Bitettes and Pieces: Maintain dignity or get rich?

Some cast members of the Jersey Shore are said to make $30,000 an episode for season three of the show. This is not including the extra cash they collect for club appearances, Pauly D's makes up to $80,000 a week for his DJ work according to New York Post, or the products they put their name behind.

Just Monday a column in the New York Times mentioned 11.2 percent of college graduates under 25 are unemployed. While the mostly non-college graduates of the Jersey Shore are thriving for doing what many Americans cannot even consider a job.

An earlier article in the New York Times noted a study by the National Association of Colleges and Employers that only 24 percent of 2010 college graduates who applied for a job had one set up post graduation.

"The average salary offered to graduates with a bachelor's degree has slipped 1.7 percent from last year (2009) to $47,673," the article stated.

Although the job market for graduates with a bachelor's degree is seeing a slight shimmer of hope, even those who can obtain jobs may never see their hard work pay off as greatly as the cast of the Jersey Shore sees their fun paid for.

As students of a four-year university in attempts to earn a bachelor's degree or master's degree, it is disheartening to witness characters such as Snooki and Deena of the Jersey Shore prospering while our loans pile up.

As many of us tune in to MTV on Thursday evenings and laugh at the foolishness of the cast members, we are truly the ones getting fooled. The cast members of the Jersey Shore are gathering more than a year's tuition at Seton Hall in a few short nights of clubbing and drinking.

Which raises the question, should we all drop out and hope we land a reality show gig that will pay off our college debt?

Even though this concept is unlikely, what is likely is most of Seton Hall University feeds into the reason the members of the Jersey Shore are so successful with almost 8.5 million viewers for the Season three premiere alone. For those who are anti-JShore, and are busy slaving away over papers and exams, the Jersey Shore crew slaves over GTL'ing, smushing and drinking for what is probably a fraction of our tuition for our duration at Seton Hall.

Yet in the end what is most important is that we have our dignity (hopefully) and careers (hopefully) that we will all be proud of in exchange for millions of dollars when we look back years from now.

Nicole Bitette is a junior journalism major from Woodbridge, NJ. She can be reached at nicole.bitette@student.shu.edu.