The young and the jobless | Hacker News Reader

The young and the jobless

economist.com

24 pointscwan22 comments

The payoff for working while in school is now quite low. When my father was in university during the early seventies, he could pay for his tuition, texts, and car for the whole year with one summer job. The kind of job you can get today wouldn't cover a fraction of that even if you were working year-round.

Working while in school is the best thing I've done for my career. Right out of college I had 5 years of experience, which is extremely important for employers. So after I graduated I got jobs that my classmates could only dream of.

I worked my way through college (this was quite a while ago), and honestly I wish I'd had to option of not working, or at least working only in the summer or only a couple of nights a week. Looking back on it, I really regret that I didn't get more time to be deeply involved with my studies and with other activities on campus (guest lectures, etc).

I also wish I'd had the opportunity to spend more time with my fellow students. Not only for the friendships that might have developed, but for the intellectual development that would have come from discussing our coursework or just the world in general.

I always assumed I have plenty stimulating discussions with knowledgeable people once I entered the workplace, but sadly that has rarely been the case. Maybe I need to get out of Enterprise IT. :-)

Ditto here - anyone who is in college and not going for internships (or other jobs) in their relevant field is IMHO losing out big time.

In lieu of a thesis, my college offered what was basically a year-long small-group internship with a corporate sponsor for several technical majors (including math!). I would highly recommend them to anyone, even people continuing into pure academia. My college takes this program more seriously than most, to the point that CS and Engineering majors don't even have the option of a traditional thesis, but I've heard that they're available in some form at a lot of universities.

There is distinct (and, in my view, great) value in learning to be independent and to take responsibility for oneself, which is something that my work experience in high school and college taught me, and these were hardly glamor jobs (restaurant work, delivery jobs, warehouse work, etc.) - falls under the "helps build character" category.

The nice thing about working retail through college is that it motivates you to do whatever is necessary to never have to do it again.

I knew someone in college whose parents made her work at McDonalds one summer, for this particular reason.

Reminds me of what I did between undergrad and graduate school: Summer in Alaska.

There's nothing like freezing your ass off burying fish in the back of a freezer truck to make you think: "sell-out" and get a nice cozy office job? Sounds fantastic!

Well, nothing, except maybe sliding around on your belly on top of a hold full of dead halibut and refrigerated seawater covered with fish slime with your boots filled with the same.

I understand the point you're trying to make, but this just isn't true. If you work 20 hours per week and make $12 / hr, that's $12k per year. It's even more if you assume that you'll work more hours during summer and breaks. While that might not make a huge dent in a $50k / year private school, it would cover most or all of your tuition, books, and fees at a lot of good state schools. This also ignores the other benefits of working, such as health benefits, connections, experience, etc.

The drawback is that you're spending significant amounts of your time working and commuting instead of studying. Realistically, there's also a limit to how professionally-relevant a job you can get while working part-time.

I worked summers, while taking classes during the third year of my degree, and participated in a coop program. The summers and coop program were great, but I regret working while in classes. The money I made wasn't worth the hit to my marks and comprehension of the material. In retrospect, I'd have been better off taking a bit more debt and concentrating on academics.

Also, when my father went through school, his summer job not only paid for tuition and books, but gave him spending money and paid for his car, gas, and insurance. I couldn't afford a car until well after graduating, and even then with insurance and gas it cost a quarter of my paycheque. Had I done the same thing, I'd have needed a year-round part-time job just to cover the car.

He said "summer" job. 10 weeks * 40 hours/week * $12/hour = $4800

And that's if you can get a $12/hour job in the current economy. Working halftime certainly can make a little dent in your debt, but it also makes it hard to take a full load of hard classes.

A friend of mine worked his way through school 10 years ago making 7.25$ per hour as a cook, and supported his wife at the same time. He graduated in 4 years but it took a 40 hour work week while in school and 60 - 80 hour work week in the summer to pay for a state school. However, he graduated without debt.

PS: His senior year he got a 13$ per hour internship at the coast guard, but he kept the cooking job until he graduated because the internship was not full time.

Sorry for being spelling nazi.It is "Coast Guard", not "Cost Guard"

Maybe it was a secret shopper organization :)

Follow the link and look at the participation rate in the 16-19 (pre-college) demographic. Headed to nothing.

Of course one can see that just by walking into any fast food restaurant, coffee shop, or supermarket in the USA. All the jobs are being held by adults who want the work, as low-paying as it is, and the kids could care less. That work is beneath them. They'd rather stay home on Facebook playing Farmville.

I'd like to see more analysis there. If these kids have no work ethic now, what happens in 20-30 years?

I'd suggest looking ath the labels of the axes on the graphs. They're zoomed into the middle, so the bottom is as far from "nothing" as the top is from the bottom.

Run a regression on that data and tell me where the bottom is. One can say "we don't know"...but it sure as hell isn't slowing down anytime soon.

I meant the bottom of the graph.

you know, in other countries college is free or state sponsored. why not try there. the us education system is big business, and you don't even learn that much anyway.

That really depends on the program. It is possible to get a top-quality education at a US university, but you have to work at it just like you would anywhere else.

Most of the benefits of a college educate accrue to the student. Sure, education is a public good to an extent, but people who can afford it should pay for the majority of it.

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