How to guide young minds

[barrett]

Was just reading a bit on the Falling Standards Make America Great thread. I am wondering how those of you who have kids (or who care about those of us who do!) would advise young people who are getting ready to enter university here in the US. Obviously the engineers on here don't think their kids should follow in their footsteps. I hear medical professionals constantly bemoaning the fact that their offices expend so many resources just on paperwork (when I go to a doctor's office, I can't help noticing that most of the people who work there are pushing paper around or on the phone with someone). So if medicine and engineering are out, what are the options? If a kid isn't into robotics or an entrepreneurial genius, what good avenues are left?

And teenagers here aren't stupid. They look at the landscape and think, 'Damn what the hell am I supposed to do?" Is there really only a great future for the top, say, 5%?

[WiseOne]

I suggest my father's advice:  do what you want and don't worry about current conditions.  By the time you're done with training they will have changed.

The problem arises when people make decisions like going into a particular area because they think they'll make a lot of money, or have a guaranteed job.  That rarely turns out well. 

Also I don't believe high school kids know enough about the career landscape to make an informed decision.  They should pick a general area of interest and then be alert for opportunities within it.

[barrett]

I suggest my father's advice:  do what you want and don't worry about current conditions.  By the time you're done with training they will have changed.

The problem arises when people make decisions like going into a particular area because they think they'll make a lot of money, or have a guaranteed job.  That rarely turns out well. 

Also I don't believe high school kids know enough about the career landscape to make an informed decision.  They should pick a general area of interest and then be alert for opportunities within it.

All good advice, WiseOne. So far my main speech is "do something you love and figure out how to monetize it later." Not sure if that is really good advice though.

On a related note, I am guessing most posters on here were big time self starters, no? My wife and I were talking about passions yesterday... that when you really want to do something, there is nothing that can stop you from spending a lot of time on whatever that may be. Similarly, you can only give kids so many opportunities. At some point the fire has to come from them. I used to assume that everyone had passions but now I realize it's only the lucky few.

[Pointedstick]

I have a three year-old, so college is a ways away, but I think about this all the time. To me, a general and timeless piece of advice is do beware of default choices and following crowds. When society tries to make a decision for you or tells you that something is mandatory or everyone around you seems to be doing the same thing, it's almost never in your interest to play along. Right now the big narrative has been "Higher education is the gateway to prosperity; do it at all costs!" for a long time, and the result has been people ignoring both cost and benefit in their quest to rack up credentials, the result being that the credential has paradoxically become both mandatory and devalued.

The way out of the bubble, then, is to abandon what the crowd is doing, and there are many options. The simplest one is to simply take both cost and benefit into consideration, and attend college as cheaply as possible in a field as potentially useful as possible. Bypassing college to start a business is possible too. There are so many more opportunities for teenagers to (legally!) make a lot of money now than there were when I was a teenager scarcely a decade ago.

It's also really important when you're young to avoid obligations and entanglements that reduce your freedom to find what it is you really want to do. I think there's much, much more freedom to being a 20 year-old journeyman air conditioner tech with no debt and low expenses than a 20 year-old who's two years into an expensive liberal arts school with $50k in debt already, who doesn't actually know what they want to do. So much of society's typical advice to young people amounts to telling them to give up their freedom to become cogs in a machine.

[barrett]

PS. I knew you would show up on this thread as soon as it was late enough for you to be awake in NM!

[barrett]

If I had it to do all over again, I'd strongly consider accounting.  And not just because I want to be more like moda.  Unlike Engineering, one can work in pretty much any decent sized town.  In Engineering, you get pretty specialized, and have to look for your specific field, which is very limiting.  Plus accounting is a lot less stressful.  (I know, grass is greener).

Accounting would have been a great option for me but probably will be a terrible one for my daughter. Also, isn't that one of those professions that is likely to be automated out of existence very quickly?

[Mountaineer]

Lots of great advice has already been given.  The only other thing I'd emphasize is to be sure you do not discount the trades to soon for "white collar" work.  HVAC tech, electrician, plumber, police officer, EMT, military service, etc. may be reasonable choices to go along with reasonable education cost and something your child may have an interest in.  I would, however, discourage (i.e. have your child do some serious research) choices such as early Congolese or Hindu philosophy, professional football player, singer, actor, and such that have minimal chances of finding a paying job.

... M

[moda0306]

If I had it to do all over again, I'd strongly consider accounting.  And not just because I want to be more like moda.  Unlike Engineering, one can work in pretty much any decent sized town.  In Engineering, you get pretty specialized, and have to look for your specific field, which is very limiting.  Plus accounting is a lot less stressful.  (I know, grass is greener).

Accounting would have been a great option for me but probably will be a terrible one for my daughter. Also, isn't that one of those professions that is likely to be automated out of existence very quickly?

Accountants can answer better than me, but from what I see of hanging out with our Division Controller and his group, I don't see a lot that can be automated.  They do of course use ERP systems, etc., so they're not sitting around with a 9 key calculator, but there is a lot of thought, discussions, etc. that goes into it all.  The old guy controller is amazingly fast on his calculator (complete with little white tape), which I mock him for.  Then he makes fun of me for my duct-taped glasses and short sleeved white shirt.

In my first year of tax prep, I knew a guy who was soooo fast on the 10-key. Then he tried typing once. Dead. Ass. Slow. Hunting and pecking at 1.5 letters per second. It was odd to see the juxtaposition.

[WiseOne]

I think PointedStick and I were saying the same thing:  too many kids are chasing what they think will be financially rewarding career paths (e.g. going to college and majoring in "business"), because that's what the crowd is doing.  Only they get stuck doing something they didn't really want, and with a mountain of debt to boot.  Bad combination.

Desert's points are excellent.  I just think they can only come into play after the hardest part of the decision gets made.  Have any of you considered taking your kids to a career counselor? 

BTW the two people I know who majored in accounting weren't terribly happy with that choice.  It's a pretty dry career that doesn't allow much scope for creativity, which seems to be rather the opposite to the prevailing personalities on this board.  What made you guys think of accounting?

[Xan]

Career counselor: Well, chartered accountancy is rather exciting isn't it?

Anchovy: Exciting? No it's not. It's dull. Dull. Dull. My God it's dull, it's so desperately dull and tedious and stuffy and boring and des-per-ate-ly DULL.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4h-wVe9a6rQ

[Pointedstick]

At its core, a job is the production of value for other people in exchange for money. The real trick is finding a way to produce value for other people by doing what you find enjoyable yourself. This is the double-whammy: you get money as well as emotional and/or intellectual satisfaction. Seen in this abstract way, there are a million zillion different ways to enjoy yourself in the process of producing value for other people. The possibilities are endless. We just need to open our eyes to it, and this is a good thing to turn a young person'e mind onto.

I think the most insecure and miserable people, job-wise, are those who aren't actually producing much value for others. They're actually exploiting them by taking their money and not giving them much in return, or giving them something that's not actually valuable.

This is endemic in academia and the arts--really a lot of the humanities in general--where people routinely get paychecks and grant money to work for months or years on projects that literally nobody cares about; it's simply paid intellectual masturbation. This kind of thing inherently makes people feel bad. They don't like the idea that they're just taking other people's money and ripping them off by not giving them anything particularly useful in return. It makes them feel selfish, and I think they often overreact by going overboard in the other direction with anti-selfishness, particularly politically, which is the cause of a lot of the liberal pathologies you find among people in those kinds of fields.

You can save yourself from this kind of thing by simply making sure that what you're doing is actually valuable to someone.

[WiseOne]

In my case?  Some math (which is what I really like), as well as the (perceived) lower stress and the more dispersed job opportunities -- almost everyone needs an accountant, but not many people need a Ph.D. chemical engineer with interests in polymer physics and chaotic dynamical systems theory who is also a crappy advocate for his own work. 

I would have qualms about there not being much room for creativity in accounting.  Then again, I've not really investigated this very deeply, so I could be wrong about that.  My pining is very likely a "grass is greener" thing, as Desert mentioned.

Ah, there's the rub.  "Low stress" is pretty much the antithesis of a creative, self-motivated career.  Sounds like you want to stay away from corporate jobs, in fact.  They love to create stress for no particular reason.

What about combining early retirement with consulting to cut down the stress?  That was kind of my plan.  A lot of the stress is having to work full time while running the rat race financially.  A most excellent use of all your PP & savings knowledge!

[Tyler]

Despite the new overseas competition in STEM degrees, I still think they are excellent choices compared to many other options.  If you can earn an engineering degree, you can apply that to lots of things beyond engineering.  What I don't recommend is getting an expensive but useless education just for the sake of having a diploma or becoming so specialized that you back yourself into a career corner (unless it's truly your calling).

My advice right now to a young person thinking about college and career is to read these first:

http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2722
and
http://zenpencils.com/comic/128-bill-wa ... ts-advice/

Don't necessarily think about your career as a single lifelong track that you pick when you're 18, and definitely don't do anything that will limit your ability to change course in the future when opportunity presents itself.  Avoid debt and similar anchors, and embrace change.  And live for yourself and your family, not for your company or career.

[barrett]

A serious question, though... How possible is it, really, to guide a young mind?

The older I get, and the more I see, the more I think that people are what they are, and will make their own decisions, regardless of what someone else wants them to do. Even a parent.

I think this is true for the most part. The thread title certainly is not perfect. I do think there are things a parent can do to help a teen out big time though. What you can't do is get inside their heads and change the way they are wired (believe me, I have tried). You can talk to them and help them refine their aspirations though. Some kids have interests and don't realize that the things they are passionate about can actually be done in exchange for money. Other kids are passionate about things that may have little chance of paying off financially, but pursuing the passion just to become expert at something has (IMHO) value in and of itself. Your passion and your career don't have to be the same thing.

When there is no passion, ah that's where things get tricky. Talent without passion is a tough combo to grapple with as a parent.

[WiseOne]

That's a very interesting description of academia.  I can't imagine how terrible it would feel to have a long, tax-funded career consisting of submitting papers on topics nobody cares about.

Depends what you mean by "nobody".  Even the most navel-gazing research is usually done in the context of a group sharing their results. 

That kind of group driven work never appealed to me though.  I've put a lot of effort into questions that I think are truly game changing.  It's nice that I got a lot of recognition for this even my publication list is shorter than most.  Ironically, it's so easy to break out of the group think, take a step back and ask the obvious questions, but hardly anyone does it.  I think this is the reason for the negative view that PS described.

[Libertarian666]

I would recommend learning a second language and emigrating to an EU country, maybe Germany. Switzerland would be even better, if possible.

[barrett]

I would recommend learning a second language and emigrating to an EU country, maybe Germany. Switzerland would be even better, if possible.

Would you do that yourself now or is this just advice for a young person?

[Pointedstick]

That's a very interesting description of academia.  I can't imagine how terrible it would feel to have a long, tax-funded career consisting of submitting papers on topics nobody cares about.

Depends what you mean by "nobody".  Even the most navel-gazing research is usually done in the context of a group sharing their results. 

That kind of group driven work never appealed to me though.  I've put a lot of effort into questions that I think are truly game changing.  It's nice that I got a lot of recognition for this even my publication list is shorter than most.  Ironically, it's so easy to break out of the group think, take a step back and ask the obvious questions, but hardly anyone does it.  I think this is the reason for the negative view that PS described.

Let me clarify that I don't think all of academia is like this. Certainly a lot of interesting and useful research gets done--especially in fields like science, medicine, and engineering--as evidenced by people taking an interest in it and using its findings productively. But when you look at the humanities, there's a lot of stuff that simply can't be described this way. Even if there's a small group of people within your professional circle who care, it's incestuous; they only care inasmuch as you're playing the academic game, not because the output is actually of value to anyone. There are professors whose careers have been advanced by writing books noticed by nobody but the review boards who determine their salaries.

[Pointedstick]

When there is no passion, ah that's where things get tricky. Talent without passion is a tough combo to grapple with as a parent.

Well, maybe. I think passion is overrated in our society, and lacking it can be liberating; when you're heavily encouraged to follow an obvious passion, other options lose their appeal, even if they're maybe the most practical. What if you're passionate about something that's basically useless to other people?

There's no reason to avoid pursuing something you're talented in but for which you lack passion. Some of the happiest people I know aren't really passionate about their jobs per se, but are competent and reliable enough not to burn out, and reserve their passion for parenting, cooking, literature, hobbies, etc. Because these are inherently not financially productive activities, there's no pressure to turn them into a job; you can just enjoy them.

[Tortoise]

I agree with PS and TennPaGa that it's critical for a young person to avoid freedom-constricting obligations and entanglements until they figure out what they really want to do and at least get the major preliminaries out of the way (degree, certification, portfolio, etc.).

Along those lines, a cautionary tale:

A good friend of mine, 36 years old, is in the seventh or eighth year of his doctoral program in political theory. (He earned his master's degree in 2010.) He's been doing it as a pure labor of love, because the earning potential is likely pretty low. He wants to teach political theory for a living.

Anyhow, he decided to get married back in '09 before he had even earned his master's, let alone his PhD. In my opinion, that was his first big mistake. I know a lot of people do it and still end up earning their PhD, so it's not impossible; I just think it makes things more difficult.

Then, last year, his wife got pregnant and they now have a kid. In my opinion, that was his second big mistake. Now, on top of the obligations of his PhD program and marriage, he now has the added obligations of raising a kid.

Finally, a few weeks ago, he told me that for the first time since he's been in his PhD program, the university chose not to renew his teaching assistantship for the upcoming academic year. Up to this point, he's been relying heavily on his income as a TA. So for weeks, he's been pounding the pavement looking for any kind of job near his university--teaching jobs at local high schools and junior colleges, administrative jobs at local businesses, you name it. Nada. So now, after working for seven or eight years toward his PhD, he's pretty much decided to drop out of his doctoral program in order to find a job--any job--anywhere in the U.S. In his words, "At this point, I'd move to North Dakota if it meant securing a steady paycheck."

I'm firmly convinced that my friend wouldn't be in this situation if he hadn't gotten married and had a kid before earning his PhD and securing a teaching job somewhere. He would be less financially squeezed, and would therefore have more options.

I have other similar cautionary tales, but suffice it to say that the common theme is a young person making poor decisions that get them saddled with various obligations and expectations before they've been able to launch their career or even finish up school. Don't do that.

[Libertarian666]

I would recommend learning a second language and emigrating to an EU country, maybe Germany. Switzerland would be even better, if possible.

Would you do that yourself now or is this just advice for a young person?

I would do it if I could afford it, which is possible if my program sells for as much as I think it might be worth.

[craigr]

I suggest my father's advice:  do what you want and don't worry about current conditions.  By the time you're done with training they will have changed.

The problem arises when people make decisions like going into a particular area because they think they'll make a lot of money, or have a guaranteed job.  That rarely turns out well. 

Also I don't believe high school kids know enough about the career landscape to make an informed decision.  They should pick a general area of interest and then be alert for opportunities within it.

I sometimes get negative with my posting on tech fields, but this is actually the advice I'd say in terms of those looking to get into engineering, etc.

I'd also advise that they try to start their own business or work with start-ups if they have the mindset/personality for it. The irony of working for yourself or small start-ups is the uncertainty makes you more employable as you are constantly needing to learn and stay ahead of everyone. The worst kind of advice I feel is working for one place for 20+ years and then finding out they lay you off and you have no employable skills.

[barrett]

I'm firmly convinced that my friend wouldn't be in this situation if he hadn't gotten married and had a kid before earning his PhD and securing a teaching job somewhere. He would be less financially squeezed, and would therefore have more options.

Let's be frank here, because people have danced around this issue:

Unless you marry someone with an income close to yours, getting married is bad for financial security.

And having children is one of the worst financial decisions one could ever make.

This is what our culture teaches us these days.

I think an exception can be made if a person with good income but no benefits marries someone with lower income and good benefits (provided that the benefits can be extended to all family members).

I would also contend that there can be an advantage to marrying someone in a different field to mitigate the potential risk of simultaneous job loss.

Also, as been well documented elsewhere, divorce is almost always a crusher in money terms.

And yes, having a child from a strictly financial point of view is a terrible idea. They are money pits for two decades.

[flyingpylon]

Unless you marry someone with an income close to yours, getting married is bad for financial security.

Unless you marry someone who has a positive impact on your spending habits.

[Mountaineer]

I'm firmly convinced that my friend wouldn't be in this situation if he hadn't gotten married and had a kid before earning his PhD and securing a teaching job somewhere. He would be less financially squeezed, and would therefore have more options.

Let's be frank here, because people have danced around this issue:

Unless you marry someone with an income close to yours, getting married is bad for financial security.

And having children is one of the worst financial decisions one could ever make.

This is what our culture teaches us these days.

I think an exception can be made if a person with good income but no benefits marries someone with lower income and good benefits (provided that the benefits can be extended to all family members).

I would also contend that there can be an advantage to marrying someone in a different field to mitigate the potential risk of simultaneous job loss.

Also, as been well documented elsewhere, divorce is almost always a crusher in money terms.

And yes, having a child from a strictly financial point of view is a terrible idea. They are money pits for two decades.

LOL - only two decades for the lucky ones - as for the unlucky ones ............

... M