Trina Thompson might be the dumbest person to ever graduate from college.
UPDATE: Thanks to Claudia at the WorldHaveYourSay radio program on the BBC for the opportunity to speak on this topic on today’s radio show.
Unfortunately for me, the host concluded the segment by pimping my blog URL to a large, world-wide audience. Unfortunate because she said, “Thanks to Robbie from Austin who blogs at UrbanUndergrounds.com”, which, obviously, is not where I blog.
Oh well.
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The idiot of the day award:
Thompson, a graduate of Monroe College, is suing her school for the $70,000 she spent on tuition because she hasn’t found solid employment since receiving her bachelor’s degree in April.
Perhaps this idiot hasn’t heard that we’re in a bit of an economic slump? With unemployment well over 10% throughout most of the nation?
Which means that a lot of people who also have degrees plus many years of actual (and not just theoretical) experience are also having a hard time finding a job.
This moron of the moment claims the school “didn’t do enough to help her find a job.”
I can’t imagine that this lawsuit and article will do much to help her find a job, either. Would you hire somebody so quick to blame others for their problems and someone so quick to jump to frivolous lawsuits? She sounds like an HR nightmare.
Is there any doubt that this woman is an Obama voter? Looking for both a handout and for somebody else to do for her what she is supposed to do for herself. Typical Liberal — nothing is ever their fault; always looking to blame someone else for their problems.
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OTHERS:
If Thompson cannot find employment now, how will her chances be when this story gains momentum in the news? How likely will an employer be on taking a chance on Ms. Thompson knowing she is prone to sue? My thoughts are she is the one creating the employment block, not her alma mater. How pathetic?
I can’t say this in all certainty but somehow, I just have a feeling that Trina Thompson may be leaning a little bit to the left politically. A degree doesn’t guarantee anyone a job, it means you completed the prescribed courses. But, in what I believe to be typical libber fashion, someone must be to blame. Why not the school. Idiot…
Can I just go out on a limb and guess she voted for Obama?
From the comments at Joanne Jacobs:
Awwwweee precious snowflake can’t find a job on her own. There’s a go-getter that I can’t believe companies don’t want.
Motion for dismissal. Granted. Good bye “Trina”, good luck.
She sounds like a special one. Maybe they should give her the $70k and take back the degree.
I don’t think her complaint if necessarily out to lunch. Where I went to grad school, the placement office really sucked. Very unprofessional. Because of complaints, they got rid of the people working there.
If this college promised placement as part of graduating or promised assistance in finding a job and they were not doing it, she may have an issue. However, the chances of her getting full tuition back are zero to none. And no, it does not look good to future employers to sue.
Are you seriously implying this legal case has ANY merit?? If you really think it does, you should file an amicus brief!!!
Absolutely! I completely agree with your comment. [Although] There are many qualified professionals who commit their best efforts, professionally and personally, in education – despite the arsewipes and assholes who also mold educational environments.
well.
she voted for change.
she got change.
i LOOKED for a job. i found a job.
she is looking for a handout. maybe osama obama will hire her as a nanny.
fwiw. info technology is like a degree in social work.
[ blah ]
60 yr old who is crippled and STILL has work.
not sure who the bigger idiot is here– trina thompson or some self-satisfied retard who thinks ‘osama obama’ is actually clever or in any way meaningful.
Hi Robbie,
Tried to email you but it didn’t work.
I work for a global discussion radio programme and we are talking this subject.
Be great to have you on the show. Please email me as soon as possible at claudia.bradshaw@bbc.co.uk
and I’ll call you to explain.
Thanks – Claudia
ps – our blog is at http://www.worldhaveyoursay.com
Hi!
I’m with the BBC World Have Your Say programme, and we’re talking about this today. You have some interesting things to say about Trina Thompson. If you’d like to be part of the show, please let me know! My email is karunya.kukumidi[AT]gmail[DOT]com
Thanks!
I agree that this lawsuit is silly, so are the comments regarding if she voted for Obama or not. You people need to give it a rest! oh yeah Bush was such a great president????
I completely agree with this statement.
indeed. moreover, people who are only able (and barely, at that) to process key ideas and issues with assistance from tidy little summaries and generalizations (which are really caricatures) — e.g. “liberal” vs “conservative” etc. — need to STFU and stop getting in the way of actual grown-ups. plenty of bread and circuses around. go enjoy and stop presuming to understand what you do not. wretched bovines.
I am told students go to schools to be job creators than job seekers. In Uganda, students are advised to take courses which are on market, May be tina’s course doesnt sell on the todays market. Besides, the season she’s looking for the job in (financial down turn). I hear companies closing. Tina cry no more, its not you only who is lacking a job.
I do agree that this lawsuit is completely ludicrous and if this woman gets away with this, more lawsuits of this nature are coming however, I think it’s a bit presumptuous to say she is an Obama voter just because of the nature of her lawsuit. Think about ALL of the crazy lawsuits over the years (ex: McDonald’s lawsuit over hot coffee). I wouldn’t jump to the conclusion that the woman is a liberal just because of something like this. Let’s not be hasty.
I suggest you do some research on the infamous McDonald’s lawsuit. They were wrong, they had already been put on notice, and then tried to play hardball with an elderly woman who was seriously injured because of McDonalds. You drop coffee in your lap you can expect discomfort and possibly first degree burns – but not 2nd -3rd degree burns requiring hospitalization and skin grafts.
Also, many schools use “100% placement of our graduates” as an inducement for students to attend their schools. Or, they promise as part of attending their school, a placement office that will help you find a job. If the placement office is doing nothing for the students, then they have breached their contract.
$70,000 is not chicken feed and if they used the above as an inducement to get students to attend their school and not somewhere else, then she may have a case. Not a refund of tuition but she could negotiate a settlement where they pay for her fees at a private placement office.
a solid attendance record and 2.7 grade-point average = idiot
I looked up the McDonald’s lawsuit. I never knew that!! You’re correct about the hardball – I am very disappointed that McDonalds didn’t even want to pay the old lady’s medical bills which were only $11,000. That’s both callous and frankly stupid.
…doesn’t make the woman any less dumb for putting the cup of coffee between her legs though. Hot water burns you, and her self-preservatory instincts were proof positive of Darwinism. Funny thing is, there apparently already was a warning on the cup…it was just “not big enough.”
I also agree that some schools have notoriously aggressive “placement” advertisements. It seems Monroe, if they really did such an ad, needed to keep closer tabs on their students. For example, Boston College claims a high statistical acceptance of their pre-meds into Med School, but they temper this by being very very internally selective. I imagine Monroe may have some kind of caveat…surely no school would be so incredibly short-sighted to advertise 100% placement, for someone who could not even maintain a B average, in a Business Admin program? This warrants a further look.
Agreeing (slightly) with all the “poetic” talk on here…going to university, and the success you reap from that, depends on you, the student. However, people are also correct that higher education is very very reactive…I work at a university and the tactics we use to get more students are quite aggressive…”oh, let’s do more nano- or bio-engineering…” it never ends. However, we never overtly promise jobs.
If Monroe DID do something like that, well then they are stupid and deserve a lawsuit like this. I guess we’ll see what happens, and if this girl’s lawyer can dig up anything like that statement. However, unfortunately she will now deal with the fact that she is inherently unhirable….sad.
Who gives a shit if she spilled the coffee or not? Spilled coffee is not supposed to cause third degree burns. Period. And, it is to be expected that people will spill coffee, therefore, Mcdonald should not have had their coffee that hot. It’s ridiculous. Worse, they were already on notice that their coffee was too hot and causing third degree burns.
And wtf is “her self-preservatory instincts were proof positive of Darwinism” suppose to mean?? And, no, there was no warning on the cup that: “If you spill this coffee it will cause 3rd degree burns requiring hospitalization and skin grafts.” Jeesh!
The reason she is off base here is because university is not, NOT, NOT, about getting a job! The purpose to going to university is about education. Getting a job at the back end is a by-product of that education, nothing more. If you are looking to increase your chances of getting a job, go to technical school.
Of course it is about preparing a student to get a job. And most universities and colleges, public or private, large or small, freely acknowledge it.
I suggest you read Cardinal Newman’s book “The Idea of a University”. The fact that higher education markets itself the way a used car salesman does, promising things it can’t control (nor provide if it could), does not invalidate my argument.
No, thanks, I’ll skip the reading assignment. That you disagree with most universities and graduates does not make your view or argument correct.
The fact that you would skip a classic work as well as a bedrock book on the philosophical under pinnings of what a university is, and should be, speaks volumes of your argument. As does your anonymous posting.
The attempt to apply 19th century ideology to 21st century academics and institutions removes all doubt about the impracticality of this poster. That work merely lays a premise and should not be used per se to discount the career focus of modern higher education.
I agree landing a job is not the main purpose of education. However, I strongly disagree that it’s a mere by-product and “nothing more.”
A majority of college students do not choose 4 years in higher education to discard those acquired skill sets upon graduation.
All that being said, the graduate in the article has too high an opinion of herself.
Her practical experience and expectations for starting salary are unreported, so I cannot comment about those.
She’s older, has a GPA worthy of only passing college, and spent only 3 months hunting in a bleak job market. Other candidates have spent at least 6 months or more with superior qualifications. Worse, she has added very negative publicity on her diplomacy skills to her glowing record with this suit.
To those ready to support her, think twice whether you want a colleague ready to pass the blame or sue your pants off the moment you look at her funny.
As long as we are human (and I think most of us still are) then education, real education, not training or job seeking is about personal growth. Its also about the forward movement of mankind. Neither of those things have anything to do with “getting a job”. The greatest gift we have been given as humans is our ability to show empathy but the next greatest gift is our ability to grow intellectually. Education, REAL education, is our greatest tool to grow both of those gifts.
To debase education by believing that it is some how tied to “making more money” disgusts me. This was true in the 19th century, and will be true, hopefully will be more true in the 24th century.
Yeah, Mark. You can reach enlightenment about education through self-discovery, participation, activism or research… Yada-ya.
But the real problem we [taxpayers] endure is the fact that without adequate state benchmarks or development standards regualting universities, NOTHING or NO ONE is preventing key administrators from performing academic fraud or student profling in order to fatten profit margins.
From what I’ve seen in education, state officials and administrators both profit from profiling citizens who otherwise collect unemployment, Medicaid, and Welfare by the time some students are qualified to graduate. These citizens are not stupid people; quite the contrary. Being prevented from graduating is a fraudulent tactic some universities employ (to earn more federal subsidy by falsely enrolling people who refuse to register), for transcripts show only ALLEGED academic achievement and attendance scores.
In other “academic” instances, young drug addicts have been introduced to substances through prescription meds and housed inside community areas designated as “health care facilities”. What does this have to do with education, you ask?
Well, do you remember Cho from the University of VA who killed a bunch of people on campus? Are you concerned about government-controlled health care?
Dual enrollment as community health care patients and commanded by the Courts or law enforcement only enables unregulated institutions of higher education to employ enlisting such “medical patients” as full-time university attendees. I know of many college administrators who manipulate paperwork to represent themselves as Medical benefactors to students (beneficiaries). When kids are thrown onto the streets after costly rehabilitation visits, they’re picked up by police, criminally tried and jailed again for larger offenses relating to substance abuse crimes, etc.
At least, this is how “higher education” works in the State of Michigan. State officals cover up reported crimes from the public because, well, universities are both public and private extensions of the State (as “the People” & a territorial government or executive jurisdiction). Populous Control.
Are you a lawyer privvy to Ms. Thompson’s case premises? …I didn’t seriously think so.
Trina…without sounding judgmental, I must say that you’ve exposed yourself as someone who will not take responsibility for one’s own shortcomings. Unless you can produce a contract between yourself and Monroe College that directly stipulates that you will provided with a position after graduation, you may be out of luck.
I do, however, wish you luck.
As to the Obama-bashers, it’s amazing how the last eight years don’t count for bupkis with these tools. Our great nation was bankrupted by Reagan, Bush the Elder, Clinton and Bush the Furrier…and trust me, I’m no apologist for President Hussein.
dear reader,
trina made the biggest mistake of her life by believing that the college she did her masters will create a job opportunity for her.there’s a parable in my place that say’s no matter how stobborn is the she or he goat,it does not go to the saloon where the lion is a barber.trina’s own case is not exceptional.every global institution as they are called this day’s which includes banks,schools etc,are all crooks.i blame trina for having believing that this thieves will offer her a white coller job instead of her trying to put two and two together to make ends meet for herself and future career.the did has been done and the mistake has been made so trina should better be more careful next time.from alfred decker(NIGERIA)
just a small correction. she only received her bachelor’s. i am 24 and have a masters in english literature. furthermore, i do not have a job in my field.this aside, i know better than to hold my school accountable for a poor job market. this girl has no sense of what it means to be held accountable for one’s own shortcomings. besides, she’s only four months out of college … meaning she hasn’t exactly exhibited any patience in trying to find a job.
dear reader,life they say is not a bed of roses.we must always learn seek advice from a guardian and councellor, our paramount parents or someone we can really rely on before embarking on a journey we may not profit from.graduates are entitled to a job but if the need arises that we are forced to looking out there for one,we should learn how to creat one.
from alfred decker(NIGERIA)
i learn how to bake cakes,cook,baby sit children especially in the orphange home here in liberia that am doing a voluntary job in a refugee home,ETC.am not doing this for the interest of just winning the minds of people,but to creat a job for myself should incase i find myself in this area of specialization IN THE NEAREST FUTURE base to the fact that there is no job.i graduated 5 years ago from the polytechnic where i read marketing but since there’s no job HERE in liberia and am not connected like the haves or the big shots,i have to help myself in the best way i can.so trina should just keep praying and commit all her needs to God who is the great provider.(to whom much is given much is been expected).am praying for you trina,don’t worry God will make a way for you where there seems to be no way.
from ALFRED DECKER(NIGERIA)
Hi, Trina,
I will give you a job , you can clean my room , and do all the housework.
In effect you will be my slave girl of the anceint times.
I will be good Experience for you.
Please email me fo rmore details .
tHANKS
jOEY
Sure, I would offer to hire her and then Fire her on the 1st day for “Bad Attitude”
Even Top Grade GPA students are not getting jobs, so how does this idiot with less than Stellar grades expect anything ?
Loser, she should be sued for trying to sue the University that educated her in the 1st place !
I’m going to give my best shot at summing up this story:
Tina,
Take a little responsiblity for your life and stop being a child. Your college work is not a guarantee of a job. Heck, your GPA isn’t stellar to begin with. Welcome to being an adult. Stop wasting the time and attention of the courts with your frivilous, spoiled-rotten, and juvenile ramblings. My degree doesn’t impart any special advantage, and let me tell you that your’s certainly doesn’t either.
I think many college students are completely oblivious to the fact that the economy sucks right now. I was playing Apples to Apples with a group the other days and the adjective was “depressing” and “the economy” won. A 19-year-old college student made a face and said “How does that make any sense?!” We all just looked at her incredulously.
I’m sorry but I see no need to attribute this to a political party or voting as this girl sounds like she’s not interested in any thing but herself much less politics.
What this is is a larger symptom of lack of personal responsibility among young people. I teach college in a red state and constantly have students who don’t show up to class, don’t do readings, and just generally half-a** assignments. I do not understand this type of attitude among today’s young people and I’m not even that old (late 20s). I realized I was raised “old fashioned” and yes I’m a liberal so please spare me the “typical liberal” comment.
This “University” should be sued for letting moron like Trina Thompson graduate. Does not say much about the school and it dumbs down other
graduates accomplishments.
[...] were merciless in their criticism of the 27-year-old. Robbie Cooper at UrbanGrounds gave her “The Idiot of the Day Award” while Ryan at RightJuris dissed her even as he stood up for the legal profession noting that [...]
…And you people sincerely believe that your opinions, dim-witted comments and inability to propose well-educated perspectives justify how a “legitimate college graduate” should compete in any marketplace?
Your judgmental suppositions, failing arguments, and ill-informed statements prove just how incompetently the educational system effectively produces legitimate marketplace material (presuming that any of you boast that you are an actual college graduate). You’re drones!!
Assuming my point valid, the majority of statements presented on this blog illustrate just how criminally efffective universities and local/community colleges succeed in usurping federal subsidy via students who aren’t academically worthy of federal aid or whose [college]curriculums fail to appropriately hone competitive, well-educated or intelligent graduates for the global marketplace.
One must take a major leap to do so.
SO, Alec. Have you bound onto any recent discoveries?
What are you talking about, JF?
Is your “major leap taken” one of faith, i.e. enlightenment, or a Clockwork-type transgression?
Droog, I’m just asking what’s shakin’.
Had you said Alex, I might have known sooner.
The major leap would have been in believing your assumption.
But Droog, don’t you alredy believe your own presumptions valid? There’s a vast difference between observing and understanding what is derrivative of real events as opposed to be lead by that of media and PR-related hype.
I try to avoid making rapid assumptions, thus, accepting your assumptions as believable is not something I am willing to do.
People are free to post their opinions here. You don’t have to agree with them, but making broad assumptions about others educational attainment, when you have no knowledge if they are true, shows you do make false assumptions.
As for this Trina person, based on what is known about her, she is trying to get rich quick by being litigious, after graduating as a marginal student, into a contracting labor market.
A victim of her own inadequacies, not of the school she attended.
As you are of your own mind.
However, in order to educate myself of Ms. Thompson’s full premise, neither case petition or court docket have been released to the public for review. Reading slanderous remarks about another [person], i.e., “an idiot; moron”, “…is trying to get rich quick by being litigious after graduating a marginal student” or “…is a victim of her own inadequacies, not of the school she attended” destructively effaces one’s (legitimate) angle. Misapprehension and slander fail to substantiate reasonable arguments.
Although blogging is an interesting way to greet different perspectives, my point is not to criticize any one person’s experiences or opinons from another. I find it an unfortunate social consequence that many educated people are geared to react without paying mind to the legitimacy of PR- or media source(s) from and by which information transfers.
It’s not slander. And you are a moron for claiming it is. Oh, and your writing sucks.
I don’t know why you would say she must be a liberal that wants a hand-out, given the fact that it is conservative states who take the most handouts. 9 out of 10 of the states that receive the most money from the federal government while contributing the least are red states (DC being the sole blue “state”), while 8 out of 10 states that pay the federal government much more than they get back are blue states. Considering those 9 red states have some of the worst rates for education, poverty, and violent crime they should be bending over backwards to thank the liberal states that give them the money to keep them from descending completely into 3rd world country conditions.
Show your work.
Linkage is requested.
Like several other posts before mine, I object to the baseless conclusion that Ms. Thompson must be an “Obama voter” and a “Typical Liberal”. I myself am an Obama voter and a liberal, yet I believe in hard work and perseverance, and I have a strong internal locus of control–so you won’t catch me blaming external factors if I find myself not succeeding at something. My own experience is that laziness and blaming others for one’s problems is not the province of a single ideology. I have met both liberal and conservative idiots, just as I have friends–both liberal and conservative–who share my convictions about taking responsibility for one’s own situation.
I was looking at an older set of statistics from 2004. A newer one shows that actually the top 10 states that contribute are all blue states, and of the 17 states that get less from the federal government than they give only one is a red state, Texas (two if you still include Colorado as a red state).
On the opposite end of the spectrum, 8 out of the 10 states that contribute the least and get the most are red. 9 of 10 if you consider Virginia as still a red state.
These stats come from the Tax Foundation, not exactly a lefty bastion of socialism. http://www.taxfoundation.org/press/show/22659.html
There are many ways to look at this, as your link only has one perspective.
At the pdf from the Census Bureau’s Federal Aid To States For Fiscal Year ‘08, they break it down to the states receiving federal funds on a per capita basis. NY and Cali receive the most fed funding in real dollars in practically every category of fed funding. NY is a densely populated state, while NM is sparsely populated, yet they both receive more than $2000 per capita in fed funds.
That to me is a much better indicator than blue state/red state comparisons on the ratio of taxes to fed payouts. Another comparison would be to look at the states controlled by democrats, compared to those of GOP states, and how they compare in fiscal solvency. Like Cali to Texas, for example.
I think this has nothing to do with her political leanings. Just a typical low-life who expects things to be handed to her. That’s what you get for spending that kind of money at a lower tier school. She’s just not smart.
She should be shot. I wish they had a prison for people filing frivolous lawsuits. No doubt what race she is.
This honestly makes me so mad, I graduated with a 3.8 GPA in Applied Math at a much more difficult school, have been searching for work for 5 months, and I’m not about to sue my university. My university doesnt even offer career services to alumni free of cost! This is just a ridiculous sense of entitlement! And for all of you commenting on how this lady is an Obama supporter — I am a HARDHEADED liberal and don’t blame others for my lack of employment at all!
Just goes to show that you should think before you sue. Whatever her job prospects were before this lawsuit, they’ve been all but destroyed now (assuming her prospective employers know how to use Google)