A Generation Lost in Space: Overeducated and Underemployed in America from Nick Padiak on Vimeo.
A word from Amy Langdon:
"What do you do?"
While it seems like an easy enough question, those four words haunt me on a daily basis. And my answer changes just as often.
Sometimes I say, "I just finished grad school." (It's been three months but who's counting?)
If I'm feeling confident, it's "I'm a journalist." (A stretch...)
When at a bar, I lie -- "I work for the State Department, but I can't tell you anything else unless you have Top Secret Security Clearance." (Hey, it works.)
Whatever comes out of my mouth, my mind is saying, "I don't do anything." At least not anything relating to my new graduate degree or the hundred thousand dollars of debt that I'll shortly have to start paying back. What do I do?
The only consolation I have during this post-graduate state of limbo (other than beer) is the fact that I am not alone. I found this out during my final quarter of graduate study at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism.
My partner Nicholas and I were given 10 weeks to film and edit a short documentary. The topic could be anything we wanted. And being members of a generation of twenty-somethings obsessed with both ourselves and sharing our every emotion, we chose a subject matter that was constantly on our mind and about to become deeply personal -- the growing population of overeducated and underemployed young people in this country. In short, us at the end of the 10 weeks.
A word from Nicholas Padiak:
During and after my undergraduate years, I worked in numerous restaurants. I was always struck by the number of highly educated people in the service industry. At many restaurants, the question to the wait staff wasn't if they went to college; it was where they went and what they studied.
There is an entire generation of young people whose parents told them to just go to school and get a degree. This was the path to getting a job. Just get your degree -- it doesn't matter what you study. The degree was the important thing. Well, a huge group of that generation is now educated -- with the debt to show for it -- and unable to find work.
There aren't really statistics to back this up. Sure, you could look at unemployment levels, but that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about underemployment. People who can talk to you at length about literature, history, philosophy, theater and sociology while they serve you burgers.
We wanted to explore this generation and raise some questions. We wanted our film to generate discussion. What is the worth of a bachelor's degree in today's society? Is this overeducated and underemployed generation bitter? Angry? Apathetic? Lazy? Who are we when our tax return says "Waiter" but our soul says "Poet" or "Writer" or "Artist"?
The film looks at four individuals in various states of unemployment or underemployment and through these young people, we glimpse the reality of the situation. While some people are frustrated, others are hopeful. While some accept their situation, others make the best of it or try to break out of it. As for Amy and me, we're still deciding which side we're on.
But what do we do? We're bloggers for the Huffington Post. What do you do?
Father Guido Sarducci 5 minute University for 20 dollars.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kO8x8eoU3L4
In Washington state, laid off software engineers deliver pizza because their jobs have been sent offshore.
Since ’07, I’ve been an adjunct college instructor (“underemployedâ€), making about $10/hr. with no benefits.
I don’t know what students are thinking. I have one who says “I hate to read.†“What, the reading in this course?†“No, I hate to read anything.†I said what then do you expect here? She works as a drugstore checkout clerk and hates her job and thinks getting a degree (while hating to read) will improve her lot. I told her my story. Blank stare.
I can still remember the feeling of frustration: Living back in my parents' home, feeling that all of that effort to get that degree was for naught. I was depressed and miserable.
The big difference, though, was that few of us had college loans to repay. Schools, in particular state schools, were outrageously inexpensive by today's standards, but even my friends who went to private schools were not carrying huge debt.
Today we also have "overeducated" at the opposite end of the age scale: Those in the 50+ age bracket. Though this group does not have a high unemployment rate overall, they are overrepresented among the long-term unemployed. Unless you have a very specific, in-demand skill set, there is a good chance that someone laid off at 55, with a degree or two and decades of experience, will not be hired again. And we are considered "overqualified" for minimum wage jobs. Even retail jobs usually want someone with recent experience in retail. A recent college grad might have that recent experience; someone pushing 60 will not.
I know of families in which both a young college grad and one or both of the older parents are unemployed.
It's a miserable situation for everybody; that's for sure.
They might not even be considered as underemployed according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics if they are working full-time. "Underemployment" doesn't count people working at jobs beneath their skill or experience level; it only counts people working part-time vs. full-time.