First, read this article.

Next, take a moment and consider if you know anyone this vapid and entitled. If you do, hit them up-side the head with a silver spoon.

What is wrong with people these days? Seriously!

Trina Thompson, 27, of the Bronx: "Waaaah! My degree didn't guarantee me a million-dollar job right out of college, boo-hoo! Everybody else in America has a high-paying job and full benefits including zero co-pay health insurance, daily massages after catered lunch in my office, and free hand-jobs, right?"

Oh, yes, Trina. And a pony. Made of gold.

PS: If anyone I know tries to pull this, I'll revoke my optimism and hope for the future of humankind.

PPS: Thanks(?) to Stuology for the heads-up.

Chris

From: [identity profile] dichroic.livejournal.com


That's hilarious. I especially like the part about how her accomplishments "include a 2.7 grade-point average and a solid attendance record." Not to mention her complaint about how the school "favors students with a 4.0 GPA". Well, yeah. Did she really think grades don't matter for your first job out of school?

(Though since when do colleges even keep attendence records? Mine certainly didn't.)

From: [identity profile] mckitterick.livejournal.com


Yeah, the mention of her stellar GPA - and by "stellar" I suggest that you think of a warm cinder here rather than a star bright enough to see - would have made me laugh out loud if this weren't a real story.

From: [identity profile] dichroic.livejournal.com


I must admit, mine was worse! But I didn't exactly go around bragging about it - or trying to sue anyone. (Plus, I maintain that engineering classes are harder than business administration! And at least my grades in my major were a little higher.) And best of all, two decades on I don't really need to care.

From: [identity profile] mckitterick.livejournal.com


Yeah, maybe a 2.7 would have been looked at more kindly a decade ago, before "C" meant "fail."

This is not to say it's a horrible GPA; heck, most employers don't really care about GPA if you're smart, creative, and can do the work. But using that as a point of pride, as an argument in her case? Um.

From: [identity profile] dichroic.livejournal.com


She's looking for her very first job, though - the one time potential employers *might* care, because at that point it's one of the major things they can look at to see whether she is smart and creative.

I'm pretty sure a frivolous lawsuit and getting your name in the news would not be much of a recommendation for hire, come to think of it. Companies are scared of that kind of thing, and if I were hiring I wouldn't touch her with a very long pole - what if I needed to fire her for cause someday?

From: [identity profile] mckitterick.livejournal.com


Yep. But I bet she gets offers from Larry Flint's ilk for jobs she might not want... but will at least pay the bills until employers forget about her - or at least until after her poison wears off.

From: [identity profile] brisingamen.livejournal.com


I'm struck by the fact that she has 'peppered' employers with stuff. I may be doing her a disservice but there is something about that which suggests a lack of targetting. For that matter, only three months of looking, eh? It's a tough economic climate out there.

From: [identity profile] brisingamen.livejournal.com


I was rather thinking that 2.7 wasn't that special, and if she thinks it is, she must be seriously deluding herself, poor baby.

I mean, it's not like any other graduate in the world ever had to work a shitty low-pay job to make ends meet while they looked for something else, now is it?

From: [identity profile] mckitterick.livejournal.com


...wait a minute. Do you mean to say that I might have to start with a crappy job before becoming Ruler of the Universe? Dammit, I'm going to sue!

From: [identity profile] brisingamen.livejournal.com


(Though since when do colleges even keep attendence records? Mine certainly didn't.)

Mine does (UK-based), mainly so it can sling out the people who don't turn up regularly to seminars, because, obviously, they're not pulling their weight and are wasting people's time, including their own. On the other hand, the fact that I've missed precisely two seminars in my entire academic career to date (one undergrad, one grad) is not exactly the most compelling reason in the world to employ me.

From: [identity profile] dichroic.livejournal.com


A seminar is different than a lecture, right?

In my undergrad days and even in grad school (US) almost all my classes were lectures. Even "recitations" were more about someone explaining stuff to us rather than general conversation. So if one person missed a class, it didn't really hurt anyone else. The exception would have been something like Senior Lab, where an absence would have impacted your lab partners. I don't know if things were different for liberal arts students, but even in the classes I did take in things like Folklore or Women's Studies, it was still about a professor speaking to a class, who could then ask questions.

From: [identity profile] brisingamen.livejournal.com


Yeah, seminars involve small groups in discussion. I had lectures too as an undergraduate but they weren't compulsory ... very useful, but not compulsory. I think most UK unis work to some version of a seminar/tutorial + lectures model rather than the lectures being the primary means of delivering the teaching.

From: [identity profile] dichroic.livejournal.com


The Oxford model :-) (Or Oxbridge, if that's more correct.)

Even in technical classes, I really think something like that would have worked a lot better for me.

From: [identity profile] brisingamen.livejournal.com


Oxford model is slightly different (and I think they do the same at Cambridge, possibly also one or two others) in that they do regular tutorials with a couple of people and a tutor, for which you prepare/read an essay and then the tutor rips it to shreds discusses it.

My seminars are typically about a dozen people, talking over a text, series of texts, whatever. Sometimes there are prepared presentations, sometimes not. I find it a good model if people are willing to talk; undergraduate groups aren't always prepared to, whereas postgrad groups are generally the reverse. I think it might be easy to get lost in the lecture/questions model for a number of reasons, and I doubt it would have suited me.

From: [identity profile] dichroic.livejournal.com


Does that only apply to liberal arts or do they do it for engineering, math and the sciences too?

From: [identity profile] martyn44.livejournal.com


I want the world and I want it NOW!

You mean, I have to do some work for it?

From: [identity profile] mckitterick.livejournal.com


The anthem of a generation... I wonder if all kids are this way and have always been? Only now, adolescence extends through the college years.

From: [identity profile] martyn44.livejournal.com


The thing is that bit was the anthem of MY generation, as sung by Jim Morrison. I doubt this young lady even knows who the Lizard King was.

From: [identity profile] mckitterick.livejournal.com


That's what I was referring to! And, no, I doubt this person is aware of anything that wasn't on TV within the past few minutes.

From: [identity profile] stuology.livejournal.com


One of my dorm roommates was this vapid and entitled. And whiny.

Everybody else in America has a high-paying job and full benefits including zero co-pay health insurance, daily massages after catered lunch in my office, and free hand-jobs, right?

And now we all know the definition of your perfect job ;)


From: [identity profile] justaqt.livejournal.com


well..... it does sound like the description of a pretty perfect job. :)

From: [identity profile] queenmomcat.livejournal.com

three months job searching in this economic air is nothing


But I expect that was your point.

My second thought was "Why is she getting her B.A. at 27?" (The first one being the obvious thought.) There are a number of legitimate reasons why she may be getting her B.A. five years later/older than when I did, of course, but the article doesn't mention any reason whatsoever. It took me five years and a graduate degree to get anything remotely resembling a good job.

From: [identity profile] queenmomcat.livejournal.com

Re: three months job searching in this economic air is nothing


Sorry; I didn't make myself clear and I apologize.

There are valid reasons for not getting a four year degree (you'd rather be something which doesn't require it) and valid reasons for taking longer about it than the standard 18-22 age range (you're working your way through school in order to pay tuition). The article didn't mention either.

There are valid reasons for NOT whining about being unemployed three months out (it's a **** economy) and for NOT claiming a mediocre college record as one's only selling point.

From: [identity profile] bammba-m.livejournal.com


"They favor more toward students that got a 4.0. They help them more out with the job placement," she said.


They probably also help the other students speak more gooder.

From: [identity profile] bammba-m.livejournal.com


P.S. I don't have any college degree, and I've managed to secure employment based on ability to do stuff, and be amazing at it. You have to try really hard AND be willing to actually work. It's not all down to a degree.

From: [identity profile] mckitterick.livejournal.com


Hahahaha! It's possible that they also helped those with greater skills find jobs, too. And those who weren't entitled idiots - we most want to help those who help themselves.

From: [identity profile] jjschwabach.livejournal.com


"...her three month job search..."?! Are you freakin' kidding me? That has not been a long job search at any time in my adult life, even when you're not terribly fussy.

As a living, breathing and functioning vocational counselor (oh, and certified) I would describe this woman as, "malingering."

Did she happen to miss those cascade crashes in the stock market? Or the sub-prime mortgage issues? Or all those banking giants stumbling and falling? Perhaps she's missed the part where a lot of her classmates are working at Sears or Applebee's to pay the rent while they're doing their job search.

From: [identity profile] verminiusrex.livejournal.com


This is the sort of person who views life as a straight path rather than seeing endless branches based on choices we make. Degree=job, end of story.

I've seen the same attitude in the work place where someone thinks seniority automatically means promotion (sometimes it does, but not in a good work place). They bitch and whine about someone newer to the company getting that supervisor job, until the boss pulls them aside and points out that a lousy work ethic, constant absences, and tendancy to avoid doing any actual work while trying to claim credit for everyone else's efforts does not earn you a promotion. They get you the basement cubicle with the oldest computer equipment.

From: [identity profile] mckitterick.livejournal.com


Yep - and I fear that this attitude is not in the minority. Perhaps that's why we have occasional recessions, to weed out attitude problems.

From: [identity profile] amysisson.livejournal.com


Once this gets thrown out as frivolous (and it better get thrown out!), I would love it if the college countersued for the money they wasted on attorneys. But I imagine they'll take the high road, since it's a college.

I'm at least thankful she didn't find an unethical attorney to take this on a contingency basis.

From: [identity profile] mckitterick.livejournal.com


Oh, yeah!

I fear that an attorney will jump on this now that it's become public.

From: [identity profile] jjschwabach.livejournal.com


"An okay GPA..."

I did a bit of thinking and realized that the only reason it's *that* high is she needed to get at least a low B in her major classes in order to graduate.
Which, in turn, means we're looking at a lot of Cs, ladies, gentlemen and others.


From: [identity profile] radcliffe.livejournal.com


The sad thing is that I checked to make sure the story wasn't from The Onion. Twice.


From: [identity profile] tully01.livejournal.com


This SO reminds me of this story in the Washington Post a couple of years ago, wherein Ivy League grads were bemoaning the lack of high-paying entry-level jobs with good bennies in the field of world-saving social activism.

From: [identity profile] jjschwabach.livejournal.com


Yes. Saving the whales, housing the homeless and helping inner-city children is where the big bucks are.

From: [identity profile] mckitterick.livejournal.com


I know! I did a bunch of double-checking before posting. It hardly seems real.

From: [identity profile] roya-spirit.livejournal.com


Unfortunately, hitting anyone that vapid and entitled will not knock any sense into them, and will likely get you an assault charge.

It's a shame that stupidity such as this is more common than sense.

From: [identity profile] mckitterick.livejournal.com


Yep, I suppose so. It's mostly symbolic, metaphorically.

From: [identity profile] siro-gravity.livejournal.com


that has been all over the internet, and i have to say, i find it riotously funny!!!!

her accomplishments include an crummy-to-average gpa and a good attendance record!!! oh, and they didn't mention her fabulously eloquent english speaking skillz: "They favor more toward students that got a 4.0. They help them more out with the job placement." hm...maybe the newspaper misquoted her.

also, nice way to equate higher education with getting a job. wasn't there a time we also went to learn what it meant to be a person?

i don't even want to THINK about the lag in time between graduating and getting my gig at the college. omg...i waited tables. :/ i see i should have sued instead.

From: [identity profile] mckitterick.livejournal.com


See, now if you had sued, not only would that have guaranteed a high-paying job teaching photography at the school you sued, but it would also have ensured the love and esteem of your colleagues.
.

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