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Student Sues University Because She's Unemployable
digitalhermit writes "A C student (not the programming language) has sued her former school because she has been unable to find a job in the three months since her graduation. Yup, some schools are degree mills, but this just seems... bizarre."
For UK folks, it's equivalent to a low 2:2, and approaches a third.
Someone who attends an honours course and is awarded an ordinary degree: i.e. you didn't fail spectacularly and you showed up to lectures so we'll give you a piece of paper.
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
Can anyone explain what is a C in the US in the percentile range? Is this synonymous with miserable failure? What about the reputation of Monroe College?
A 'c' encompasses a range of scores - the GPA (Grade Point Average) is more telling.
The highest GPA you can get (with 100% marks on everything) is 4.0.
The national average GPA for college graduates is 3.2 (according to a quick google search)
She got a 2.7, which while not horribly bad, definitely puts her below average.
Never heard of Monroe college.
I doubt that very much I'm British, she's American.
I already get five weeks paid leave and work 37 hour weeks. From what I understand of the US I'd probably be fired for not being present enough. Here, I just go promoted.
America - you're doing it wrong.
1st = 100% Study 0% Party
2:1 = 75% Study 25% Party
2:2 = 50% Study 50% Party
Third = 25% Study 75% Party
Pass = I KANT RITE
Study rate = Employability rate :)
Super Awesome Broadband
Bull. There has never been trouble getting a job. There has always been trouble getting a job you want.
Meanwhile the advantage that college graduates once had has evaporated due to the change in supply/demand. Now that so many people are college graduates, being a college graduate is no longer special. Doubly so now that curricula and grade-inflation and such have taken their toll. When my father got his MBA, one of the requirements for graduating was to visit a real-world company and solve a random serious real-world problem it had.
FATMOUSE + YOU = FATMOUSE
Get a degree in something useful if you want a job. It's really as simple as that
This is exactly the theory under which community colleges like Monroe name their degrees. This gal has a 2-year associate's degree called "Bachelor of Business Administration" Compare that with a degree in "Computer Technology" or "Industrial Engineering Technology." The names are very similar to four year degrees. A naive 20 year old is susceptible to the line that you can get the skills employers want to work in [impressive field] with salaries up to $50,000, in a business-friendly environment; that by cutting out extraneous classes like English and History, you can graduate in just 2 years rather than 4. If they don't have someone there to point out that "Engineering Technology" is different than "Engineering" or that "Bachelor of Business Administration in Computer Information" is different than "Bachelor of Science in Business Administration," they can end up buying something very different than what they expected.
CC can be a good option. An AS or AA can definitely be a step towards a better career, and can provide a useful skill set, but it's a different route than a four year degree, and I don't think that distinction is always made clear to potential students.
Just found this article in which the "Ski Channel" is going to offer her a job:
Wow, I never realised that vacation time in the US was so bad as to make 25 paid leave days per year sound so incredulous...
It's really not uncommon in Europe to have that much annual leave...and yes, every year.
-- Pete.
Monochrome - Probably the UK's largest internet BBS
Standard in the US is 10 days, to start. If you're lucky that'll build up to 15-20 in few years.
At a lot of places if you get sick, your sick days come out of your vacation time.
I am sorry, but where are you?
Sorry, many parts of Europe have apprenticeship programs, etc where people still do low-level technical jobs.
I call BS in your argument!
While you might not like socialism, what it does do is give menial jobs a pretty hefty wage. Instead of the scamming that goes on in North America.
I am here in Switzerland and our cleaning lady makes 39 CHF (about 35 USD) per hour! We can't find anything less.
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
Econ 101? Here's Econ 102: It's far better for ordinary people to live in an economy with full employment and moderate-high inflation than suffer higher unemployment via the IS-LM curve so that a few people with access to "capital" don't see it decline in value so quickly.
Let me say that again: inflation is a good thing so long as it's driven by wages.
That's why our economy in the United States took off like a rocket after World War II: sure, part of it was that everyone else was bombed out. But a larger factor was four years of sustained full employment at high wages had transferred quite a bit of wealth and created a robust middle that would only start to be systematically dismantled when Reagan took office.
Yeah, unemployment is up here, in that part of europe with the highest education (Scandinavia), why we're at above 2% now, which is a lot more than the comfortable 0.8% we used to enjoy prior to the current crisis.
Apparently you have no connection with reality what so ever
Norway ~3%
Sweden ~9%
Denmark ~5%
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_unemployment_rate How you get this to 2% for "Scandinavia" is beyond me. And remember that Norway has a fairly low unemployment due it that thing called oil.
The Economist's latest figures have the unemployement rate at 9.8% Sweden, 3.8% Denmark and 3.1% Norway. Sweden's rate is not seasonally adjusted.
Where are your 2% figures from?
Anyone wishing to actually do a proper comparison of unemployment and education should probably look at Eurostat's Unemployment rates of the population aged 25-64 by level of education (at least for Europe).
Antiquis temporibus, nati tibi similes in rupibus ventosissimis exponebantur ad necem.
If you'd read TFA you'd know she has no lawyer, none at all. Find a real case of irresponsible lawyerism to use when making your rant k?
Standard in the US is 10 days, to start. If you're lucky that'll build up to 15-20 in few years.
Minimum in the UK is 28 days (that includes the 8 public holidays, so it's 20 days if you aren't required to work on those days).
At a lot of places if you get sick, your sick days come out of your vacation time.
That's illegal here.
A "C" is theoretically average, but whether or not that's true in practice varies widely. Most schools don't fail a high percentage of people, so a C ends up being towards the bottom.
That being said, unless I'm missing something here, a 2.7 is a B-, not a C. Some schools don't have a +/- system, but in that case it's still well above a base-line C.
A: 4.0
A-: 3.7
B+: 3.3
B: 3.0
B-: 2.7
C+: 2.3
C: 2.0
C-: 1.7
D: 1.0
F: 0
If there's no +/- system, it's just 4/3/2/1/0.
As for Monroe College... I live in the area, and I've never heard of it (or at least, know nothing about it). Some local school, I guess. Certainly not a regionally, nationally or internationally known one.
-Daniel
Although a key to gainful, professional employment may be a classic liberal education, it does not therefore stand that the objective of this education is commercial marketability of graduates. Nor is the measure of education's success the commercial placement of these graduates.
Universities are selling a product. As with any merchant, their success is measured by their ability to provide a service that people want at a price they are willing to pay, while making a profit at it.
The thing is, their customer base has changed radically over the years. Society now requires an increasing number of specialized and intellectually demanding skills. Universities are, whether we like it or not, the place where those skills are bought and sold. This has transformed the university from a playground for the wealthy (who need not care about mundane things like employability) to the gateway to a decent career path for a huge segment of society.
This transformation means employment is now THE critical aspect of this education, not the well-rounded liberal arts education that was the goal of its former customer base. Universities know this well, which is why they market themselves with an eye towards their customers' future career prospects.
That's not to say that people don't care about the liberal arts aspect. We do... but for most university students, it's no longer the driving force behind undergraduate education. Few are willing to put themselves into years' worth of debt simply to become a more well-rounded individual. They do it so they can have a better career and quality of life. The liberal part of the education is simply a bonus.
It's just a case of balancing the breadth of a liberal education with the depth of an employable career discipline. That way we get an education that is both liberal and useful.
"Why do I have to learn about Charlemagne!? Who cares!"
Well, I needn't bother to refute the type of vapid ignorance and pathetic intellectual narcissism represented by that incurious statement.
And I needn't bother to refute the arrogance that assumes everyone should simply hand over their hard-earned money for a class without an explanation of why it's worth the cost. It is incumbent on the seller of a product to make its value clear, not a potential buyer. The annals of history are littered with defunct businesses whose clearly wonderful products could find no buyers.