Hello from New Orleans, or as the locals say “N’awlins.” The food down here is, in a word, amazing – assuming you like seafood. I haven’t stepped outside the seafood / Cajun / creole genre since I never get to eat this food at home. If it wasn’t for the fact I don’t much care for anything else in the city, I would live here just for the food.
Of course N’awlins isn’t all fun and clogging one’s arteries! I am very very busy while I am down here. I am always very busy. Why is that, you may ask? It’s actually very simple. Meteorology graduates out-pace demand for meteorologist on the order of 4 to 1. Well, jeez, that kind of sucks, that means for every job for a meteorologist, there are 4 meteorologists to fill it. That means to be competitive, I have to be one of the top 25% of meteorologists, in my national graduating class of ~600, that means I have to be one of the top 150 students. But wait, there’s more! Private companies (the ones I am interested in) only employ 30% of the total jobs. So, 30% of 150 is 45. So now, statistically, there is only 45 jobs available per year for me. Let’s have some fun and say about 50% of those jobs are purely forecasting, which is not what I do, 50% of 45 is 23 (rounding up). 23 jobs left. I think I would take those odds, be one of the 23 best meteorologists in a group of 92. Here is the big rub: I have to stay in Oklahoma, eliminating 90% of my potential job base, 10% of 23 is 2.3, and since there is no such thing as a 0.3 job, we are down to *TWO* jobs. Now I have to be one of the best *TWO* meteorologists in a group of 92, that is much harder, and the reason as to why I have to work so hard. But all this work will be paid off in the end you may say, right? WRONG. A BS in Meteorology pays, on average, slightly *LESS* than a secondary school teacher, and is one of the only sciences where the pay difference from a BS to MS isn’t enough to justify the extra time spent. It’s fun finding out how choices made so long ago can so greatly impact the rest of your life – and for the negative. The previous post said it best: “House of Cards.”
Sorry I went all emo, but these blog things are sometimes the best way to complain out loud and pretend someone actually cares, when, from what I have seen, not even the people closest to you do. I will try not to take it as personally that perfect strangers don’t care than I do when people close to me don’t care.
My survival, still so uncertain.
–Sooner Dead
