Education Improves Your Chances (and other myths of our generation)

Anonymous said...

This is yet another reason to avoid law school. If you are a 22 year old with zero debt, you have the dignity that comes from knowing you don't owe anyone anything.

Why ruin that by taking on a bunch of debt?

JANUARY 10, 2012 4:09 PM

 Anonymous said...

22 year olds don't think that way.....they are constantly sold the education improves your chances myth.

(from LawProf's "Interesting Piece of Evidence" comments)

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      Anonymous said...

REALIST:

As an undergrad engineering major, I interned at a industrial research lab. My boss had a PhD and grumbled that all of the decisions about what he got to research were made by his boss, who had a MBA. That insight led me to earn my own MBA after engineering school.

While I was in my MBA program, our economics professor was explaining to us the concept of opportunity cost. He mentioned that those students who pursued a PhD in economics would never make the same money as the MBA students. Which prompted me to ask in class, "So the Economic PhD's actually failed to understand economics". My comment did not endear me to him.

Many of us working in industry have MS or MBA's that lead to well paying jobs across a wide assortment of careers. If you're not happy in your graduate program, take a look around you and see what opportunities may be awaiting you.

I still enjoy hitting my public library weekly to read up on my interests in history, culture, politics, science, etc. It's more fun, because it's unrelated to my job.

I now have a daughter in college, and what I told her was "If it's fun to do, they're not going to pay you much to do it."

January 6, 2012 11:42 AM

Pointless Credentials said...

I recently rethought our North American obsession with credentials when I saw this video about tribal people learning how to do dentistry in under two weeks.

http://itecusa.org/i-dent-video.html

Some people just have a natural ability to do things. Some countries don't seem to be so obsessed with the sheepskin on the wall.

January 7, 2012 6:32 AM

STEM Doctor said...

The politicians are still operating under the delusion that everyone must go to college. If this actually happens, I'm sure that teaching those introductory composition courses is going to become even more of a thrill for the English graduate students.

Anonymous said...

This reason points to a reality that is lost on most middle-class people with academic aspirations. 

It's hard for them to wrap their brains around the fact that their high school math teachers who eat tuna sandwiches in the teacher's lounge and drive beat-up cars to work every day could possibly be living more comfortably than someone with "professor" in their job title.

It does not compute.

In their minds, professors are in the upper middle class, drive European cars, live in the nice part of town, hobnob with other people who "matter," vacation abroad, have season tickets to the ballet, etc.

Even grad students buried up to their eyeballs in their dissertations cling to this idea. They almost have to believe it to keep them going.

When reality sets in, and you find yourself envying your old teachers with their tuna sandwiches (on whom you once looked with a certain measure of contempt), you realize how hoodwinked you've been.

January 4, 2012 9:27 AM

(From 100 Reasons Not to Go to Grad Schools' "75. You can make more money as a schoolteacher" comments)

2012

Commercial break to all this self-assessment stuff, although I'm sure I'll be doing a bit of that in this entry as well. I have a few things:

1. Not sure how to fix this egregious amount of white space in between paragraphs without going into the HTML, and doing that is just plain annoying. But I'll try to get to it. Apologies.
2. Is it legal to post two or more entries in a day?
3. I forgot to ask, how do you all like the "new" layout? Previously, it was the Final Fantasy XII one made by my friend from years ago, but now I customized it and added a bio page.
4. 2011 was such a life-changing and critical year for me. Thank you, 2011. 
5. Happy 2012!
6. And with the wake of a new year comes the infamous New Year's Resolution. What is yours?

For me, past resolutions, as usual, lasted for about a month and then I lost steam.  The good thing is, these things linger as habits of mine, so I can say that I gradually "improve" over time.  But of course, there is always more room for improvement. For me, we have the usuals: sleep more, keep working out regularly, eat healthy, make good grades, yay. But I must also add these:

• Get a job. Derp. Doesn't have to be the best thing in the world, just something for me to get more experience and money. And hopefully it's ethical.
• Only check Facebook for messages from people who matter to me. I'm gradually realizing how terribly annoying this site is--how in many ways it's just a way for people to create an image of themselves. And of course, it's a terrible time waster in terms of stalking people and such. I was greatly tempted today to deactivate my account, but then I realized I'd be cutting myself off from some people I care about in which FB is indeed the most convenient way to contact them.
• Limit my shopping. I assessed the backlog of video games, anime, manga, and books I own that I still have not finished or even started, and it's rather disgusting. 
• Play more piano. My granduncle once told me that one of the greatest gifts in life is the ability to create your own music and escape in it. 
• Write again. Not just for school or these hum-ho musings of mine, but for creative purposes. I was known as the award-winning poet in elementary and high school. Whatever happened to that girl? 
• I recently read in the Daily Finance that in 1987, people received a personal, handwritten letter from a friend every two weeks on average. By last year, this rate dropped to one every seven weeks. Well, as long as USPS hangs onto its fringes, I want to write more letters or at least send more cards to people. 
• Become even more aware of what I say and what I do. Good job, ethics classes. What I hate most is hurting people I care about because I said something stupid.
• Stop taking my girlfriends' comments to heart about watching my weight because whenever I think I'm gaining weight or getting fat, I'm actually getting skinnier. I'm a size 0/XS/S now. Maybe I'm still bigger than them because I'm not under 5 feet tall and I don't have a flat chest or look malnourished like the rest of these native Asian FOBs (<3). What happened? Life is funny. Maybe they're actually jealous of me. Maybe they're just crazy. Maybe they're aaaaall insecure. Or maybe looking malnourished and weak is beautiful to them? It's not to me.
• Be in the present moment. I think too much about the next five years or the next five days or the next five minutes or even the next five seconds. I need to think about now, too, and love it.
• These can all be summed into this one goal: enjoy life. Look past the fake or unsustainable joy in material things, hold onto my values... Yes, all the fluff your local priest or monk told you. 

But think about it. Life is dynamic. Life is short, life is long. Life is hard to predict. Might as well enjoy it. In such a time of economic crisis and ethics being thrown out the window, all the more do we need joy in our lives.