Should I sign up for a credit card right now? If so, from where? I'm an unemployed college student. I'm due to graduate in May, and currently have no job since I'm a full-time student. (I'm looking for "real" jobs for when I graduate.) I'll delve into (much) more detail in a minute, but the basic gist is that people keep telling me I need to get a "real" credit card to build history, but I think now may be a bad time. I should also disclaim that I'm extremely contemptuous and distrusting of the credit industry. I believe that they, as an industry, have gone out of their way to exploit people with financial problems; I find it repulsive that they're exempt from usury laws; I'm yet to find a credit card company that doesn't engage in one sleazy practice or another. More than anything, though, I have major issues with credit reporting: I never asked to be put in a database with some random third-party group, and I think my financial data is the last thing in the world they have a right to know anything about. I realize that it's very helpful to banks, but that doesn't appease me. Not only is it a (creepy) invasion of my privacy, but I have major issues with them being the definitive word on whether I'm creditworthy or not. (It'd be like if I spontaneously declared that I was the "Job Rating Bureau" and kept files on every person in America, every time they've been disciplined at work, every place they ever worked, for how long, and also reported when people applied for jobs. And then, when someone went to apply for a job, the company would contact me to ask what I thought of them. Oh, and employees could only see my ranking of them once a year. And that's only because Congress forced my hand.)</rant>