Thoughts on going to college.

It is frightfully expensive.  A four year degree can cost you $100,000, new house money.   Is it worth it?

If you flunk out and don’t graduate, you get nothing for your money.  There is no refund.  You want to ask your self if you have the stick-to-it-tiveness to make it to graduation.  How did you do in high school?  College is not much harder than high school.  If you aced high school, you can make it thru college, no sweat.  If you just scraped by in high school you will be hurting in college.  Do you like academic work?  Does writing a term paper sound interesting, or a fearfully difficult challenge?  Is reading in a decent text book interesting or boring?   This is a matter you have to answer for yourself, nobody else knows you well enough to do you any good.  If you think you can cut it in college good.  If you have doubts, think things over carefully.  If you flunk out sophomore year you will be out a lot of money and have nothing to show for it.

   If you are not sure about college, try something else when you graduate from high school.  Enlist in the armed forces, it will teach you a lot of stuff that is good to know and they will help you pay for college if you decide to go after serving your hitch.   Hike the Appalachian trial, sail around the world, join the forest service, ride a motor cycle across the United States, take a job as sailor on a merchant ship, become a ski bum for a winter. Anything for a change of pace.

  Do you have any idea what you want to do to make a living after graduation?  Aside from a very few lucky independently wealthy individuals, you will have to make a living for most of your life after graduation.  Your life will be happier if you make you living doing something you like and that interests you. 

   At this point in your life you may not have a clue about what you want to do after graduation.  You need to ask around, start with your parents.  What does your father do?  Or your mother?  Does what either does sound interesting? Talk to aunts and uncles, grandparents, friends of the family, teachers, ministers, police officers, and firemen, anyone who you figure know what they are doing.  Read a few biographies of people you admire. 

   College gives you a credential (a degree) that can get you a white collar paper pushing job.  Or a job in sales.   Have you considered a blue collar job that gets you out of doors and gets your hands dirty?  Truck driver, lumberjack, plumber, electrician, electronic tech, heavy equipment operator, soldier, carpenter, fish and game warder, lineman, cop, and fireman, many others?   These jobs pay as well or better than white collar paper pushing jobs and are fun if that sort of life appeals to you.

   If you decide to go the college route, pick a major that makes you employable.  The STEM (Science Technology Engineering, Mathematics) majors are always employable.  Engineering, if you can hack it, is fun, pays well, and you are always employable.  I became an electrical engineer and it worked well for me over a 40 years career.   Avoid the “talky-talk” sciences (anthropology, sociology, psychology, political science) and any major with “studies” in the name (black studies, women’s studies, any old thing studies).  These are fun to take, but they won’t get you a job anywhere.