Obama expected to promise student loan relief (Student Loan Debt discussion)

[Flatliner]

I really don't get the President's remarks. What the hell kind of job can grads work at for a year these days to wipe our their loans? I know a lot of friends who would line up to work a crap job for a single year if that's all it took.

[kuronosan]

He's catering to the bankers, obviously.

Seriously, there was no real reason for him to make such a callous and obviously retarded remark.

[Waraji]

I hear prostitution makes lots of money. As does cooking & selling Meth.

[ronin sparthos]

I really don't get the President's remarks. What the hell kind of job can grads work at for a year these days to wipe our their loans? I know a lot of friends who would line up to work a crap job for a single year if that's all it took.

What did you expect Obama to say?

"You're all fucked. We stole your future and you're never going to own a home because you'll be gargling the bankers balls for the next 20 years. I hope you enjoy ramen because that's all you and your children will be eating in this lifetime if you can even afford them. The repercussions of this generation will most definitely ripple forth to future generations. Hope you can live at home if you parents didn't lose their home in the '08 collapse! Good luck and God Bless (Wealthy) America."

He's told black people quit whining in the past and deal with it so it's hardly a surprise he tells college students to suck it up. Time to old fashioned American ingenuity our way out of the problem. Invent flight, open your own oil company or get paid by churning out Youtube vids. I'm thinking about getting into lucrative arms dealing, kids need only the highest firepower to gun down other kids.

[ronin sparthos]

I hear prostitution makes lots of money. As does cooking & selling Meth.

My body is ready.

[Meresgi]

I hear prostitution makes lots of money. As does cooking & selling Meth.

Actually dealing drugs usually doesn't. Most people do it as a side job while working full time. Unless you're in a TV show or a kingpin.

[kuronosan]

That's not entirely true. Meth Lab explosions make lots of money for funeral homes.

[Waraji]

Hmm, Kuro might be on to something here.

If you can manage to install meth labs all over town via network of meth heads, and intentionally blow them up, while being a full time employee at a funeral home, you could really make a killing.

[Azull]

That's not entirely true. Meth Lab explosions make lots of money for funeral homes.

That, along with oil and natural gas, seem to drive the Oklahoma economy.

[kuronosan]

Hmm, Kuro might be on to something here.

If you can manage to install meth labs all over town via network of meth heads, and intentionally blow them up, while being a full time employee at a funeral home, you could really make a killing.

and intentionally blow them up, while being a full time employee at a funeral home, you could really make a killing.

while being a full time employee at a funeral home, you could really make a killing.

you could really make a killing.

http://img4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb2..._did_there.jpg

[archibaldcrane]

I won't say you didn't work hard for where you are, but you're located in Cali correct? I can't remember. But Art/Comm shit just like Tech jobs are great....IF you are in the right area, and a lot of college grads can't really afford to move across country in the hopes the job market works for them, or sit in their shit towns and apply for jobs cross states where the employer isn't going to reimburse them moving expenses or wants them there RIGHT NOW FUCKER.

I would say success is 40% connections, 20% skill+hardwork and 40% luck.

If you get a tech/art/whatever-location-specific-degree, but you aren't willing to move to the location that makes your degree relevant - you shouldn't be getting that degree.

I'm "located in Cali" now...because two days after my master's thesis defense I packed everything I owned into my car and drove 3,000 miles from Miami to Los Angeles. I did that without knowing a single person in the entire state other than the half-dozen or so other grad students who were doing the same thing. I had no job lined up, hardly any relevant experience, just a couple degrees that no one cares about in this industry and determination. I started applying online for every job I thought I had any chance at - and I mean production assistants, personal assistants, shit that was WAY below my skill level. My cover letters literally said things like "I cannot wait to work 80 hours a week for you doing food runs and taking out the garbage." I applied to probably 70 jobs when my meager savings was running out, so I went to a temp agency and got a temp job working a desk for an incredible asshole divorce attorney paying like $8/hr. Eventually I finally got a single interview for a night post production assistant job for the FOX show "Renovate My Family", where I (you guessed it) did food runs and took out the garbage at a post production facility working 6 12-hour days per week. I made $600 a week for 72 hours of work ($8.33 an hour if you don't count the fact that 32 of those hours should be overtime pay - if you do count that then I was making $6.82 an hour - California mimimum wage was $6.75 at the time.) I nearly got fired from that job for offering a single suggestion during a screening of an episode (I was supposed to just sit there and be ready to be told to do something - mainly go get lunch) and eventually gained the trust of one of the associate producers there, who told me in confidence that she had an offer to produce a pilot episode for a TV Guide channel show and was considering whether to leave. I told her she should, and she should take me with her. She did, and that's when my career really took off.

No not really, I was still making $600 a week, but working even harder - I didn't have a single day off between Thanksgiving and Christmas that year, and each day was a minimum of 12 hours, often 14 or 15. I got to do some shooting and assistant editing, but by the end of the project that producer and I were so exhausted we basically hated each other's faces, and when the job ended I was back to square one.

The woman who lived in the guest house behind the house I was renting a room in was friends with the casting director for Extreme Makeover. I'd gone out with them a couple times, and after a couple months of unemployment after my last job, out of the blue the casting director contacted the woman I knew and asked if I was available, and basically handed me a casting associate producer job on Extreme Makeover. And I got a raise. To $700 a week...living with the cast to handle their every need, take them to every appointment, make sure they got fed, etc.

From there I met other people and actually got some sort of career path going, a year and a half after I moved to California.

The point of my personal tale is that - yeah, it's partly luck, and partly hard work, and partly skill, and partly connections. But you don't get to complain about how much of it is luck and connections if you aren't putting in the hard work, grinding to make the connections, and ESPECIALLY if you aren't even where the action happens. Being in Tennessee when the job you want is in Albuquerque means you have given up before you've even tried. People here are already acting like things are completely hopeless. If it's so hopeless, then what do you have to lose? What fears remain when you're already broke, already stuck? Are you worried it'll get worse?

[Waraji]

Archie :tear: I never knew.

[ronin sparthos]

I don't think it's hopeless moreso working at some shit dead end job is not conducive to making those crucial connections needed to get the fuck out of there and onto a proper career path. Connections are everything. Though I suppose you could meet the next Elon Musk working next to you banging out those clean dishes and be well on your way to ruling the world. Nothing is impossible. More than likely you're surrounded by the worlds afterbirth.

Doing a million interviews, spending money you can't afford to waste, throwing your A-game out there, volunteering when you again don't have the cash and basically doing everything but begging for the job on your knees does get frustrating especially when this mountain of debt is looming over you at all times. Getting a god damn physical interview is like fighting a war in itself. The most important thing isn't to give up and to make the best of your life circumstances.

Sometimes I think it's best just to tune out of the news because it does little other than frustrate.

[kuronosan]

Speaking for myself, and probably for many others just like me, I think the matter is of risk versus reward.

Obviously no one ever got anywhere by not risking everything or taking a chance, but if you have some debt and don't have savings because you can't save, how can you get over the fear of "going for it" if you have more to lose than you do to gain?

Currently, for my field, I make the bottom 10% of professionals. There are people in my same position that make at least 150% my salary ($52,000/yr). It's not that I don't make a lot of money, but I have car payments and expensive rent plus my wife isn't licensed yet so we're "scraping" by.

I have opportunities to go out and do more but it interferes with my long-term goals. For example, I'm ambitious enough to apply for a supervisory position, but how do I justify it if it doesn't fit with my long-term plans? How do I take a risk of getting into a position that utilizes my skills better when the fallout could be much more devastating if it goes south?

I think these are things that go through many peoples' heads when they get out there. It's hard to justify the risk, at least on a mental level. I don't think it's that they don't want to work hard. I rather think it's that they 1) don't know what hard work actually is or 2) want to work hard and just can't get above the ceiling.

[archibaldcrane]

Yeah, if you make $52k a year, you have something to lose. I didn't make that much until my 5th year in L.A. That's not really what I'm talking about.

[kuronosan]

Yeah, if you make $52k a year, you have something to lose. I didn't make that much until my 5th year in L.A. That's not really what I'm talking about.

Right, but that much money is relative. If I made that much somewhere else (like Florida) I'd be living far better. Problem is, you wouldn't make that much in Florida. I made $20,000/yr there working without a degree and I was able to live decently and live near the beach for much less than it costs me here in Kansas.

I guess what I'm illustrating is that most people don't have my sort of job or degree, but even if they did they're not guaranteed great wages. It's not like I live luxuriously either.

[Meresgi]

That's not entirely true. Meth Lab explosions make lots of money for funeral homes.

Funeral back home actually got busted for BEING a meth lab once. Good ol upstate NY.

[Meresgi]

If you get a tech/art/whatever-location-specific-degree, but you aren't willing to move to the location that makes your degree relevant - you shouldn't be getting that degree.

That wasn't my point. Some people can't AFFORD to move on a weeks notice, they don't have that luxury and unless you're getting a huge paying gig as a programmer or something, company X probably isn't going to pay for you to move, or even possibly wait for you because they can just grab 1000 other applicants by the time you're packed up and out there and setup.

I'm "located in Cali" now...

Sure it worked for you, but packing up and moving without a job lined up was honestly a risky as fuck venture. It was the right decision though obviously and luckily you were able to get shit before your savings ran out. I know tons of people who would LOVE to get the fuck out of their area but they have no savings, because life doesn't work like that all the time. People working minimum wage jobs, with college debt to pay back AND then something pops up health related or what not and there goes the savings.

Yeah, obviously you got to put yourself out there and take whatever you can get, buuuuut often times it doesn't work out.

[archibaldcrane]

The point is many people aren't attempting to see whether it works out. Live out of your car if you have to, crash on couches - just get there. Don't let your education go to waste over something as rudimentary as geography.

[Meresgi]

The point is many people aren't attempting to see whether it works out.

I think a lot more are then you give them credit for. Sure there are kids who graduate college and just bum around, but there are TONS who are putting resumes out every day for hundreds of jobs and never getting in, going to tons of interviews and never getting called back. Your personal experience is a very rare case of "it worked and I got lucky". I tell the students I mentor all the time one of the primary reasons I have the job I do is because "I got fucking lucky".