Janice Kwon, 25, freshly graduated with a hard-won masters degree from one of the top 10 universities in the US, headed to Washington this summer with high hopes of finding her dream job. She filled out endless applications for research positions at think tanks and consulting firms. They all seemed like reasonable jobs to apply for after graduate school.
However, after months of job hunting, she decided that the job requirements presented a conundrum -- with employers specifically wanting people with master of arts (MA) degrees, but with two or more years of relevant work experience.
"If I've spent all this time going to school to obtain an MA, how is it possible for me to have garnered the necessary experience? Also, how can I get experience if you don't give me the chance to work for you?" Kwon said.
Kwon is not alone. Unfortunately, people with a high level of education these days no longer enjoy the privileges they did two decades ago, when few went to college and even fewer made it to graduate school. Nowadays, with the abundance of bachelors degrees and even masters degrees, unemployment is on the rise for these highly educated people.
It has become a world-wide phenomenon.
One week ago student and teacher groups highlighted the problem, and accused the Ministry of Education of lifting previously strict regulations regarding the establishment of universities, allowing technological institutes to transform into private universities. This has caused the number of private institutions to soar, and swamped the country with bachelor degree graduates, forcing students to continue on to graduate school in the hope of having better opportunities in the job market.
But many experts are now questioning whether the high number of graduates holding bachelors degrees is really the key behind unemployment among fresh graduates, and whether having an MA really makes a difference for jobhunters.
According to Chiu Wen-jen (
In fact, Chiu said that even though most MA graduates have no prior work experience, they tend to expect a higher salary -- usually NT$3,000 to NT$5,000 higher than bachelors-degree holders. Under these circumstances, most companies would rather hire a bachelors degree holder for less pay, she said.
"I would say that a graduate degree isn't very important for a job in general, but it may be an influential factor in obtaining a promotion within a company," Chiu said. "At our company, managerial tasks are usually given to those with graduate degrees, but among entry-level positions, graduate degrees aren't really a focal point."
For some students however, going after a master degree initially seemed like the correct answer to their problems.
"Regardless of where I got my masters, I would definitely expect a better job than if I only had a bachelors degree. That's what I was expecting when I went back to school -- I had such a hard time finding a job after undergrad that I felt I was forced to go to grad school," Kwon said. "A lot of people had told me that an MA increases your salary, but I was really shocked to find out that a lot of places that are paying us BA [bachelor of arts] salaries."
Kay Hsu, a BA graduate from Tsing Hua University, said that she felt that masters graduates were more likely to be chosen by companies than those with bachelors degrees.
"I don't really expect a higher salary as a BA graduate even though I went to a good university," Hsu said.
But for other students, degrees are not the key.
"I don't think having an MA degree has opened that many doors for me. The name of the university has. Going to a great school will help get your foot in the door but still, it won't seal the deal," Christopher Pitoun said.
Another factor contributing to unemployment among those with a high level of education is that they are much pickier nowadays, said Chiu from 104 Job Bank.
"Of course, graduating from the University of Chicago makes me think I'm better than other people," an anonymous MA graduate from the UK said. "And of course I expect a better job than others."
Liu Mei-hung (
Chiu, of the 104 Job Bank also said that computer skills are a must and that at times a vocational certificate was more useful than a diploma.
But employers might also just be overlooking the importance of higher education as well.
"On my resume, all the employers seem to fixate on the fact that I was an economics major. They don't care that I graduated with honors, was also a history major, studied abroad, or even have an MA. No employer seems all that interested in the fact that I went through great lengths to diversify my education," Pitoun said.
"I don't know where I'd be without the economics major on my resume. Frankly, that is just sad. It's borne out of the recognition that today's corporate culture places relatively little emphasis on intellectual curiosity -- learning for the sake of learning," Pitoun added.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching