Thursday, April 30, 2009

Higher Education


I Reviewed the statistics on educational levels in the United States that appear on the National Center for Education Statistics Web site, and then took a look at the historical summary of U.S. job categories available from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics ftp site.


First of we know that earlier in the years not that many people had a college degree. They were able to work with no credentials. Now a day attaining a college degree means getting a better job. The reason for this is that jobs became more demanding throughout the years requiring every prospective candidate to have credentials. However, not every employer’s demands are the same. Depending on the job position some only require a high school diploma other required a bachelor’s degree or higher. Usually those who have a master’s degree or PhD tend to have more advantage over those who don’t.

The truth of the matter is that sometimes race plays a big role in getting hired for a position. It’s about being better than the other applicant, a competition. A simple example would be between a white man and a black man; both went to top colleges and have great credentials. Most of the time the white man ends up getting the position just because he’s white. I may be wrong but it still happens in some cases.

Moreover, due to the rise of higher education people are less likely going to apply to manufacturing jobs. One would think that they would since it doesn’t require a college degree but the idea of having a college degree makes them feel powerful, capable of attaining a better position (CEO of a company for example).
Speaking from my own personal experience, I’m the first in my family to graduate college and attain a bachelor’s degree. To my mother that is the ultimate, she pushed my sister and I to go to college and get a good job. I will never forget her words, “I don’t want my girls to end up like me, a housekeeper”. So now you can imagine the pressure that my sister and I feel to better ourselves. The truth is I don’t know what I will be doing after college. I feel so overwhelmed just thinking of how many other students are graduating this year and looking for a job. It scares me. My ideal career is working for a broadcast news channel but I’m not certain that it will happen at least not yet. I’m currently working for the ALDO shoes company and remember telling one of my co-workers that I did not want to continue working at ALDO after graduation. From the looks of it, I might just be.
The book also came across another interesting topic whether education was important, “do schools matter?” I know someone who didn’t get a college degree and works for PBS. That makes me feel lousy. Is that fair? I guess sometimes it’s also who you know, “networking” and previous work experience.

Overall, education and job demands are going to keep rising. With everyone attaining credentials, employers will then increase the job requirements in order to distinguish applicants.



No comments:

Post a Comment