An 18 year old is an adolescent? If a high school graduate cant speak/write well, be open to new ideas, be open to different cultures, and make logical deductions, then it doesn't matter what he majors in. He'll be doomed to a life of mediocrity. FWIW, those were all skill sets I had "grasped" when I was in junior high.
Just wanted to chime in with a couple of anecdotes. One of my best friends, younger than me, but in his 50's, has an MBA from Harvard, with a long, successful career, in large part because of that Harvard degree (not the BA he has from UT) and the connections it brought him. He's just finished taking the 4 parts of the CPA exam and passing all of them on the first try, which is not easy. Why did he decide to get a CPA at such a late point in his career? To differentiate himself from the host of younger MBAs out there looking for work. His age is now a factor working against him. While a lot of his career has been doing freelance contract work getting IPOs off the ground, he's also worked for investment firms and has held CFO positions. Now he'd like to "settle down" a bit as a CFO and the competition is fierce. With his wealth of experience, he should have it all over people like your friend, DM, but age discrimination can be a b****. My other anecdote involves my significant other, along with the pros and cons of what kind of degree(s) you have and how it affects your career. She started out intending to become a CPA, but quickly discovered that she simply hated it. So she switched to sociology and found that she enjoyed it. People told her she was making a mistake, that "you won't be able to make a decent living with that kind of degree," but she pressed on, eventually getting her Master's degree in the field. Today, she's an executive with the State of Texas, working for an important commission that is with the Legislature, not under the Governor, thank god, and making a very high salary. The degrees helped her a great deal in her work, but the subject matter had almost nothing to do with getting her career started. Once started, hard work and intellgence did the rest. She has a high motor, as we like to say about her favorite Rocket, Luis Scola. A liberal arts degree is not an albatross around the neck of the person who earns it. It is an advantage, but the greatest advantage is what you do yourself after leaving school. With all due respect, you are way off base. Probably the majority of 18 year olds are functionally adolescent, in my opinion (and from my experience), and it doesn't doom them "to a life of mediocrity," just as the fact that far too many leave high school with not nearly the education really needed to be successful in life, yet somehow manage to continue learning, to get through their college career, and to come out of it with all those things you figure that not having when graduating for high school simply must leave them doomed, damned, blasted, with no hope. Heck, they may as well put a gun to their head and end it all. Right?
Good advice in here. He'll need more schooling eventually to make more money. A bachelor's isn't what it used to be. I had to go and get the PhD. It was incredibly difficult, but luckily, I'm only 24 and survived it. Am I getting paid a great deal more? No...I'm a teacher. I bet I have one of the lowest salaries on this board. So, like others have written, let him go with EU but let him know that more school is in the future.
You have a PhD at 24? That's a damn fine achievement, for which you have every right to be proud. Equally terrific is that you chose to be in education, at least I hope you chose to be in education!
Ideally, yes... but there is more to hitting Major League pitching than having a Little League coach teach you how to stand in the box. Your experiences in college should refine and enhance those base level skills. You should make an effort to challenge yourself, to learn new things, explore new subjects. The only people who think and write as well at the end of college as they did at the beginning missed the whole meaning and purpose of college. If you quit learning by college, it will be much harder to learn throughout your life... and I'm not just talking academics. I definitely have a bias in favor of Liberal Arts and against B-Schools. Even so, I always look at the B-School books whenever I'm in a college book store. There are some classes that seem to try a little... like Ethics, which is probably the butt of jokes by the students (and probably some of the faculty). I also read as much as I can on organizational psychology, particularly as it relates to unexpected events and critical incidents, and I do recognize that applying other disciplines to business can yield some good stuff. Still, most of the books are written (and classes taught) to teach you a trade and more importantly, to teach you to think like the practitioners of that trade already (or used to) think. That they are gussied up with academic trappings in a poor attempt to mimic the sciences only fools those that want to be fooled. Well, I guess it also buries whatever flimsy insights and ideas might be gleaned from the works. "Management" is the most egregious I think. Most people seem to choose "Management" because they think that is where they can be financially successful. Yet "management" cannot be wholly taught in classrooms. There are a very, very few natural leaders and most of us, if we ever get there, get there because of the experiences (and failures) we've had along the way. Furthermore, the reason people go into "management" is antithetical to good management. If you're primarily concerned about yourself and your financial status how are you going to "manage" much less lead a bunch of other people? Can you change your outlook and literally put other people first? I've met few MBAs who are able to do that, notwithstanding their protestations. Traditionally (for the bulk of my lifetime) B-Schools trained people to be mid-level managers, to fit in the corporate structure, to play the game, to buy into the notion that success is defined by the paycheck and where your office sits relative to the big boss. Now, with flatter organizations, knowledge-based operations, worldwide interests, and a workforce that is something more than white guys, the skills taught by B-Schools are obsolete (if they were ever relevant).
Yes. Late adolescence occurs at 18-20. The brain continues to grow and doesn't reach maturity until the mid-20's. Just because you are LEGALLY considered an adult at 18 doesn't mean that you are cognitively an adult. Again, a high school student should have a "grasp" on all of those things. Mastery and refinement occurs later.
We're in total disagreement here, and it doesn't look like that will change. Like I said, If a high school graduate cant speak/write well, be open to new ideas, be open to different cultures, and make logical deductions, then it doesn't matter what he majors in. If he believes that it's acceptable to only have a "grasp" of these subjects, then he's already putting himself at a disadvantage behind the people who feel that it's imperative to master those subjects. I find it interesting that I'm in the minority opinion on this issue. I guess it's a cultural thing.
Highs school kids are KIDS. If they aren't refining and honing their skills and knowledge while gaining new skills and knowledge in higher education, then what's the point of higher education in the first place? University isn't where they learn those things; I never said it was.
just curious, Wekko, what's your age range? You seem to have the bravado of a college student finishing up (or recent grad).
