Employment Guide: Palli: Quantitative qualities will win over employers

The economy is tough on everyone, but tougher on those who don’t get a college degree or waste their time on non-quantitative disciplines. Those that keep their cool and pile prestige onto their practical plate will be the ones who get paid and live happy lives — the key to which is cash. 

Two University of Michigan professors have demonstrated that richer countries are happier countries and that there are no diminishing returns on that happiness. That is: “More money will make you happier.” Hence, imperative to all of our happiness and well-being is the quintessentially American pursuit of capital. 

Unfortunately, with unemployment at 7.4 percent as of July 2013, many are being shut out of the pursuit of happiness. This is particularly true of recent entrants into the workforce without a college degree: They face a staggering unemployment rate of 16.2 percent, according to The New York Times.

This fact underscores the reason for students’ presence on Pitt’s campus: to gain a credential that will bolster their salaries for a lifetime. According to Business Insider, after 20 years, a college diploma leads to almost $25,000 in extra income. That’s $25,000 in extra happiness. 

But even a college degree is not enough to guarantee fully gainful employment. Underemployment among recent college graduates — a demographic many of us are poised to join in the next few years — was 44 percent in 2012, according to the Wall Street Journal. The Associated Press’ take is even more dramatic, as displayed in the headline, “Half of new grads are jobless or unemployed,” which ran in April 2012. 

In order to avoid this pit of unhappiness and discontent that has led so many to the Occupy Wall Street movement and other protests, we must prepare ourselves properly for the harsh realities of today’s labor market. In this jungle, there are many graduates and very few jobs: Every job search and interview is a primal hunt and competitors must be defeated to secure one’s meals and Netflix subscription. 

So every little edge must be worthwhile — otherwise, Pitt wouldn’t work so hard to provide us with them via the Summer Edge programs, Competitive Edge Communities and the resumé-padding Outside the Classroom Curriculum. These advantages, however, will do a student no good if one’s primary goal isn’t working toward employability.

Since we spend a great deal of our time in class and a great deal of our class hours in our majors, an essential component of a job application is the right major. With today’s information-based economy, the only right major is a quantitative major. This is backed by hard evidence. Payscale.com reports that the highest-earning majors are economics, computer science and statistics, in addition to various types of mathematics and engineering. Notice that this list does not include any of the natural sciences: The scientific method is for professors and the unemployed. To make the cut, you must major in one of the high-esarning MECSES field. 

Here, I should take a moment to discuss majors in the non-technical disciplines: those fields ranging in their pedantic pointless pedagogy from philosophy to philology. Daring to major in such a field is banishing oneself to eternal underemployment and, thereby, unhappiness. Doing things such as “following one’s passion,” “changing the world” or, worst of all, “helping people” are pursuits for those who do not understand fundamentally where happiness, well-being and the foundations of our infinitely developed society come from. 

But that is not to say that such disciplines have no uses, as individual classes among them can be useful in building a more “holistic” resumé. Kelli Grant of CNBC suggests nontechnical classes in theater arts, leadership studies and professional writing to provide communication and interpersonal skills. Such abilities allow one to permanently affix the premium buzzword “holistic” to their resumé, and with the OCC green cord, a job-seeker may transcend from merely a “college graduate” to a “holistic intellectual.”

To live a happy, worthwhile life, one must earn a high income, which requires one to become a “holistic intellectual” with particularly strong quantitative qualities while in college. Hence, we have discovered the true purpose of higher education and discovered an explanation of Einstein’s quote: “Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school.” What remains, and what is of the utmost importance, is the increase in salary we receive for the education we pursue.

If you wish to improve your abilities outside the quantitative disciplines toward the ultimate goal of achieving “holistic intellectual” status, contact Rohith at rop33@pitt.edu.