studies and jobs
There’s one person I know that will worry a lot about extremely rare chances; like to the point of breakdowns, unable to sleep, needing like 4 people to talk them down or out of it, and dragging everyone into the mess and acting like it’s an emergency (when nothing has even happened yet) and as usual, nothing ends up happening. But if there are actual real and kinda likely problems, risks, concerns you bring up to that person about their plans and choices, they deny it. It’s so weird. Like I’m supposed to care that you could contract a rare disease with like a 3% chance, but I’m supposed to not care and ignore it that with this career choice there’s like a 60% chance of struggling to find a job? Make it make sense.
I even get the feeling that it is specifically to spite me sometimes because I can be a bit direct or blunt at times. I will not say “I heard there might be less jobs there.” but I will say, with my personal direct experience and insight, “Everyone I know in that career is struggling to find a job and it’s low-paying and they complain about abuse on the job.” And because I don’t sugarcoat it, that person seems to be very insistent on proving me wrong and not believing me. I’m just trying to tell you what I know, I’m not trying to shit on your dreams on purpose, and especially not unasked - if you bring it up and/or ask, I will contribute. If you don’t wanna hear it, don’t ask? You can’t “that’s an outlier” yourself out of everything.
I often wished people in an industry or adjacent would be there to give insights and make me aware of risks and more, but others are so ungrateful about this. I tend to notice that it’s the people who could move back home when shit hits the fan who are like this. They can allow themselves to hope and think big and just trust that it works out somehow. They can afford to study their breadless passion for years and if they can’t find a job, someone will be there, especially their giant families.
Well, I don’t have one, there is nowhere to move back to, I can’t return to where I was raised and I needed to escape that, so I always had the practical glasses on and needed something secure and paying. Not gonna lie, sometimes it pisses me off that people go against all warnings and tips and cautions to study something almost or entirely futile and afterwards make it everyone else’s problem like they couldn’t have known, and if you made better choices because of the situation you were in, you’re somehow the asshole for seeing it coming and planning better. I’m sorry your passion is underpaid, I wish it was otherwise! Plenty of people don’t work their hobby or interest. People need to restock groceries, clean, deliver packages, cook or serve food, drive buses, pick up the garbage, care for the elderly and all that, and without them, society couldn’t function. Yet I doubt many of them have a passion for any of that or planned to do this.
Maybe academics from well-off families ask too much of the job market we are living in. I ask myself that too oftentimes: am I demanding too much? Not every job can be both physically and mentally fulfilling/stimulating and be what we are interested in. I get the wish to work something you love that is also safe and pays enough and hits our spot mentally and physically (I try to do the same) but that’s literally the jackpot. You’ll often have to settle for less, even if it’s temporary until the next opportunity/job.
I feel like there is this disconnect between late students and the rest too - like when many of us have already been in fulltime jobs for 4-7 years and they’re not done fulltime studying and just doing small student side jobs here and there. There is such a tension between the advice the people on the job can give vs. what the soon-to-finish-degree wants to be true. It’s uncomfortable because you’d expect a 24/25 year old graduate to feel that way, but not your 30-33 year old friend. They still have a naive view of the job market that’s like “Only my student jobs sucked! The real job will be better! It has to be, because I spent 6+ years and thousands on this!”
The job market is absolutely decoupled from what’s offered at university and your grades and how much effort and time you put in, and your interests.
I’m not looking forward to seeing that person make the same experiences I warned them about, but probably presenting it like they couldn’t see it coming or they’re the first to come to that conclusion, lol.