The Definition of Insanity and Writing Into a Vacuum; Time for a Reboot

Psychologists say the definition of insanity is to attempt to do the same thing over and over again, but expect different results. I like to think I am not insane.

Friends said one cannot start in 2015 a general news and opinion blog based on rationality and hope to find an audience. I thought I could prove them wrong by attempting to write fairly high-quality pieces that I hoped would find readers and followers. Well, I was wrong and they were right. The numbers I am generating for this site is pitiful. General news and opinion (though with binary biases and slant) can be found on myriad other websites that readers already regularly peruse or subscribe. Niche is really the only way to go. With that in mind, I will be starting this blog and website over from scratch with a narrow theme that will focus like a laser beam. This niche topic is derived from the posts that have received the most views and likes, so it makes sense to serve this audience that is evidently not finding this content elsewhere.

See you here again in a couple weeks with the niche reboot. Thanks.

Studying Chinese (or pretty much any language) Will Not Get You a Job

If English is your native (or near native) language, then studying another language will not do anything to help you get a job. Unfortunately many students believed the mirage of learning a language as a false gateway to riches in a distant land, and thought spending a year or two (which is really isn’t enough to learn Chinese or most languages anyway) upping their language skills would make them more marketable. In fact, it doesn’t.

U.S. students losing interest in China as dream jobs prove elusive

You will spend a year learning basic Chinese and then realize there are quite literally millions of Chinese people who not only are native speakers of Chinese, but also know English way better than your Chinese will ever hope to be (remember most of them have been studying English diligently since kindergarten). The logic of most corporations is to hire locals in China and other countries, and not import American or British expatriates who will cost more anyway. In addition, local employees in China and other countries count as diversity hires, which ticks off another box on the corporate social responsibility factoid sheets.

Don’t study a foreign language because you think it will get you a job. In fact, it won’t help you at all. And I can attest to that from personal experience as well. If you want to study a foreign language because you dream of reading Dostoyevsky in the original Russian or understand Latin American cinema without subtitles, then that’s wonderful for your personal intellectualism. But don’t study a language under the delusion that it will help you get a leg up in the job market as you’ll only be disappointed.

Most Private Colleges and Universities Not Worth the Cost

Another private college closing soon in the US:

Sweet Briar College to Close

With tuition approaching $35,000 plus another $12,000 for room and board, the cost versus benefits of a private college/university (that is not an Ivy) is just not worth it. Yes, many of these private institutions offer 50% “scholarships” to almost every student in a somewhat dishonest marketing ploy to attract students who feel proud to receive a “scholarship,” but even that is no longer enough to attract potential students in such a tough job market. In other words, $17,000 tuition plus $12,000 for room and board is still a lot of money. That’s about $30,000 per year (not including all the other ancillary expenses of life) over four (maybe five) years to get “credentialed” in a starting job that pays on average $40,000 per year with long hours and little job security. And, of course, many graduates cannot find any salaried jobs at all, and taking hourly wage work that they didn’t really need a higher education degree for in the first place. It’s finally coming to the point that young people and their parents are asking the question: “Is the high expense worth the cost?” Short answer: In most cases, it’s not.

Unless you’re going to an Ivy League or a Stanford, MIT, Chicago, and perhaps a few other truly elite private institutions, the so-called prestige of a private university degree is just not worth it. Small liberal arts colleges like Oberlin, Swarthmore, Williams, etc. are indeed excellent higher education institutions that are committed to teaching (which is what most undergraduates care about most: great teachers) but most employers and the general public have little clue about these schools. They might as well be Sweet Briar College or some other small failing institution in the minds of most people, and they have little prestige outside the rarefied air of people who read the New Yorker and Atlantic magazines. Yes, you do receive a great education there, but don’t kid yourself that the “prestige” of the name is going to be some magic ticket to a great job after you graduate. It’s not.

Receiving a great education can’t be said for the myriad other small colleges that dot the country with little to justify their high price tag. In the New York City area, there are around a dozen small Catholic affiliated colleges that charge high tuition but have no prestige (ignore the phony public relations spiel they print in glossy brochures and websites) and nothing to differentiate themselves to justify the cost. Students of middling means would be better offer in almost every case going to City University of New York or State University of New York, and actually get a better education (the public institutions attract much better faculty with higher pay, excellent benefits and pensions) while saving a ton of money. It is completely irrational to go to these small colleges when there is a clearly superior, inexpensive alternative available, unless one has wealthy parents footing the bill or you don’t mind taking out huge loans (just don’t complain later when you have to pay them back). Don’t get lured into the false prestige game as aprivate college degree is not going to give you a leg up in the job hunt when compared to your public college competition.

Remember that a great school requires three things: great teachers, great students and great educational resources (labs, art materials, library, etc.). That’s what you should look for when choosing a school. The rest of it is fluff, but you pay a high price for the fluff and that will be the topic of a future post.

Getting (and Keeping) a “Good” Job in 2015 No Easy Task

While the US government and news organizations report better employment statistics month-by-month and quarter-by-quarter, the anecdotal evidence does not paint as optimistic a picture. Of classmates from high school, undergraduate and graduate schools I attended, the only ones who enjoy secure positions with good salaries work for the government: whether that be universities, schools, law enforcement (local and federal), fire departments, career officers in the military, or part of the professional bureaucracy (positions that do not change after elections). Those who went to work in the private sector made some good money for a while, but eventually lost their position due to a number of factors:

1) Company implosion – working at Lehman Bros was high-flying for a while, and then nothing afterward (Lehman is a CV stigma). Another was a VP at Nokia in the early 2000s, and then the marketplace shifted and Nokia pretty much collapsed along with its jobs.

2) Job sector implosion – almost everyone working in journalism got hit badly.

3) STEM age ceiling – hired straight out of university but by the time you reach 40, you’re old and overpaid, so you get dumped for a new college graduate. This is particularly true for computer science majors, who also have to compete (on a not level playing field) with STEM (H1-B1) visa immigrants.

For those who suffered one of those three fates, it has been hard to find new positions not just akin to their old ones, but anywhere even near it. Most have tried starting their own businesses, and I think that’s the new wave for the future. If you work in the private sector, don’t expect to stay there for very long, and you’re especially vulnerable once you get to the 40s and 50s age range. Most young people would be wise to get a job in the public sector for stability and security, very good benefits, and even a pension. Though I have a multi-year contract at my current fine job, who knows what could happen after that? More thoughts on jobs in upcoming posts, including an experiment I have been conducting since last fall.

Same Old Story: Lack of Agency and Narrative Drives Young Men to the Extreme

A young immigrant man in New York was arrested at JFK Airport on his way to Syria to join ISIS:

In Brooklyn, Eager to Join ISIS, if Only His Mother Would Return His Passport

Aside from the comical implication of a mother taking away her son’s passport so he couldn’t join the world’s most notorious terrorist organization, the larger issue is what drives young men around the world to seek out and join ISIS (women also join but I believe their motivations are different from the men). The New York Times story sets up the subject as a kind of a “loser” relegated to a job chopping onions and tomatoes in a basement, while quietly seething about the permissive moral culture around him. The article posits that this combination led him to want to join ISIS, but I believe there is something else driving these men because not all of them were “losers and misfits.” The story broke yesterday that the so-called “Jihadi John” who ostensibly beheads captives for ISIS is a Kuwaiti who used to live in London with a middle class lifestyle. The NYT ran a video story a month ago of a Malaysian imam who enjoyed a good, stable life with the respect of his community, who left it all behind to join ISIS (and eventually died in the fighting):

The Jihadist In Our Family

They all came from different backgrounds but ended up in the same place fighting for an organization that most of us consider heinous and troglodyte. This is actually nothing new, but has happened throughout human history where men of fighting age (and some too young or old) go off and join an outfit fighting for a cause. And that’s the key here, it’s for a cause that has established a grand narrative at odds with the prevailing one (democratic capitalism in today’s world). All these men felt their life had little or no cause, and that their agency was limited to effect change. From a young age, we are taught that we can be anything we want but then when reaching adulthood, we realize that many of us will not be able to reach that rarefied air  where agency, wealth and power reside. Instead we can only reach a middling level for not everyone can reach the highest rung, even if we try our mightiest and best (not everyone can be above average). ISIS gives a sense of purpose to these men that they cannot or can no longer find in their home cultures/countries. There is no grand narrative for them to live out, no sense of higher purpose to achieve or strive for. Instead ISIS preys on this insecurity and provides a disturbingly twisted but attractive and romantic narrative. Young men in other countries rushed to join the Communist revolutions in Russia and China in the 20th century, even though it proved disastrous. ISIS does the same, and when ISIS fails (which it will), there will be some other grand narrative to take its place for young men to “escape” lives that they perceive to be without or with little meaning, agency or value.