qualifications

Have noted, in the course of perusing work ads, that almost all jobs for graduates ask for either honours degrees, or, in the case of civil service posts, "good" honours degrees. So, I ask the mother, what about the poor sods who only manage to eke out a passing GPA with a collection of 'C's and 'C-'s? The unconvincing answer is that "they must have other talents". Surely, however, people go to college precisely because they lack the aptitude for anything else - fixing a lightbulb, building a spaceship, going to war. Those who can't, study. Tjan tells me that non-honours grads get hired eventually, but they also get bled to death in the process (miserable starting salaries, etc.) - which fits a little more snugly into the bigger picture, but is also significantly more depressing (isn't the truth always?).

On the whole, however, I'm not feeling as bleak about my prospects as I thought I would. In the first place, there's always the back door, the escape hatch back into the world of academia where many think I will always belong. In the second, it has struck me that "career" is a concept to me both unfamiliar and unimportant. There are bigger things; there are other things. And I'm not saying that because a juicy scholarship and accelerated promotion to superscale salaries are sour grapes on the vine (although I'm sure that some will still scoff and call me a liar). There are Other Things. Que sera sera.