Just finished getting a degree? Too bad, you're screwed!

[Not not Mattaru]

If you can't find an internship, just find a paying job in a field you want. File clerk, support services (copy room), mail clerk, legal assistant, anything. It looks really good on your resume that you worked and went to school at the same time, you're beefing up your resume so you have work experience after you graduate (and a job already that you can use as a launching pad), and you're getting paid (plus whatever health/dental/vision/401K/profit sharing benefits).

That is what I am doing right now. I am a senior in my schools international studies program, which I do full-time during the school year, and I work full-time for a decent sized successful law firm as a clerk simultaneously. I'll have this job when I graduate and I am set up for a promotion after I graduate, and I can search for other jobs if I want to after I graduate, or apply for grad school, ect. (Doesn't hurt that having this specific firm on my resume can basically get me a job at any law firm in the Pacific Northwest, and I'll have had it for 4 years come graduation.)

Seriously, if you can't get an internship at least try and find an entry level job somewhere to beef up your resume. A weak resume with a college degree is worthless, so make sure you have some good work experience to put on there (from a job or from an internship).

Really depends on your area (geographic). I think it isn't too tough to get an entry-level if it is not totally in your (career) area, and it shows you can work in an office and that is usually good, but about it.

International studies is pretty broad, so maybe clerking fits with what you are doing. But it would have absolutely nothing to do with my focus. A lot of degrees like law, medicine, journalism, IT, etc. you can do anywhere and internships are more accessible, for some degrees not so much.

[Corrderio]

Is the Computer Science field hard to get into with a degree as well? (Harder than the economy being shitty in general, I mean.)

My most Educated friend has a PhD in chemistry, but he teaches at his University. All my friends in CS aren't done with school yet, and my cousin is in law school.

I'm curious about this to. I was thinking of taking a few courses at a community college to learn C# and a few other things then when I get my degree from that further it and learn C++ and whatever else they offer in the course.

[Ferion]

I'm beginning to think whoever said you have to specialize was right. The problem for me is with what I currently THINK I want to do I need a PhD for. What if I work my ass off for the next 5 years to get it and then freaking hate the field. I wish there were some sort of middle ground for things like that, but unfortunately I wouldn't begin to know if I enjoy the field or not until about the time I get my masters and am just starting the PhD program.

What degree would you be getting a Phd in? Many schools, especially for the more technical fields, give you a stipend while you're working towards your Phd. My brothers currently in graduate school for Bio and I think he's getting around 30k/year. If you can get into a Phd program you have a good chance of earning some money and if you realize you don't like what you're doing you can just leave after a year or two with your Masters.

[Ayn]

One other bit of advice from a guy with no factual basis for giving advice on this topic:

Apply to more than one grad school. It wont offend anyone, it wont lessen your chances, nothing is set in stone until you accept their offer of acceptance (if you accept this and then back out I would run, fast). Grad programs have budgets and ever-decreasing funding just like everything else these days. Paying grad student stipends is a huge portion of any programs budget and managing/advising students can sometimes be a full-time job. This means that even if 20 people apply to the program, all with identical qualifications, if the limit is 10 people then 10 will get in and 10 will be rejected and sometimes, if there are no distinguishing qualifications, it boils down to random chance. Best thing you can do to help the cause is to look into multiple schools and different programs. If you prepare for the worst case scenario you'll be in a better situation than if you just put all your eggs in one basket.

For someone that has no factual basis, you're actually pretty spot on. To add to it..

I don't know how this applies to other fields (I'm in the social sciences), but really be careful about where you get your PhD at. The school may cover your particular field, but a PhD (again, at least in social sciences/humanities) is about specializing in one particular area of that field. If the school doesn't have one of the areas/specializations you're at least remotely interested in, it's going to be pretty hard to sell yourself when you're done (whether you're going into academia or not).

Also, generally speaking (this was the advice my old boss/current colleague and numerous others gave me) -- if a PhD program isn't offering to fully fund you, then don't go. I've talked with people in other fields as well, and the general consensus seems to be "You really shouldn't be paying out of pocket to do a PhD" (a colleague of mine was doing some research and noted 'most of the debt people accrue strangely comes from getting their Masters, not their doctorate).

Also, I think some programs allow you to defer enrollment for a year. You may get accepted, but not get funding, or only partial funding. You can always hold out for other places. I know for me, though, if I ever do it, there's like.. uh, two schools for my area, really: One in SoCal, and one in the Midwest.

Also on the person (Hyan, I think?) who was talking about Finland.. I have a colleague from there (she did her undergrad there) and noted it was like that. I'm kinda envious.

Someone noted 'don't be afraid to go abroad/overseas' for jobs. The same deal applies as far as going to school: One of my friends is doing her MFA in England because even after you factor in housing costs, plane ticket, and everything else. . well, it ended up being cheaper. You can probably go to a pretty decent school in England/elsewhere in Europe tuition wise for about the same price you'd pay for out of state tuition for a school like UCLA, Berkley, or any other CA schools.

Plus, people seem to go nuts when they see you've done your B.A. somewhere else. A lot of places I interviewed at seemed to make a big deal out of the fact that my B.A. is from the east coast and my M.A. is from the west coast. Go figure.

[Zhais]

Is the Computer Science field hard to get into with a degree as well? (Harder than the economy being shitty in general, I mean.)

My most Educated friend has a PhD in chemistry, but he teaches at his University. All my friends in CS aren't done with school yet, and my cousin is in law school.

Definitely very much helps.

You can learn to program on your own, get certifications, but that doesn't make you a good programmer. That's something only experience, advice can give you.

The best knowledge I learned in school/internships is how to write GOOD code. My programming courses were fine and all, but being able to develop the logic for what you're writing, making it readable, efficient AND concise is something I don't think most self-taught programmers learn as easily (obviously, some exceptions).

My manager right now basically loves me because I write good code. Others on my team know how to code, but are poor at developing good logic and making it understandable.

[Gadritan]

rofl. I just registered last week to go back to college and see this.

It didn't do me any good the first time due to fact I didn't really want to go, so I took auto-body (leeawl). Never even worked at a shop after getting out.

I love framing and carpentry work (been doing construction the past 6 years or so) but my body already started falling apart on me at 28. I made fucking killer money, and it's the only job I've had that I actually enjoyed, but I started to realize that I couldn't do it forever. Or even the next 5 years really, lol.

People who say that college doesn't do you any good anymore, or that a degree is pretty much worthless now are either people who wish they'd gone to school, or people who failed after school by their own doing.

Yes, there's shitty luck, but 99% of where you are in your life is by your own doing. Sure, it can be tough getting into the field you want. Most of the time though, and this is just truth, you're either not trying hard enough, or you need a new approach. It's really fucking tough these days, but it seems like these generations give up too easily.

[Daydreamer]

For someone that has no factual basis, you're actually pretty spot on. To add to it..

I don't know how this applies to other fields (I'm in the social sciences), but really be careful about where you get your PhD at. The school may cover your particular field, but a PhD (again, at least in social sciences/humanities) is about specializing in one particular area of that field. If the school doesn't have one of the areas/specializations you're at least remotely interested in, it's going to be pretty hard to sell yourself when you're done (whether you're going into academia or not).

Also, generally speaking (this was the advice my old boss/current colleague and numerous others gave me) -- if a PhD program isn't offering to fully fund you, then don't go. I've talked with people in other fields as well, and the general consensus seems to be "You really shouldn't be paying out of pocket to do a PhD" (a colleague of mine was doing some research and noted 'most of the debt people accrue strangely comes from getting their Masters, not their doctorate).

Also, I think some programs allow you to defer enrollment for a year. You may get accepted, but not get funding, or only partial funding. You can always hold out for other places. I know for me, though, if I ever do it, there's like.. uh, two schools for my area, really: One in SoCal, and one in the Midwest.

Also on the person (Hyan, I think?) who was talking about Finland.. I have a colleague from there (she did her undergrad there) and noted it was like that. I'm kinda envious.

Someone noted 'don't be afraid to go abroad/overseas' for jobs. The same deal applies as far as going to school: One of my friends is doing her MFA in England because even after you factor in housing costs, plane ticket, and everything else. . well, it ended up being cheaper. You can probably go to a pretty decent school in England/elsewhere in Europe tuition wise for about the same price you'd pay for out of state tuition for a school like UCLA, Berkley, or any other CA schools.

Plus, people seem to go nuts when they see you've done your B.A. somewhere else. A lot of places I interviewed at seemed to make a big deal out of the fact that my B.A. is from the east coast and my M.A. is from the west coast. Go figure.

All solid advice. One question though. I graduated in spring 2008. My gpa was decent (like a 3.3...the gpa for my major is most likely higher, but I've never done the calculations), but it was 2 years ago. How much harder will it be for me to get into grad school??

[Ferion]

All solid advice. One question though. I graduated in spring 2008. My gpa was decent (like a 3.3...the gpa for my major is most likely higher, but I've never done the calculations), but it was 2 years ago. How much harder will it be for me to get into grad school??

Honestly, just saying your overall GPA isn't really enough information to answer that well. I have no idea what you're looking to go to grad school in and I can only really speak for grad school admission for Economics, but two years out of school isn't really a huge deal. If you're really worried about the long break take a class at a college by you just to show that you still know what you're doing. As for your GPA, with Econ I know that most schools only really care about the courses you took to prepare for your grad school work (aka the classes for your major). However, some places in the top 10-20 have overall GPA cutoffs just to kind of lower the influx of applications. So depending on your major GPA you can most likely get into some decent schools.

[five]

Is the Computer Science field hard to get into with a degree as well? (Harder than the economy being shitty in general, I mean.)

I would say a degree is extremely valuable for those interested in the computer science field. Then again, what do I know, I'm only a rising sophomore. A lot of the jobs I see posted through my university's connection all look for a minimum of a B.A or B.S . The reason they look for these degrees is because of the course work that is generally required. Sure you can be a good coder but that's only half of it. If you don't understand the underlying concepts you learn through achieving a bachelors such as run time, security, and appropriate data structures to use, they may as well outsource to another country for cheaper.

In terms of job finding, there's plenty of opportunities. A lot of start-up companies search for programmers utilizing new languages such as ruby. Hell, I was offered an internship for $45/hr 30 hrs a week with a small company, and I've only spent 8 weeks learning ruby on rails with agile development. (which is what the company uses for their products)

Efficient readable code is definitely something you need to get down if you want to get in on the field. Lots of comments and correct labels help with that. Also, it helps to build a repository where you store code samples so you can show it off to potential employers. Github is nice for that since it's free.

[Cantih]

By all this, It seems I made the best use of my time in college.

It cost me nothing (tuition/unit fees were waived because I was in the bottom income bracket, and I paid for my books over the several years I was there using the 2k of scholarship money I got based on top standardized test scores in highschool)

And I took classes mainly for personal edification, fitting things into graduating progression units where I could, because I was fairly sure I wouldn't graduate anyway. (there is a certain subject that I'm incapable of passing, despite all efforts on my part, and it's always a requirement)

Classes I liked most were: Physical Anthropology, Social Anthropology, U.S. Government & Politics, Chemistry, Physics (important though, take the version that matches your real math understanding or is easier, you want to come out with knowledge of the science) Small Business Management (though it didn't teach me the things I wanted to know, like actually starting a business, keeping your ass covered from a legal/financial/tax perspective, records-keeping, etc. it was more a "turn a small business into a bigger business" class, but it was still handy to learn), and Naginata as a PE class.

Useful, but didn't like: 3d Modeling, Video Editing (same instructor both subjects, was an idiot), Photoshop/Illustrator (it was a prereq for digital photography, which I never ended up taking, sadly), & C++ (instructor admitted that while it was the entry class, the school really should have had a lower level class to precede it)

Fucking useless: Art history (any period), History (those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Those who take history, won't learn any.)

EDIT: Oh, and unless your school uses $300+ books, or you are really strapped for cash.
KEEP
YOUR
TEXTBOOKS
You never know when you need to relearn something you forgot. And you can always hand them to your kids to have a look at, down the road.

[Eliseos]

Definitely very much helps.

You can learn to program on your own, get certifications, but that doesn't make you a good programmer. That's something only experience, advice can give you.

The best knowledge I learned in school/internships is how to write GOOD code. My programming courses were fine and all, but being able to develop the logic for what you're writing, making it readable, efficient AND concise is something I don't think most self-taught programmers learn as easily (obviously, some exceptions).

Would agree with this 100%. I'm taking a software engineering course this summer (its basically a capstone project) where we have to build a chess program. My other group members haven't had an internship, and I can definitely see a difference in code quality versus myself (and I wouldn't consider myself a very good programmer yet), as I've had an internship for over a year now. There is so much you learn outside of the classroom that it isn't surprising why jobs want people with intern/co-op experience.

Also, most jobs (well, the ones worth anything) that I've seen for programmers require a degree to even be considered. They'll usually check transcripts to make sure someone isn't bullshitting them.

[Antithesis]

EDIT: Oh, and unless your school uses $300+ books, or you are really strapped for cash.
KEEP
YOUR
TEXTBOOKS
You never know when you need to relearn something you forgot. And you can always hand them to your kids to have a look at, down the road.

Chegg is a godsend to college and university students.

[five]

EDIT: Oh, and unless your school uses $300+ books, or you are really strapped for cash.
KEEP
YOUR
TEXTBOOKS
You never know when you need to relearn something you forgot. And you can always hand them to your kids to have a look at, down the road.

If your bookstore buys books at the end of semester like mine does, I usually buy a really cheap used edition and resell it to the store for profit! Like this calc book they pay you $120 for it, so I found one on amazon for $30, resold it. If you really wanted you could buy it again with the profit money lol

[takethistoyourgrave]

Ditto on the "online degree" bullshit. I think that has something to do with the current "watered-down" state of the importance of an undergrad degree.

In my last semester, I needed to find an extra 3 credits to take so that I could graduate, but I didn't really have anywhere to fit it into my daily schedule. Alas, I took an online course. And let me tell you how well that worked out: lol.

I don't remember anything that I learned. I don't even really remember what I had to do. It was a complete joke. I didn't come away learning anything at all. And of course, I got an A.

Of course, it could be argued that my lack of a "willingness to try/learn" was the reason it was such a joke, but seriously, if you go to a physical classroom and sit and face the teacher for every class period of a real class, there is no way in hell that you are going to come away having learned absolutely nothing (and if you do, there is no way you will pass the class).

[Acturus]

I attended UCF while they were experimenting with the online classes. Later I found out that UCF's online class programs was used as a model in a bunch of other US colleges and universities.

Which sucks because my online and half-online classes were where I learned the least.

HOWEVER, my wife finished her degree from UCF taking all of her upper classes online, and she learned a ton. The difference is she learns by reading and I learn by lecture.

But yeah, online classes are promoted in all of the wrong ways.

[Moss]

Ditto on the "online degree" bullshit. I think that has something to do with the current "watered-down" state of the importance of an undergrad degree.

In my last semester, I needed to find an extra 3 credits to take so that I could graduate, but I didn't really have anywhere to fit it into my daily schedule. Alas, I took an online course. And let me tell you how well that worked out: lol.

I don't remember anything that I learned. I don't even really remember what I had to do. It was a complete joke. I didn't come away learning anything at all. And of course, I got an A.

Of course, it could be argued that my lack of a "willingness to try/learn" was the reason it was such a joke, but seriously, if you go to a physical classroom and sit and face the teacher for every class period of a real class, there is no way in hell that you are going to come away having learned absolutely nothing (and if you do, there is no way you will pass the class).

Ugh... I had the WORST online class this summer. Shit was a complete waste of time, I have already cleared all of the information out of my brain, but it was required so I didn't have a choice.

As far as books, I can usually get away without buying most of them since I don't skip class very often and pay attention while I'm there. I don't understand people who show up to class and then play games on their computer or sleep. It's like, you could have just stayed home bud.

[Cantih]

Attendance can be mandatory.
It depends on your teacher and school, and it's different for higher education, but somewhat similar, so I'll put this here.

In many K-12 districts, funding for the school is based on student headcount, and attendance is used to determine this. If a student is out of class for a day, then that is minus X dollars the school gets. (an aside, this is the real reason some places have truancy officers, it's actually all about the money)

As I said, it's not exactly the same for colleges, and you'd think with student tuition it would go poof, but many places still have a requirement that bodies be in seats.
Sometimes some profs say fuck it, and if none of the bureaucrats check in, you get a class that's lax. On the other end, my school had a policy that if you were absent more than X number of days in your class, your grade would start dropping, regardless of actual academic performance.

[Not Kuno]

Just curious, what degree are you looking into?

Education D:

[Ayn]

Oh shit, it's Eli. Hi. Toss me a PM asshole, I was wondering how you were doing in school.

All solid advice. One question though. I graduated in spring 2008. My gpa was decent (like a 3.3...the gpa for my major is most likely higher, but I've never done the calculations), but it was 2 years ago. How much harder will it be for me to get into grad school??

Someone else noted it, but without too much information, it's really hard to make a judgment. What field are you in? Are you in business and going back for an MBA? Computer Science/Tech? Engineering? Social Sciences/humanities? As I noted before, social sciences is where I'm at, so I'll first speak from that perspective:

As someone else already said, your time spent out of school isn't the big factor. Are the program(s) in question (keep in mind what Sath said; don't throw all your eggs into one basket) requiring a GRE score (some schools actually don't). Do they require a writing sample? How many letters of rec do they ask for? Are there any other requirements? I was in the same boat as you: Kinda eh GPA overall (it was just shy of a 3.0, like 2.999 something. I was a business major for awhile, which tanked my GPA) but my GPA in my major was like a 3.8.

My old boss (she was my supervisor when I was doing the TA program/graduate student teaching) has been serving as Graduate Coordinator for the past few years, and she passed on this advice to me (since I was teaching undergraduate seniors considering grad school):

-GPA and GRE scores, depending on schools, will not ultimately make or break you (unless we're talking Ivy League/Top Tier schools). I'm not saying you can rock a 2.5 GPA and cruise in, but if your GPA is slightly under what they ask for, but the other parts of the whole look good, you'll have a shot in getting in.

-Letters of rec matter. Get good letters of rec. If possible, get them from people who are familiar with you in multiple capacities in the institution (so someone who was a professor, an adviser, or even someone you worked with in student services).

-Writing Samples/Examples of work. The then grad coordinator at the time commented that my writing samples were excellent and impressed him. Since my overall GPA wasn't impressive by comparison, this helped.

-Outside/relevant work experience -- depending on the program, this can help. Remember the internship bit that's been harped on throughout the thread? Yeah, this matters.

-A good personal statement. Look, let's be honest here: Grad schools don't want to waste their time or yours. Make sure that your personal statement reflects that you're a good fit for the school, and the school is a good fit for your future plans. I'm not saying you need to have every bit of your grad career planned out, or already know exactly what you want to write your thesis/dissertation on. However, you need to be able to show that you've put some thought into this, rather than 'lulz the economy sucks I wanna go back to skool'. Graduate programs are getting flooded with that.

Not directly related, but still relevant advice. . .

-Read the goddamn website for the school (this was from my old supervisor -- this drives her nuts). Some schools will have good sites that explain their program upfront.

-E-mail the graduate coordinator for any questions. Be respectful in these communications. Don't send the shit from your iPhone or Crackberry. It isn't one person who ultimately decides if you get in or not (it's a committee, but said coordinator's on it). If you've been a royal pain in their ass, well, this could prevent it.


That was probably way more info than you needed. tl;dr: I can't really say much about your chances without knowing more, but your GPA alone doesn't seem like it'd prohibit you at most schools.

OH, and to the people talking about online programs:

I teach/taught at the University of Phoenix. I'll say that for some people, it's a good fit and I see why they're doing it. Would I recommend it personally? No. If anyone's that desperate to know why, just PM me.

[Moss]

My classes are about 50/50.

Smaller classes like Business Law with a lot of class participation, you get bonus points to your final grade for perfect attendance, and the teacher calls you out and gives you a hard time for missing. Most of my classes, like accounting were self-regulating in that you would be screwed if you didn't go to class.

The HUEG lecture classes have no way of keeping attendance, yet there are still people everywhere that just sit on facebook or candystand or whatever the fuck.