I got my Bachelor’s in Data Science over a year ago, and got a 3.7 GPA. Despite these accomplishments, I’ve basically been locked out of my field. I’ve been working retail ($15/hr) for the past year.
I was in college during the height of COVID, and it was impossible to get any real internships back then. Employers don’t care. They want experience that I was unable to get for entry-level positions. If I get a call back, they make me go through multiple rounds of intense interviews, and won’t even tell me the pay, which is probably less than what my parents made at the same age.
I want to be able to support myself and pay rent in a modest apartment, but nowadays it seems the only people who are qualified for the jobs that’ll allow that are the “rockstar” students – the people who got perfect GPAs, multiple internships, were club presidents, etc. This leaves people who were simply “above average” like myself no better off than the dropouts.
I know for a fact that things weren’t always like this. I am generally not a conspiratorial person, but this seems off. What changed and why?