Plus our environment of everything is the fault of big business. Did you buy a house and now you can't afford the payments? It's not your fault, but the evil mortgage company for giving you that loan! Did you buy a crapload of stuff on your credit card but can't pay it off? It's not your fault but the nasty credit card company who made you sign up for that card by sending lots of offers! WTF be an engineer and work for a living? This is the golden age, only suckers work - and they'll soon be taxed into nonexistence. This party is going strong, but it will soon come to an end, and everybody will pay. So you might as well suck up the punch and the favors while you can. Cuz it will sure suck when the band stops.
Reply to your empty banter? YOU HAVE TO BE KIDDING! Put together a logically coherent thought (just one) and I'll consider replying to it. Until then, go play with mommy and join my ignore list.
$80k glass ceiling? hello, are you living in gnome, alaska? with 10 years experience and a bachelor's, i used to make $145k/year, and if you consider benefits it was closer to $200k. and i was not even among the top paid engineers at my company. a pharmacist at that same age would already be $500k behind where i was. there's no way they could ever catch up. ($200k in loans + $300k lost wages) an engineer can EASILY make more than a pharmacist over a lifetime, especially considering the cost of pharmacy school.
"I read recently the unemployment rate for PhD economists is 0%." if true this is not a good omen for the future of the US.
That's pretty rare, not the rule, but rather the exception. Maybe 10-15 years ago, and you inflation-adjusted the figures, but definitely not today. Pharmacy only takes 6 years or so, and most people take 5 years to do an engineering program. The key difference is that a pharmacist pretty much has a job guaranteed for them out of college, and as long as they don't screw up, its employment for life. Whereas an engineer has to put up with a lot of layoffs, changes in business plans, etc. "EASILY", hardly. And good quality engineering school isn't cheap either.
How long ago? Engineers, on average, haven't seen an increase in salary in terms of real wages since the early 1990s. They're notorious for starting at a high salary early in their career and then hitting a glass ceiling 5-10 years later. You may have made $145k, but that's definitely not the norm these days. You'll be replaced with an H-1B long before that happens. And Pharmacy school doesn't cost anywhere near $200k. More like $80k. $300k lost wages? A PharmD takes 2-3 years to complete after earning a bachelors. How exactly does that equate to $300k in lost wages?
The CFA is not a bad idea. Assuming you can pass it, then it is at least a way to prove you're not getting stale. I did this myself (passed Level 1, so far), but I gotta tell you, it sure as hell did nothing for me to get my current job. My work right now started because I had an informational type of interview with the head of the company while I was still in college. I prepared for that thing like crazy, though it helped that I was already very interested in it. We got along really well, and I made a special effort to keep in touch with him over the next year. Then, one day, I started getting paid. My advice to you as a fellow early 20s guy is this: SCREW RESUMES AND FORMAL INTERVIEWS; JUST TRY TO MEET SOME INTERESTING PEOPLE. These are the only people who can make the "real" decisions, and they are also ten times more interesting to talk to/they'll be able to appreciate your enthusiasm for the business much more than an HR paper pusher. In the meantime work any job you can get and save as much as possible. Good luck to you.
I'm too lazy to read the entire thread. What ever happened to the original poster. Did he find a job?
That's because there are no good products to sell. If any company had a product that was worth a damn you wouldn't need that.. Hell the economy hasn't hit rock bottom yet, so that ball will just keep rolling. Hopefully it doesn't hit rock bottom because No one will be there to pull us out of that mess.. maybe we'll just keep riding on credit bubbles the rest of our lives. That seems smart enough. Well like Paul Tutor Jones said: "I know from studying history that credit eventually kills all great societies.. Perhaps we are simply responding to the same type of cycles that most advanced civilizations fell prey to. I think that we are going to be in for a period of pain. We are going to relearn what financial discipline is all about." Anyways Pitz. You can easily join those people. Get some books on real estate, read a book called "how to win friends and influence people", and another called "Stuff you don't learn in engineering school" It's got some good advise as well as a list recommended readings on each topic(He actually recommends "How to win friends and influence people"). Hope you don't mind selling your soul. You may end up happier in the long run.