Another cog in a wheel. That’s what everybody will end up after finding a job. Looking into my future after I graduate Galileo in June, college after that, and then I enter the workforce. All I can think about is how much I’m dreading it.
People in my life always told me to “dream big” when thinking about my dream job and what I aspire to be one day. They told me I could be whatever I want, as long as I’m passionate about it. That childish naivety would stay intact until the day when I learned about the world around me.
In elementary school, teachers would always pass out worksheets that asked students about their dream job and why they would want that dream job. I always believed in the idea that was instilled in me by my parents and teachers that as so long as you work hard, anything is possible.
In middle school, I wasn’t that naive anymore. I started to understand there are many factors in eventually choosing a career, the 2 main ones being – money and time. I realized that don’t have much of either as I don’t have the money to extend the time required to study whatever I want. But despite not having the time and money to study whatever and as long as I want, I STILL BELIEVED in so long as I worked hard, I could achieve anything.
That was until high school, the time where everything just fell apart. Specifically this year, when I was filling out college applications and writing my senior highlight reel. The topic of career often pops up a lot as colleges would want to know what kind of major or career you want to be in and why. That got me going down the rabbit hole in researching about the job market. How a job market performs are tied to how the economy performs. If the economy performs well, there would be entry level jobs with high pay but with how the economy are now, the pay for entry level jobs are laughable.
But it wasn’t until I researched deeper was when I learned about nepotism in the workplace, how people use their family connections to land them a cushy job, and those without connections or aren’t wealthy will have to deal with a trash paying job. Then that’s when it hits me, I can’t compete with those that have a large amount of resources, and even if I have the qualifications for a good job, that could be pulled right under me because a family could use their wealth and connections to make sure their child gets that position instead.
Being a high school senior means getting good grades for a good college for a good degree and finally for a good career. That would be perfectly reasonable if it wasn’t for the fact that just how bad the job market is. If you do a little bit of research, the job market nowadays requires you to not only have a bachelor degree, lots of experience, but also do more work for less pay. That last particular example is even more infuriating – what’s the point of college then if spending 4 years in college means I have a job and trash pay that I must accept just because I’m a fresh college graduate?! Worse still as this has become the new norm as more and more people on the internet started sharing their experience in getting screwed over their pay. If that’s the future that I’m getting when I graduate college, I want no part of it.
