One of the huge reasons why I’ve become so jaded teaching in UP is the shifting demographics of the student population.
Usually, a discussion of starting salary’s one of the most interesting portions of my English 30 class. Everyone was keen on sharing their opinions on the matter.
Not these days. Today, it’s one of the shortest since the shared opinion is that “We don’t really have the pressure to earn so starting salary’s not an issue.”
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Pressure to earn.
Back in my day, those of use (fresh graduates) who weren’t immediately pursuing graduate studies jumped into the job market ASAP. If there was any sould searching to be done, we did it while getting paychecks. Being a bum, even for a week was utterly disgraceful.
The reason mostly was because most of us come from middle class backgrounds who were, thanks to Philippine culture, obligated to help out with the family. Some of us had siblings to help put to school. Some of us had sick parents.
But not today. Many of the UP graduates seems like they can now take their sweet time before entering the job market. Take a vacation. Travel. Bum around.
I felt pretty good having recruited some of our program’s fresh graduates (former students) for writer and editor position. I asked them what are the rest of you batchmates doing, they simply told me, “Soul searching, sir.”