make ends meet. If I had been at all inflexible about that stuff I would have been totally screwed. I didn't have much of a resume to speak of, and I had no real professional network except in the education field. I'm right there with you even with different experiences. When you have nothing to lose you can do anything at all.
- dominotw 8y ago
  > education with a STEM degree, > There's probably $250,000 of lifetime earnings that I've lost so far because I graduated a year too late. Curious which degree that jobs vanished after crash. quants?

It seems like it’s just sensationalism repackaged under disguise for educated masses.

by moltar 8y ago

It seems like it’s just sensationalism repackaged under disguise for educated masses.

Having graduated in 2008 and being totally unable to find employment in education with a STEM degree, it's not totally sensational to me to say that I spent several years with extremely low earnings as a result of having to take any job that would hire me. There's probably $250,000 of lifetime earnings that I've lost so far because I graduated a year too late. And the things I had to do at that point to survive have made me extremely cautious about building up a safety net and not taking on debt. For reference, school districts in my area were not hiring mathematics teachers. I had to take a job clerking in a warehouse for a technology company, and I spent the next 4 years working my way over to their engineering team. I was incredibly lucky, and I suspect there are a ton of people in my cohort who are still severely underemployed. So no, it's not total sensationalism. It's just not rigorously scientific, which is not the same thing.

jorts 8y ago
Not that it detracts from everything else you said, but graduating a year earlier likely wouldn't have made much of a difference.
- eaenki 8y ago
  or later for that matter.
everdev 8y ago
I got laid off in '08 when the market crashed. I looked everywhere in SV for jobs and had a solid resume, experience and education but hiring was frozen. To pay the bills I was forced to start my own business which ended up being very successful. I know my experience was a vast outlier from the norm and how seriously the downturn affected mass amounts of people. But the downturn left me no choice but the option I had been too scared to pick before: being an entrepreneur. In a successful economy I would have happily sat in my 5-figure job for years. The downturn helped motivate me like I never had been before. When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose.
- jschwartzi 8y ago
  Yeah, and I was willing to take jobs that I would never have considered in the past. I labored for a production framing contractor, lumped boxes in a receiving warehouse on swing shift, and all kinds of other stuff to make ends meet. If I had been at all inflexible about that stuff I would have been totally screwed. I didn't have much of a resume to speak of, and I had no real professional network except in the education field. I'm right there with you even with different experiences. When you have nothing to lose you can do anything at all.
dominotw 8y ago
> education with a STEM degree, > There's probably $250,000 of lifetime earnings that I've lost so far because I graduated a year too late. Curious which degree that jobs vanished after crash. quants?