Can a 20 year old college student get something other than a McJob?

[Kamikaze]

Or am I forever destined to be enslaved by service industry jobs paying less than $10 an hour with no benefits?

[timdoodle]

1. What is your major?

[Kamikaze]

2. Going for Japanese

I've been working my way through very slowly, actually took the last year off to rethink what it was I wanted to learn in college. Now I've got it figured out.

[mrboba1]

5. Japanese sounds good

I'm hungry!
:P

[MadHound]

3. Well, if you're majoring in Japanese

Go for a UN translating job. Or a corporate translating job. Or hop over to Japan, and either teach or translate.

There are also several jobs out there that are paying above ten an hour that require a college degree-any college degree-you could try to go for one of those.

Or there is the refuge of grad school.

[jdonaldball]

4. If you get a good college degree

then you can be enslaved by service industry jobs paying MORE than ten dollars an hour with no benefits.

[Kamikaze]

6. What about getting a job in the present?

I'm tired of living in my mom's house. :(

[mrboba1]

7. how about roommates?

College students have a tough time getting a 'real job' - you have to so some real hunting.

Get some roomates to defray the cost of living and you can get outta the house!

[Nikia]

9. Factory job: heavy labor, rotating shifts

If that is an option in your area. That's what pays well around here for those without a college degree.
I don't know how good your Japanese is and if there is a demand for translation in your area. There were students in my area who were part time/on call translators.

[timdoodle]

8. Japanese Restaurant?

They are expensive and you get to wear a kimono.

on edit: sarcasm

[cash-money liberal]

10. nope

i'm also a college student and the best i can do is $10 an hour with no benefits. the way i see it, america has a two tier workforce with the top tier averaging about $45000 a year with benefits and the bottom tier having low wage jobs that offer no benefits. the only way to get into the top tier these days is to get a college degree. where i live (semi-rural virginia), the only reason to even graduate high school is college. a high school drop out can get the same job as a graduate so a lot of people quit to start working early. it's kind of sad if you ask me...

[MissMillie]

11. You're doomed, unless.....

you can learn how to tend bar.

Weekend bartenders can make some bucks.

[Ganja Ninja]

12. It could be worse and it probably will be ...

when they start up the draft next year. Be glad you don't have to contend with that yet. If you think the service industry is bad try having people shooting at you.

[timdoodle]

13. I am really thinking hard now

Japanese is a specialty, and very hard (three different alphabets and all) so I recommend you apply to be a paid TA in the language department.

[Kamikaze]

14. I live in suburbia from hell.

About all there can be found on a part/full time basis is the service jobs.

One option to make more money is temp jobs, since those generally pay $10/hr+ around here. But, they're temp jobs. I need a consistent source of income.

[mrboba1]

15. UPS or FedEx

facility?

[Kamikaze]

16. Plenty of those.

There are numerous office parks in my area. NUMEROUS. Thus, plenty of need for FedEx and UPS.

[Reverend_Smitty]

17. Are you looking for something for this summer

or do you want a job that will support you during the school year?

Because I have a problem finding meaningful summer work and due to my major I can't work during the year.

How close are you to graduation? Do you plan to go post-grad? You could probably get a TA position, especially with your major, some college's will pay your tuition and by the time you are finished you will have advanced degrees and won't have to be a slave to the service industry anymore.

[Kamikaze]

18. Looking for something to support myself.

I am in the very fortunate position that many of my over-privledged peers do not get to experience, mommy and daddy not giving their son a free ride. As such, financial aid is very hard to come by, given my mom makes 80k a year. :(

So, I need to get out of here and free myself of dependant status. Then maybe financial aid might be easier to come by.

I'm a light year from graduation at the moment. Considering I will be beginning my study of Japanese next month, I'm some distance away from being able to get a job that makes use of that knowledge.

[Reverend_Smitty]

19. You are stuck between a bit of a rock in a hard place

You want to get out and support yourself but you need a job that pays enough to do that. Unfortunately all the "good" jobs require a certain level of education. I feel for you brother! My best suggestion would be to get a job that is in some sort of union. I have friends that work for the post office, it pays decently (in the range of 12-15 an hour) and you get health insurance.

[Nikia]

28. Are your parents aware of the difficulty of your situation?

One of my coworkers has a daughter who lives with them after trying several times to support herself and go to college. The daughter cannot get financial aid because her parents make a decent amount and have a large retirement fund. Her parents feel that if she wants to go to college, she should do it on her own. The problem is that the only jobs that she can get that can be scheduled around her classes are service jobs paying low wages. To make enough on those jobs for food, rent, and tuition, she needs to work two of them for about 60 hours per week. She has had difficulty being able to pass her classes and make it to work so now she is back home, not attending classes, working at one even lower paying job. She's flunked out of two colleges and lost numberous part time jobs trying to do this. I think her parents will end up being out even more than if they had just paid her tuition to begin with.

[Kamikaze]

29. My mom is fully aware of the situation.

She is vigorously helping me to try to get me a decent enough job. I really don't think I'll be able to get through school in four years. If it just so happens that I have to cut down on classes to be able to make ends meet, that's what I'm going to have to do. I'm only attending community college right now, so the tution and fees are not too expensive right now.

Another problem lies in the fact she might lose her job soon. All the more reason to get me out on my own quickly.

[Mr.Green93]

20. painting or carpentry can be quite lucrative

[LoZoccolo]

21. Jobs at a college are usually OK.

I worked in the dorm cafeteria and the business library; those were pretty cool jobs. You get to work with a bunch of other students usually too.

[vpigrad]

22. It's not just college students...

Hell, almost no one can get an honest job now making than $10/hour. I've got a masters in engineering before you were born, and after two years of looking, my $7.50/hour job I have now is by far the best I've found. I made more money than that working part-time when Carter was president. After the repugs wrecked the world in the 80's and early 90's, I haven't made more than $10/hour.

[Crankie Avalon]

23. Dear Young American...

Dear Young American:

Howdy! George W. Bush (your President!), here. I'm glad I came across your thread, because it gives me a chance to discussify something very dear to me--ya see, I happen to have two daughters about your age, so I understandardize the problems facing the young people today, and I want to help.

You're in school ponderficating about the future and wonderin' "where will I fit in?" and "what will I do with my life?" Well, even I--your President--went through this sort of indecisionment. We all do. Back when I was no more than the tender age of my early forties, I emerged into the adultified world with some of the same questions y'all are asking yourself, now. I rememberate it as if it were yesterday...

Well, actually, I don't. To tell y'all the truth, I mostly just remember lots of worms at the bottom of tequila bottles, and thin lines of white powder, for some reason. Whooooooweeeeee!!!

But I digressify.

My deep compassionating about what y'all youngsters in today's schools are facin' is what led me to dream up the next phase of my educasional inertiative, “No Child Left Around.” No Child Left Around will take our kids out of all them failuring schools and put them in camoflowered school uniforms in places like Iraq...and maybe Iran...also that other place near Iraq--Syriaq, is it? Well, anyplace but Saudi Arabia, anyway (I got friends o’ the family, there). Ya see, our schools will finally be training our young uns for real jobs--good, working class jobs, with cool guns and stuff. Guns and jobs fer freedom. Yeppers. Anyway, look fer us to really roll that out once this “election” foolishness is over with and we can stop pussyfootin’ with just forcing veterans out of retirement and really git round to drafting kids out of them thar underachievering schools, already. Just remember, kids--y'all got a friend in the White House.

I think I'll leave y'all with this final thought--I believe it was the great inventor Consolidated Edison who said, "Genius is 1% perspiration and 99% respiration." Well, hopefully, as we leave school fer the last time, we'll all have what it takes to keep perspirationing and respiring our way right through life.

May God continue to bless the United States of America and no one else.

Sincerestly,

X

George W. Bush
President of the United States

[Kamikaze]

24. Oh Glorious Leader!

I knew your words of wisdom would soothe and reassure me. :D

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

25. Yes: acne. (nt)

[sangh0]

26. You could become a McSoldier

(ducking)

[Kamikaze]

27. Hey, it might happen against my will.

Draft and all.