I appreciate the work you put into this, and I’ve been trying to think of how to respond. I guess my experience has just been different. I went to university and graduated with a BSc right into COVID. I had decent grades and my degree was from a well-known university. I applied to jobs regularly.
I wasn’t able to get a job for a year. After I started, no one wanted to give me any help. They just expected me to learn everything on my own. I couldn’t even get clarification on what they wanted me to do most of the time. The company tried to pressure me into working unpaid, undocumented overtime to make up for this. After not even a year, they terminated my contract. It took me another year to get a second job, and my contract was terminated after three weeks with no reason given.
I always worked hard in school and that was enough for me to get by. However, it feels like, in the real world, you have to constantly be comparing yourself to others or you will fail. You cannot succeed if you concentrate purely on yourself and what you’re doing, because your boss, or your hiring manager, is always going to be comparing you to your peers. If you are so inclined, you can start your own business, make your own product, or whatever. If you do this, there is little to no safety net if you fail though. Society runs on comparing you to everyone else and it sucks.
I guess where the D2 comparison falls apart is that it took me 4 years and over $20,000 to get an undergrad degree that, theoretically, gives me the knowledge and skills to perform a job. I started playing D2 in March of this year and I’m already at pinnacle cap on every class, with a fully masterworked loadout for every subclass. It’s really hard to pivot in the real world.