#struggling

STOP TELLING COLLEGE EDUCATED PEOPLE AND THOSE STILL IN COLLEGE WHAT TO STUDY!

I keep seeing people on Twitter, Facebook and other social media whining about college students who go to school for majors such as philosophy, gender studies, English Lit., fine arts or any other major they deem “useless” in the job market. And I don’t see anyone else combating these ignorant people. So I will…

I’ve noticed that a lot of these people are Trump supporters, the same people who keep lying to everyone about how America is the best country in the world and about how we have the most freedoms and blah, blah, blah. Well the fact is, we’re not. We let tax paying citizens starve and die because they can’t afford to feed themselves or their families on their full-time salaries and/or they’re mired in debt from medical expenses. There are even people like this man who can’t afford to retire or when they do, they’re forced to go back to work and can’t find decent work. I can already hear you Trump supporters and conservatives saying “oh, that’s his fault, he deserves that, he should have thought ahead!”  If that’s what you’re saying, watch this. It doesn’t matter if you have a well-paying job anymore and if you do “everything you’re supposed to do,” shit happens. You can spend your entire life saving money and all of a sudden, get into an accident that drains your savings because your insurance all of a sudden decides that they don’t want to cover your medical expenses for your hospital stay. You become screwed and there goes most of your savings. Suddenly, there’s barely enough money for you to retire with and you have to go back to work once you enter your senior years. The stock market also has an effect on people’s pensions and investments as well. If a company goes bankrupt, they can take their workers’ pensions down with them. There goes your retirement. Other first world countries don’t let this happen. 

Another thing that these people often claim is how free we are as a society. Yet, they are the ones trying to control what people do with their lives such as who to marry, what women can do with their bodies, which people are allowed to live in this country and how much responsibility the government has to it’s tax payers. They love touting the words of the founding fathers and talking about the constitution and other such documents without even knowing what these documents entail. For example…

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

For anyone who doesn’t know where this quote originates, it was written in the Declaration of Independence. 

“…that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness…”

Our declaration of Independence states that we, as American citizens have the right to pursue happiness. If a young adult wishes to pursue an education in a field that they are passionate about, be that gender studies or fine arts, do they not have that right? It is written in the Declaration of Independence, one of the most important documents in American history. As an American, it is un-American for anyone to question one’s right to pursue happiness if it does not cause harm to another human being and their right to pursue happiness. 

“…That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it,…”

We live in a nation whose government denies tax payers, the people who pay the government to keep us safe, healthcare. In other first-world countries such as those in Scandinavia, healthcare is a basic human right for their citizens. Why should any American citizen who has worked hard all their life have to suffer the rest of their retirement mired in medical debt? Why should any parent have to watch their child die because their job’s insurance refuses to cover their medical expenses? If our government isn’t taking care of working citizens, as the Declaration of Independence states, we have the right to alter the government to assure that it is working for us and not against us. Health care should be a right, not a privilege. We should have single-payer health care like the rest of the modern world. 

State and City colleges should also be free–just like they are in other developed countries. If a student is going to spend tens of thousands of dollars on their education, they should be able to study a field that they’re passionate about and have an acuity for. Another thing that most non-college educated people don’t know is that schools can only admit a certain amount of students per year, meaning that not everyone even gains admission into college. Going to college, for many people is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and is a privilege. Some people can’t even afford to go to college because it simply costs too much money.

For the people who might be saying “well, if it’s that difficult to attend college, wouldn’t you want to study in a field that’s in high demand so that you stand a better chance of getting a job when you graduate?” Well, it becomes a problem when too many people want to enter a certain field just because it’s in high demand. So many people apply for certain programs that wait-lists are created for the people that didn’t get in. I know someone who is currently on a wait-list for a medical program that trains students for a field that is in high demand. Not everyone can enter that field and not everyone is going to enter that field because they’re are just too little spots open for admissions. The job market then becomes saturated because of this and soon there won’t be any jobs left in that particular field because too many people have taken jobs in that field. 
Not everyone can be doctor, or an engineer, or a lawyer, or a scientist or any other high-paying college degree requiring position. 

WE NEED ARTISTS AND DESIGNERS

Question: Did you grow up reading picture books, comics or prose? Did those books not have illustrations or other art inside or on the cover? Who do you think created those images? Fine Arts and Illustration Majors. Or sometimes, these artists didn’t even attend college, they were self-taught and they made connections with writers–people who majored in Literature or other liberal arts. Illustration Majors and Graphic Designers also illustrate important and useful things like instruction manuals, signs, warning labels and visual aids for children and the disabled. Designers, people who attend art and design schools design literally everything around you; your house or apartment (architects and interior designers), your laptop (CAD drafters who work with engineers and Tech majors), the posters on your walls (Illustrators and Graphic Designers) your linens (textile designers), your clothes (fashion designers) the packaging for your food and all the items you buy (Illustrators and Graphic Designers as well), your game station, lotion containers, your car, your shoes (product designers). Where in the hell would our country be if we didn’t have artist and designers creating all of these things? Most engineers can’t even draw. They can’t build bridges if there’s no one to design them. Also, those Fine-Arts majors who create paintings and sculptures–these artworks don’t just create vibrant spaces out of boring plain rooms, they create an outlet for people to express themselves in non-violent ways and can be very therapeutic. If you have any art in your home or have ever visited an art museum or if you allow your child to draw at home or take art classes in school, you’re a hypocrite. 

WE NEED LIBERAL ARTISTS

Question: Do you enjoy reading books, watching educational programs or have you ever attended school at all? Your Language Arts teacher–the person who taught you how to read and write and your English teacher, the person who taught you how to analyze and understand texts better–was mostly likely an English major. A lot of Liberal Arts and History majors are also researchers who have discovered a lot of important historical information. These are the scholars who interview people about their experiences so we can learn more from our past so that we don’t repeat certain mistakes in the future. A lot of these people work with Film Majors so make documentaries and educational programming. If you think that there are too many young people studying Liberal Arts right now, just remember, older historians aren’t going to be around forever. We still need a new generation of educators, researchers and scholars in this field to create more of that content. Every day, people who study Liberal Arts are discovering new things. I know how much you people love people who go into Gender Studies. These are the people are breaking down gender norms and trying to create a society where both men and woman treat each other as equals by analyzing and breaking down harmful gender norms. (I know, the idea of this triggers you and you’re probably screaming that this is a load of BS and about how you hate feminists and more uniformed nonsense.)

WE NEED PHILOSOPHERS AND SOCIOLOGISTS

Philosophers and sociologists are the people who change the world and help inform politics. They change the way that we think about ourselves, each other and the world at large. They are the scholars who start revolutions. People such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Noam Chomsky studied such fields. I know how much you conservatives love to champion MLK Jr. as a bastion of conservative values. How do you feel knowing that while he was attending Morehouse College, he studied sociology, a field that you deem “useless”? He also studied theology, a field where you can only hope to become a pastor. He used his studies to inform his stance on human rights and equality and how we as Americans could achieve it. MLK Jr. is the first person that comes to everyone’s mind when we think about civil rights in America. And that’s right…he was a sociology major. Philosophy and Sociology teach us to open our minds, think freely and challenge many of the norms in our society and many people in this country who study these fields go on the help change laws, protest against injustice and make us ask ourselves if we are truly able to pursue happiness in our society–again, as long as it doesn’t bring harm to other people. Ask yourself: Would you have gone back and time and told Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. that studying Sociology was a waste of time and that he would never find a job with his degree? I don’t think so. You know who else studied philosophy in college? Bruce fucking Lee. Yeah, go back in time and tell him that was pointless as well. 

In conclusion…

If you’re going around on the internet telling people that they wasted their time studying any of these things in college–you have the right to do so but just think about how different the world would be if we didn’t have anyone studying these fields that you deem “useless.” No 20-year old who’s studying Gender Studies is going into your house every night taking food out of your child’s mouth or taking money out of your wallet. If they’re (we) are complaining that we can’t find jobs after we graduate, so are a bunch of Baby Boomers who can’t afford to retire because they ran into a financial snag or got screwed over by the company they worked for all their life. The job market sucks for a lot of people and guess what? It costs money to go to trade school. If you are truly tired of millennials complaining about not being able to find work, why don’t you tell us how you found work or if there’s any free or low-cost training programs that we could take for fields like plumbing, carpentry or any other trade? Stop bitching about our complaining and do something. Not everyone can do what you did to become successful or get as lucky as you did. 

Sincerely, 

An Illustration major who, if lucky, will be getting the chance to illustrate books and create cartoons alongside a Business Major that will teach children on how to start their own businesses. I currently am experiencing difficulties finding a decent job that actually requires a degree (preferably, an administrative assistant job) but I am stuck working part-time and doing deliveries for a restaurant. I live with my girlfriend in our own apartment (for those who want to call me a loser who’s stuck living at home). In the past, I have also worked as a media assistant for a non-profit (got laid off from that job), a teacher’s assistant (the job didn’t always pay on time and caused me to go into debt), an after-school teacher (also got laid off) and a group leader for an after-school program (I, along with 5 other people in the same year quit because the management and a lot of the kids in that program were terrible). 

P.S

IT’S NOT WHAT YOU STUDY IN COLLEGE THAT MATTERS, IT’S WHAT YOU DO WITH YOUR STUDIES WHEN YOUR GRADUATE. 

So I keep seeing my Facebook friends posting subjective statuses as if they’re objective about 2017 as if the things they’re posting about apply to everyone and I know that they don’t but still…I don’t think they understand that not everyone had the same year they did. 2017 might have been fantastic for some people but for others, it wasn’t. So, my 2017 was pretty terrible. How? Why?

1. Donald Trump’s Inauguration! Yet another reminder of how shitty this country can be. Congrats, America! You voted for a rapist who believes that Climate Change is a Chinese hoax, who wants to go to war with North Korea, is racist, hates Muslims, wants to make the poor poorer, the rich richer and wants to outsource more jobs to other countries than any other president and wants to build a wall that Mexicans can just fly over on a plane. Congratu-fucking-lations…

2. I lost 2 jobs! Funding for the arts has been getting cut so much because Republicans hold the majority of the house and senate that arts programs like the ones I work for don’t have enough funds to pay their employees. So, one of my jobs on 4 occasions since 2017 started couldn’t pay us on time. And I drained my savings account and nearly maxed out my credit cards trying to get to work and feed myself while I was working for this organization and I decided that it wasn’t worth it to go into so much debt anymore and I had to quit. The other arts organization I was working for laid me off without even telling me. So luckily, and I use that word lightly, I got a job at the community service program I was in while in high school which leads to my next one…

3. Got a new job and I hate it! Working over the summer at this place was a fucking nightmare. It was my first summer camp job. There was so much shit to do and know. I was managing a group of 6th graders and the guy I was working with was an insubordinate asshole who gave me an attitude whenever I asked him to do anything. He kept breaking rules, he would leave me to do all the planning for each day when we were supposed to be planning things together, he did inappropriate things with the kids and whenever I pulled him aside to talk to him about these things in private, he started raising his voice at me like he doesn’t know how to have a private conversation. I talked to my boss about him multiple times and she didn’t do much. He didn’t change. Oh, and he ever yelled at her once too. I was so stressed at this job that I had a panic attack after work and had to be taken to the hospital. And when I texted this guy to tell him that I wasn’t going to be in that day and told him where to find everything we needed for a field trip, he yet again gave me an attitude. What fucking human being hears from their co-worker that they had to go to the hospital for a panic attack and responds with “oh, that’s your job?” I was so fucking livid. And eventually, when one of the kids’ parents called to complain about him touching her daughter inappropriately, he quit. Wow, child molester in the making…fucking creep. So I still work at this place but with less hours because it’s just an after-school program now. The kids that I work with are the worst group of kids I have ever had to work with in my 7 years of working with kids. They make racist and homophobic comments all the time (try hearing these things when you’re black and gay), they start physical altercations with each other, they’re blatantly disrespectful to staff, one girl even called my co-worker/friend a racial slur. There’s not enough time in the day to get our work done and me and one of the other staff are always having to stay late to get things done and we don’t get paid for the extra hours that we stay. I really want to quit this job and I don’t wanna work with kids anymore. It’s grating on my mental health. If I can’t get a job in my field (animation, comics or other commercial arts) then I rather just work in an office somewhere as a data clerk because I spent 3 years in college doing that as a work-study job. But apparently, I’m not qualified to do that either. No one wants me to do anything other than working with kids. 

4. I’ve gone into more debt this year! Yay! $600 from going to the hospital for a panic attack, about $450 from credit card debt from my jobs not paying me on time and whatever interest I have accrued from my deferred student loans plus the $50K in loans that I owe. I’m trying to save up to move out because my living situation has become more crowded. I live in a 2 bedroom apartment with my girlfriend, mom, her boyfriend and my brother. My brother sleeps in the living room which is attached to the kitchen which means that when he goes to sleep, we can’t go out into the kitchen to get food or throw trash out and it’s really fucking annoying. Also, I have to share a bathroom with 4 other people and I have a disease (hypothyroidism) that causes gastro-intestinal issues and I’m also a girl so that means that often I can’t get into the bathroom when I really need to. My girlfriend and I applied for a low-income housing lottery and I really hope that we get called. I’m scraping by with what I make at my job and I have to help my mom with rent and bills and it’s just really difficult trying to pay any debt off and save money. Like wow, I live in a country where poor/low-income college grads may have to go on welfare to survive and can’t get a break with student loans and the fucking president wants to help out the rich people and screw the poor over more. Oh, and fuck Betsy Devos for wanting to make life harder for people like me. 

5. I lost one of my closest friends. I had a friend in college who I was very close to. She was always there for me when I needed her, she helped me with my assignments, we hung out with each other outside of school and we always confided in each other. I got to meet her family and even after graduation and she had to move back to Florida, we still kept in contact. She was supposed to come back to NYC with her mom but she was having some family issues and had to stay. I haven’t heard from her since 2016 in November. I’ve been trying to contact her ever since. I called, texted, e-mailed, I’ve messaged her brothers on Facebook with no response, I contacted her friend and asked if she’s heard from her and she hasn’t…I’m pretty worried. For all I know she could be dead or her family could have been deported since Trump has ramped up ICE’s tyranny. I miss the hell out of her. I just really want to hear her voice. If I had the money, I’d go to Florida and try to look her up. I was thinking of sending a letter to her address to see if anyone replies to it. 

Despite how terrible this year has been for me, here are are a couple of positive things that have come out of it. 

1. I made 3 years with my girlfriend and we’ve been talking about getting married in the future. Which means that when we have the money and our own place, we’ll most likely get engaged which I’m really excited for. We’ve been through a lot together, good and bad and we’ve always remained by each other. I feel like she’s the girl of my dreams; she’s everything that I want in a girl. She’s sweet, nerdy, affectionate, sensitive, open-minded, we have so much in common and we want the same things out of our relationship. We both want to move to California someday, travel, adopt kids, have pets and have the lives that we’ve always wanted for ourselves growing up. I hope that our relationship remains as great as it is now. 

2. I may, someday soon, actually get to live out my dream of being a filmmaker! When I was in high school, I was taking a comic book illustration class with Ivan Velez Jr. a former writer for Marvel and DC comics and ever since, we’ve remained in contact. A few months ago, he contacted me and some of his other former students and said that he wants to work on a film project with us and that he has connections with Netflix! I’m not going to get my hopes up because this is a really big chance and a lot of things can change or possibly go wrong but so far, it seems like things are going well. I can’t talk about what we’ve been planning but he has to speak to his Netflix connect and see if we can get funding for this project before anything else happens. But yeah, I’m super excited! He says that we might be able to start filming as soon as later this year if we get the funding. I already worked on a script for the short film I want to make and I have other things planned for this story as well. It’s funny, I was just ranting about how disappointed I am with some films I’ve been seeing and not too much later, he contacts me. So I’m hoping it works out!

So I hope that all my fellow struggling millennials and non-millennials have had a better 2017 than me and that your 2018 comes with more hopes and positive life changes. Hope everyone can take better care of themselves and keep fighting though things are really difficult and seem hopeless. 

Happy New Year!

Please reblog if you’ve had a tough year and let me know about it so we and all the other struggling millennials out there know that we’re not alone! 

hardcore-l0ving:

I literally don’t have facebook, twitter, or instagram does anyone know how else to go about getting verified on OF??