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Words fail me (briefly).

The best thing to come out of this story is that Ms. Thompson has sent out a nice big red-flag warning to any potential employers not to touch her with a barge pole. After all, if she does this, you can pretty much guarantee she'll sue her employer the moment she gets passed over for a promotion (after all, she shows up for work most days and her last project wasn't a total disaster).

It might not be what they planned, but it is the reality of the job market. The huge expansion in higher education, along with widespread dumbing down of course material and grade inflation, has created a market where many apparently middling graduates just aren't going to have a chance at getting a job that genuinely requires graduate skills. A lot of students who 20 years ago would have been considered middling (but would have gone on to get graduate-level jobs) are now clustered around the top of the class.

At the same time, the self-esteem and all-must-have-prizes philosophies that now pervade much of education have convinced everybody that they deserve to walk right into their dream job, just because they've done nothing more than show up for class and turn in assignments most of the time. The entitlement mentality is right out on show in this story. I do a fair bit of recruitment for my employer and I see plenty more applicants who seem to feel the same way. They don't get very far.

There is an unfortunate side to this. A lot of teens and their parents are still duped into believing that a degree will still lead to a guaranteed "good" job. There's plenty of material out there to counter-act this view and show that in many (possibly even now a majority) of cases, it's a waste of time and money. Unfortunately, this usually gets dismissed as right wing ranting (which I will no doubt get accused of in the replies to this post). The other unfortunate side is that some employers with vacancies that could be filled by a bright high-school graduate seem to feel the need to advertise for a graduate just to "keep up with the Jonses", though I've noticed a slight reversal of this trend recently.

I'd advise Ms. Thompson that with her achievements and attitude, she needs to lower her expectations. She mentions McDonalds sneeringly, but the fact is that they have a general corporate policy of promoting most of their talent internally. If she is as capable as she thinks she is and went to work there with the intention of proving herself (and the attitude to match), she could have a perfectly reasonable career. The same is true of any number of other employers that she probably considers below her social status. Of course, she won't.

I really hope this chick loses the case, and gets saddled with a bunch of court costs to add to her student loans, that way nobody will ever try anything so stupid again. Three month job-hunt? In this economy? College education is no guarantee of a job, and if you can't sell yourself, you're going to be unemployed for a lot longer than that. Your college can't convince employers to give you a job, they can provide some contacts and resources to help you, but that's it.

Somehow, many students have the illusion that a degree will bring them to the top automagically. It doesn't work that way. Getting a degree is a good step forward... If they work hard in the university and actually learn. Then they will have to start 3 (or 5) years later in the job market, meaning they will lack many important skills no university teaches and therefor earn less. Even if they learn quickly it takes years to catch up (both in attractiveness on the job market and salary) with those that got into the same field without an university education.

This is true in most fields (including Engineering), but especially true in business administration and management.

The true value of the university education comes after a few years, because many companies have internal rules about giving priority to educated workers. Often there is a hard celing on how far you can get without a master, and it's not unusual for people to go back and get a MBA not only because they need the skills, but also because they need the diploma to continue their career. Some companies even pays for those MBA's to their management.

This is funny because just the other day I was talking with my mother, a director of hiring at a large telco, and she was talking about how the young people she brings in feel entitled.

I told her I agreed, then asked if I could borrow $25. When she said no I wrote the local paper exposing the BULLSHIT THAT THIS IS!

if you don't have any previous work history in a field. I'll freely admit I got both of my IT jobs by referrals from friends and acquaintances already working in the companies.

University/College studies are as much about networking as they are about learning. I spent most of my years in University in our student relaxing room playing boardgames and arguing with fellow students and faculty members. Now people who graduated years before me and have achieved higher positions in companies know me or are my friends and have a good understanding on how I fit in teams/groups. And since we mostly argued about our studies at hand they know that even though my grades weren't top notch I knew my stuff.

Of course this doesn't work at all if you're an asshole. You have to stand out somehow, but red flagging yourself for good by suing your school for your own failures is about the worst thing you could possibly do.

If she's so motivated to sue someone because "she doesn't get what she wants," why doesn't she use her business degree and start her own business. Find a niche and go with it. It will be more rewarding. The downside, based upon her attitude, is that the only person she could blame then is herself. Unless she sues the customers of the world for not buying her product/service.

Maybe next time they'll think before running a subject called "How to sue people for profit"

For not teaching her about how stupid it is to file frivolous lawsuits.

If advertising didn't work, there wouldn't be so much of it.

Universities in .au, probably elsewhere as well, have been selling themselves increasingly for their job training and less for the concept of a liberal education for decades now.

Only a few go to university now to be simply educated, most are going to uni To Get A Job: it is an almost compulsory step between high school and any professional job. And most technical jobs. I wonder sometimes when more universities will go into more trade training, trying to steal business from technical schools. (As opposed to places like RMIT and Swinburn going the other way: technical colleges who became universities.)

And so, when university is sold as something which will get you a job, these expectations are built. Reasonably or not. (In my opinion, not.) But the trend is there, nonetheless.

A University education has gone from something needed for certain jobs, to something needed for certain classes of work, to a sine-qua-non of employment in entire sections of the workforce. And the universities have been competing with each other to advertise how good they are at giving an education which improves the student's chances of getting a job â" a good job, a desirable job â" advertising which might give the impression that such a job is practically guaranteed: that you go to this uni or that one not because of the education you get, but because of the job you are all but promised to walk into when you graduate. (Before you graduate, even, with graduate placements and the like.)

Personally, I think the uni sector would be better off selling the quality of the education itself, rather than expectations of the utilitarian results.

But I only work for a university, and as professional staff at that, so there is no hope that my opinion carries the slightest weight whatsoever.

You had a 2.7 GPA, with a "bachelor of business administration degree in information technology", and a "solid attendance record".

Okay, Trina, you've probably never heard this before, but I'll be frank. Those people with 4.0 GPAs are all probably much smarter than you are. If you had, say, a 3.5 GPA (and perhaps a more serious degree), that might not be the case. It makes sense for people to give them preferential treatment when it comes to employment in jobs that require intelligence and skills specific to their fields.

Considering that you're so lacking in integrity and responsibility that you decided to sue the school because you couldn't find an employer, I'll go out on a limb and say that those people are --in all honesty-- better than you. Had you not responded with such a childish action, I might hesitate to say that. Alas, that is not the case.

If you're unhappy with this, too bad. You can try harder, but now that you've made an ass out of yourself on national news, I don't think you'll convince anyone otherwise.

Now, try not to go get pregnant a dozen times.

So, let me get this straight. A graduate from a [insert random no-name college here] obtains a [rather generic, non-specific] degree in "IT", and automagically expects to be hired in 3 months or less?

Forget economy or GPA for a second, what the hell ever happened to getting your damn feet wet in IT outside of a fucking classroom?

You want someone to hire you? Drop the ego and intern for a short while. Find out how good you are in the real world before you start assuming a piece of paper is your automagic meal ticket. Might also want to pick up a newspaper every now and then to see how long it's taking the average job with experience to land a job.

--Reelin' In the Years by Steely Dan

Just found this article [theskichannel.com] in which the "Ski Channel" is going to offer her a job:

"Either Ms Thompson is a cunning out of the box thinker and we want her," said Bellamy, "or she isn't, and her position would not last long. Either way, the law suit would no longer be clogging up the courts because there are now no damages."

Whenever I read a headline like this I think to myself, "Alright, some jackass is trying to get a bunch of attention. Surely there must be more to this story."
 

Imagine my surprise when I realized that, no, the title is 100% accurate. Amazing.