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[wrenroth]

Was taking an extended internet-perusing break from studying for tomorrow's test, (shut up conscience, I've been at it for nearly five hours, and I'll go back right after this), and came across this best-of-craigslist rant. Hearing many a sentiment in a similar vein from my nearing-graduation circle of friends, I thought to repost it.

Comments

[astrocrabpuff]

I rather wish high-school had taught other subjects than academic ones, such as: "how to actually manage your money", or "how to plan for your future when you'll be retired from the work force and living longer than previous generations", or "how to write a resume and see it from the view of someone hiring you for a job", or something useful instead of subjects like drama or geography. Grant you, those subjects are useful but the practical applications of them are not taught either - and that's something that's really missing from high-school: practical applications of the subjects they teach.

[wrenroth]

I think you're not alone. I remember careers covering resume-writing, though I'm not sure how well. I also seem to recall an article a read a bit ago about a new financial literacy cirriculum starting early in elementary school. As for the retirement thing -- I don't think we as a society quite figured out how this smaller-workforce larger-number-of-seniors thing is going to be at all supportable...so the only thing we can really say to our children is "prepare to be screwed". And even that's not right, because really, everyone's jaded enough as it is.

I think the best piece of advice I heard was essentially - study what you want, but make sure you have at least one marketable skill in a different area that you can turn to when you need. Swimming, poker skills, fixing cars -- you never know what might come in handy.

[astrocrabpuff]

But you're not screwed for retirement at any age - what's screwy is that we spend more time planning a vacation than for retirement. Mostly it's because we, low-to-middle-income types, don't know how. There are ways to invest even slight amounts of money when you are younger that lead to enough returns for when you retire - why can't there be courses on that? I took a "finances" course in high school - it was about doing your own taxes and the stock market. There wasn't any true investment and that was reflected in how we selected the stocks we were following and our "results" - all of which showed how clueless we were about investment and that "we" includes the teacher who taught that course.

*sigh*

[subjectivism]

I say this knowing that I will finally complete the formal education phase of my life with at least seven years of post-secondary schooling but I really think that Western, especially North American societies are overeducated in academics. We scoff at the film and English degrees but I know people with science degrees - TWO PhDs in chemistry and physics even - struggling to find a job. Meanwhile, tradeswork often pays more and requires less education or at least cheaper education. The problem is that everyone wants to brag about having a Master's instead of becoming, say, an electrician which pays the bills and is perfectly respectable work.

[25whores]

It all boils down to amount of money ≠ social status. People who aren't familiar with the academic world will nine times out of ten be more impressed at someone who holds a PhD over someone who's been a plumber for 20 years. And the plumber makes about the same, if not more.

Also, back in the old country - wherever that may be - an undergrad degree was the path to a career, so immigrant parents are convinced it works that way in North America. Wish someone would enlighten them.

[25whores]

Now, granted, tuition here is nothing like it is in the US. And I *do* find something to the opinion that lowering tuition fees will only lead to even more people wasting time on degrees they are later dissatisfied with. Not always. Tuition is free in Argentina - or at least it was when and where my parents were studying - but it was extremely competitive and the material was structured so that it was really hard to do well enough to pass (pass was a 70%). Admission rates were high, but so were dropout rates