Reflection of a Reflection

I wrote a memoir earlier in the semester that I feel I did well on. This English class I was told to pick a topic and it would be my topic all semester. I have always hated when a teacher says that. Pick your own topic and just write on that. I usually get no guidance and it is just a free-for-all. It can get so frustrating trying to pick a topic. I decided to kind of challenge the system and write on choosing your own topic and why that is bad and needs to be changed in many teachers pedagogy. My professor and a curriculum setup that we would write 3 big pieces and then one big group project. The first option I had was “memoir or profile”. I wasn’t sure what to do. My professor told me that a profile wouldn’t really work and it would be a little difficult to do a memoir due to the self exploration. I took that as a challenge and did a memoir. It was an interesting experience. I usually sort of write about myself but not really in a memoir format. I did enjoy it and it wasn’t as hard to do as I thought it would be. Here is the memoir that I put together.

 

Growing up with a part-time father

                        I had just started 3^rd grade and I didn’t understand why my father couldn’t take me to school. Like most children, I wasn’t privy to the decisions of my parents. I wasn’t sure where my father was or what he was doing. My mother said he was working. But I knew that my father was a school teacher. I had been in his classroom, when I had been sick and he still had to work. I was confused why is this time was different. It was a tradition that he take me to school on my first day. His job had never kept him from taking me to the first day of school before.

My father taught French and German in Texas for 9 years at high school level. His schedule was pretty standard. And on the first day of school, he would take my sister and me to school and drop us off, well up until the 3^rd grade that is. My father also worked at a travel agent school on the side to make extra money, because we all know how much money teachers make. He was training a new class of agents when someone a corporation came over and asked him to go for an interview in Dallas, TX. He considered it and without mentioning it to my mother, for which she later gave him hell, he went to the interview to hear what they had to offer. He found out that it was for a company called Worldspan. They sold and maintained the software that travel agencies use to book flights and hotels. They had sat in on one of his travel classes and liked his approach and his style of teaching. They knew at that point they needed him on their team. He got the job as a trainer, teaching agencies how to use the software that their company just purchased from Worldspan. This meant that he had to do a lot of traveling. My mother did forgive him for doing all of this without speaking to her about it, and they both worked it out together.

As time went on, I saw less and less of my father. He was always on the road traveling for work. I really missed out on bonding opportunities with my father that every young boy should experience. I was put into an after school program, with my sister, every afternoon until my mother could get off work. My father would leave early Monday morning, and return late Friday night. I would really only see my father around 9am Saturday morning until about 7pm on Sunday evening. I would really only get 22 hours with my father, and a good chunk of that we were all sleeping. It was within this time he attempted to spend time with his family and I don’t remember much of these time periods. I can really only remember times in the middle of the week when I would have dinner with my mother and sister, sitting in the downstairs living room on our big, blue corduroy couch. Often, we would have pizza and crazy bread from Little Caesars. My mother would relax, watch TV and help us with our homework. My sister and I ate, did our homework and then just hung out as a family until bed time. My mother would make sure we brushed our teeth and tucked us both in, one at a time. She would sing both of us a lullaby from the door way.

Going to events were always the worst. We would go as a family, minus one. I then had to answer questions as to where my father was. I don’t know why people would ask me if I knew where he was. I just know that it felt judgmental. “Do you know where your father is?” as if to rub it in that he wasn’t there. I generally ignored it, but as time goes on and you are asked a question so many times, you start to wonder. Why was he not here? Where was he? Who or what drove him away for so long? I would ask my mother and always got the same answer to my question until about the 5^th grade. I still didn’t truly understand what he was doing until it came time for us to move.

I learned that we would be moving to Salt Lake City, UT in January of 1997 and we moved in February that year. It was at this point that the reason my father was gone a lot was truly explained to me. I was upset at first, as any 9 year old would have been. I didn’t want to move. I didn’t want to leave my friends and everything I knew behind. I wanted to stay. I wanted all of us to stay. My anger turned to fear, and then to something a little more open minded. I was afraid to move at such a young age. I didn’t know if I would make friends again. I didn’t know what to expect. Then I came to realize that it might not be so bad. I would make new friends and I would figure it all out as I went along. This is where I think my “go with the flow” attitude first appeared.

This became the motto for most of my adolescent life. I really never got super excited about anything, knowing that my parents wouldn’t put me into a situation that would do me any harm. I just let things happen. I, at the age of 10, basically lost all ambition in most things and waited for them to come to me. I gained weight and just sat around by myself, because my father was still traveling some and my mom was working, too. It also didn’t help that I lived across the street from my school so I didn’t need after school programs to watch after me. I just came home, did homework, and watched TV. It was like that for about a year.

It wasn’t until after that first year in Utah that my father really started to get involved in the life of his children. Everything had settled down, and we were set in our lives here. He was working from home some and he had time away from his work to spend time with us, but by then I had already been in the “unfocused” mood for a year. Finding something that I wanted to do with him was the hard part. I would just do whatever was presented to the family and just go with it.

Your early development is truly important to who you are to become and I missed out on some of that, because of my father being gone for work. I understand my father’s reasons for what he did, but I feel because of his decision, I didn’t get the bonding time that I needed in order to truly find myself. I am not blaming my father or claiming that I was a messed up kid because of this time in my life. I am a father now and I can truly understand what he did. The sacrifices that he made affected us all, though we didn’t know it at the time. That comes with being a parent.

We started doing more family activities and having more time with my father. We all took ice skating lessons, except my mother. My father was able to bond with us and give us both a hobby. My sister’s was figure skating and mine was hockey. He never missed a game. I could always hear him in the crowd over everyone else. I got my father back, and going through my teenage years I needed him, even though I didn’t want to admit it. I am just as stubborn as he is.

As time went on, I had more confidence in myself and started becoming less of a follower and was more apt to find my own way. I still have a hard time breaking that “go with the flow” attitude completely. I still have issues becoming a true leader and completely taking charge. It has definitely been easier since my father is in the picture more. I still have to be given direction from time to time, but now my father is usually the one that gives me that direction and guidance.

English 1010 Work Experience vs College Degreee

James McLarty

Mr. Jorgensen

English 1010

4/12/2014

College Degree vs Work Experience

Work or school is a question that most people ask themselves as soon as they graduate from high school. Society today has built a belief that having a college degree will make you a better candidate for a job than someone without a degree. Now how true is that really? There are too many people that feel this way. They aren’t taking a step back to look at the bigger picture. There is a time and place for college, and it isn’t always right after high school. Employers need to take that into consideration when looking for future employees. Work experience should carry more weight in the search for potential employees to fill a position. Don’t get me wrong, a degree is a great thing to have. I am currently attempting to get mine. However, the bigger picture needs to be considered in all things that we do.

Most of the time you see in job listings “Bachelors Degree Required”, and there is good reasoning behind it. It has been said that someone with a degree shows certain characteristics that a company would like to see in their employees. A degree can show a proven ability to analyze problems, conduct research and produce solutions, a proven ability to learn complex and difficult subject matter, proof they are motivated and have drive, proof of intelligence, better interpersonal skills, and more credible qualifications (reliableplant.com). While yes, these are great characteristics to look for in a future employee. We must also consider that the person applying could have proof of these characteristics even without a degree.

I do understand that there are just some jobs that will require a specific skill set, and a degree is the best way to show that you have the skill set needed. There are a few jobs that one would absolutely require a degree. Those jobs would be in the medical, and legal professions: doctors, lawyers, and many other specialized jobs. There are a number of jobs where the candidate doesn’t necessarily need a degree in order to do the job: cops, mechanics, and others that rely on more of what I see as more of a gut instinct that comes only from experience. They have walked the walk and talked the talk, so to speak. You need muscle memory and instincts to be able to perform the tasks at hand. While there is some education required for these jobs, it is, for the most part, in on the job training. It is education that can be obtained in vocational schools that does not earn you a college degree. This education is focused on the training you need to be able to do the job at hand.

The amount of job experience equal to a bachelors degree is anywhere between four to six years of work experience, depending on the choice of profession (Fairfax County, VA). Where a four year degree would be faster than just working we still need to give credit where it is deserved. We need to give credit to the people who had to stop going to school to be parents, or who didn’t have the money to go to school right away. These are the people for whom I am fighting. These are the people who need the recognition for the time and effort they have put into their careers. These are the people who are still working in the same job for five or even ten years before layoffs or cut backs leave them with no job in this rough job market. These are the people that need the recognition, but are not getting it.

I know there are some people who were just young and stupid and wanted to “live their life” instead of going to college. These people deserve a voice as well. I am actually one of these people. I did not want to go straight to college and just got caught up in doing what I wanted after high school. I can tell you though, that it has caught up with me. I am competing for jobs with people my age who continued their education and got a degree. They don’t have the work experience but are still getting the job instead of me, based solely on the fact that they have a degree.

I am currently working in a call center, where I am a supervisor. I was promoted from within, as well without a college degree. I wanted to see where my place of work stood on this question. I sat down with the HR supervisor at my work and spoke with her about work experience vs degree. I wanted to find out just how much does a college degree count when applying for a job in a call center?

I sat down with Teresa Renfro to discuss the importance of a college degree vs. work experience, as it pertains to the positions she is fills for Alorica Inc. I was pleased with her answers. I started with the fact that these are entry level positions and we, as a company, don’t get a large percentage of college graduates looking for a job in a call center. I did specifically ask that if she were looking at two applicants for the same entry level job: one with 4 year degree in communications, and the other with four years in the call center environment, which applicant would she choose. She surprised me when she replied, “We are looking for more work experience. There have been people that I have interviewed who have a college degree, but they don’t know how to answer our interview questions. They don’t have any experience working with customers, or know how to deal with frustrated or irate customers.”(Renfro) When you take the personal position that employers should give work experience more weight when deciding on candidates, and you hear this response to that question, it makes you feel like you are on the right path.

I almost ended my interview there. I had the answer I wanted. However, I followed up with a similar question, asking about filling an upper level management position or any job opening not at an entry level. She indicated in that situation, they are looking for the experience on top of the degree. She went on to summarize, “I think that a college education helps give you the tools to succeed in your field, but it doesn’t give you that firsthand experience that is needed.”(Renfro) I agree with her in that regard, and went on to inform her that is why I asked her for the interview. I am happy that my employer is giving work experience the credit it deserves.

There are definitely perks to having a college degree including better job retention, higher pay, and the tools that one will need to succeed. I am not trying to take anything away from that. Experience is the know how behind the tools. Here you can see the retention rates for people with degrees during the recession.

(Perez-Pena)

“Young adults have long faced a rough job market, but in the last recession and its aftermath, college graduates did not lose nearly as much ground as their less-educated peers, according to a new study.”(Perez-Pena) There are also wage benefits to having a college degree.

(U.S. Census Bureau). You must truly weigh your options when it comes to going to college. The hardest part of going to school is the financial aspect.

The average college student upon graduation is about $25,000 in debt with student loans. You must be able to start working immediately in order to start paying off that debt. Work experience will help you along in that matter. Just a degree will only get you so far, but if you add on work experience, you will be much more desirable to a prospective employer. Keep in mind you will need both if you truly wish to move up in this world.

You could say this is a pity piece, and I am just looking for a pat on the back for all of my own hard work. I would respond with the fact that there are more people without a degree than there are people with one. We aren’t the minority in this matter, but it seems that we are treated as such. Your average working Joe with a wife and kids at home they need to provide for, are a far more important a cause to fight for than convincing you that I have worked hard and deserve more credit. I don’t write this for me. I write it for the underdog.

As I showed in the interview with Teresa, there are some companies that are using work experience as there starting point for the jobs they are filling. I have also talked to my managers, and several of them have informed me that more and more companies are doing this as well. We are taking steps in the right direction. This just needs to be more of a standard practice among all companies across the United States.

There have been many attempts to integrate work experience into a degree. The downfall is there aren’t any accredited schools that will stake their reputation on work experience. Credited schools have to be able to say we taught and he/she passed our test. This requires you to attend the school and force you into a degree. I can understand that. People can falsify their work experience. It can be fabricated to seem as if you did more that you really did. That might even be the downfall of relying on work experience as a determining factor for a job interview. Employers counter this with background checks to determine if you are who you say you are and a good match for their company. Employers have the ability to determine what is true and not true. They can even deny you the job based on the fact that if you are not honest about your work experience what else will you lie about.

Some schools have attempted to give people the chance to work in their chosen field while going to school. It is called an internship. Internships exist in many different jobs fields in order to give a variety of students a chance to work in their chosen field and earn credit for it. This will get students closer to a degree as well as offering you real world experience. This also reinforces my point that work experience should carry more weight. If work experience becomes a part of the degree, why not just give plain work experience more weight as well.

There are many companies that are giving credit where credit is due. Colleges are offering more and more options to give their students real world experience. However, there are more employers that aren’t giving work experience the credit it deserves. Why should employers expect others to give their employees experience that is needed for the job? Work experience is proving its worth in the employment market. There needs to be a standard that allows work experience more weight in the hiring process. I cannot say how much weight or how we should go about standardizing this. I don’t have those answers. I am just hoping to get the ball rolling in a direction that makes the job market a little fairer for everyone. Let’s help the hard working Americans to move up and achieve their American Dream.

 

 

 

 

 

Work Cited

1. Fairfax County, VA, Equivalencies for Education and Experience. 2013. Web. 18 Feb  2014. <www.fairfaxcounty.gov/hr/equiv.htm>.
2. John Ha, Education vs. Experience: The debate, Reliable plant, Noria Corporation,  ND. Web. 18 Feb 2014. <www.reliableplant.com/Read/11307/education-vs-experience>.
3. Richard Perez-Pena, Benefits of College Degree in Recession Are Outlined Benefits Of College Degree in Recession Are Outlined, the New York Times, 9 Jan 2013, Print, 12 April 2014
4. Renfro, Teresa. Personal interview. 26 Feb. 2014.
5. U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey, Annual Social and Economic Supplements, accessed at <www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/data/historical/people/p16.xls>, on Sept. 9, 2010, Web. 12 April 2014.