So you're telling me my Bachelor's Degree isn't good enough for you Corporate America?

2012-01-16T12:58:00.000-08:00

So here's a phrase I've been hearing lately:

"Education Inflation"- ....or Academic Inflation. In short it means: a bachelor's degree ain't worth crap. Now being a college graduate I know that that definition doesn't cut it so here is the definition (according to Wikipedia mind you) "..process of inflation of the minimum job requirement, resulting in an excess of college-educated individuals with lower degrees, competing for too few jobs that require these degrees and even higher, preferred qualifications". All of that to say this: Getting your bachelors degree is simply not enough to find a decent job these days.

Well that's just fine and dandy but that was not what I was told growing up no siree. "Go to college, get a degree and then you can get any job you want because that degree will separate you from so many people" (Mom,Dad, Teacher,Guidance Counselor, Career Center). Now I had heard little whispers of these shenanigans but I thought I would graduate in the nick of time and that problem would hit all of those younger tykes graduating after me...WRONG. Kids growing up now will know this but what about for those of us who experienced the change mid-schooling? Maybe I should have payed attention during the continuing education speech instead of playing mash with my lab partner and spinning around in my chair.

I am by no means complaining because I was lucky enough to find a decent job a few months after college, but it is a different world than the ones that our parents graduated into. With the cost of college increasing and more and more students heading to college and coming out with student loans into a world of slim pickins, what do we really get out of college? Undergraduate programs have become for the most part, a pit stop, before education that can actually get you a good job.

Despite this inflation, I don't think it gives us grads an excuse to settle for ordinary 9-5 desk jobs. Instead we just have to be more creative and strategic in the ways we go about job-hunting. Also, we need to redefine the way we look at success. I'm a huge fan of Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers. Read it, it will change your entire outlook on life.

I'll leave you with this: the resources available to us put us in a unique position to achieve great things. Traveling has never been easier. Technology is paving the way of the worlds future and we have a leg up on older generations who have a hard time wrapping their head around the difference between a home page and a webpage (yes Mom I am talking to you). Forget about your degree. Forget about what the job "requirements" are. Forget about what you don't have and create the life you want to have. With or without that Master's or PhD.

Why the knots?

2012-01-15T22:28:00.000-08:00

By way of introduction, I'll start by explaining the meaning of 55 Knots. When flying a small plane, 55 knots is the airspeed the plane must reach before the pilot can pull back on the yoke and the wheels leave the runway....taking off into the sky.

As a recent college graduate, I felt as if I had reached my 55 knots and I was ready to take-off into the "real world". Now 8 months later, in reflecting on life after college, I'm realizing that this is just the beginning.