Chapter 19 Part Three: Classic Mistakes: College Students' Employment Neurosis

Teacher Xu: Reading your "Tuqiong Dialogue", I shed tears at every turn, sometimes because of the torch of hope you lit, and sometimes because of the desperate situation of the downcast.Sometimes you give me great enthusiasm, and sometimes you remind me that I am at the tip of the iceberg. I am now a junior, majoring in human resources.I just came back from New Oriental, where the 20-day GRE training not only gave me English, but also confused me.I don't know how to take my next step.I was unwilling to work directly after graduation, and the employment situation was not good, so I initially planned to take a postgraduate study in economics or management. It is said that a postgraduate student from a well-known school is very promising to go abroad.

The problem is that I think it is as difficult to get a graduate student from Guanghua School of Management of Peking University as it is to apply for studying abroad, so I am going to go abroad now.Even if I don't know how to ask a decent question, you don't blame me, do you? Teacher Xu, not only am I confused, but so are the students around me.It's just that when I went to New Oriental, there was another weight in my heart, which made me even more at a loss.Do you think I should take the postgraduate entrance examination?If so, which major and which school is more conducive to going abroad?

I don't want to straddle too many majors, it should be economics or management.Is it feasible to take the GMAT after working for a few years?The problem is that I may not have millions of tuition fees by then.Or prepare to take the GRE test in October now, and start applying with all your heart?Give me an idea, students are being polite here. Wen Luan Dear Wen Luan: Your confusion is the confusion of an era, so I want to write to you to let you get out of this confusion.According to the logic in your letter, it seems that after graduating from college students, it is only natural to go abroad or take a postgraduate entrance examination.As for such a major issue of employment after graduation, I vetoed it with one sentence: "I am unwilling to work directly after graduation, and the employment situation is not good."

Let me ask you a question: Is it because of the "unfavorable employment situation" that you want to go abroad or take the postgraduate entrance examination, or is it because you are "unwilling" to work because you have not studied abroad and studied for graduate school? If it is only because of "the employment situation is not good", why not create conditions to find employment opportunities?Employment, looking for your future in the professional field (including dual development of education and career), is the main way out for applied majors like you after graduation, even the only way out.Regardless of China or the United States, people's pursuit of this is the same.As a college student majoring in human resource management, you are a human resource that is in short supply in Chinese society.The theory and practice of China's human resources are very backward, and it is a good stage for you to learn and excel.It is undoubtedly a major strategic mistake to abandon this stage and talk about studying abroad and postgraduate entrance examinations.

Apply what you have learned.The most important goal in your life is to strive for career development in human resources after graduation.If you give up on this most important life goal—that is, career goal—just because it’s not as easy to get as a fish in a jar, or deliberately avoid it, this kind of thinking is the thinking of a loser, and I don’t agree with it. Having said that, if it is really because of the "unfavorable employment situation" that you continue to study in school, it is an acceptable reason.This is also a reasonable choice in Western society.But the core of the problem is: if a Westerner encounters a bad employment situation and studies, he must study the major that can change his "employment status" and ensure that he can find a job after graduation.He will definitely not study for a degree, and it is even less likely that he will study for a degree due to family and social pressure.Otherwise, from unemployment to unemployment, directly perish.

I read a story on "McLean", the largest news magazine in Canada: a college student with two bachelor's degrees from McGill University (McGill), the best in Canada, sociology and anthropology. He pays attention to "society" and loves "human beings", but "human society" almost abandons him.People in their thirties couldn't find a job and had no food to eat, so they had to go back to a community college to study a junior college in auto repair.He said: If I knew it was like this, why bother.The deeper the knowledge, the poorer you are, and the more degrees you have, the more reactionary (I added the last sentence)!

The moral of this story is this: No matter what major you study or what degree you pursue, I have no objection.The only thing I object to is the kind of struggling thinking that blindly pursues degrees and knowledge without considering employment prospects. Unfortunately, your letter perfectly captures the very line of thinking that I object to.In your psychological structure of struggle, you have omitted the employment-centered orientation that I advocate the most, and expressed the kind of degree for the sake of a degree, the desire to study abroad for the sake of going abroad, and the desire to study abroad that I am most opposed to.Your psychological structure is a classic wrong employment psychological structure of Chinese college students.This psychological structure is one of the reasons why a large number of Chinese college students cannot find jobs after graduation.The confusion and lag of college students in terms of employment psychology, employment concept, job-seeking skills and employment culture are one of the fundamental problems of college students' employment difficulties.

You can say that we do not have a sense of employment center, which is caused by the education system.I agree with this charge.And my role is precisely to warn our young people that it is useless to blame the lack of personal ability caused by the environment and history.The only way is to realize your own shortcomings and rise up to change your destiny.Don't you see, thousands of sails pass by the side of the sinking boat, and Wan Muchun is in front of the sick tree.Even today, when it is said that it is difficult for college students to find employment, how many outstanding young people have abandoned the troubles of yesterday, grasped the opportunities of tomorrow, found the channel of their own development, and obtained the position of fighting with all their strength.

As a college student majoring in human resources management, you don’t know how to manage your own “human resources”, how to sell and sell your own “human resources”, how to develop and tap your own precious “resources”, this is really a Chinese university. What a failure of education! Your mentality is not commensurate with the rapidly developing labor market and ever-changing employment needs in Chinese society.It is so backward, so unadapted to the situation, and against the times, it is simply a disease of the times.The disease of this era was just discovered by me, so I haven't had time to name it. Originally, I wanted to use the tradition of the scientific community to name viruses and diseases after the discoverers, and call it "Xu Xiaoping Synthesis". Syndrome"—but I am afraid that my old mother will not understand and object, so let me call it "college employment neurological disorder"!

Employment neurosis: The pursuit of life does not take career development as the ultimate goal, but degrees, knowledge, and going abroad as the ultimate value.It is difficult to earn a living after obtaining a degree. The purpose of my letter to you is to reverse this wrong educational philosophy and values ​​that have hindered many people, change this wrong psychological structure, and treat this employment neurosis. Your best life choice is to start boldly looking for work first, and spend a few years in the professional field with your arms free.Go abroad for your MBA after accumulating specific experience.At that time, depending on the specific circumstances, it might be possible to study in China.China has local schools like Guanghua School of Management, joint venture schools like China Europe School of Management, and purely foreign programs run by foreign universities in China that will become more and more common.Your educational options will be endless.

This is the best way for an applied talent like you (as opposed to scientific research and academics) to develop in life.Those who are eager to go abroad without experience, many of them have fallen into a historically tragic dilemma abroad: returning home?I am unwilling to find a good job without experience; stay?There is no good fruit in the United States and Canada without experience.A generation of wanderers in the field of studying abroad has been wandering on the sea level for a long time.What they have in common is that they went abroad in a hurry without work experience, and rushed to the United States without any sense of employment.Obtaining a master's degree or a doctorate degree with zero experience, whether high or low, has lost the best job opportunities and the best mentality on both sides of the ocean. A small question: Who said that one million RMB must be required to study an MBA abroad?If a teacher from New Oriental said it, I would sue the management to deduct his salary.In fact, except for a few top business schools in the world (these business schools are not read by people after all, but—to borrow the words of New Oriental’s famous GRE teacher Yang Ji—by big animals) , the vast majority of MBAs can solve the problem with as little as ten or two hundred thousand yuan a year.In developed countries, MBAs can be obtained in at most two years, and many can be obtained in only one year. In this way, after you go abroad to finish your MBA with your rich experience in China, you will return to the domestic professional field to compete with domestic talents, and live a professional life vigorously for a lifetime.There are definitely challenges and pressures in your job, but life is full of passion and fun; marrying your high school sweetheart is certainly a happy thing, and living with a handsome guy you met in a bar is obviously your right.In the Chinese society that is building a well-off society in an all-round way, you are the first to enter the middle class; in this huge middle class, you try hard to avoid falling into the lower middle class (lower middle class), and desperately pursue to enter the upper middle class; You have fought your whole life to free all mankind, you have only to work your whole life to free yourself.As long as you liberate yourself and release your own greatest life energy, you will actually liberate the entire nation and all mankind. (If you can’t support yourself, what is your national burden? What can I do to save you, my friend?) Educate, work, re-educate, re-work, live a life. Earn money to buy a car (bicycle), save money to buy a house (simple house).Buying a car keeps upgrading—from Alto to Audi, from Baolai to BMW; buying a house keeps expanding, from one-bedroom to four-bedroom, from a flat to a villa. Meet, break up, meet again, break up again, until eternity. Although your boyfriend keeps choosing you, you also maintain the right to keep choosing your boyfriend.Although all political power belongs to the "Soviet", but sexual power belongs to itself!Until you find your love for growing old together. So, one day, you were sitting in Starbucks and your partner was quietly drinking a cup of thick Cappuccino, and the eyes of the two people inadvertently sent out a flash of lightning that no one can see but only you can perceive—— Yes, it's time, give birth to one!So the two of you can't wait to finish your coffee and head home.Alas, this kind of life is a healthy life free from employment neurosis, and it is the most fundamental value and destination of life! Longing for you, Xu Xiaoping Appendix: Correspondence on the "Collective Unconsciousness of the Postgraduate Entrance Examination" Semantic source of "collective unconsciousness" Dear Teacher Xu: I have already sent you two letters, and after rereading your "Tuqiong Dialogue Records" several times, I feel that what you said about being vigilant against the unconsciousness of studying abroad and opposing the cult of studying abroad is very meaningful. Looking at today, the new "unconsciousness for postgraduate entrance examination" is becoming more and more popular, even surpassing the unconsciousness of studying abroad. Due to the unprecedented severe employment situation, almost all college graduates put their future on the postgraduate entrance examination. They are a panacea for employment, and colleges and universities also add fuel to the flames by expanding their enrollment every year.Today, my country's postgraduate education has entered a state of great leap forward.If the current situation continues, within a few years, the number of masters and doctors trained in my country will rank first in the world just like China's population. However, is this "world first" justified?I don't think so.Over the past 20 years of reform and opening up, great changes have taken place in many other aspects of Chinese society, and higher education alone is still the last bastion of the planned economy.Outdated professional settings, backward teaching methods, and empty teaching content that are out of touch with social needs make my country's postgraduate education seem out of step with the needs of the times. This is not difficult to explain why a large number of graduates cannot find satisfaction. On the other hand, emerging industries are unable to recruit suitable talents that are urgently needed. In recent years, colleges and universities have successively launched many so-called professional degrees, but the most critical teaching content and teaching methods have not been changed. This has led to a huge depreciation of the reputation of professional degrees. The drop in application for Master of Laws and Master of Software all illustrates this point. Our education department always only learns the superficial aspects of others, but fails to understand the essence of modern Western education.What's more terrible is that the so-called employment guidance of most colleges and universities in China is not true. They are only satisfied with holding a few job fairs and counting the high employment rate, ignoring the real core thing-guiding students to plan their careers and life ——Let the graduates only focus on high salaries, but don't know what kind of career they are suitable for. How can such students not fail in employment?Speaking to Dali, how can life be successful? !As a result, it is not alarmist to say that it is difficult for junior college students and undergraduates to find jobs, and it may soon become difficult for postgraduates and doctoral students to find jobs. I am currently studying for a master's degree in a key university. I thought back then that I had worked so hard to take the postgraduate entrance examination, and waited for my dream to come true, but found that it was nothing more than that.Reality is a great irony to ideals! The essence of education lies in the renewal of ideas.With the right idea, professionalism is really just a technical issue.Conversely, if there is a mistake in the guiding ideology, such as letting a person born with tone deafness pursue becoming a musician, it will be impossible to succeed anyway.Of course, this example is a bit absolute. In fact, many people don't realize it when they study, and it's too late when they find mistakes. Is there a solution to this?I think there is only one way, that is, to truly carry out career planning and design for students in colleges and universities, so that college students understand that as an individual in society, they actually have limitations. Only by finding your place in the sea of ​​people can you achieve something.From this, you can choose a major that suits you and cultivate your talents.Before the education level of colleges and universities can not be fundamentally improved and improved in a short period of time, students should be allowed to choose and cultivate themselves.Do not neglect the self-education ability of students. As long as a good system is provided, talents will be produced naturally. This is like a private enterprise, which does not require a penny of investment from the state, but now accounts for nearly 1/3 of GDP. It's time to stop the new "unconsciousness for postgraduate entrance examinations". As the first person in China who yelled out the rejection of "unconsciousness for studying abroad", do you also pay attention to and appeal to be vigilant about unconsciousness for postgraduate entrance examinations?After all, as a life consulting expert who pays close attention to the development of Chinese society, your voice is more powerful! Wang Zuguang One plus one equals two Dear Brock: My favorite students are those who can understand me.What could be more pleasurable and fulfilling to an educator than when students understand what they say, and their thoughts become part of their own nourishment! Thank you for the joy your letter brought me. I dreamed that I was an elementary school arithmetic teacher, and I was teaching students to recite the multiplication table of "one by one is one, two by two is four...".Outside the window, countless parents are holding big red flowers, waiting for the end of get out of class to award me—congratulations to me for teaching the children such a great knowledge!The classroom is so crowded that it is almost crushed by them.I exclaimed "The wolf is coming..." and woke up. well!My words, what I advocate and publicize, are actually simple and true axioms like the multiplication table, and they are praised by countless readers and students including you, which really makes me feel like a fraud.I protest helplessly! However, the recognition from readers and students is indeed real.Is there a problem with me, or is there a problem with education in this society? Thinking of this question, I yelled again and fell into a nightmare. Now let me give you an answer to the postgraduate entrance examination question in your letter: You told me in your letter that although you don’t really want to take the postgraduate entrance examination, I am afraid that in this social situation, If you don’t take the postgraduate entrance examination, you can’t find a job.” It is an astonishing misunderstanding in Chinese society to think that undergraduates have worse job opportunities than graduate students.A reader named Wang Zuguang once wrote to me and said: "Teacher, you raised the question of a cult for studying abroad. Is there a cult for postgraduate entrance examination?" I think there is.What is a cult?In "Tuqiong Dialogue", I made it very clear: A cult is the kind of belief that promises you heaven, but intentionally or unintentionally induces you to treat this life as hell. Many people believe that studying abroad is happiness, and then fight at all costs, and finally destroy their youth and life in this dream, and firmly reject all kinds of "Chinese opportunities" that have sprung up like mushrooms. Is this not a cult? The postgraduate entrance examination is really about to become a new cult—or to put it softly: it has become a kind of “degree collective unconsciousness”—as evidenced by poems. The poem said: Everyone says that the postgraduate entrance examination is good, and it is hard to find a master's job! "Undergraduates are not easy to find a job", I think this is one of the biggest lies in Chinese society since the 21st century.Although the employment difficulties of college students are somewhat related to the expansion of university enrollment, the real reason does not lie in the expansion of enrollment itself-don't forget that China is one of the countries in the world with the lowest proportion of college students in the population!Compared with developed countries, the number of college students in China will not be considered large even if it expands many times. In terms of social needs, Chinese college students are not too many, but too few!The difficulty of getting a job lies in people's hearts, ideas, and our way of thinking!Many college students don’t go to small companies, and don’t do jobs that require performance commissions without a basic salary; start your own business—the entrepreneurial spirit required for starting a business is a rare quality among Chinese students, and private companies are despised by many people; Enterprises have lost their attractiveness and absorption of talents; foreign enterprises—although many people yearn for foreign enterprises, but they themselves have not acquired the quality and culture required by foreign enterprises, so they have nowhere to enter; finally, government agencies are left—— But the poor government agencies have been panting under the pressure of overstaffing for so many years, and have been groaning in the dream of "better troops and simpler administration" for more than 60 years since the Yan'an era... Where is the way for China's youth employment? Where is the way?The road lies in the market, the road lies in the awareness of employment, the road lies in the job hunting and employability created by the awareness of employment, and the road lies in the way out and goals of employment that China's education reform has begun to emphasize! This article is not about how college students get a job.On this issue, I have the same views as always in many places.But since you mentioned the idea that "graduate students are easier to find a job than undergraduates", I want to make my position clear.I object to your statement, and even more, to make another wrong decision based on this wrong understanding, and to take the postgraduate entrance examination in order to avoid the challenge of employment.I am not opposed to the postgraduate entrance examination, what I am opposed to is the purposeless postgraduate entrance examination, just like I have never opposed studying abroad, only against studying abroad without purpose. Want to take the postgraduate entrance examination?Please tell me: What do you want to do after graduation? In the United States and Canada where I have studied abroad, the so-called postgraduate entrance examination is also very popular.However, there is a fundamental difference in purpose between the American postgraduate entrance examination and the Chinese postgraduate entrance examination.The American education system divides the postgraduate education system into two major categories, one is the academic department, academic faculty; the other is the professional department, professional faculty. The purpose of taking the postgraduate entrance examination for academic majors is to get a PhD in research and development, as a professor, in universities and large companies' research and development departments (including the US government-funded laboratories where Mr. Li Wenhe works, that is, research institutes) and institutions." Employment".Physics, mathematics, chemistry, literature, philosophy, historical research... and other disciplines are very developed and prosperous in the United States, leading the advancement of civilization.Because, those who engage in these academic researches all enjoy the "job treatment" not lower than the social average opportunity, the "employment security" not lower than the social average level, the "social status" and the quality of life not lower than the social average level. As for vocational graduate students, people read it in order to obtain the qualifications and skills for employment in a certain occupational field, so as to achieve the goal of "employment" in this field, and to be a professional—a professional.Such as lawyers, teachers, doctors, pharmacists and architects, engineers and other occupations.I have proposed in many speeches that we cannot translate the occupational master’s degree education of Americans into graduate students, but should call it “post-graduate professional education” or “professional master’s education” professional training for an Master's degree.It makes sense to be eloquent in this way.Because the name is not correct, translating and understanding this essential occupational master’s program as “graduate” education is likely to cause conceptual confusion—these degrees are only aimed at cultivating students’ “employment qualifications” , not for the purpose of "research", and there is no need for students to discover "unknown" things.You are there, just memorizing, understanding, analyzing, and mastering the knowledge and ability of a certain industry, so as to obtain the admission certificate for entering important professions in civilized society-such as lawyers and doctors.Many professionals in the United States require more than two degrees to take a license to practice.I have met several law students, both with undergraduate and master's degrees. On the eve of the bar exam, they only have one nerve in their minds to continue their studies.Those who know their mistakes early may be able to rein in the precipice; those who discover the true meaning of learning too late have actually been buried by the cult.There are two articles in this book, "The Liberated Area in the Mind of Lawyers" and "Headless Lawyers Want to Kowtow", which reflect both positive and negative situations. The English word research is a combination of re and search. re means to repeat, and search means to find.Repeated search is research.Find something you have found, and find it again—discover new things among the things you have found—this behavior only exists in the field of academic graduate students.Only degree seekers in the academic field can be called "research" students without causing semantic confusion. I finally contributed my little discovery to Chinese linguistics.In this sense, I am the "research" student—although I am an old student, even though I am a poor student!ashamed. The United States has MBA, Master of Business Administration; there is also DBA, Doctor of Business Administration.A master of business administration only requires you to use existing knowledge and tools to solve future problems; while a doctor of business administration requires you to provide new, undiscovered and unproposed subjects for business administration. , Unexpected ideas, theories and methods, idea, theory and method.The same is true for the LLD, the Juris Doctor, in relation to the JD, which is called the LLB in Canada.This is also the relationship between a doctor of medicine, a Ph.D in medical biochemistry, and a doctor MD. Maybe we can't blindly imitate the American education system.But at least, I appeal to my readers and students to realize a problem from the mind: if you have the qualification education in a certain industry according to the national standard, you should boldly devote yourself to this job, learn on the job, and learn in practice. Learn, don't waste the good time in the "graduate education" that has no clear purpose of training, and lags behind the times from creativity to practice! ! ! (As if this is the first time I've intentionally used three exclamation points in my writing. That's a sign of incompetence!) Dear readers: I suggest, at least I hope that my readers will not understand the post-university education of professional graduate school, that is, the professional Masters degree education, as "master's degree" education, but as post-university "professional master's degree education". Education" will do. According to this semantic explanation, when you decide whether to go to graduate school, you will naturally take the post-graduate career as the main basis for your decision whether to take the postgraduate entrance examination, instead of taking the postgraduate entrance examination itself as the goal of struggle.In this way, you can get out of the collective unconsciousness of the postgraduate entrance examination, or, as Mr. Wang Zuguang said in his letter, get out of the control of the "cult of postgraduate entrance examination". In the United States and Canada, no one really regards a law degree (JD or LLB) that takes three years after a four-year undergraduate degree as a graduate student in the Chinese sense, let alone a doctor, but just as a person who can make you have A law degree that qualifies you to practice law.Chinese society, students, parents and educational authorities still have a vague understanding of the educational theory of post graduate professional masters education. "Having a master's degree is worse than not having a master's degree", "Undergraduates are not as easy as graduate students to find a job"... These views are the manifestation of this backward and vague understanding. This is where Chinese society needs to improve and evolve.I am full of passion and look forward to the development of society—but before that, I would like to appeal to my readers and students not to be ruined by the "collective degree unconsciousness" caused by social backwardness! Dear Fanyou, seeing this, do you still want to be a graduate student?I know you don't have an answer yet.However, let me tell you: take the postgraduate entrance examination, or not, as long as you measure it with the employment goal, you can draw a clear and foolproof conclusion.Going to graduate school - no, I should use my new vocabulary - pursuing "post-college vocational master's education", what employment goals do you have?And the "post-university master's education" degree you chose, is it good for your employment goal?Is it good?Is it impossible to achieve this goal without reading it?If the answer is yes, resolutely read; if not, resolutely do not read.See how easy it is to decide whether to go to graduate school - post-college master's education. Don't forget that if you are studying for an academic master's degree, then its only purpose is to continue to complete a doctorate and become a researcher, scholar, and specialist in this field.In this sense, it is actually post-university vocational education, but the time for post-university education is slightly longer, as long as five or six or even six or seven years. As far as the job you personally want to engage in dealing with people (model, host, flight attendant, etc.), I feel that it doesn't matter whether you study post-university vocational master's education or not.It would be better to accumulate experience through work instead of reading. If I were you, I would immediately devote myself to the hot work, and in the next three to five years, I would accumulate my work experience and become one of the professional heroes of this era.Then, according to the situation at the time, decide whether to go abroad or not, to study or not to study a professional master's degree! Warm congratulations! Xu Xiaoping