Thinking of Sending This to My Alumni Association - PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum

Skippy · #1 04-20-2011, 09:25 PM

Found this on Best of Craigslist. Edited for language:

Dear University Alumni Office,

I'm sorry to hear that the university's $750 million endowment has fallen in value to $500 million because of the recession and because your bank died. I'm also sorry to hear that you're dealing with declining enrollment due to the fact that middle-class families are no longer willing or able to bet their homes on a $45,000-a-year higher education for their children. I really am.

So, what I want to know is, why are you wasting money on glossy fundraising brochures full of meaningless synonyms for the word "Excellence"? And, why are you sending them to ME? Yes, I know that I got a master's degree at your fine institution, but that master's degree hasn't done jack for me since I got it! I have been unemployed for the past TWO YEARS and I am now a professional resume-submitter, sending out dozens of resumes a month to employers, and the degree I received in your hallowed halls is at the TOP OF IT and it doesn't do a thing.

You know, maybe if you wanted a little bit of money from me (and these days you'd get about $3) maybe you should send me a fancy color brochure admitting your role in the bubble economics that got us all in to this mess.

For example, since 1987, higher education expenses have gone up 450 percent, while personal income in this country has gone up 87 percent, making tuition IMPOSSIBLE to afford without special financing. But, during this time, you were thriving because people could come up with the cash in two ways:

1. Get a home equity loan and use the inflated value of their house to pay for their kid to get drunk and/or raped at your school and then lose the house when the market crashed.
2. Get a federal loan.

HAD IT OCCURRED TO YOU THAT NEITHER OF THESE SOURCES OF MONEY ACTUALLY EXIST? THAT IT WAS BEING MANUFACTURED BECAUSE YOU MADE PEOPLE THINK THAT ONE OF YOUR DEGREES WAS NECESSARY TO CLIMB TO THE TOP OF THE BUBBLE?

Oh yes, federal loans. I've got $40,000 of those, which are in "forebearance" right now because I'm unemployed, meaning that the feds are paying the interest for a while, which is convenient for me, but not for our government which is now owned by China. You know, the idea behind federal loans was that it would allow more students to attend your university, not let you INFLATE your tuition to obscene levels! I mean, what the (censored) were you spending the $16,000 per semester on, anyway? I was in a public policy program, so that meant we got to sit in classrooms and listen to Professor God up at the front of the lecture hall glorify Himself and Creation as He saw it and talk about how much smarter he was than anyone else and how much he'd learned at MIT and the RAND Corporation.

Really, that's about all you did for us -- gave us a lecture hall, gave us an arrogant bastard to listen to, and gave us a room full of computers we could use sometimes, and you gave us a degree that employers look at and say "This guy knows how to write reports. Amusing." And I will be paying for this privilege until I am 51 years old.

So I'm sorry that the economy's been rough on you. Maybe, if you wanted to save a little money, you could stop printing and sending brochures to my parents' house (oh yeah, that's where I live because I can't afford rent on ANYTHING). And, maybe I'll donate a little bit of money to you in 2030, when I get the loans for your imaginary education PAID OFF!

Sincerely yours,
Alumnus

* Location: Seattle, WA

Originial (Possibly NSFW-language):
http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/sea/1619190174.html

my83300cd · #2 04-21-2011, 12:32 AM

Pretty amusing.
My dad taught me that right after graduation you send the alumni association a fictitious change of address. This was the same guy who moved overseas and gave my dormitory adress to the post office as his forwarding address.
When I graduated I gave the alumni office his address.

G-Benz · #3 04-21-2011, 11:01 AM

Remember when a college degree was supposed to be a ticket to the good life?

The traditional process of getting a degree in some field of study with the expectation of finding employment as a springboard to a promising career, has gone the way of the dinosaur!

The truth is, the job market has dramatically changed in the last decade, and the folks who created Craigslist, Facebook, Google, etc. figured that out!

Ironically, I have a job doing something that didn't even exist when I was in grad school!

Hatterasguy · #4 04-21-2011, 11:19 AM

The kicker is a lot of people who go into blue color jobs make 2-3 times as much as the dime a dozen fresh college grads in their $30k a year IT jobs.

You could go work for say the water company or UI and lay pipe/cable at $50k-$70k a year plus better benefits.

DieselPaul · #5 04-21-2011, 11:24 AM

State Universities FTW. My high school was more than my college.

buffa98 · #6 04-21-2011, 11:46 AM

A education is hard worth the paper its printed on anymore. Trust me I went back to school finished my Bachelors and BAM a I am now a college educated(graduated with honors BTW) person who has turned down several jobs for the reasons Hatti has stated: Crap Pay, Crap Benefits, And total Crap from the people "ABOVE" these positions.

The funny part is all these places want a degree just so you can get an interview, which is followed by another interview then a job offer of $36,500 base. UMM..... you folks did read the line about salary REQUIREMENTS right?? I currently work 12 hour shifts 14 days a month and make two and half times that amount so why should I feel "privileged" that you are offering me a job? Please!!!

So needless to say I am not leaving the blue collar world anytime soon......

#7 04-21-2011, 11:56 AM

Many people don't understand that college/university is not a trade school, and that a degree doesn't guarantee anything; it is just the minimum requirement to get someone to talk to you so you can sell yourself.

TheDon · #8 04-21-2011, 12:58 PM

yep and its just ridiculous. I'm not learning anything other than theory. I want to learn application, diagnosis, field work, hands on stuff.. Not sit in a lecture hall, learn that true is true in discrete mathmatics and then get a degree one day and sit in a cubicle trying to help a grandma get her computer to connect to the internets.

no, I want to oversee the design and implementation of networks and secure those networks and databases. I really hope this theory bs works out.

Also, I should be in classes for certifications CISCO, MSDN, etc etc.. not "ethics in science and technology" but we don't have cert classes..

lutzTD · #9 04-21-2011, 01:40 PM

my degree has served me well. They teach you theory and general application because if they taught actual applications they would never be able to teach all of them. What you learn is how to recognize there is a problem, or that there may be a problem if something doesnt change, then where to look to solve the problem. Without the education background, you might know it doesnt work, but the reason it doesnt work would escape you.

Blaming the college for an inability to work is not the answer. even in this ecomomy there are jobs out there, it may require you to move or get out of your comfort zone in some way, but there is work.

padrino · #10 04-21-2011, 01:58 PM

A close friend of mine went to nursing college. After 3 years and about $16000 in total (sponsored from the hospital that she worked for 4 years after graduation so she didn't pay anything back) Now she moved to Intensive care unit, working between 36/42 hours a week and bringing home just a bit over $62K a year before taxes.
One of our IT guys went to Uni for 5 years, cost his family well over $200K and now he is taking home about $45K before taxes.....

Kuan · #11 04-21-2011, 02:06 PM

Back in the day a Novell CNE or CNA was the fast track to an IT job. I know a few people who went from $6.35/hr to $40k/yr in like six weeks.

Sometime in the mid 90's you could start at $60k/year with a four year Computer Science degree. Then everyone got laid off when the tech bubble burst.

cscmc1 · #12 04-21-2011, 04:29 PM

Seems to me that universities are spending more and more on administrative staff and less on actual instructors, and yes, spending loads on marketing (hence the added staff). I help out with the "open house" events at our local university (of which I am also a graduate). Anymore, the "open house" opening event consists essentially of several top administrators (sometimes even the university president) appealing to bored college kids to "please, PLEASE, pick us!"

When I applied to college, I hoped to be accepted and felt it an honor when I was. Seems that now, they're accepting anyone and begging them to come here with free t-shirts, glossy literature, golf cart rides around campus, etc...

A 4-year degree anymore is about as valuable as a HD diploma was not too long ago: the bare essential to get your foot in the door if you don't know the right folks.

Weird.

Skippy · #13 04-21-2011, 08:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hatterasguy

The kicker is a lot of people who go into blue color jobs make 2-3 times as much as the dime a dozen fresh college grads in their $30k a year IT jobs.

You could go work for say the water company or UI and lay pipe/cable at $50k-$70k a year plus better benefits.

I had a rather frustrating and unproductive interview with an employment agency this morning. However, I could probably have left with a job shoveling gravel into a ditch for a gas pipeline company if I wanted to. I didn't because the state of Nevada is willing to pay me the equivalent of $10/hr to do essentially nothing (aka "unemployment compensation") and the pipeline job pays $10.88/hr. I don't think an 88 cent raise is adequate for me to go from doing nothing to genuinely busting my butt. OTOH, if I didn't have unemployment, I would have jumped on it.

Then I went over to an HVAC company and applied for a fleet mechanic position. I told them I'd do it for twelve an hour.

BTW, I have a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering.

#14 04-21-2011, 08:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheDon

yep and its just ridiculous. I'm not learning anything other than theory. I want to learn application, diagnosis, field work, hands on stuff.. Not sit in a lecture hall, learn that true is true in discrete mathmatics and then get a degree one day and sit in a cubicle trying to help a grandma get her computer to connect to the internets.

no, I want to oversee the design and implementation of networks and secure those networks and databases. I really hope this theory bs works out.

Also, I should be in classes for certifications CISCO, MSDN, etc etc.. not "ethics in science and technology" but we don't have cert classes..

If that's what you really want/need you probably should be in a different type of program. College/university is designed to teach the underlying thoery, not specific applications that will change in a couple of years.

Hatterasguy · #15 04-21-2011, 09:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skippy

I had a rather frustrating and unproductive interview with an employment agency this morning. However, I could probably have left with a job shoveling gravel into a ditch for a gas pipeline company if I wanted to. I didn't because the state of Nevada is willing to pay me the equivalent of $10/hr to do essentially nothing (aka "unemployment compensation") and the pipeline job pays $10.88/hr. I don't think an 88 cent raise is adequate for me to go from doing nothing to genuinely busting my butt. OTOH, if I didn't have unemployment, I would have jumped on it.

Then I went over to an HVAC company and applied for a fleet mechanic position. I told them I'd do it for twelve an hour.

BTW, I have a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering.

You need to move to another area of the country, Sikorsky's starts people with degrees like yours off at $50k a year and it goes up from that.

Sikorsky, Pratt, GE, Boeing etc. If you want to travel Sikorsky would probably send you to Poland.