Our Future

As I struggle to complete my last assignments of my college career, the future is on my mind. “What are you going to do after college?” Or “Do you have a job?” Seem to be the hot topic of conversation every time I speak to someone. “I don’t know and working on it” are my answers. Three years ago when I started college, senior year seem far away. I was focused on getting good grades, making friends and having fun. But now that I have less than 30 days until “the next step” these past three years seem like a blurred. Getting hired, paying loans and the aftermath of these college years are on my mind. What could be improve for future students?

According to CollegeData.com, we spend between “$24,000 to 50,000 on university education”. With such high payments  you would think that every college graduate would have a job waiting for them. Specially since most of us have to pay loans back. US News & World Report states that the loan debts for graduate students are  “approaching $30,000”. So how can we pay our debts if we do not get hired right after college?

Our millennial generation, “makes up about 40 percent of the unemployed in the U.S”(Newsweek).  This statistic shows that even though we pay between $96,000 to 250,000 in college education we are still not guaranteed a job which makes us unemployed. Would taking classes more specific to our career path help us? In other words, what if we “erased” certain core courses that are not essential to graduate and replace them with internships or jobs that give us credits.

I asked this question because as I do my job search I need at least 3+ years of experience, efficiency in all softwares and too many skills to list. It seems to me that the whole process of college to getting hired is a vicious cycle that loops around money rather than actual education. What if instead of having core classes we practiced actual tasks within our major or minor? In my opinion, it would help us be more applied when it comes to job applications. Maybe if we take internships during school, we would not be stressing as much when it comes to finding a  job after college.

You might think that paying debts and taking  classes might not be related. I believe it is. If we can't get hired is because of our lack of skills or because we are not suited enough for the job. Which means that we should take out unessential classes, which would make our education cheaper (because we pay credit wise) and instead add valuable practice towards our career. Maybe the case is not convincing enough, but if we have to pay an average of 200,000 dollars for education we should at least be out of college in debt but with valuable skills, years of experience and software efficiency.

-Maria Blanc Zoco