I just paid off my student loan! Now that worthless diploma is legitimately mine, thanks to manual labor and steady monthly installment payments!
There's likely many future and current college students, and parents of, reading this thread, please explain why the diploma is useless, and why you are working in manual labor.
The diploma is "useless" at the practical level, contextualized by the present socioeconomic construct wherein the American Republican finds itself entrapped. I studied Medieval and Renaissance English literature, but three years of unemployment in the midst of an economic collapse taught me that I would not be working in academia anytime soon. I had to choice but to look for anything I could find in a great metropolitan area where the job market is over-saturated by those who are my senior and who have more experience and education than I have, but who have been either laid off or underemployed. A free-lance position in the construction industry (an ornate morphological adornment for "day-laborer") was the most viable and most worthwhile option in my personal circuмstances.
From what I have observed and experienced, it appears that American society is gradually sinking into some sort of strange and unnerving paradox: while the old class structures have become more fluid and are constantly being re-contextualized, it has become more "classist" than ever.
A great number of the younger generations that have attained to some sort of academic training or university education are finding themselves enmeshed in a cycle of debt and denial of employment opportunity that has essentially negated the great expectations that had entertained (or were given to believe they had) as they were achieving their degrees. This very same academic background has hampered them in their search for employment, as supervisors are unwilling to hire those whose education and talent could potentially threaten their own job security; or because it would be convenient to hire someone of inferior education or with less experience, as they would be payed a lesser wage.
However, people generally seem to have a sort of prejudice in favor of the educated and presentable workers in any job or trade or craft, whether because they comport themselves better, or use proper grammar and enunciation, or dress neater, etc. It seems that the consumerist populace is conspiring with the socio-economic factors mentioned above in order to create a sort of new class of hyper-educated but relatively impoverished and disenfranchised citizens that will avail the financial machine all too conveniently, and will produce a large demographic of confused voters that political demagogues could manipulate according to their designs.
In many discussions I have had with those who are my junior and are either in college or planning to attend college, I have stressed the paramount importance of carefully choosing one's major and, by prudence and temperance, maintaining a balance between the industrious endeavor towards academic excellence and practical experience pertinent to the field that is the object of their study (by work experience, internships, &c.). Moreover, the college student needs to be well-rounded, and acquire sundry and various skills that may be necessary in certain circuмstances in everyday life.
It's not arbitrary pedagogical standards formulated by social engineers and imperiously imposed upon academic institutions that prepare youth for the future, but a solid, practical knowledge that will enable them to survive and thrive as citizens that edify their communities.
Topic: Congratulamini mihi! (Read 964 times)