Job Unfair
Today, I went to the job fair on campus. Did it meet my expectations? As the late Madeline L'Engle would put it, yes. I expected it to be bad, and it was. I mean, surprise, surprise. *half-hearted clap* All these openings for marketers, sales kids, and aspiring yuppies, and next to nothing for us who had no business orientations. Man, I wish the folks at the Placement Office could have seen the sad look on JPaul's face. I wish they'd heard him say, "Biased naman sila sa mga taga-Humanities, e. Walang para sa amin."
I feel similarly neglected and out-of-place. Remember that resume uploader we all had to work with? Of all those job objectives in that drop-down menu, only a handful appealed to our non-corporate interests. Even the one "objective" that would have appealed to kids from my course was three supposedly separate objectives lumped together and given a bit of a corporate spin: Media/Public Relations/Advertising.
At the Com Dept, Ad and PR is a separate track. Under "Media" are more tracks: Media Studies, Journalism, Production, and the now-defunct New Media track, which I think was the precursor of BFA ID. And we chose those tracks for a reason. What if someone sees my resume on the APO database and tries to hire me for something that I didn't study in the first place, because the stupid uploader didn't let me set my OWN job objective?
Just an aside: the APO uploader's generated PDF file - I can't seem to say this enough; I know this must annoy some of you right now - was just ugly. Ugly. Ugly, ugly, ugly, ugleeeeeeee.
Today, while my friends from the SOM and SOSE and perhaps more finance/economics-oriented SOSS courses were lining up for all the different banks and multinationals, I strolled into the fairgrounds, gave GMA7 a copy of my resume, and strolled out again. So many options for them, and only one for me. (You might ask me, what about the schools? As much as I love kids, I can't teach until I look older and more intimidating. :p My youngest brother, who's half my age, can beat me up; I don't think I want to be in front of 40 "little" boys like him.)
It's really frustrating; some of us are starting to believe that the school's got a forked tongue. One is spouting the whole men-and-women-for-and-with-others*, vocations to serve your nation, service and spirituality over your wallet bit. The other is barking for us to head to the corporations and the money, money, money. (Remember the fuss about the dress code? One rationale was that we had to know how to dress to impress the corporations. What if we're not looking to impress them at all?)
You know what I want to do when I graduate and enter the working world? I want to find a place where my skills are needed, a place where I can help people by use of those skills. Specifically, I'd like to work in journalism, research (NOT market research), or some kind of information awareness outfit. If I could work with underprivileged children, or for them, that would be great. After a while, I'd like to take up grad studies, in development communication, media studies, or Philippine history/studies. On the side, I'd like to write a lot of creative prose.
I doubt that that kind of thing will do much in the way of setting up that children's library, but there are other ways. For one thing, I could ask those of my batchmates who do end up in business to sponsor a little. :)
If you tell me that I sound idealistic, or like a bleeding heart, I'll take that as a compliment. I do know that the kind of work I want to go into probably won't pay very well. But honestly, I don't see how I could be happy doing any other kind. I just wish the APO could point me to openings in that direction, the way they do for my batchmates going in another.
*I don't like the way "professionals-for-and-with-others" sounds. Maybe I'm just reading too much into it, but I like working with words. I like to see what it means when you choose one word over another. And the word "professional" used that way has, for me, a hint of detachment and irony. "Men and women" was earthier.
**I understand that my perceptions of the offerings at the Job Fair might be wrong, and that maybe there is more than one stall that offers positions in non-corporate settings. (One stall was for Rodic's, right? :p) Remember, the key words here are "my" and "perceptions."
=*=
My cell phone was stolen the other day. No unit or SIM till sometime next week. Same number, though.
Heehee. The fact that the symbol for "frustrated' in this mood theme is the Windows logo just tickles this open-source enthusiast.
I feel similarly neglected and out-of-place. Remember that resume uploader we all had to work with? Of all those job objectives in that drop-down menu, only a handful appealed to our non-corporate interests. Even the one "objective" that would have appealed to kids from my course was three supposedly separate objectives lumped together and given a bit of a corporate spin: Media/Public Relations/Advertising.
At the Com Dept, Ad and PR is a separate track. Under "Media" are more tracks: Media Studies, Journalism, Production, and the now-defunct New Media track, which I think was the precursor of BFA ID. And we chose those tracks for a reason. What if someone sees my resume on the APO database and tries to hire me for something that I didn't study in the first place, because the stupid uploader didn't let me set my OWN job objective?
Just an aside: the APO uploader's generated PDF file - I can't seem to say this enough; I know this must annoy some of you right now - was just ugly. Ugly. Ugly, ugly, ugly, ugleeeeeeee.
Today, while my friends from the SOM and SOSE and perhaps more finance/economics-oriented SOSS courses were lining up for all the different banks and multinationals, I strolled into the fairgrounds, gave GMA7 a copy of my resume, and strolled out again. So many options for them, and only one for me. (You might ask me, what about the schools? As much as I love kids, I can't teach until I look older and more intimidating. :p My youngest brother, who's half my age, can beat me up; I don't think I want to be in front of 40 "little" boys like him.)
It's really frustrating; some of us are starting to believe that the school's got a forked tongue. One is spouting the whole men-and-women-for-and-with-others*, vocations to serve your nation, service and spirituality over your wallet bit. The other is barking for us to head to the corporations and the money, money, money. (Remember the fuss about the dress code? One rationale was that we had to know how to dress to impress the corporations. What if we're not looking to impress them at all?)
You know what I want to do when I graduate and enter the working world? I want to find a place where my skills are needed, a place where I can help people by use of those skills. Specifically, I'd like to work in journalism, research (NOT market research), or some kind of information awareness outfit. If I could work with underprivileged children, or for them, that would be great. After a while, I'd like to take up grad studies, in development communication, media studies, or Philippine history/studies. On the side, I'd like to write a lot of creative prose.
I doubt that that kind of thing will do much in the way of setting up that children's library, but there are other ways. For one thing, I could ask those of my batchmates who do end up in business to sponsor a little. :)
If you tell me that I sound idealistic, or like a bleeding heart, I'll take that as a compliment. I do know that the kind of work I want to go into probably won't pay very well. But honestly, I don't see how I could be happy doing any other kind. I just wish the APO could point me to openings in that direction, the way they do for my batchmates going in another.
*I don't like the way "professionals-for-and-with-others" sounds. Maybe I'm just reading too much into it, but I like working with words. I like to see what it means when you choose one word over another. And the word "professional" used that way has, for me, a hint of detachment and irony. "Men and women" was earthier.
**I understand that my perceptions of the offerings at the Job Fair might be wrong, and that maybe there is more than one stall that offers positions in non-corporate settings. (One stall was for Rodic's, right? :p) Remember, the key words here are "my" and "perceptions."
=*=
My cell phone was stolen the other day. No unit or SIM till sometime next week. Same number, though.
Heehee. The fact that the symbol for "frustrated' in this mood theme is the Windows logo just tickles this open-source enthusiast.