As some of you know and the rest of you are about to learn, I have a daughter who’s getting near adulthood. Nominal adulthood. Alleged adulthood. Something like that.
One issue that comes up with almost-adults as they near the end of mandated schooling is, What next? For most middle-class Americans, the obvious, why-are-you-even-asking answer is college.
I’ve told my daughter, like her brothers before her, that if she goes into engineering, premed, accounting, or some other field where the expected salary is worth the cost (not only tuition but four years spent not working), I’d help pay for it. If she wants to study Medieval French Literature or Dance Therapy or Sociology, you’re on your own, kid.
The boys went into engineering school. The daughter had been firmly set on that path, too, but has been having second thoughts. She gives a variety of reasons but I think it comes down to not being excited by it. OK, that’s fine. There are other options. She was thinking about a general STEM-oriented freshman year and then deciding, which makes good sense. We started putting together plans.
Enter Heaven. That’s stage direction for a young woman, not a suggestion to die and go to the afterlife. And Heaven isn’t her real name, but it’s thematically similar. I’m not blaming her for her name, just as I wouldn’t blame Starlit Waterfall a couple generations earlier. It’s her parents’ doing, not hers. But her name does suggest a few things about her parents’ values and her upbringing, beyond being a woman born in 2000s America.
She’s six or so years older than my daughter, in grad school. She and my daughter have been talking about many things, from care of aquatic frogs to careers. And there’s the problem.
Heaven’s studying psychology or sociology or something similar. While such degrees can lead to decent-paying jobs, that’s not the way to bet, not until you’ve been doing it long enough that you can open your own practice. I’ll dig up some employment statistics and income projections if I remember once I’m back online. (Let’s face it, I won’t remember. I’m very tired and very busy. Wouldn’t be writing this if I weren’t stuck sitting and waiting, with no connectivity.)
Heaven is encouraging my daughter to follow her dream and things will work out and the money will take care of itself. Because, you know, that’s how it works.
The daughter’s dream right now is getting into game design. Maybe as a social psychologist (Maybe? I think that’s what she said the job was called.) working on the psychological cues that go into computer games. Maybe as a programmer. Maybe as a graphic designer. There’s lots of choices!
Should she look into what’s involved in working for a gaming company, like hours worked and expected salaries and job security and market trends? Nah! Talk to her best friend’s father, who works in the biz? Nah! Sit down and start designing a game yourself? Nah! Apply for a position as an intern at the local game development company? Nah! Just sign up for the college classes. It’ll work itself out!
Another dismissed idea is taking a gap year and working, whether to test a career field or two or simply to earn money and get a feel for adult life. She likes welding, so why not practice and hone her skills and then apprentice for a year to see if she likes working as a welder? And another dismissed idea is getting married and starting a family and doing some kind of work-from-home while raising the kids. (Rejected out of hand. I’m never going to have grandchildren at this rate, heh.)
You might deduce from my subtle phrasing choices that I’m not thrilled about Heaven’s advice. You might also deduce that I’m not thrilled that my daughter is listening to someone who tells her what she wants to hear rather than what may actually help her.
I’m not claiming to be the one source of Truth. I’m not saying that my suggestions are the only ones that will lead her to happiness and success, however defined. I am saying that you should look carefully at costs and benefits before signing up for a hundred thousand in non-dischargeable student loans. Especially when the dream you’re following is likely to change within the year, let alone before it starts paying off.
I’m also not claiming that economic utility is the only value of a college education. I am saying that a college education which will not pay off economically is a luxury, to be purchased with spare wealth. It is certainly not to be borrowed for.
I’m not even claiming that psychology and sociology degrees are worthless. 90% worthless, maybe, but not totally. But again, they are luxuries, to be purchased when your future is assured and you have time and money to put into them.
But the easy advice, the advice to do what you want to do (at the moment) and to avoid the hard work and the hard decisions, that advice is just so much more tempting!
