Wednesday, August 12, 2009

my degrees make me important... i hope?

Monday, February 05, 2007

One more thing I am sick and tired of... the title "young professional - blah -" for get-togethers and other events where nothing 'professional' is happening at these so called YP events at all... 'Young professional happy hour' and 'young professional networking event', so on and so forth when really, grad students and grads with white collar jobs are just getting together to shake rumps and get drunk with each other. Isn't there something better we can be doing with ourselves? Social impact? Activism? How is it that so-called YPs are donned this title of "productive member of society" and yet all YPs do is tout their self-importance and talk about about the 'state of the world today'? Where are the YP philanthropists? For all the buddies of mine with thousand dollar purses and expensive fully loaded vehicles, what are they doing to change the world for all of mankind? The false sense of elitism that people tend to have when they label themselves YPs and go to these types of YP events is odd and quite disturbing. Not to mention the belief of entitlement... So because you spent 10 years getting all these degrees, you believe you deserve some higher status or greater place in society over someone your age who has 10 years of work experience? I am getting tired of the same 'where did you go to school and what are you doing now' crowd. Where is the construction worker who plans on starting his own contracting business? or the mechanic who can explain to me why my car purrs the way it does? Or the former coal miner who understands the science behind carbon filtration in a practical sense? Where is the electrician dammit? I refuse to believe that everyone I run into should be a physician, engineer, lawyer or therapist... None of us know how to do anything with our hands... we contract out life and constantly attempt to create a false sense of self-importance with this absurd accumulation of degree upon degree upon degree. My self-worth is not to be evaluated by my post-secondary degrees. Not that I don't admire the hard work people put into their educational attainments... I mean, I have worked my butt off in school... But I know that school isn't for everyone, and I don't need a PhD in Fluffologystometrics to be a functional member of society. So for this coming year, one more thing on my to-do list is to learn how to do something tangible and physical in scope. Maybe I'll learn how to fix AC units or learn how to tune up my own car. yes dammit... that's the plan.

No comments: