Why Most STEM Students Are Not Ready for the Job Market
This lesson introduces the Resume Building playlist inside P.L.E.M. Academy and explains one of the biggest problems facing modern STEM students:
Most students graduate without the qualifications employers actually want.
The lesson demonstrates this problem by examining real computer science, engineering, and technical job applications from companies hiring near Madison, Wisconsin and other large cities.
The Reality of STEM Job Applications
The lesson explains that many STEM students assume that simply earning a degree guarantees employment and high income. However, when students actually examine job applications, they quickly discover that most companies demand:
- Three to five years of experience
- Programming knowledge
- Web development familiarity
- Written communication skills
- Oral communication skills
- Professional software experience
- Project portfolios
- Technical documentation ability
The lesson argues that most graduates possess very few of these skills because traditional college coursework alone often does not provide enough real world preparation.
Why Degrees Alone Are Not Enough
Jonathan explains that mathematics, physics, engineering, and computer science students frequently apply for many of the same technical positions.
However, employers are usually not looking only for coursework. They are looking for students who can demonstrate:
- Experience
- Communication ability
- Technical versatility
- Professional software familiarity
- Web development knowledge
- Programming ability
- Documentation skills
The lesson repeatedly emphasizes that many students graduate with strong theory backgrounds but weak professional communication and technical workflow skills.
How P.L.E.M. Academy Addresses the Problem
The lesson explains that P.L.E.M. Academy was designed to help students gradually build the exact qualifications employers repeatedly request in job postings.
Students are guided through:
- Building professional websites
- Learning WordPress
- Using HTML and LaTeX
- Developing technical communication skills
- Writing textbook style content
- Creating multiple targeted resumes
- Producing project portfolios
- Practicing mock interviews
- Building years of documented experience
The lesson describes the system as a long term structured project where students slowly build qualifications over several years while simultaneously completing their college degree.
The Importance of Resume Targeting
A major point in the lesson is that students should not use one generic resume for every application.
Instead, students should:
- Study job applications carefully
- Identify repeated skill requirements
- Tailor resumes to specific positions
- Develop projects that directly address employer demands
- Document their work professionally
Jonathan explains that the purpose of the P.L.E.M. Academy website system is to help students host and organize all of this material publicly and professionally.
Communication Skills Matter
The lesson strongly criticizes over reliance on shortcuts such as copied solutions, passive video watching, or excessive dependence on AI systems without understanding.
According to the lesson, students who avoid real communication practice often develop weak written and oral communication abilities that hurt them during interviews and professional work environments.
The lesson argues that employers care deeply about whether applicants can:
- Explain ideas clearly
- Write professionally
- Communicate technically
- Present themselves confidently
- Work independently
- Learn continuously
The “Five Years of Experience” Problem
One of the recurring themes throughout the lesson is the common employer expectation that entry level applicants already possess several years of experience.
The lesson explains that many students ignore this reality until graduation, at which point they suddenly realize they lack the portfolio, projects, communication ability, and technical experience employers expect.
P.L.E.M. Academy is presented as a structured way to gradually accumulate those qualifications before graduation rather than waiting until the final semester.
“You need many years of experience doing this stuff. I’m trying to give you guys a structured way to do that.”
Building Your Own Technical Portfolio
The lesson concludes by explaining that students inside P.L.E.M. Academy gradually build:
- Professional websites
- Targeted resumes
- Cover letters
- Project portfolios
- Technical documentation
- Educational textbooks
- Video communication examples
- Long term evidence of technical work
The ultimate goal is to help students graduate with visible proof of experience rather than relying only on a degree title.
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Original Transcript
All right, kids. I’m doing a I’m doing an introductory video here for the resumeé building playlist. Um, I have a bunch of information for you guys on your resume. So, I’m going to do an introductory. Before you start college a college STEM degree, you really need to understand what you’re doing uh in a college chem STEM degree. So, I’m just going to I’m going to choose a computer science job near me. I live in Madison, Wisconsin right now. I’m just going to show you what it’s what it might be like for you to be a math, physics, engineering, STEM major that looks for a job. Okay. So, let’s let’s just say let’s say you have some type of computer science, math, physics, engineering background in college and you’re interested in working for some job that’s willing to hire you. Uh, so I type in computer science jobs near me and I’m looking at all of these and right off the bat, if you’re looking at these, what you’re going to find is that you’re not qualified for any of them. And I’m going to show you why. So this here’s an Android software engineering job. What are they looking for? And what first of all let’s let’s consider what the pay is. Okay. So first first the pay. If are they going to tell me the pay or the salary? Is that in here? Are they going to say salary? Are they going to say pay? Are they going to say wage? They’re not saying this. Sometimes they say, sometimes they don’t. Okay. And sometimes they tell you, sometimes they don’t. So let’s uh let’s see here first of all. Okay. So, bachelor’s degree in computer science, computer engineering, electrical engineering, or other science. So, most of you that get a computer science degree, math, physics, or engineering degree, you’re all going to apply for the exact same jobs. Okay? That’s the first thing you should know as a math, physics, engineering student, computer science, STEM major, you’re all pretty much going to work the same jobs for the most part, or at least apply for the same jobs. There when you graduate, this is the issue you’re going to run into. Three to five years of ex of programming in uh Android using Java, Cotlin. I mean, none of you guys are going to be qualified for any of this. You won’t be qualified for this either. Five years object oriented languages in C++ because you would have only been studying them for like a couple years probably. Some of you might be qualified because you started in high school, but the majority of you are not going to be qualified for any of this stuff at all. And and that that causes a huge issue with you guys. The other thing is is good written and oral communication skills. I mean, most of you guys are are just just setting yourself up for absolute disaster when you go to apply for a job. Um, so look, this this is another five years of experience, okay? None of you have this. None of you have that. And that’s that’s what Plem Academy is about. So with Pllem Academy, you know, you get so you get your own website when you join Pllem Academy research position or higher. I haven’t added it yet today, but I’ll be I’ll be in this in this playlist. I’ll be building a resume and I’ll be showing you guys on this website. It’s the same setup as the original Pllem Academy website where you guys will be able to do your work and host your work. I host my work in the form of PDF files and in the form of HTML and latte code. This is a PDF embed, but I also have latte code and other things that you can do. See down here, this is latte code that is that is embedded with um latte and HTML and stuff. So, the purpose of the Plem Academy website is to I give you your own website. I show you how to build it. I show you how to build your resume. So, we will be I will be taking I will be making multiple résumés. Okay? I’m going to choose multiple jobs and make multiple résumés on my on my website. You’re going to want to have multiple résumés for each individual job. You’re going to want to know how to use artificial intelligence to write those rums and then to edit those résumés. Um, let’s take a look at a different situation. Entrylevel engineering jobs and let’s say Dallas, Texas. So, let’s say you’re a recent graduate. You were looking for an entry- level position. Let’s see if you’re qualified. If there even is any ent entry levels, they’re difficult to find. Uh, I guess let’s just look at electrical engineering engineer one around 80 grand a year. There’s your pay around 80 grand a year. Uh, what are they looking for? Uh, preferred qualifications, three plus years experience with Department of Defense and aerospace industry. So, none of you are qualified for that immediately. That job is not for you, right? You don’t have any of those skills, experience in all of these things. You guys have none of that. Okay? You’ve got a bachelor’s degree. You’ve got none of this. Civil engineer. Let’s check out civil engineer. 65 to 85. That’s a pretty crappy salary for Dallas, Texas. I was making more than that without a college education selling phones. 20 20 years ago, I was making well, I was making 70 grand a year selling phones 20 years ago with a GED. I didn’t even have a high school diploma. Okay, that that’s not a great pay. Getting an engineering degree does not mean you’re going to be paid a lot. Working hard and having good character, determination, that that’ll be get you paid a lot. Uh let’s look at let’s look at uh let’s try another page here. Here’s an entry- level systems engineer control. $80,000 a year. Not bad for an entry level. Uh let’s see. Qualifications, degree in a technical field related to engineering or systems. Excellent communication and problem solving skills. This is the problem you guys are going to run into when you guys use Khan Academy and artificial intelligence. You are getting terrible communication skills, terrible problem solving skills. Terrible. Okay, you are not gaining skills by using AI or Khan Academy or anything like it or teacher solution manuals. You’re doing the exact opposite of this. Um, that’s an entry-level position. You might you might be qualified for this. They’re not saying multiple years of experience for things, but uh pertinent experiments experience. Uh, they want this stuff. Okay. Um, well, yeah, you guys probably have none of that. Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, [ __ ] When you guys join Plem Academy, the first thing we do is we we set up a game plan for you to look at different job applications like this and say, “Okay, I’m looking at three different jobs, and they all want me to have this on there and this on there and this on there, and I need five years of experience doing it.” So, I’m like, “All right, great.” You see where this says web development? It says, “Familiarity with web development technologies.” That’s what I do with Pllem Academy. I literally show you guys how to do web development. I call it modern web development certificate. That’s this one right here. Modern web development. You’re going to learn how to build websites like this, how to communicate, how to do everything through WordPress, which 70% of all businesses use. You’re going to get experience with HTML, latte, SQL, cPanel, all kinds of things. That’s the whole point of it because you guys need five years of experience doing this stuff. you need five years of experience doing this stuff. I’m trying to give you guys a structured way to do that. So, when you come here to these to these um to these certificates, there’s a 12 and or 24month project for you to do a little bit each month that that is tailored to you specifically. And when you do all of the tasks at hand and you complete all the tasks, the tasks are the same for everybody. It’s just that the task is going to be tailored to what you need to do for your resume. So I what I did with PLM Academy is I’m trying to help you guys get ready for your resume senior year. You’re going to be in college for five years. You you saw you need five years of experience. What I’m trying to do with the PLM Academy is give you a structured guide over the next five years or a couple years so that you can check the box on all of those things. All of those things. The research position is for advancing your ex your knowledge of math and physics. The certificates are for getting your resume ready. STEM ré builder, scientific communications by electronic means, and modern web development. Everything in this in that job that they were talking about is exactly what I’m trying to help you do. Modern web development, good communication skills, written oral commun. I’m doing the same thing. I’m a Plum Academy student. I’m following along, too. Mine’s going to be computer programming, statistics, and probability. So I will be developing these libraries as I write my own Flem Academy certificate textbook. You write a textbook is what you’re doing over the period of years. You’re writing your own textbook that you own the rights to that you sell and you you host it on your website. This is mine. It’s blank right now. I’ll be setting it up though today. We’ll be doing a lot of work today and this week getting all this in order. So um anyways, before you start a college STEM degree, guys, you really need to look at job applications, okay? because the majority of you are setting yourself up from failure at day one. You need to have a ton of qualifications and many years of experience with those that comes from using your summers and killing two birds with one stone like using Microsoft Office tools to do your homework. None of these jobs care if you can do latte type set or Google Docs or thirdparty garbage. They don’t care about that. They care if you can um use Microsoft Office tools and have many years of experience using them. Okay. So then um just if you guys just go look at jobs, okay? Just go look at jobs. If you’re doing a math or a physics degree, you need to minor in computer science or at least take a boot camp in computer science. Otherwise, you’re not going to be eligible for like any jobs anywhere. Math and physics degrees are like the hardest degrees to get and the most useless if you don’t know how to code. If you know how to code, they’re one of the most useful. Here’s um Anyway, so so before anyways, before you start a STEM degree, kids, look at job applications. Okay? Seriously, this is like one of the first jobs I’ve seen in a long time that actually ask for a PhD. It’s very rare that you see a company ask for a PhD. It’s usually going to be it’s usually going to be a bachelor’s with five years of experience or a master’s degree. PhDs will often be for special situations and it will be temporary like contract labor. It won’t be forever. Uh so be careful with that. But anyways, just guys, before you start a college STEM degree, you really need to look at job applications for what you want to look at because the pay you think you’re going to get and the skills you think you’re going to have is the exact opposite of what’s going to happen. Okay? I’m trying to help you guys. If you guys want to have a stellar resume, Flem Academy is exactly that. I I walk you through writing your very own textbook. And the textbook is designed to hit the nail on the head of all the things you need for your resume to give you years of experience with it step by step to have your very own website that hosts everything you’ve done. So my website here, you’ll see this shortly. You’ll have my resume on the front. Then you’ll have other résumés tailored to each job. I’ll make a new resume specific to each job, cover letter to specific to each job. This will also host all the work that I do to show them I know how to use all of the software and all of the stuff that they want me to use. I’ll have videos of me talking and communicating so they know that I know how to be professional and I’m not afraid of communicating. I’m not shy. I’m going show you guys all of that. I’ll even do mock interviews with those of you who are part of the internship program. So, check that out. Don’t forget to subscribe. If you guys can uh join the YouTube channel, become a member, leave a donation, buy a book, I greatly appreciate it. This is how I pay my bills without your support. This is not possible. But the best thing you can do is join Flem Academy and I will guide you through success.