Give Me Back My Five Bucks

A quick post today. I found this infographic while surfing the internet a few days ago: Did any of the numbers shock you? According to this data, 66% of students receive a mean monthly amount of $312 from home. Seriously? I think during my 5 years of post-secondary education, I received a few care packages (of mostly food) from my mom, but all of them combined probably didn’t equal $312. And I never received cold, hard cash. I wish. When I lived in Michigan for University, I had to live off of the money I made during the summers when … Continue reading →

So yesterday on Moneyville, Madhavi wrote an interesting article called “Teens think they’ll earn $90,000 a year by age 30.” According to the National Report Card on Youth Financial Literacy (.pdf), high school graduates seem to be extremely disconnected from reality. Especially when you consider the results from a survey of over 3,000 recent Canadian high school graduates: The average survey respondent expects to earn $90,735 in 10 years; roughly three times the average income of 25 to 29 year‐olds with post‐secondary degrees ($31,648). The median survey respondent expects to earn $70,000 in 10 years.  However, the median income for a 25 … Continue reading →

I was recently asked by a few people how I was able to land my first job out of college (as a writer with the provincial government), with no experience. I don’t really think I’m qualified to give much advice on this topic, but I can definitely tell my story and let you know what I learned. This is going to be kind of a long post, so I apologize in advance. During college It seems so cliché to say that I “worked hard” while in college, but I worked effing hard. What I’m doing right now doesn’t even come … Continue reading →

My 5-year college reunion is tomorrow. It’s crazy how the last few years have flown by, and it’s made me reflect back on how I’ve shaped the first 5 years of my career: (7 months) writer in provincial government (12 months) marketing coordinator in municipal government (8 months) marketing coordinator in non-profit (18 months) marketing coordinator in real estate (15 months) marketing coordinator – current job How many jobs did you have in the first 5 years of your career? I was able to determine the direction I wanted my career to go fairly early on, and I’ve been relatively … Continue reading →

Yesterday I read a blog post that really made me angry. It was called “A Question for all you Communications Majors” on the blog Darwin’s Money. Basically, the blog author thought communications degrees were useless, silly, and a waste of time and money. He believes that anyone taking communications must see that there are no well-paying job opportunities for someone with a “fluff” degree. The author didn’t understand why anyone would consider majoring in something worthless like communications, and likened it to basket weaving. As someone who has an education in communications, of course I disagree with his stance. The … Continue reading →