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I'd like to throw in the practicalities of survival income that many college applicants fail to appreciate because they are so used to living off their parents' dole. The following are steps that young people ignore until it's too late: 1. Before living your dream or doing "something you love", you have to make your survival income: the first $1500 for food, shelter, transportation. So where does this steady $1500 come from, and is working the necessary hours to make $1500 going to leave you with enough time to invest in that "dream"? 2. So before graduation, have you established your fall back $1500 contingency plan? Do you have a skill (vocational or otherwise) that you KNOW will bring you that monthly $1500? Step TWO is where I believe high school counseling has failed America's youth. Everybody should leave high school with a $1500 skill, whether that be bookeeping, welding, sales, waiting tables, cashier, etc. It is imperative that upon graduating high school, you are able to count on having survival wage skills. 3. Does your college major allow you to skip step two because it is in such demand that the employment rate for your industry is healthy? Back in the early 90's, CS graduates were not having an easy time and were considered the bottom of the totem pole among engineering majors (in my school they weren't even considered engineers, but rather a soft science more akin to biology, insultingly enough). Again, this is the fault of high school counselors who fail to make foresight an essential part of the planning process - this whole "major in what you love" crap just leaves graduates with a sense of disappointment when they are unemployable. Always temper "major in what you love" with the caveat "as long as you already have a skill to pay for food/shelter/travel". 4. What's your exit strategy from your survival job? Plan this every day as you're waiting tables (bartending, welding, dancing,...). 4. Knowing that high schools (both public and private) are too highbrow to ever consider vocational training for their top students, it's up to parents to fully prepare their children. When my son is old enough, his summers will be spent honing a vocational skill so that he will have an employable skill that any society will find useful such that if he wishes to travel the world, he can always pick up a local job should the circumstances demand it. Two come to mind: welding (easier and ubiquitously needed) or electrician (harder, but more lucrative). This long rant is a part of my disatisfaction with the high school paradigm as currently constituted. The current paradigm is a crapshoot that ill prepares students for the rigors and realities of survival in a world that could care less if they were once a valedictorian or All-State track star. I have known many former high school heroes turned zeroes after college, and it's a fall from grace that their parents have never ever prepared them for because in their world, their kids will always be special. |