Tag Archives: recession

Going to College During a Recession

by MouthyGirl

With the economy in bad shape and people out of work there are more and more people turning to the internet to find something to do there to make a living. For some, this is a successful endeavor with minimal overhead. For others this just isn’t going to work. Let’s face it, we’re not all cut out to do marketing, blogging, or make videos, some of us are best at the jobs available and needed in the real world.

For those of us that do well in a real world setting, being unemployed during a recession can be devastating or it can be an opportunity. What better time to earn a degree than now? If you do a little research you’ll see what kind of jobs will be around in the future, at least as long as your career might last, and obtain a degree in something enduring while the economy picks itself back up and begins to function normally again.

You can obtain a college education and devote time and energy to learning a new, enduring career field instead of sitting at home collecting unemployment scanning the job listings for what you used to do. This is the perfect time to discover the careers that will be around for the next 100 years and keep from trying to find a job that may not have as many slots to fill because of new technology and the evolution of how the world does business.

If you’re unemployed, or even if you’re not and you think you want a career change, the first thing you should do is fill out and submit a Free Application for Federal Student Aid.

Then you should start researching schools in your area and degree programs to find out which school will have the program of study that you will want to follow. Once you’ve picked a few schools that you’re seriously considering attending, log back into your Financial Aid application and ad those schools to where you want your financial aid information sent.

The next step is to apply for admission to the colleges you are considering. You can typically call the school admissions office and get information, sometimes you can get onto the school’s website and have them send you an information packet that gives you more information about their school and typically includes a catalog of classes and degree plans.

Until recently I’ve thought for a long time that web design is what I wanted to do with my time and energy, and a degree, now I’m not so sure. I find I’m a bit more interested in the creative side of things, the writing that you see and not so much the back end creation of a website. I’ve set MouthyGirl up and been running it problem free long enough that I think this is the extent of web construction knowledge I’ll need, at least for the time being.

I’m 30 now and realizing my time is short on this earth, I want to do something fulfilling. I’ve more research to do, but so do you if you want to go back to school.

So what do you think, is this a good time to go back to school? Are you interested in gonig back to school? What would you major in if given the opportunity?

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Wendy’s Weekly Take

by Wendy

One thing that this recession has done for me is make me lose my ambition to move up the corporate ladder, not out of laziness, but for the sake of self preservation. I’m willing to take on more responsibility as long as it doesn’t come with the “title”. I know it sounds crazy, but there is a method to my madness.

My organization handles billing problems for corporate clients. Since the economy has tanked, our customers have more billing problems (translate: job security). Honestly, there aren’t more billing problems, but our customers are hoping there are. I get to tell them “nope, no problem here” but it usually takes time to research.

Recently, my company announced that it was laying off 8000 employees by March. While I’m still somewhat worried, I’m not as worried as some folks in other parts of the company.

And then I got hit with a conundrum.

My manager approached me about interviewing for position that is a grade-level higher than mine. Now this is a newly “created” position that never existed before. I told him I didn’t want it. He was shocked. “Why?,” he asked.

I told him that in the position I have now; I have more peers to be compared to. If our positions ever come up for the chopping block, I would feel more secure of keeping my job (cause I’m dang good at my job). But with the “new” position, there would be only 3 other people to compare me to. That is too risky.

Our conversation went on, and I got the impression that interviewing for this position was not optional. I had to do it. I couldn’t tell him no, cause when there are a bazillion people out of work, you don’t want your boss thinkin’ he can probably find someone to do your job that is better at saying “yes.”

CRAP. I told him okay, I’d do it, but not with the joy in my voice and skip in my step he expected. And I interviewed.

But I made sure to emphasis my weakness and not elaborate on my strengths. I wonder if they agree with me when I say “opinionated” is a good quality. I’m sure that is a quality every hiring manager wants in their employees (or not). I hope that purposely accidentally bombing my interview doesn’t backfire. Just in case, I might need to brush up on my ass-kissing skills.

I really hope I don’t get the job. I’m sure that is the first time I EVER said that in my life. But I really don’t. I really hope that.

I would gladly do the job for them for free, without a promotion.

Now, I really can’t believe I just said that.

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