Of Mice and Men (Part II)

In the last post I examined a problem. I wish I had an easy solution, but I don’t. I think that in some ways, young college graduates have it harder than I did in 1973. I graduated into the teeth of a pretty nasty recession and the first oil shock. However, I did not have any student debt or any other kind of debt. Generally speaking, in those days, between dad’s savings and the student’s part time jobs, educational expenses did not require borrowed money. Since then the cost of education has consistently outpaced inflation and the actual buying power of the American worker has declined slightly. Even the children of solid, responsible, middle class families need to borrow in order to obtain a college degree.

If this were 1973, I would tell a young person burdened with student debt to get a haircut and find a real job. That was the advice I gave myself. In that wretched economy, I couldn’t find a good job, but I did find a job packing rolls of cloth into burlap sacks in a textile mill. While this job was not exactly what I had in mind while attending Furman University, it paid a living wage. I was able to pay my rent, car expenses, utilities, and for some inexpensive entertainment and still have a little money left over for savings. I believed that in time something would “open up” and in time something did. Those days are gone. Renfrew Bleachery was shut down in the late 1980s. Today only the “cloth room” (the area where finished goods were inspected and packaged) and the warehouse remain. These structures are currently serving as warehouse space for a trucking firm. Everything else is gone.

Seth Godin, http://sethgodin.typepad.com/, is an author, marketing guru, self made internet millionaire, and currently a vice president of Yahoo. He believes that development of useful technical skills, networking, and self promotion will ultimately be of greater value to the unemployed college graduate than finding a menial job that does not pay a living wage. Here is a list (directly from Seth’s blog) of activities that he believes will turn an unemployed college graduate into the kind of prospective employee corporate recruiters dream about in a year or less.

• Spend twenty hours a week running a project for a non-profit.
• Teach yourself Java, HTML, Flash, PHP and SQL. Not a little, but mastery. [Clarification: I know you can't become a master programmer of all these in a year. I used the word mastery to distinguish it from 'familiarity' which is what you get from one of those Dummies type books. I would hope you could write code that solves problems, works and is reasonably clear, not that you can program well enough to work for Joel Spolsky. Sorry if I ruffled feathers.]
• Volunteer to coach or assistant coach a kids sports team.
• Start, run and grow an online community.
• Give a speech a week to local organizations.
• Write a regular newsletter or blog about an industry you care about.
• Learn a foreign language fluently.
• Write three detailed business plans for projects in the industry you care about.
• Self-publish a book.
• Run a marathon.

In 1973 a young man would rather sleep in a cave with a family of bears than return to his parents’ home following graduation. This wasn’t all that difficult for me and my roommate when renting a 2 bedroom duplex in Travelers Rest, SC at the cost of $100.00 a month. Today, much to the distress of both parent and child, boomerang children are the norm. I still think it is better for all concerned if a young graduate can find a job, any job, that can defray the cost of life in the real world, but that is not always possible.

A college degree is still pretty much a requirement for any chance at the good life and I still believe that any American who wants a college education can obtain a degree, although not necessarily at the college of their choice. Scholarships and work study grants are much better options than student loans. There are a lot of them available but they are very difficult to obtain. Still, if it requires a hundred hours of research and a hundred hours spent filling out forms at a financial aid office, to generate one $10,000 scholarship, that works out to $50.00 an hour, tax free! Not a bad return on time invested. Even an entry level job with a decent employer will provide educational benefits. My employer covered 100% of tuition for my Master’s degree. Five years in night school is not much fun, but it beats the loss of two years’ salary and an accumulation of student debt.

Seth Godin calls the period of time between the conception of a new idea and its realization in the material world, the dip. In the developmental cycle of a new technology this period of time is called the valley of death. If you find yourself in a valley of death, for whatever reason, it is going to take a greater variety of skills and more perseverance than it did in 1973, but with the Lord’s help, it can be done.

Matthew 6

[9] After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.
[10] Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.
[11] Give us this day our daily bread.
[12] And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
[13] And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.