01.26.05
Posted in education at 5:05 pm by
I was a college admissions counselor for 3 years. There were things I liked and things I didn’t like. All in all it was fun. One of my least favourite things was doing college fairs. There’s little I like less than parroting the same three lines of marketing over and over while parents and students are herded by your display like cattle. You start to feel like you’re one of those informational commercials that they turn on 13 inch tv’s at a homeshow…stuck on constant repeat.
Standing at one of these events, once the initial ‘woo hoo I’m a college recuriter’ stage wears off (after about 3 minutes) one starts to take notice of the spectacle that a college fair is. There are a number of types of college recruiter. There’s the sleezy ‘used car salesman’ college recruiter. This type of recruiter you can tell by their rumpled sportscoat–they’ll tell you anything you want to hear in order to get you to visit.
There’s the snotty ‘too cool to be social with other recruiters’ type of recruiter. Then there’s the bubbly/ditsy (could be male or female) Christian college recruiter…this type tries way too hard to get people to stop by their table. There are, of course, a small percentage of ‘normals.’ I’d like to think I fell into this category.
There are a number of other types of folks, the most prominent were the military recruiters. The problem I have with the military was that they didn’t play by the rules. At college fairs, there is a code of ethics to which college representatives are expected to adhere. For the most part people followed the rules.
For example, generally representatives are expected to stay behind their table, represtentatives were expected not to give away items, etc. Generally even apart from the uniforms, one could spot a military recruiter from a mile off. They’d be the ones breaking all the rules: giving away water bottles, physically making contact with kids to get them to sign up for more information at their tables.
The most troubling practice I saw these military recruiters engage in was to make promises to kids over and over that I knew they’d never be able to keep. If I had a nickle for every time some kid was told that he or she could fly an attack helicopter. It was really sad. I knew full well the kid would be scraping bird shit of a runway in Guam, but that wasn’t the story they were fed.
They’d arrive in their government issue Hummers creating quite a stir. Compared to going to college, this military was a much more entertaining proposition.
With all that said, the concept that I spoke of yesterday, of the military getting yet another leg up on the competition of college. I truly cannot fathom that the military would need more opportunity to have special rights and continue to be above the law. But, with W as commander-in-chief, I suppose this shouldn’t surprise me.
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Posted in education at 5:05 pm by
I was a college admissions counselor for 3 years. There were things I liked and things I didn’t like. All in all it was fun. One of my least favourite things was doing college fairs. There’s little I like less than parroting the same three lines of marketing over and over while parents and students are herded by your display like cattle. You start to feel like you’re one of those informational commercials that they turn on 13 inch tv’s at a homeshow…stuck on constant repeat.
Standing at one of these events, once the initial ‘woo hoo I’m a college recuriter’ stage wears off (after about 3 minutes) one starts to take notice of the spectacle that a college fair is. There are a number of types of college recruiter. There’s the sleezy ‘used car salesman’ college recruiter. This type of recruiter you can tell by their rumpled sportscoat–they’ll tell you anything you want to hear in order to get you to visit.
There’s the snotty ‘too cool to be social with other recruiters’ type of recruiter. Then there’s the bubbly/ditsy (could be male or female) Christian college recruiter…this type tries way too hard to get people to stop by their table. There are, of course, a small percentage of ‘normals.’ I’d like to think I fell into this category.
There are a number of other types of folks, the most prominent were the military recruiters. The problem I have with the military was that they didn’t play by the rules. At college fairs, there is a code of ethics to which college representatives are expected to adhere. For the most part people followed the rules.
For example, generally representatives are expected to stay behind their table, represtentatives were expected not to give away items, etc. Generally even apart from the uniforms, one could spot a military recruiter from a mile off. They’d be the ones breaking all the rules: giving away water bottles, physically making contact with kids to get them to sign up for more information at their tables.
The most troubling practice I saw these military recruiters engage in was to make promises to kids over and over that I knew they’d never be able to keep. If I had a nickle for every time some kid was told that he or she could fly an attack helicopter. It was really sad. I knew full well the kid would be scraping bird shit of a runway in Guam, but that wasn’t the story they were fed.
They’d arrive in their government issue Hummers creating quite a stir. Compared to going to college, this military was a much more entertaining proposition.
With all that said, the concept that I spoke of yesterday, of the military getting yet another leg up on the competition of college. I truly cannot fathom that the military would need more opportunity to have special rights and continue to be above the law. But, with W as commander-in-chief, I suppose this shouldn’t surprise me.
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bigbrother0074 said,
January 27, 2005 at 10:24 am
Yes, it is Bush’s fault that military recruiters have the special above-the-law privileges of handing out waterbottles and standing on the other side of their table. My, your logic is impeccable.
It’s not that I feel the need to defend Bush, I’m not really very involved in politics — he just seems to be the political scapegoat. Not only in this case, but in others, I see people throwing all our country’s guilt and blame on him. And while some of it probably is deserved, the logic behind the arguments usually is as shakey as yours was.
I know, you didn’t mean it exactly as it sounded. I know you have very logical reasons for disliking Bush, you just didn’t express them. But in the fact that you didn’t express them, you contribute to the ignorant scapegoatting that goes on. I don’t have any problem with blaming Bush for his shortcomings. I just don’t like the fact that so many people feel the need to give a slight at any opportunity. This shouldn’t be the case no matter who won. Even though Kerry didn’t win, people I know still do the exact same thing with him, and I dislike that just as much. I guess it has to do with political ignorance or something. But then again, I’m mostly politically ignorant — I’m just usually more quiet about it. This is not a rant at you really. You just opened the door for me to complain a little bit. I know you really do have much better logic than that.
But then, I raise the issue: You are miffed that gov’t employees don’t follow social ‘rules’, but don’t you do the same thing? Isn’t that why this is a ‘badchristian’s blog’ or something? Granted, I take that there’s a difference between recruiting ethics and ‘christian standards’, I just had a thought about it is all.
Thanks for letting me vent.
Brandon said,
January 27, 2005 at 12:29 pm
I think you may be making too big of a deal of one simple sentence.
Also, government employees aren’t just not following ’social’ rules…they’re not abiding by ethical standards to which they’ve agreed to adhere. In doing so, they’ve placed themselves above the law…a practice which the military has done concerningly often in the past few months (i.e. abu-gharib, torture, etc.)
Now, I’m left with a question. Do I attribute this to military people, or the current leadership? I attribute it to the leadership. If they were setting an appropriate standard, I don’t think we’d see a military operating with no sense of accountability.
bigbrother0074 said,
January 28, 2005 at 1:31 am
Sorry for the fuss, I just wanted to mention one thing and it kinda turned into my rant — most of it not directed at you. It was just something that I see coming up again and again. I know you have reasons for thinking the way you do, you just didn’t mention them then and it sounded as if instead of alluding to the Abu-Gharib bit, you were talking about the recruiters being above the law. That was what I was talking about the social rules. Anyway, thanks for providing a forum for me to express myself. And I appreciate you sharing your opinion as well.
JD said,
March 18, 2005 at 5:17 pm
You know, the whole conversation is funny: It starts out as a commentary on college/military recruiting and finishes with a rant against the president and the military in general.
Now, I’ve never done any military recruiting, but I have worked as a professional recruiter in high tech, and a couple of things stand out about your comments:
“If I had a nickle for every time some kid was told that he or she could fly an attack helicopter. It was really sad. I knew full well the kid would be scraping bird shit of a runway in Guam, but that wasn’t the story they were fed.”
Really? Is that what you heard? You know, it is pretty amazing the number of college grads who do get to fly any sort of military aircraft; the last time I checked, almost one hundered percent of them are in the military. Second, the ones who do spend their time cleaning a runway? They get paid for it, and full benefits too! More importantly, they are doing something for a reason and the smart ones figure that out pretty quickly. Not only that, but many of them could eventually put their life on the line to do it. Sounds like a high call to me.
Let me ask this: How many kids are told by a college recruiter “Hey! You need to go to our school and finish out your education. After all, you want to get a good job, don’t you?” Do you know how many resumes a week I see from college grads, looking for that job you promised? Some will find one; eventually, maybe most will. However, the percentages are pretty firm: a good number of them will probably end up working outside of their field of study.
Don’t get so proud that you start believing your own press, and start looking down on those that don’t.