Xer Ping
Ping list for the discussion of the politics and social (and sometimes nostalgic) aspects that directly effect Gen-Reagan/Generation-X (Those born from 1965-1981) including all the spending previous generations (i.e. The Baby Boomers) are doing that Gen-X and Y will end up paying for.
Freep mail me to be added or dropped. See my home page for details and previous articles.
Not true in our family. We don't pop for College
Tuition unless the kiddoe knows of two possible
vocations he/she's interested in. And they sign
up for those courses after basics are finished.
Have a grandson now finishing his Junior year at
ASU Flagstaff. He played football through high
school and his Freshman year at college. Then
he decided to go into Sports Physical Therapy.
A great choice. He's already completed all his
Science requirements and several therapy courses.
He'll stay one extra year picking up a double
Masters in that field along with History. And
do his student teaching. He expects to start
out teaching High School with Social Studies/Sports
Coach Asst/Therapist. His goal is to get into the
Collegiate Sports Arena. Sounds like a Plan to me!
It's true re your statement about many kids not
having a clue as to what they want to do. But
that in part is the parents fault. Too often
they send their child off to college on the premise
"he will find himself." That happened years ago
in Kindergarten! At today's tuition prices, he'd
better damn well show more enthusiasm about his
potential slots in life.
It was a luxury for the crem de la crem of society.
I suggest Amanda stay in school long enough to learn to spell a few French expressions, at any rate. Heaven knows she'll need to know such important stuff when she finally gets out in that infamous "real world."
1. Sell Real Estate for a few years - great overall education in finance, contracts, sales, teamwork, etc.
2. Read, re-read and keep re-reading the book of Proverbs.
3. Study a martial art from an accomplished master. You will learn how to learn.
4. Read, re-read and keep re-reading the 'Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus'. You will then understand that you aren't nuts.
Please feel free to add to my list. Serious entries only, please.
If you're going there to learn a trade, fine. If you're going there to pursue the truth, better. If you're going there to learn religion, even better.
But for most kids, it's four years older and deeper in debt.
College graduates as a whole make more money, have lower divorce rates, and probably a bunch of other good things. A degree isn't a ticket to skate through life. A whole lot of work is still required.
I've gone through several semesters at a community college (the first couple paid for by my parents, the last couple paid by me out of pocket) and while some of the programs are worthwhile, a lot of what is taught is useless. The only good classes I've had were in the history, political science and economics departments (though the liberal bias is astounding). I think I'm going to give an EMT-B certification a try and then consider moving on to paramedic later on (at least they won't be out-sourced LOL)
But if you use it for what it is, and understand that it is only a stepping stone, then you will be on your way to success.
I didn't think it was supposed to. It may help, though.
As someone still in college (and a history major, no less) I can relate with this article. Yet, I am now convinced that college is one of the best choices I've made, hands down.
The major thing for kiddo's to realize is that they have to focus on something. This is true for anything in life, not just college.
One more issue I take with the article "Six of the top 10" don't require degrees....this may be so but would you really be hurting yourself in the long run to get a degree?
As a person who finally acquired a college degree in his forties and who is now in his fifties, I'd have to say that the best chance for the average high school person to have a successful money making career is to get a tech school or vocational school degree rather than a liberal arts degree. I'm happy to have finally graduated, but I can't say as my degree in geography with a science emphasis has resulted in lucrative wages. My advice to high school grads is to get a degree or a skill in something that the world wants. Then get a lib arts degree.
I have to say something, if only because I went to Amanda's college (Bowling Green State U. in Ohio). Maybe the depressing thing is that her article could have appeared in the college paper when I was there (Class of '73) without too many changes. At the time, though, there was a kind of general theory in the Liberal Arts sector that college was not trade school; you were there to get an overall education and specialization would come later. It sounded a little defensive, maybe because Bowling Green really was a trade school in some respects: it had started as a teachers' college and still was a teacher mill. A typical student you might run into in the bars downtown on Friday night was probably a girl named Debbie from Cleveland majoring in Elementary Education, and her more idealistic best friend was majoring in Special Education. The common joke was that Debbie and her friend were also looking for Mrs. degrees, but even that aside, the idea of becoming a grade school teacher was at least something solid in the way of sensible career planning, and more than a lot of us were doing over in Liberal Arts.
Me, I had gone to college without too much in the way of future plans, mainly to see what turned up. Rather incredibly, something did: I signed up for a program offering a year abroad in Austria as a way to get off campus for a year, spent my Junior year in Europe, came back with enough credits for a German major, discovered I could learn other languages, too, and to this day I work mostly as a translator. It sounds fairly organized and planned out in retrospect, but at the time I was blundering blindly and stumbling into things by sheer dumb luck. So I'm not inclined to fault Amanda too much for her evident terror when faced with the future. It's probably only too understandable for this particular time in her life.
i was thinking that one ought to be "prepared" for real life by the time he steps into college...
If real life means cheating, binge drinking and sleeping around...then college grads are perfectly qualified.
Bummer dude.
***A third of college students do not qualify for a degree in six years and just because you don't graduate, doesn't mean you don't have to pay back student loans.