260,000 graduates in minimum wage jobs

Ive got a bachelors degree in Environmental Science, i work in a good job as an Environmental Consultant, the job is good, i still struggle on the pay, ive ben out of university for 4 years, i take home just over $800 AUD a week, it costs me $350 for my house and i never have enough left over to put any away. I cant see it getting that much better in the near future either.

So i did go out, get an education, got a good job, but i still cant survive comfortably??? its outrageous. It cost me 27 grand just to go to uni as it was. The system is doing what its designed to do, keep us down and give us false hope that if we work hard everything will be alright.

Wrong, my father worked his arse off his entier life, he's a very skilled tradesman, he worked 7 days a week most of his life, he's a had a bit of bad luck, but still he is 50 and has nothing to his name except an old ute. My mother isnt any better off

BeReasonable
Ive got a bachelors degree in Environmental Science, i work in a good job as an Environmental Consultant, the job is good, i still struggle on the pay, ive ben out of university for 4 years, i take home just over $800 AUD a week, it costs me $350 for my house and i never have enough left over to put any away. I cant see it getting that much better in the near future either.

So i did go out, get an education, got a good job, but i still cant survive comfortably??? its outrageous. It cost me 27 grand just to go to uni as it was. The system is doing what its designed to do, keep us down and give us false hope that if we work hard everything will be alright.

Wrong, my father worked his arse off his entier life, he's a very skilled tradesman, he worked 7 days a week most of his life, he's a had a bit of bad luck, but still he is 50 and has nothing to his name except an old ute. My mother isnt any better off

I must really come from a different generation and educational background.

In my line of work, grammar is important. But if you went to university and got a degree with this grammar, I question the university, did they just hand you a diploma and kick you out the door?

And $800 a week and your house payment is only $350 a month? My income is $865 A MONTH and my rent is $245, you are paying only $100 more a month for a home and yet you bring home, let's see...$3,200 a month??

I don't know what you mean by living comfortably, but darn, $3,200 a month is $38,400 a year. Dude, that's higher than poverty level even for the United States.

You only spend 10% for housing...is food that extraordinarily high in New Zealand? Wow, I can't imagine how difficult it must be for you, $38,400 a month take home and only pay 10% in housing? WOW, and here we thought we had it bad in the United States.

reply to post by WarminIndy


He got a degree in Environmental Science not English lit.

Have you seen the grammar and spelling of those that come out of medical school?

In my experience those in the world of science tend put grammar and spelling on a low priority

The numbers don't add up.

The economy isnt growing at a rate of 5,000,000 jobs a year so how can their be that many jobs every graduating class?

Secondly, if you start out as a freshman now, then how in 4 years after 20,000,000 million graduates will you know that the skill you learned in school is still actually hiring people for your skill?

Third, theres no entry level positions anymore in trade jobs. I know multiple trades but i cant get into one because the jobs go to immigrants. They actually function as a community and help each other get into the work place making it very hard for me as an american to get in.

I dont think the numbers are accurate and their not analyzing the situation from the proper perspective. Were about to reach a breaking point.

This is a great thread, I really wish more people would see it. There are far too many people who look at graduates and see them as nothing more than lazy miscreants.

The world can be so cruel nowadays. We're brought up to believe working hard in school and getting good grades ensures us a fantastic future, only to have the grim reality slap us round the face as soon as we begin seeking employment. It's really quite depressing because we end up believing by nature that we're not good enough, when really it's the fault of the economy and the snobs in charge of the industries.

Just how many of these graduates would have not bothered wasting time and money if they knew all of it would become redundant? I know I wouldn't have spent as much time as I did since it has done nothing beneficial for me at all. You either lack the right skills/degree or they simply deem you 'overqualified'.

the cold reality:
1...if the people at the top wanted a highly educated workforce, they would be doing everything they could, to ensure that we had one.
2...if the people at the top wanted a robust and vibrant middle class, they would be doing everything they could to make that possible.

These folks should all be making $50 an hour - medium rare puhleease.

crazyewok
reply to post by WarminIndy

 

He got a degree in Environmental Science not English lit.

Have you seen the grammar and spelling of those that come out of medical school?

In my experience those in the world of science tend put grammar and spelling on a low priority

Then that's a problem because there was a time when it was a priority even when graduating from high school. Another big problem I see from people who have graduated from college recently, I am currently reviewing a film script from a person who has the same grammar and spelling issues. Grammar and spelling are a low priority in all fields now, apparently.

Tell me, do you think Carl Sagan and Isaac Asimov would feel that it is a low priority? Just because someone might know that invasive animals destroy natural habitats of indigenous species, doesn't mean they actually care for anything intellectual because effective communication is a low priority. And seeing as how those who always play this "So what if my grammar sucks, who are you to tell me it's important?" means that they aren't going to care about anything deeply intellectual, because it's all about "I know what a platypus is so that's all that matters".

Go read Carl Sagan or Isaac Asimov, then come back and tell me if it's not important. I had to take a break from reading the awful script that sucks and I can tell the writer is a product of modern education. Grammar and spelling is a high priority for me, who might one day be reading a script or writing a script about a scientist who discovers a new species and the ensuing backlash.

And get this: I'm Dyslexic and still think grammar and spelling are a high priority.

I have a year left before I finish my degree in Electrical Engineering. I have an internship this summer and will be making almost 3 times the amount of minimum wage.

A degree is not about studying just what you love. If money was not an issue I would have gone into wildlife biology and mammalogy. But I am expected to make a living that can support my wife and future children.

I do enjoy what I learn and look forward to using it in industry until I retire, but I don't want to hear whining when people I know study music or early child development or art history.

STEM careers are where its at. If the reason you are going to school is to make a decent living and (hopefully) not have to worry about finances you have to work for it. College isn't about parties and slacking off and begging your professors to drop the last test or cancel an assignment. It's supposed to stretch you mentally and make you grow up.

reply to post by WarminIndy


Please don't patronize me or talk down to me. I know full well who Isaac Asimov and Carl Sargon are.

I'm not denying that spelling and grammar are important.

Just pointing out a fact of life and one not just confined to the "newer generation.

I work in the field of Microbiology and immunology. And Scientists and doctors of all ages seem to place grammar and spelling, outside of official journal writing in a low priority. Not all of course but a lot do. Right? Maybe not, but a fact of life. So live with it.

Once upon a time in America, there were jobs for people who didn't care about things like grammar, reading, and deep thought. My dad was this way. A good, hard working, honest man...he found peace in not being too insightful. Just worry about the hole you are digging right now.

There used to be a place for these types of folks in our country. We used to have a booming manufacturing sector, and within that sector you found people who just wanted to punch the clock to get home at the end of the day. They weren't working to fulfill some deep fascination or calling. They worked to feed their family. And when it was over, they wanted to go home to be with that family. Not stuck in a study reading the latest journal.

Once upon a time, people like that had a place in our society. Now....we just complain about how their poor grammar is fouling the sciences. LOL

bigfatfurrytexan
Once upon a time in America, there were jobs for people who didn't care about things like grammar, reading, and deep

Yeah its called being a doctor


Sorry but even I get pissed at there poor writing skills. Amount of paper work I have had to return to them as illegible.

crazyewok

bigfatfurrytexan
Once upon a time in America, there were jobs for people who didn't care about things like grammar, reading, and deep

Yeah its called being a doctor

Sorry but even I get pissed at there poor writing skills. Amount of paper work I have had to return to them as illegible.

edit on 3-4-2014 by crazyewok because: (no reason given)

I type in the 80 wpm range. So i write very, very little with a pen/pencil. When i do, it is pretty bad. Bad enough my 16 year old son makes fun of it. I like to joke that while growing up, they always knew by my handwriting that I'd end up being a doctor or a serial killer.

bigfatfurrytexan
Once upon a time in America, there were jobs for people who didn't care about things like grammar, reading, and deep thought. My dad was this way. A good, hard working, honest man...he found peace in not being too insightful. Just worry about the hole you are digging right now.

There used to be a place for these types of folks in our country. We used to have a booming manufacturing sector, and within that sector you found people who just wanted to punch the clock to get home at the end of the day. They weren't working to fulfill some deep fascination or calling. They worked to feed their family. And when it was over, they wanted to go home to be with that family. Not stuck in a study reading the latest journal.

Once upon a time, people like that had a place in our society. Now....we just complain about how their poor grammar is fouling the sciences. LOL

Once upon a time in this country even Hal Roach used grammar to speak to those hard-working individuals who paid to go watch The Little Rascals. Once upon a time a lot of hard-working individuals in the film industry set up the lights, turned the cranks on the old cameras, and wrote their way into history.

I'm a screenwriter, I tell the story of YOU and wouldn't it be disrespectful for me to use such improper grammar and spelling that the story being read by a hard-working script reader won't ever get told because if the script reader can't read it and the actors can't read it and the director passes on it, then it gets shelved. The Grapes Of Wrath by John Steinbeck was just a story about some poor hicks who couldn't find work, poor hicks that weren't intellectual or insightful at all, they just wanted to dig in the dirt and feed their families. But John Steinbeck didn't tell the story of your father, did he? John Steinbeck didn't tell the story of America at all.

Do you know how much a script reader even gets paid? They work hard for little money also.

Film is the story of you, but if the story sucks then it won't ever get told and that puts people out of work. I am afraid it is all about attitude, and if the attitude is "I don't care if my grammar sucks", then how should I have any reliance that their research wasn't sloppy? The next time you see a peer-reviewed science journal, tell me about the grammar and spelling.

If a doctor doesn't care that he misspells a medication and a pharmacist has to call to verify the prescription...wait, didn't people die because of that very thing? Oh yes, people DIED because a doctor had the attitude "So what if it sucks, I wasn't an English major". That doctor HAD to take English Lit in university, so don't tell me that it is not important.

reply to post by WarminIndy


You miss my point.

You are working with people who are illiterate because illiterate people have no choice but to find white collar work. My dad was horrible with grammar. Couldn't spell to save his life. So bad he refused to write because he was made fun of over it so often. This same man also derived his own calculus to perform little projects around our property. He wasn't stupid. He was an electrical lineman who worked hard int he sun all day long.

Had he been unable to work like that, he may have ended up an engineer. He was a superb mathematician. He would have been one of those engineeers whose opinion you wouldn't have trusted, because his spelling/grammar was poor. We suspect he was dyslexic, but with him gone we will never know.

My point being: the available jobs has determined that people who would have, in the past, chosen manufacturing jobs are now entering into white collar work. There isn't a degradation in education. You only percieve this because people who would have, in the past, worked in manufacturing are now taking advantage of all that "workforce placement" funding to get educated.

bigfatfurrytexan
reply to post by WarminIndy

 

You are working with people who are illiterate because illiterate people have no choice but to find white collar work.

My point being: the available jobs has determined that people who would have, in the past, chosen manufacturing jobs are now entering into white collar work. There isn't a degradation in education. You only percieve this because people who would have, in the past, worked in manufacturing are now taking advantage of all that "workforce placement" funding to get educated.

This is absolutely correct and I earlier outlined how we got here in the first place. Basically too many people being born and not enough desire on the behalf of the "owners of capital" to employ them for the sake of having a stable and safe civilization to live in day to day.

ArnoldNonymous
A degree is not about studying just what you love. If money was not an issue I would have gone into wildlife biology and mammalogy. But I am expected to make a living that can support my wife and future children.

This kind of thinking on a grand scale is the problem. There are not enough paying jobs to go around as it is and you somehow think bringing another human onto the earth is a good idea. Your future, unborn, child is going to do nothing except drive down wages for everyone else who was already here. Rethink your purpose in life, its not to make babies in a world without a job for them to earn a living from. People who think like you are doing nothing more than driving the rest of us deeper into slavery at the hands of the "owners of capital", whom use "extra living bodies" as an excuse to drive down wages and increase the costs of goods due to demand or lack of demand. Change your world view, its not about making babies anymore! Save a job for a person already born and living, get a vasectomy!

WarminIndy

crazyewok
reply to post by WarminIndy

 

He got a degree in Environmental Science not English lit.

Have you seen the grammar and spelling of those that come out of medical school?

In my experience those in the world of science tend put grammar and spelling on a low priority

Then that's a problem because there was a time when it was a priority even when graduating from high school. Another big problem I see from people who have graduated from college recently, I am currently reviewing a film script from a person who has the same grammar and spelling issues. Grammar and spelling are a low priority in all fields now, apparently.

Tell me, do you think Carl Sagan and Isaac Asimov would feel that it is a low priority? Just because someone might know that invasive animals destroy natural habitats of indigenous species, doesn't mean they actually care for anything intellectual because effective communication is a low priority. And seeing as how those who always play this "So what if my grammar sucks, who are you to tell me it's important?" means that they aren't going to care about anything deeply intellectual, because it's all about "I know what a platypus is so that's all that matters".

Carl and Issac weren't design engineers, they were futurists with an academic foundation in STEM, but they didn't make their living actually designing what they wrote about. I have worked in various engineering fields and 75% of the engineers have English as their second language and they all write in English poorly. The ones that have been here a long time and have their green cards or citizenship write better than the H1-B visa staff, but still worse than the American admins at the company that just have a Junior College education. The stuff they design works, buildings don't' fall down and light turn on, but they can't write a proper sentence to save their life. But the reality is that IT DOES NOT MATTER in certain STEM fields, especially when the bulk of the people being employed in STEM jobs primary language is NOT ENGLISH! Get off your high horse, with the way things are going with texting, hashtags etc, nobody is going to be writing proper sentences in the near future anyway. Do you ever write your scripts in Old English? No you don't, so don't be surprised if grammatically correct English soon goes the way of the dodo, as did Old English previously.

@WarminIndy speaking of sci-fi writers, did you ever read Forever War by Joe Haldeman? This exact thing happens to language, albeit over a long a longer period of time. Do you even see the irony in your reference to the literature of futurist writers, while bemoaning the decline of grammatically correct English?

ArnoldNonymous
STEM careers are where its at. If the reason you are going to school is to make a decent living and (hopefully) not have to worry about finances you have to work for it. College isn't about parties and slacking off and begging your professors to drop the last test or cancel an assignment. It's supposed to stretch you mentally and make you grow up.

No they aren't, reread my earlier post about the HIGH cost of "keeping up" with high tech fields and the overall effect on the lower classes. The reality is that if you are not from a well off family, you will CERTAINLY be quickly outpaced by your more well heeled cohort members, whom are just as ambitious and hard working as yourself. As was stated earlier, the decline of entry level positions and paid on-the-job training puts ANYONE without the financial means to continually train for leisure at a HUGE disadvantage in all tech sectors. You're still in school, but you WILL discover this fact soon enough!

WarminIndy
The next time you see a peer-reviewed science journal, tell me about the grammar and spelling.

And yes of course it will be perfect in spelling and grammar. In fact I know a few who get interns to proof read it.

Butr look in there lab books and notes? Well you will be shocked and have a heart attack

WarminIndy
If a doctor doesn't care that he misspells a medication and a pharmacist has to call to verify the prescription...wait, didn't people die because of that very thing? Oh yes, people DIED because a doctor had the attitude

Yup and it causes us scientists and technicians a bigger work load too as we have to decipher there crap.


But fact is it happens. And it has always happened.

Chronogoblin
reply to post by sarra1833

 

The irony is deafening. I wonder what the next excuse will be for not paying a livable wage?

Say what? What are you suggesting? That companies should be forced to hire unneeded workers and pay them high salaries to empty trash cans because they went to college?

Employment is ruled by the same economics that run all human interactions - if those graduates are capable of performing a task that makes it profitable for an employer to employ them, and that capability is not easily replacable on the open-market, they'll do it.

But if the value of your labor is replaceable by a 16-year-old high school student with no experience or a mentally-impaired chimp, it doesn't matter if you have a PhD, no one's going to pay you PhD-wages to do that labor.

And I'm not blaming the graduates, either. Just that the huge amount of regulatory overhead such as SOX, and the cost of hiring a new employee, (and especially, one who doesn't work out), makes employers extremely risk-averse to hiring people with little or no experience. It becomes a Catch-22 - you can't get a job in your chosen field because you have little/no experience, and you can't get experience without getting a job.

reply to post by squittles


Well, you absolutely have a point.

The term "livable wage" is morose. People who use that term typically would be those who were raised in the Participant Culture, where you are equally rewarded for participating, not winning. To such a person, the idea that wage disparity is tied to skill/success instead of participation/effort is an injustice. There is no concept of "winning/succeeding" and "losing/failing". Because neither are recognized. Only "participation". This is my generation, and those that came after.

I can do things that the average 20 year old would think is magic. People I work with not only can't do what I do. They wouldn't know how to begin knowing what it is I do. I have a commodity that is more rare: knowledge. This is why i make more than my entry level employees. If i take my knowledge and leave, they would have no idea how to do my job. They could hire a replacement, but that person would only work for the wage i worked for. This is something that the "livable wage" crowd doesn't understand.

I'll go one step further: i blame the "its for the children" crowd for the "livable wage" crowd even existing. Its for the children has destroyed our schools. We create people who know what to think, but not how to think. They believe that if they just participate, they'll succeed. Everyone gets the same prize, and life is fair.

So much I want to say, I find myself deleting stuff I wanted to respond to because it makes the post too long...

BlubberyConspiracy
Our socioeconomic system is not designed for everyone to have a livable wage. At current, if everyone would be granted a livable wage, we'd need to reintroduce slavery to fill the service sectors and the jobs that need to be manned for our grid to function.

We do have slavery it's just not recognized as such. Look at all the electronics produced by people earning 15 cents a day living in corporate communities like FoxConn and all the rest. That is the face of modern day slavery. In the US we only practice it on our soil with prisoners but our corporations routinely take advantage of it, and we encourage it by buying those products because consumer apathy is a real thing.

bigfatfurrytexan
That is 260,000 people who were raisd to believe that participation yields rewards, not success. They went to college on the premise (and promise) that it would improve their ability to earn. I have heard it said by counselors, "Once you graduate, even with student loans, you won't have to struggle." "Don't go to college...you can work at McDonald's"

There's an argument to be made against going to college. By going to college you go $100,000 in debt, then repay what $120,000 in loans (assuming you get a job that lets you avoid defaulting). You also give up four years of income, at 1/2 of the median wage that's another $80,000. So the true cost for college is now $200,000. With that additional 4 years of experience you qualify for better jobs sooner and essentially get 4 more years of productive work in. As we all know, the most productive working years for a person are those years shortly before retirement. Pushing those higher significantly impacts your total earnings. If you get another 10% out of those years due to the experience you could call that another $50,000 earned (plus more during the rest of your career). So college now costs $250,000. Can your degree earn more than that? It's possible, but not in todays job market and if things go the way they have been (not a totally unreasonable expectation) experience will continue to be worth more than education.

Where college is good, is it lets you network with people (especially true of Ivy Leagues, this is their real advantage) and some employers will count it as experience solving the dilemma of everyone only hiring those with experience but not providing experience themselves.

bobs_uruncle
I feel bad for my son, 4 years and a degree in animation and computer sciences for CGI and movies, 40k in debt and he is working at one of the big fast food places, but at least they might make him a manager in the next couple of months. He does side contracts for gaming companies, so at least he is staying on top of his game (he finished with a 3.78 GPA). But I also feel a little crazy with the lack of opportunities out there for myself. I have been running my businesses and as a consultant/contractor for the last 24 years and I have watched business decline after 2008 at an incredible rate, it's like we all fell over a cliff. Governments have destroyed their own nations to the benefit of their corporate sponsors and now they bitch and moan that they don't have enough tax revenue, when they destroyed the system in first place through really bad treaties like NAFTA, TAP and TPP.

Your son is in a good field. I have 2 bachelors degrees and 2 associates degrees myself and am working on a third bachelors (all in similar areas) even though I stick by my above argument that college isn't worth it (personal fulfillment and all that...). Anyways one of my associates is in digital graphics, part of which includes the ability to do CGI and animation. I have little artistic talent but I know the software and can create objects well enough (organic things give me trouble though).

The video game industry is on the verge of killing itself but until it does next gen games are very art intensive, art budgets and needs are huge so your son should look into those companies they generally pay artists around 120k but he'll need a portfolio of his work. Another thing your son can look at if he can use Maya/3dsMax/AutoCAD is to look at rapid prototyping companies. 3d modeling is huge for that industry and it's in its early stages. What it is, is using 3d modeling to create prototypes of products, then 3d printing them and sending them to clients. Usually a part will have a 3 day turn around time or so (email the plans, print, overnight ship it back). One of my instructors did the rapid prototyping thing to earn additional income, I haven't done it myself because I don't own licensed Autodesk software but it's something your son could look at and do depending on his skill set and if he has access to the software (or he could take his chances on pirated software but that's generally a bad idea for a business... personal use is another thing entirely).

WarminIndy
I must really come from a different generation and educational background.

In my line of work, grammar is important. But if you went to university and got a degree with this grammar, I question the university, did they just hand you a diploma and kick you out the door?

And $800 a week and your house payment is only $350 a month? My income is $865 A MONTH and my rent is $245, you are paying only $100 more a month for a home and yet you bring home, let's see...$3,200 a month??

I feel where you're coming from. My monthly income is around $850 and my rent+utilities comes to $500. I'm not uneducated but jobs are sparse in my area. I mostly work as a tutor (in addition to writing software in my spare time, to maybe one day earn more) since it lets me keep up on my skills, but my tutoring is through a federal grant which only pays minimum wage (free tutoring for students). I find it incredibly ironic that the government pays people with bachelors degrees in skilled labor positions 7.45/hour when they're the loudest pusher of the idea that a degree means better pay.

As for grammar, I've been told I have a particular writing style that those who have read my writings on other forums where I'm much more prolific can pick out in an instant. For awhile in my life I contemplated becoming an English teacher because shorthand, text, and general internet speak was an affront to me. I saw it as a devolution of language and wanted to do something about it. I've since changed my opinion though. Language evolves over time, what was once proper spelling and grammar no longer is. What ultimately matters in language is the ability to communicate an idea and if that is being done I don't see a problem. Though I'm one of those people who will never use words like u, txt, 4evr, etc... I'm also one of those who will write in cursive until the day I die. I even set my computers fonts to use cursive by default. It's just the way I was taught but that doesn't make my method right or better.

bigfatfurrytexan
I type in the 80 wpm range. So i write very, very little with a pen/pencil. When i do, it is pretty bad. Bad enough my 16 year old son makes fun of it. I like to joke that while growing up, they always knew by my handwriting that I'd end up being a doctor or a serial killer.

My typing speed varies, when I'm trying to go fast however I usually type in the 135 wpm range after error correction. When I type slower or on an unfamiliar keyboard (such as right now) I'm in the 60 wpm range. I would say on average I'm around 100. When it comes to handwriting I can only write in cursive, as embarrassing as it is I sometimes even have to stop and think about how the letters are formed when I print. I have my fast and usual cursive which I can read but most others can't, and I have my neat cursive which is mainly reserved for things I want to be certain others can read and understand, cursive is hard enough as it is. My neat cursive writes very slow but looks exceptional. I don't write much on paper though, maybe 2-3 notes per week then another 10 times or so doing math problems (I do lots of math, mostly in my head... sometimes on paper, I refuse to use a calculator). My usual writing is bad though and I do not expect anyone other than myself to read it, here is something I posted on another website years ago. The top is my normal fast cursive, the bottom is a mix between nice and fast.

bigfatfurrytexan
The term "livable wage" is morose. People who use that term typically would be those who were raised in the Participant Culture, where you are equally rewarded for participating, not winning. To such a person, the idea that wage disparity is tied to skill/success instead of participation/effort is an injustice. There is no concept of "winning/succeeding" and "losing/failing". Because neither are recognized. Only "participation". This is my generation, and those that came after.

I agree with participation awards, it's a reminder of having been part of a group. That said I also agree with there being actual rewards for winners in a competition. When it comes to employment I don't think a living wage is unreasonable. What constitutes a living wage is certainly up for debate but I think if someone works 25+ hours per week (I think 40 is too high these days, the work week NEEDS to come down, but that's another topic) at any job they should be able to afford a low rent apartment, basic utilities, healthy food, $50/month for a car payment (this is a used $1500 car every 36 months), two tanks of gas per month for transportation to/from work, and have 10% or so left over for luxuries. In my town (this wage would obviously vary by area) that would mean 500 for rent+utilities, 250 for food, 50 car, 110 gas, and another 10% so $1000/month or $10/hour. Different people will have different beliefs but I think that's a basic that anyone should have (you could drop the car in favor of public transportation if available).

lightedhype
Easiest thing one can do - teach yourself computer programming. Average salary is 75k for a computer programmer. Granted - this is with a bachelor's degree however it is entirely possible to teach yourself completely and get hired at an introductory position then work up.

Also with programming, most employers will actually want to see examples of your work and if you are good at it than this helps the no degree thing. Just my two cents.

Computers will be around and needing tech-people to fix em for those less technologically inclined for decades, IMO.

I can program. I went to school for it and I'm also self taught to an extent. My focus is primarily on web languages (computer science major, but my other associates is web programming so I have more experience there) but I can do others like C# with some reference materials. One of the big issues I had when coming right out of school was work examples. All I really had was my tests and final projects and they weren't really what an employer was looking for. I've since written other things but work examples are still sparse.

I try to focus mostly on the games side of things, I just enjoy making computer games because I'm the sort of person who learns quickly and can extrapolate from basics. With self made games I have to know about artistic software, color balance, color theory, drawing techniques, music theory, composition, sound effects, writing, game engines, multiple languages, coding techniques, algebra, trigonometry, calculus, psychology, addiction, and other things. I just find it unbelievably fun and ultimately fulfilling to unite so many different areas of study in one product. Sadly most large companies don't want cross disciplined people (again, see my previous comment about the industry beginning to implode) so I have to make independent games which takes a very long time to create something with more depth than Angry Birds or Candy Crush.

BayesLike
Over the years, I've come to believe that the majority of the population doesn't have the aptitude for serious programming. Count yourself one of the lucky few % who does! Programming requires a lot of the same type of discipline as does a degree in mathematics -- being able to work through a sketched out objective step by step. In math, this shows up as theorem-proof. It is a good discipline going forward and if you keep on the leading edge your work may not get outsourced to another country.

Actually, what I've found (and I use this often when I tutor people) is that the skillset for programming is repeated in many other places. Technical writing and drawing are the two I often use as examples for students. Programming ultimately is all about creating a logic system and executing that system in order. An artistic composition conveys much the same idea where it creates a logic system consistent to itself and is built sequentially to convey that system. This was actually the breakthrough in understanding that lead to me being able to pass many of my art classes after having done my programming ones. Of course you need to understand things like math because in programming your medium is ultimately numbers rather than a paint brush, but I found that perspective to be helpful for many people.

Programming is getting outsourced though, maybe it's just my particular field but it's less important to be a programming master these days than it is to be able to write functional scripts. Game engines that are available to license have made this even more true. These days I'm doing a lot of work in Unity (which just added the Wolfram Language... I need to learn it) and I don't need to understand the programming going into the engine, I just need to be able to script behavior for the objects I create.