Transferable Skills Not Transferable, Not Skills

NEW YORK CITY—Despite a well-established pipeline from the Sage School of Philosophy to the absolute dregs of society, Winston Chan ‘21 has found his post-graduate transition to be difficult upon the discovery that his so-called “transferable skills” were neither transferable, nor skills. 

“As a philosophy major at Cornell, I was sure I developed the shaky moral foundation that I needed for a career in finance, but I was still missing some important hard skills.” said Chan, who now works as an equity trader at Morgan Stanley. “Apparently my background in Hegelianism isn’t ‘useful for making spreadsheets’ and I would have been better off taking the time to learn basic arithmetic at some point during my undergraduate studies.” 

Chan was not alone in his situation, as other alumni were also making the horrifying discoveries that much of what they learned in college was completely useless in their jobs. Among those alumni include Serena Janssen ‘21, who recently discovered that her fluency in Ancient Greek and Latin did not correlate with an aptitude for her new job as a Public Relations associate at BlackRock.

“Despite what I told recruiters, there doesn’t seem to be any way to apply my extensive knowledge of Ovid towards my current role. It’s been tricky trying to figure out how to help BlackRock conceal its involvement in putting pipelines across indigenous land from the public given that I don’t have any practical knowledge whatsoever in this field, but I’m learning as I go.” Janssen said.

As of press time, recent graduates hoping to rid their minds of the rot inflicted by a liberal education have taken it upon themselves to learn more applicable skills such as Microsoft Powerpoint, budgeting, and bootlicking.

Small Company at Career Fair Just Happy to be There

BARTON HALL—In the midst of representatives from much larger companies, Tony Brown, CEO and recruiter for a small software company based in Connecticut, reported that he was honestly just grateful for the opportunity to attend this semester’s career fair.

“Sure, the bigger companies tend to get more attention, but I think our mission will really appeal to a lot of students,” Brown said, right before a student asked him where the Facebook table was.

While other companies had drawstring backpacks and t-shirts to lure in potential recruits, Brown showed up to the career fair with a paltry number of stress balls and a few phone wallets. “Every few minutes a student will walk over, grab some swag, and leave. Even though they didn’t ask about career opportunities, I’m really glad they approached our table!”

“I’m super excited to be here and show Cornell what makes our company special,” Brown continued as several students hurried past, making a beeline towards the light blue Goldman Sachs table.

As the rest of Barton Hall bustled with blazer-clad upperclassmen with their sights set on Bloomberg or Google, Brown continued to stand behind his table alone, practicing his freshman internship pitch, and really just doing his best.