Ms. Foor’s mother left the family when she was 4. Her father, Michael Foor, dropped out of college at the Altoona campus of Penn State to raise her and her older brother.
He moved to Breezewood, Pa., a turnpike town near Maryland and West Virginia, where he worked as a waiter and cashier, or took odd jobs. Sometimes he turned to welfare and unemployment, food stamps and food banks. Ms. Foor pitched in, starting at the age of 14, working at Dunkin’ Donuts and McDonald’s.
“I saw the middle-aged people working there and I thought, ‘If I don’t go to college, that’s going to be me,’” she said.
“I don’t think how I grew up is necessarily a bad thing,” she continued. “It taught me the value of a dollar and what it means to work hard and I never look down on another person. But college is the light at the end of the tunnel that will make everything OK.”
Well, OK, could work.
“College is the light at the end of the tunnel,” said Rachel Foor, a senior at I.U.P. pursuing journalism.
Ah, maybe not. An industry that’s just halved its workforce over the past decade might not be that graduate way out…..
“In order to save money, the light at the end of the tunnel has been turned off.”
So what to study to enter a job-rich environment with prospects? Obviously STEM if you have the aptitude. What about for people-people rather than thing-people or tech-people? Don’t say HR, though sadly that might be the pragmatic choice currently.
Journalism is the entry qualification for PR, no?
This is Trump’s fault.
It’s sad because the girl has had a tough upbringing and appears to possess a work ethic. Unfortunately her photo shows that she is white and nowhere near obese enough to merit any intersectional points. Her career prospects are therefore minimal and she will be saddled with a huge debt.
Although Biden/Harris intermittently talk about writing off tuition fee debts their handlers know that the student vote is already rock solid so the giveaways will probably be directed elsewhere.
‘“I don’t think how I grew up is necessarily a bad thing,” she continued.’
I bristle at the subjective qualification of an upbringing as ‘bad.’ Her upbringing was vastly better than all humanity that preceded her. She lived better than Caesar.
Rather than waste her prime years studying journalism why didn’t she hunt down her mother and shoot her?
Study, at VAST cost, for a qualification in an industry where people cannot even get jobs working for nothing and where nepotism is probably your best bet of landing a position.
Meanwhile, in other areas, the West has to import tens of thousands from elsewhere to meet demand.
Not sure if young people are just stupid or criminally misled. Probably both.
It will be a very useful qualification in a few years. When the Ministry of Truth of the Supreme Leader of the United States of Chimerica needs more people to supervise the fifty cent army.
Good point, BiG. Even Big Brother needs to get the people on his side.
Tractor Gent,
“So what to study to enter a job-rich environment with prospects? Obviously STEM if you have the aptitude. What about for people-people rather than thing-people or tech-people? Don’t say HR, though sadly that might be the pragmatic choice currently.”
Nothing. Go to work, get a job. Build experience. In 3 years of work, you’ll be ahead of the graduates and not have £30K in debt.
There are 3 reasons to get degrees:-
1) particular job skills. people want vets to be qualified, so you need that
2) corporate nonsense. some companies insist on degrees, as some sort of pointless elite BS (not as many as you might think, though).
3) you’re interested in the subject to a very deep level
If you aren’t doing a degree for 1) or maybe 2), you are wasting your time and money. The tools and knowledge about how to write software or make films are in books and online courses and if you spend more than £1000, you are probably overdoing it.
If everybody is under constant surveilance, you need three quarters of the population employed as sneaks assuming 8-hour shifts.
Disagree, BoM4. My kid is smarter for having gotten degrees (3). Smarter is a better way to go through life.
A third rate degree at a second rate college is criminal. Her professors should be charged.
Most journalism courses aren’t even journalism anyway. They are the less than worthless Cultural Studies.
She could go to a good welding program at community college or through the union, plenty of financial aid available, be done and qualified in a year if she works hard, and be making $50k a year all-found and all the overtime she wants in the oil patch. A degree in journalism from I.U.P. is a fast track to poverty and debt and the people who sold her on this as a good idea should be horsewhipped.
llater,
llamas