For the past few months I’ve been working my butt off to get back into school. With the way the economy is right now, it’s really important to me to gain a proper education so that I can get down to the nitty-gritty and grab up the position of my dreams at any of the local design companies in the area. Unfortunately, even with 10 years of experience under my belt, the wet-behind-the-ears 18 year old errand boy stands more of a chance on landing the job than I do. Why? Because a piece of paper is more important than experience in most cases.

I went floating around craigslist for jobs in my area. One of the most common requirements is at least 5 years of experience. I’m almost instantly interested because I have double that, so I continue down the page to the remaining requirements. 99.9% of the time…a bachelors or masters is required to even be considered for the job. What I find amusing about this is the fact that the person LISTING this job more than likely doesn’t meet the college requirements that he’s looking for in staff members. Now, that’s fine and well but why is it “fair” that a dear friend of mine spent over $35,000 on school to become a designer and is still asking me simple questions about DIVS/Tables and other things that should be common in the classroom? I’m not saying the route he took was wrong, by any means. I just don’t think it’s fair that a piece of paper can determine where you’re going in life - and where you’re not.