Comment by jakarta | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jakarta | Hacker News Reader

Some of these unemployed liberal arts majors can be really frustrating to me. A few months back, I was talking to an old roommate of mine, who graduated 1.5 years ago with a BA in PHL and a foreign language (3.9 GPA), who has not had any luck finding a job.

So now he basically sits around surfing the internet all day and looking at foreign films.

3 months ago, I told him I would help him by getting him the right materials he would need so that he could pick up some design skills, since he seemed really interested in graphic design. Initially, he seemed interested, but then he refused because he didn't like the idea of using pirated materials such as a copy of Photoshop or Lynda tutorials. At the same time though, he refused to pay for anything that would actually teach him what he needed to know.

I just don't understand how someone can drift sideways like that for so long. The guy is not picking up any new skills or making any real progression in his life. The other day he complained because he thinks all the clerical jobs he is applying for are automatically going to women. It's like he makes up excuses to cover up for his own laziness.

>I just don't understand how someone can drift sideways like that for so long.

Because someone else is taking care of him (parents, the government, etc...)

Not necessarily. For example 60% of Americans have at least one chronic illness, and those often necessitate taking large amounts of time doing relatively little. Furthermore the average chronic illness takes 7 years to diagnose, closer to 10 if you don't count the blatantly easy to spot ones, so most of these people are getting either no treatment or else the wrong treatment.

60% of Americans have at least one chronic illness

[citation needed]

That figure is inflated, but the estimate that the CDC cites is still quite high: "In 2005, 133 million Americans – almost 1 out of every 2 adults – had at least one chronic illness" [1] That's ~45% of the US population.

Now, they're almost certainly including the millions of people with chronic diseases that do not have overt symptoms, such as hyperlipidemia and early-stage hypertension.

[1] http://www.cdc.gov/chronicdisease/overview/index.htm

They are including everything from diabetes to arthritis. If you look at statistics for disability, the numbers are a lot lower. I would also bet my lunch that the numbers are heavily skewed towards older demographics. This argument is a straw man at best.

I agree with you, which is why I pointed out asymptomatic diseases (a tacit nod to the fact that they aren't causing any symptoms for these people at present moment).

"If you look at statistics for disability, the numbers are a lot lower."

I'm not sure the percent on disability would be much more relevant, considering that the majority of recent college grads taking time off for lyme disease or whatever aren't collecting disability.

"I would also bet my lunch that the numbers are heavily skewed towards older demographics."

60% of those with chronic illnesses are between 18 and 64 according to this: Chronic Care in America: A 21st Century Challenge, a study of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation & Partnership for Solutions: Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD for the Robert

(I misread the Wikipedia article, which is why I said 60% of Americans had chronic illnesses instead of the actual close to 1 in 2 stat. My bad.)

Anyway my point was just that there are an enormous number of reasons why a person might appear to be not doing anything for a while.

And it also matter how this number evolved over time, and how other places do (counting with the same criteria, which is very hard I admit).

I mean if 50% has a chronic illness but in the 1950's 45% had them, then only the 5% increase can be used as an argument, which then holds a lot less weight.

> Not necessarily. For example 60% of Americans have at least one chronic illness, and those often necessitate taking large amounts of time doing relatively little.

How has this number changed since, say, 2007?

I mention 2007 because a lot more people were employed then. How has their ability to work changed since then?

It's not clear that a self-trained design novice would have much more luck finding work, unless he turns out to have a natural genius at it.

He'd be competing for work against experienced designers, and against newly-graduated design students.

I've seen novices do amazing design work. (Usually they go on to a portfolio school after working for a few year or building a studio, though.)

Practice and good taste is pretty much the only things in design. Low-end design is pretty much just keeping up with the lowest common denominator in design style, anybody moderately trained--or self trained--can do it.

"I've seen novices do amazing design work."

Sure. It happens. But that's not the way to bet.

It depends I think. At the very least, it would give him the ability to add a new skill to his resume which would be pretty useful. In some of these low level assistant jobs, they list photoshop knowledge as something that would be beneficial. A lot of entry level marketing jobs also list it, without requiring a formal marketing degree.

At the same time though, for instance, he told me that he is very interested in trying to find some foreign policy-related job where he could leverage his language skills. So I asked him why not start a blog where he offered commentary on events occurring in that region -- but again here, he expressed a lack of any real motivation in actually getting the blog up and running and doing posts on it.

It's just very difficult for me to empathize with someone like that.

He'd have a lot more luck with a portfolio than without. You don't really have any sort of a shot at getting hired for most creative jobs without a portfolio.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com