[yash1hi]

Referenced unemployed new grad here! I think a lot of what contributes to this is the thought that a degree=employment for college students. We feel scammed, confused, and quite frankly just angry that this was the timing to graduate into.

As a CS student I have many thoughts around the reasoning for this (AI reducing need for junior engineers, oversaturated market from COVID bubble, opaque job requirements/too low of bar). As much as I'd like to believe it's just a skill difference on my side, it's hard to deny my peers' and friends' struggle around me. I don't want my livelyhood to come down to a numbers/chance game. But sadly, that's what it is looking like right now.

[joebob42]

This is maybe kind of rude, and hopefully it doesn't come off this way, but where were you still getting the message that degree = job? Not that a degree doesn't help, but I graduated 10 years ago and the message was already pretty clear across the media I interacted with that that was no longer the lived experience / that you needed to be thinking about your major and the future it might offer because just having a degree was not a magic ticket.

[xboxnolifes]

> that you needed to be thinking about your major and the future it might offer because just having a degree was not a magic ticket.

A CS degree was the major people "should have been thinking about" until recently.

[tayo42]

This was my experience.

We never really recovered from the 08 crash imo. That was a changing point I think that doesn't get enough attention.

[astrange]

We did recover, in 2019 and then again in 2024.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS11300060

Literally nobody noticed because everyone had covid trauma the second time, so we had a "vibecession" where everyone felt like there was a recession because they wanted there to be one.

[tayo42]

11 years later. I know the numbers say we recovered. It took so long I think people mostly forgot what pre 08 life was like

2008/9 was a change in the expectations of college degrees. Going into 2008, we all got the advice to get degrees and jobs will just show up. After the crash we never got back to that point. Common knowledge ever since 08 has been college doesn't ensure a job at the end and your stuck doing unpaid internships and dealing with a competitive job market

[AbstractH24]

11 years is a blip in society, but at least 20% of most people’s working years.

[yash1hi]

Not wrong! The degree was always the stepping stone, and even for me I was always told work experience would make the difference. But now having graduated college 2 years early, with 2 high quality internships under my belt, my options are slim. Thankfully, I love what I do and don’t plan to ever stop doing it, but I feel bad for the people that “did everything right” and still aren’t landing jobs.

[horns4lyfe]

It’s not AI, It’s offshoring and H1B. Accepting that won’t make you friends at parties in some circles, but it’s true and you should all be furious about it

[collingreen]

Good luck out there from a millennial that's been through a couple "once in a lifetime" crashes, a global pandemic, decades of unending war, and a reduction in labor protections that appear to be just getting started.

My only advice is to keep costs low, don't give up, and find work where you can. It seems to cycle around so hopefully you'll end up ok but the days where degree=job were dying when I graduated 20 years ago so I assume there is left of that by now.

[JohnMakin]

Yea my year entered the job market from college in 2008 - pretty much the worst time ever at that time. It sounds very similar. I think, if I look at my more successful peers including myself, many of us hunkered down and took whatever jobs we could get, many of us went back to school and got second "useful" degrees such as CS/nursing/etc.

My career path is so bizarre I don't really ever talk about it in great detail because it is so unique I think it identifies me and me exactly. Lots of others I know with similar stories. I would not want to go through it again.

[dmoy]

> the days where degree=job were dying

To be fair, the previous iteration of "degree=job" that was dying 20 years ago was the older definition - broad enough to include "degree in literally anything", which was closer to how it operated say 50 years ago.

GP looks to have gone with the newer advice of "get a more useful degree = job". That wasn't really dying 20 years ago. Or even 10 years ago.

---

Definitely agree about keeping costs low. Even if you do get a good job, if you keep costs low for long enough, it compounds like crazy.

[theGnuMe]

At some point mother is the necessity of invention which is a shift in perspective. You may have to make a market for yourself basically. It's not easy. This being a YC site, I would go through and apply to all of the interesting YC work at a startup places. There is an opportunity right now to understand AI and how to apply it to the digital workplace. Anyway, it is not easy and I wish you the best of luck!

[AbstractH24]

Out of curiosity, what tier school is you degree from?

If it’s not an ivy league American or something very noted in its niche I don’t think it’s been worth it for a while.

It’s not the degree, it’s the relationships you build along the way and how much it makes you think is possibly within your reach.

[creer]

> degree=employment

I also don't understand this. For years now, social media has been flooded with objections that this is not the case. Where were these people who didn't hear this message?

But it goes further: the young people around me who are brand new to fairly fresh into the job market - who must have heard of the problem - are still coasting probably scared but as far as I can tell not doing anything about it. Where are efforts at building references? At buidling networks? Some education streams have been (for years also) very much about building networks: THEY understood (and in the case of MBAs, to the point that everybody complains about them.)

And still further, this applies to more senior people also! It feels like many people with years of experience also have little network to show for it. It's not for lack of opportunity. And go through interviewing on (self-destructive) auto-pilot when they might have enough experience with that for significant statistical results just from their own experience.

I'm way at the front when it comes to arguing that schools do not teach fundamental skills like career development, business (/real) world awareness, or even basic reasoning skills, intro law, etc. But there may also be a question of passivity, obliviousness, wishful thinking.

Blaming the victim? Yes but I also blame the schools. Perhaps there is plenty of blame to go around. And not much of it is about the latest AI nonsense.

(And historically this can go pretty far: In the US there is a background of fast food jobs as entry level youth jobs. Whyyyy? Plenty of the high school and college students around me are plenty qualified enough to fulfill the duties of much more responsible and higher paying jobs. But they don't look for them.)

[moomoo11]

Why not do a startup?

[tekla]

Dumb, this is a lie people tell themselves to feel better. I heard this crap since 2005 and it was never true.