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I Miss The Old Days
My oldest daughter still lives with us. Though she has a doctorate in Musical Arts, she struggles to make a living. She’s a the assistant director of a local and successful children’s choir, directs the music program at a local church and has a small platoon of private students, all this while juggling a plethora of gigs and auditions. We figured out the other day that — accounting for time spent in meetings, music selection, and preparation — she’s not making even $10/hour in her directing jobs. That was a sobering realization given how hard she works. Recently, a new job came up: music director for a 50 voice choir at a large retirement community. They meet twice a week for one hour, and perform six times a year. She will likely take it if she can squeeze it into her schedule.
I provide this biography as something of a backdrop. All of her friends — smart and successful academically, most with graduate degrees — are struggling to get started in life. Some are married. Some are living with a would-be spouse, but remain uncommitted. Only a few have children. This weekend, there was a party for one such friend, a nice young man, a counsellor with an MS who works on the reservation as a psychologist. He’s the only counsellor in the federally-funded tribal health center. My daughter says it is a very sad and stressful job, though he doesn’t talk about it much. But now he’s moving to Atlanta! His live in girlfriend is entering a PhD program at Emory. He’s going to work in private practice.
This young man is of Indian descent, not American Indian, but Asian Indian. The irony of this was something that was never mentioned on the reservation, at least not in his presence. It was not lost on me though, so when my daughter was discussing his going-way party and the need for a gift, something to remind her friend of his AZ roots (he was born here) I suggested a cowboy hat. Reservation Indians love a good straw Stetson or a Resistol; it’s a status thing. So we went to the local Sabas in downtown Chandler and bought the young man a straw Stetson, the Cattleman style popular on the reservation.
Before she headed off to her church job on Sunday, I asked her how the party went. The hat, she said, not only fit perfectly (we guessed on the size) but was a huge hit. Everyone at the party wanted to wear it and her friend was very pleased. Then, I asked her if she had a good time. With this question I saw her face relax as a frown developed. The boyfriend of another friend, a young man who knows of my daughter is Christian and of a conservative bend, tried to turn the hat into political symbol of some kind, a representation of Indian repression and white racism. The fact that the recipient was the wrong kind of Indian made no difference; this gift was just more evidence of white ignorance and thoughtlessness. The young man making this point was, of course, white.
I’d like to say that my daughter emasculated this jerk with the torrent of logical lucidity expected of a doctor of the arts, but she didn’t. She tried — as I’m sure everyone else at the party did, and often must when this guy is present — to ignore him. But he’d built his speaker’s corner box and he wanted to lecture, which he did until he realized that no one wanted to listen.
But the waves of party fun were flattened by this scold.
Back in the day, jerks like this would be told to shut up or leave, in hopes that they would keep talking. The days of that kind of satisfaction are over.
I sure miss those days.
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Haha! Alas, IQ points ≠ wisdom.
Definitely agreed on that.
True, and to be fair, I’m not criticizing anyone for their branchings and turnings, just trying to answer Misthio’s apparent misunderstanding re the title and the subject.
I was thinking of bachelor degrees by themselves, that don’t require going on to additional schools.
Just paid the tuition bill for Boy #2 who is starting his Junior year in Engineering @ the U of MD. They enclosed a “gift” of a phased in 50% increased in tuition this semester, however it only effects the schools of Engineering, Business, and Computer science.
So I guess that the school administration agrees that the remaining curricula in the “arts” not really worth it if they can only boost the rate hike on those three colleges.
The market speaks with a heavy hand…
I am living proof of that :)
In my songwriting seminars, I warn the amateur writers about how writing for the commercial marketplace is far more limiting than writing for the love of it. Once a client enters the picture, you are writing to please the client – not yourself.
Not all of them.
Have you watched a bunch of little (or even not so little) girls fighting lately? I’ve always thought that’s why the term “catfight” is not associated (at least in my mind) with men, and I’ve never understood why a reluctance to fight, or a wimpishness about it is associated more with girls than with boys.
@dougkimball, your post is very reminiscent of the lives of my stepdaughter and her friends, fifteen or so years ago. Many of them have degrees in music, theater, and other arts-related fields, and what you describe as your daughter’s life is a lot like many of theirs. “Gigs” here and there, and multiple short-term or part-time jobs to make ends meet.
Most of them did end up finding steady, full-time work. Those who were lucky found either a job that mirrored their interests so they could do what they love all day. Some work in different fields, but in jobs that have enough of ‘what they like’ in them to make them palatable. And unfortunately, a few just gave up their first love just to find a ‘job’ to keep body and soul together. Whether they’ll ever get back to their passion, other than as a sideline, or volunteer effort, is debatable.
But there is a future, and I hope your daughter’s path leads to a full-time job she loves.
(After many life adventures of all sorts, my stepdaughter is working at a university, in the IT department, collaborating with instructors to put their course content online. This scratches her itch for some artistic design and freedom, her skills as a writer and researcher, and her love of teaching. What she produces is, actually, stunning. It’s nothing close to what her degree was in, but she loves it.)
Those days are over only because people no longer have the cojones to put jerks in their places.
A lot of people don’t. Like Dorothy and her ruby shoes, we long for what is already here. As you said it takes courage. I would say given the situation, to engage him would be to meet on his terms. A Christian can take him aside, let him know it isn’t the time or place, ask him to button up or leave. As with all SJWs it is about them.
It’s not a matter of cojones. Punch someone and you’ll be charged with assault and then sued in civil court. The police don’t take the boys will be boys attitude any more. It’s like drinking and driving. There was a time when the local constable would take your keys, park your car and drive you home to your wife. Now you get frog-walked to jail, lose your license and spend the next several weekends in prison, if you are lucky. The same for fighting. The jerks press charges. The system treats you like a street thug. You lose.
For me graduate school was about a 75% waste of time, while simultaneously a necessary one to obtain a piece of paper to allow professional licensure. In architecture, one connot become licensed until you have an accredited degree, and most schools operate such that a Bachelors is not an accredited degree, only a masters is (although some schools do offer a 5-year accredited undergraduate).
I had learned a lot in undergraduate – but part of that was because I did a dual-degree in architecture & civil engineering. But by the time I was in graduate school, I found myself being taught “architecture” by professors who had either just recently graduated themselves, or else had spent their entire lifetime in academia (with a few exceptions, of course). Any useful architecture learning at that point was occuring almost entirely at the architecture firm I was working at part-time. Graduate school was just a very expensive distraction.
Since we are referring solely to remuneration here, I would add degrees in Education. Rather than a four-year intelligence test, it may be a four-year indenture leading to apprenticeship then to tenure. Despite the complaints of low pay for beginning teachers, compared to the (lack of) jobs available to other degrees (excepting the three areas listed in the OP), teaching is remunerative.
More generally, I would say before pursuing a graduate degree of any kind, be sure that it is valued/used in ‘industry’ rather than in academia. A young married couple I know both have doctorates in polymer science and engineering, degrees valued by chemical companies. Not coincidentally, that degree is often one that will pay you (a pittance, still …) while you obtain it.
I was talking to a young man recently about his college career. He is a 4th year student in some kind of technology / engineering. I don’t remember which. He is pondering going for a Masters because his profs are doing some “really interesting” research on some “really cool” tech. I told him to skip grad and get to work. He would end up doing the grunt work for the profs, they get the credit and he gets a huge bill for tuition. If he really wants to do research and development go into the R/D department of a company. They pay for research and he might even end up with a patent or two.
Indeed.
I too miss the good old days. I vaguely remember some of Jim Crow. That was a bad part of the good old days, and no one I know would return to it.
Some of the things I miss:
This election cycle has thrown me into regular nostalgic reveries about the good old days. They weren’t perfect, but they were way better than today.
I’d definitely add Education to the list of jobs that pay money. Also with the job security and time off, when you break it down by hour it pays quite well.
A few years back someone broke things down just as you said, but also included benefits. Best paid professions per hour worked were doctor, then lawyer, then public school teacher.
If it’s any consolation, your daughter is in good company. Most of the great musicians of the past had to string different jobs together to make ends meet. Mozart and Wagner had serious debt problems, Bach was responsible for music in multiple churches besides his teaching work, Clara Schumann (after Robert’s death) had to perform constantly to provide for their seven kids. Very few were as fortunate as Brahms, who got famous young, commanded top dollar for his work, and lived as a frugal bachelor.
It might have been the book Education Myths by Jay P. Greene.
I believe it. Teachers have a lobby like no other, and they own an entire political party. No matter how much money we dump into the system, they never stop complaining that they’re underpaid.
If you really want to see the teacher lobby bristle, point out that they have a part-time job.
I have.
Master’s degrees have the best ROI.
Its tough, because overall they don’t make a lot of money, but they get about 2 months off a year. So even though, on average they do get paid well, it varies by state, they are always comparing their salary to what others take a full year to earn.
I remember in the book, Greene pointed out that teachers, on average, on an hourly basis, make more than cops.
And yes, the study he used counted all the extra work teachers have to do outside of normal classroom hours.
Yes, but remember they are unarmed when they have to deal with the hoodlums. ;-)
Yeah.
My daughter, who currently lives at home, took a BS in biology with a minor in chemistry, which did not prepare her for what she eventually wanted to do. So she ended up taking three years instead of two for her Masters in Speech/Language Pathology. She incurred extensive student loan debt along the way.
She is working hard during her fellowship year before she gets her full license, putting in very long hours. But she is doing something she loves and will eventually be able to pay off her loans and make a living.
“George, what you just said is ridiculous. It shows no understanding of reality, offends most everyone in the room, and serves only to gratify your liberal neurosis. Most of us have better things to do with our time than to ascribe absurd hidden motives to innocent behavior. Now do us all a favor and let us enjoy this party, will ya?”
Practice and repeat.