College and Employment: What I wish I was told from Jump

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1. When educators tell you that college is necessary for success and you need to go to college. They don't mean that it will guarantee you success or employment at all. What it actually means is that a good chunk of employment require a college degree or some kind of certificate in a blue collared field. This is what they're talking about.

2. For the IT field and other fields the employers want you to have experience. Experience is just as important maybe more so then the degree itself. To get this experience, you are expected to do internships and volunteer type work. This is how you build up your resume and experience.

3. And another thing, certifications are important as well as experience and the degree depending upon the field. These certs can cost you from 100s to 1000s of dollars. Even then you're still guaranteed nothing.

4. Speaking of guaranteed, all the degree, internships, volunteer work and certs do is give you a leg up. They don't guarantee you anything.

5. The internships and volunteer work also perform another function as well. I wish internships, what they were, and their function were explained better They enable you to make social contacts and this is just as important as the degree, internships, volunteer work, and certs. It isn't just what you know it is who you know as well. It is important that they know you and that they like you as well. If you know they and they know you and they don't like you they're not doing jack s**t for you. These social contacts who are already employed in places can recommend you. Think of what I'm saying as probabilistic outcomes and the more one does these things the more it is directly proportional for one to obtain a job. In other words, the more you do these things the higher your chances one has of getting a job.

6. Be Yourself. Here is what this means. First, it is not meant to be taken as ironclad and 100% absolute. You will have to make certain compromises in your personality. Within the employment realm and other aspects of life you can choose any group you wish to join and if they accept you including particular employers you have to conform to whatever norms they desire. But, you may have some flex in who you can work for and you choose to hang with. But, once you're a member of the group including employers one has to conform to the group. When they say be yourself it means join groups including employers that will enable you to do this but with some compromises.

7. Oh s**t! I almost forgot. Follow Fnords advice here. Bits of it is vague but for the most part it is excellent and sound advice. viewtopic.php?t=364574 Especially make sure one doesn't make it a habit of being late.

8. The world of Academia and the world of employment is different and here is one thing I wish I understood. In both academia (elementary, middle, high school, college) if you finish your work you can sit there and do nothing and/or goof off. In the world of work, doing this will get you fired faster then you can say pizza. In other words, if you finish your assignments you're expected to go to your boss and ask for more and/or see if your colleagues need any assistance or help. This is part of what they mean by showing or taking initiative.

9. And, make when you drink your coffee that you don't drink with your pinky sticking out or else feminists will think you're a misognistic pig and complain to HR. Even if you don't do this they may still complain to HR.

These are the facts about employment as I see them and had I understood these facts more then likely my life would have been a different story today. What do you wish you were all told?

Last edited by cubedemon6073 on 11 Jul 2018, 5:11 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Didn't someone recently submit a rather long post somewhere describing their personal work-ethic, which addressed many of the same things you just described?

Yes, but not this aspect. The someone who recently submitted a rather long post somewhere describing their personal work-ethic (which isn't long to me) only described how it was when one was inside the workplace not when one is trying to get into the workplace and what one needs to do. You described what one does when one is inside of the door. I'm talking about how to get to the door.

I've decided to add more.

10. I wish I was told what working hard and paying your dues actually meant and was explained better. Working hard depends upon what field you're going into. For IT (depending upon job) you will have to do stuff outside of one's job to have an edge, keep current and remain competitive. You may be woken up in the middle of the night to fix an issue with the server or you may have to earn extra cash outside of one's job by possibly driving Uber to pay for certs. You have to read the latest tech literature to keep up.

11. Not everyone will achieve what they put their mind to contrary to the idea of you can do anything you set your mind to. You can only do what your abilities, finances and others allow you to do. It is said you get what you put in. No, you are allowed to put in what others allow you to put in and you get what others choose to give you.

12. Rights are meaningless when it comes to the working and social world. What is it that you offer others and how are you an asset to them? Truth is all of our rights that are enumerated in the Declaration of Independence are arbitrary anyway. In order for them to apply the surrounding culture and society has to choose to recognize them first. One has the right to freedom of speech but no one has to listen or agree with you which means Freedom of speech really has no meaning in one's day to day practical life. In the USA, when you say something you're protected from police prosecution but not protected from social consequences including but not limited to being fired from one's job. Even this is dependent upon the situation. The hatch act bars any secret service agent from speaking out against the president or taking sides publicly. One can't disclose top secret docs.

13. I wish I was told not only to learn from one's own mistakes but learn from others as well.

14. Research and talk to others in the industry one is trying to get into. Ask questions and understand what it takes to succeed.

15. No one is created equal except in theory we're supposed to be equal before the law. We all come from different backgrounds and we all have differing abilities and disabilities. If we were all created equal the world would be boring.

Point #11 is very spot on. You can only do what is within your means. Not everybody has abundant resources and connections. Some of us must make do with what we got. An NT from a wealthy family can go so much farther than an autistic person from a working class family.

Had I knew or had any inclination of any of this especially the part of having to spend 1000s on certs just to keep up with the competition I don't believe I would have entered IT. Or, the very least I would have dedicated most of my days to internships, learning programming languages and DBMS's and I would have done projects thereby creating a portfolio. I would have reduced my classes to 3-6 credits per semester and taken longer to graduate. By the time I graduated I would have been employed somewhere, had experience, and/or had social networking contacts.

But, because I didn't understand and was ignorant to any of this and any of the circumstances surrounding this I made my decisions that I did. More then likely, I probably would not have entered IT whatsoever and went somewhere else for two reasons. A. cost of certs and B. and one has to keep current all the time and this lacks a basic routine. Another thing, just because one can program and do other IT stuff doesn't mean one can do it for a living and be an effective employee in the industry itself.