CyberFootprint

You might have noticed that a gap between employers and graduates is widening. There are more and more unemployed young people in their 20s who would like to get a job but can’t. One of the leading causes is the educational system and their own inability or unwillingness to adapt to the conditions of the today’s world.

Education

The New York Times published an article about our generation. What particularly caught my eye was the approach to education. There was an mention that a lot of us go back to school for lack of better options. Some of our peers have finished the bachelors degree and failed to get a job for a year. What choice is left to them? Either taking up a menial work or going back for the masters studies. The pick is obvious but the system is flawed.

The system of higher education as we know it was set up with one purpose in mind – advancement of skills gathered in practice. Instead, many of us perceive it as a replacement of the practice. Seen through the prism of employers’ needs, inexperienced graduates, be it bachelors, masters or Ph.D.s are dead weight. It doesn’t matter whether a prestigious or a no-name university flings them on the market. The system fails to work in synergy with the labour market and the number of the unemployed graduates is increasing. Can you now see the need for the educational reform?

Career

The issue of underdeveloped careers directly feeds in to the problem of education. Our genration changes jobs on average seven times. This is often caused by our own indecisiveness. The students often don’t know why they had chosen their major. Furthermore, they have no idea whether they would like to work in the field they so strenuously study. This puts a burden on the whole system and widens the gap between the employers and the universities. Granted that some of the students are very goal-oriented and passionate and the generalization does not apply to them. They are exceptions shining like beams of light through the darkness of ignorance.

A lot of us are taking up unpaid internships after graduating, which is something we should have done, while still in college. There may not be enough of entry-level jobs, the recession has hit this generation very hard and shattered its ideals before they came to be fulfilled. On the other hand, this situation has given us many opportunities to become entrepreneurs and shape the world in our own image. How many of you have tried to go for it?

The way out

Sadly, there is no way out. As long as the educational system keeps producing flawed products and the students themselves don’t start showing initiative, the situation will not change. Sad but true.

Oh yeah, for the record, this is my 100th post. Rejoice!

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