I love how so many liberals that would never dream of insulting someone for being poor have this attitude that if you didn't go to college, you are some kind of uncultured hick. Somehow beneath all those baristas with hundreds of thousands of dollars of college debt.
>The only thing ever discussed seems to be how job-ready you are at graduation time.
This is the opposite of what I saw before the recession. Maybe I am hanging out with wealthier people than you are? or maybe you are just too young to remember a time before the recession. I don't know. As far as I can tell, at least until the recession hit, considering how much money you'd make when you got out of college was considered extremely déclassé. College was all about finding yourself and becoming a better-educated person. Only the uneducated, uncouth hicks actually thought about money. How gauche!
Of course, now with the recession on, a whole lot more people find it impossible to pretend to not be poor, and actually taking steps to see to it that you can feed yourself later in life are gaining some social acceptance.
Personally, I'd say that I learned a very similar lesson to the barista when I bought a BMW during the first dot-com. You see, pretending to be rich is really expensive.
Yeah, I tried to warn my friends, but they all looked down on the idea. Now that they're out of college, most of them are working retail. They have no idea how much they owe or when it might be paid off--math is scary, so they just defer and defer and make the minimum payment when necessary.
Of course, given their relative inability to comprehend fiscal realities, almost all of them live with their parents. Any free money they have they immediately blow on unnecessary things (trips, designer clothing, etc) instead of even trying to get out from under their loan debt.
I really hope that people come around some day, because I'm really sick of people treating me like shit for actually getting a worthwhile degree that'll lead to a career that can pay the bills. Not all of us have parents we can move back in with, you know? But even that concept is offensive to them.
People spending money they don't have on useless status signifiers just pisses me off. So irresponsible.
>I'm really sick of people treating me like shit for actually getting a worthwhile degree that'll lead to a career that can pay the bills.
you've gotta choose your friends and your peers. I'm not saying you should always insist on friends that accept you for who you are, it can be good to have peers that challenge you, but you need friends that would admire you if you became the person you want to be.
A whole lot of the misery of my younger life can be traced back to that. It's not fun to be in a situation where you have to lower yourself in your own eyes to raise yourself in the eyes of your peers.
>People spending money they don't have on useless status signifiers just pisses me off. So irresponsible.
but... that's a lesson that needs to be learned through experience. Really, that's a big part of why I think the fact you can't get out of student loans the usual way is such a big problem; I mean, when I was that age, making my own stupid decisions, no bank would be idiotic to loan me hundreds of thousands of dollars. And if they were, I'd have ended up bankrupt and the bank would have had to take the hit, as they should, for making such a boneheaded loan.
>It's not fun to be in a situation where you have to lower yourself in your own eyes to raise yourself in the eyes of your peers.
That's exactly how I feel all of the time. If I am who I am around normal people, they get all insecure about their intelligence. Technical people tend to accept me and make me feel so at home it's amazing, but they're a very small minority of the population where I'm at compared to the non-tech savvy. I wish I could learn how to interface with normal people better without compromising my identity and interests.
I think I've been there. My advice? put more effort into finding more of the sort of people you want to be around. You might need to move, too, but moving alone won't do it. The key is to initiate relationships. It's better (well, better for you) to be loud and slightly annoying than to be so quiet you don't have a chance of initiating relationships with people you meet. (I mean, by all means, desist when people tell you to go away. But don't be afraid of embarrassing yourself by initiating a conversation with a stranger.)
The thing is, most nerds (and most of the people that nerds get along with) are kinda introverted. Introverted people tend to not initiate new relationships. If you wait around for other people to initiate relationships, you will only be able to choose among the extroverts that like you, so practice going out of your way to initiate contact with people you think you might get along with. You don't have to be an extrovert; but you do have to initiate conversations, extrovert-style, at least until you find your group.
Moving to an area with more of your target person type helps a lot, too. I mean, I meet all sorts of interesting people, for instance, waiting in line for BBQ. Living in a higher-density area gives you more people to meet, and some high density areas have more of us than others. I'm in silicon valley, which is medium density, but you can't swing a cat without hitting a programmer.
If you are like me, learning to better interface with 'normal people' won't solve the problem. In fact, I suspect the real problem is that I see 'normal people' and I see 'my people' - but I haven't been able to overcome that.
treating me like shit for actually getting a worthwhile degree that'll lead to a career that can pay the bills
People treat you like shit for your choice of major? Hasn't happened to me (engineer) but if anybody did this to me I would choose to spend time around different people.
A lot of people have looked down on me for it. Especially arts/liberal arts majors who have graduated and now make like...8-12K/year with their degree. They like to imply that they're the better person because they went to college for ~knowledge's sake~ or whatever. (Like I don't also love learning???)
Ah, got it. Sounds like a rationalization based on envy and resentment.
As in, their college experience isn't paying off financially, but they are better than you for pursuing pure love of knowledge rather than chasing the filthy dollar.
>The only thing ever discussed seems to be how job-ready you are at graduation time.
This is the opposite of what I saw before the recession. Maybe I am hanging out with wealthier people than you are? or maybe you are just too young to remember a time before the recession. I don't know. As far as I can tell, at least until the recession hit, considering how much money you'd make when you got out of college was considered extremely déclassé. College was all about finding yourself and becoming a better-educated person. Only the uneducated, uncouth hicks actually thought about money. How gauche!
Of course, now with the recession on, a whole lot more people find it impossible to pretend to not be poor, and actually taking steps to see to it that you can feed yourself later in life are gaining some social acceptance.
Personally, I'd say that I learned a very similar lesson to the barista when I bought a BMW during the first dot-com. You see, pretending to be rich is really expensive.