<p>Ucbalumnus and JHS,</p>
<p>To clarify–what I think is scandalous is that colleges are willing to sell undergraduate English degrees to white, non disabled, straight students. Yet they are not willing to hire white, non disabled, straight people to TT English positions.</p>
<p>(Perhaps if I had an English degree, I’d have made my self clear in one post–heh.)</p>
<p>But very few English majors of any color, disability status, or sexual identity go into English literature PhD programs. I, for example, am a tax lawyer. My closest English-major friend from undergraduate years is a right-wing public intellectual. Another college lit-major friend is part owner of a successful, high-end catering business. One French lit major I knew became an extremely successful manager for classical musicians. Some are writers, actors, rock stars. My English-major kid is a budding education-policy wonk. Her university graduates about 60 English majors a year, and accepts 5-8 people total, no more than a couple of them new college graduates (and fewer than that alumni of its college), into its PhD program, so obviously college English majors do not presume that they will have academic careers.</p>
<p>Regarding this whole thread, it is interesting that parents and students apparently do not ask these same sorts of questions regarding such other academic and career paths like pre-med / medical school / physician (how many new “best college for pre-med” threads get posted every day?), pre-law / law school / lawyer, and investment banker that also have numerous high hurdles to jump.</p>
<p>Certainly, having aspirations and working toward them is fine (whether physician, lawyer, investment banker, or English professor), but having a realistic assessment of the chances and making informed decisions (including having backup plans) is needed to avoid too big a letdown.</p>
<p>I wonder about the people who think that doctor / lawyer / i-banker constitute the bulk of upper middle / lower upper class. I can’t think of a single wealthy area where there aren’t tons of different professions represented.</p>
<p>Vicariousparent, has your daughter ever expressed interest in being a doctor, lawyer, banker? I think it’s one thing to make sure her eyes are open re a given career choice. It’s quite another to push her towards professions she has not expressed interest. If my kid wants to be a doctor / lawyer / banker, he’ll come to that conclusion on his own.</p>
<p>Wise words from ucbalumnus in #123:</p>
<p>“Certainly, having aspirations and working toward them is fine (whether physician, lawyer, investment banker, or English professor), but having a realistic assessment of the chances and making informed decisions (including having backup plans) is needed to avoid too big a letdown.”</p>
<p>I had sort of a hands off attitude towards the college educations of my two older children. And they are happily employed in jobs that interest them. But that was before the big economic crash of 2008. That was before I saw the recent college grad children of my friends struggle to make ends meet as baristas, bartenders, wait people etc. These young people are good, smart people that played by the old rules: ie “Do what you love and the money will follow” and “a liberal arts degree will teach you how to think, and thinkers will always be in demand”.</p>
<p>Now, with my youngest, I’ve taken a much more intentional approach to helping guide her college choices. I’ve seen too many earnest young people with liberal arts degrees living in poverty, without health insurance and/or dependent on their parents. And over the years I’ve seen what it means (maybe more so for women) when a relationship doesn’t work out and there is no viable back up plan to sustain oneself and one’s children. As unfashionably “old school” as it may seem, I believe that my daughter’s college education has to provide her with a means to live independently.</p>
<p>My daughter has an interest and an aptitude for biology and math. She knows she wants to study in those fields. So last summer, before her freshman year, I brought her to lunch with a friend who has a PhD in biochemistry and owns a company that manufactures research equipment. He is on college campuses doing seminars and presentations and has his ear to the ground on what areas are hot, interesting and have good prospects for employment. My daughter also shadowed another friend at her job–teaching statistics at a medical school/research hospital. I think they both gave her valuable insights that will shape her decisions.</p>
<p>“As unfashionably “old school” as it may seem, I believe that my daughter’s college education has to provide her with a means to live independently.”
That made me laugh! How times do roll around. </p>
<p>This whole thread seems to me to argue for a balance between realism and idealism, with a side helping of acknowledgement that as parents we have only a limited amount of influence on our kids’ choices. I know I have seen parents who pinch their kids in too much, and those who let them flop, and usually it is only in hindsight that you know how much was too much. Killjoy or inspiration? Most of the time I think we give ourselves (as parents) too much credit, or too much blame, for choices that were not ours to make (or that we helped to form long years before they were made).</p>
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<p>I’m always amazed at how many of my friends who became doctors who didn’t love biology in school. It seriously blows my mind…</p>
<p>My H became a doctor despite the fact that he loved biology.</p>
<p>Now, several decades later, he’s much happier as a hs bio teacher than he ever was in medicine (yet he was a dang good doctor. I can’t even begin to convey how good he was at taking care of little kids whom the system had forgot.)</p>
<p>that said, telling our kids to major in and do what you love would, from the outside, look like a questionable plan now, given them, their situations, and the current state of the world, but i wouldn’t do it any differently. They’re smart, they’ve learned how to think astonishingly well, their values are stellar, and they will find ways to get by. No one’s guaranteed anything these days, not the professionals, not the perpetual students, not the business majors, not the color-inside-the-lines folk, not the free thinkers.</p>
<p>No one.</p>
<p>So to me, I’d continue to tell my kids to, with the good minds and hearts I know you have, do what has meaning to you.</p>
<p>There are always jobs for really good sales people. And morticians. Other than that…</p>
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<p>Remember, though, that these are the successful people in their fields. The career surveys that some schools have (try putting “career survey” in the search boxes at Berkeley, Cal Poly SLO, and Virginia Tech) indicate that biology / biochemistry majors do not have particularly good job and career prospects, but math and statistics majors usually do better. Double major may be possible, though.</p>
<p>Mini-Environmental canvassers–they’re always hiring (of course, that falls under the category of really good sales people–except they’re selling the idea of clean, accessible water.)</p>
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<p>No, yes and no. But those are merely examples that I used since they are the ‘usual suspects’ when people think of careers with financial rewards. I have never said on this thread that I want her to pursue those careers over college professor.</p>
<p>I am just a bit concerned that she is choosing a very treacherous career and one where the degree of difficulty is not paired with a correspondingly higher degree of financial reward should she actually make it through to the end.</p>
<p>It is very easy for a parent to take the path of least resistance and say “let her follow her dream” and keep out of his/her child’s process of choosing a career. It is much harder to play devil’s advocate and be person who points out all the dangers. </p>
<p>At this point my child is an adult and I consider myself to be more like a really good friend rather than a true authority figure. The question remains- would I let my really good friend venture down the path of college professor without some words of caution?</p>
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<p>I’m not so sure it is. It depends on the person, but for many, it is much more difficult to help a child pursue a dream, especially if a parent is not 100% in support of that dream.</p>
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<p>I’m not sure letting one’s child follow his/her dream is the path of least resistance. From what I observed of many parents…especially those at my high school…the parents’ path of least resistance is to continue to micromanage, control, and order around their child well into adulthood…and sometimes beyond. That way, the parents feel easiest as they never lose the sense of control over their child and his/her future. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, this has the effect of turning the child into an effective automaton of his/her parents and thus…cause a loss of experiencing real personhood as an independent adult able to make his/her own decisions and to live with the associated consequences for better or ill.</p>
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<p>If you feel you have to say your piece, then I think you say it once and then you drop it.</p>
<p>My father thought I should go into computers (this was the mid-80’s). I had no aptitude for it and I wasn’t interested. I would have been totally screwed if I had followed his advice. I wouldn’t be good at it, I wouldn’t be able to compete with those people who are naturally talented / interested in that arena, and I would have topped out writing code someplace in a back office.</p>
<p>ok this is coming from a college freshman so there might be some bias somewhere, but yeah…and i really haven’t read the entire thread because each post is soo long :P, so forgive me if i say what someone else said before. </p>
<p>to be honest, i think this should the time to have a “parent - daughter” talk, just so you are aware of your daughter’s road map. The reason for this is because we college students change their majors frequently! And right now your daughter is expressing an interest to be an English Professor, but she could wake up tomorrow and chose to be a lawyer or something. </p>
<p>Now the key thing is you don’t want to intimidate your daughter. Like for college students it would just be horrid if our parents are like “So do you REALLY want to be a [occupation]”… it just sounds like a “my parents have no idea what i like, and all that rubbish that goes on in our weird heads :P”
So i would suggest you do a little research about english professors, and then have a little chat since you know more info which would help the conversation flow. </p>
<p>AS far as supporting, not supporting, etc… this all depends on what the talk comes to. Like if you genuinely feel that she is a good match for an English Professor AND she has interests and a desire to become one, then i would say support her. IN the end, it’s important for your daughter to chose the path SHE wants to walk on, rather then you telling her what to do or suggesting that she would be better in another occupation ,etc. What im saying is, let her walk her path, but you tag along behind her to make sure that she doesn’t take a wrong turn or something. Like “you got her back”…</p>
<p>Lol im probably spewing typical nonsense right now haha because I’m nowhere near as wise or educated as any one else in this thread, but hey i hope this helps :)</p>
<p>Good Luck to you and your daughter!! I’m sure she will make you proud regardless of her occupation [oh i worded that wrong, but you get my drift :)]</p>
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<p>Actually getting to be a tenured professor is likely financially secure enough for someone who is not a big spender. Of course, as others have noted, doing so involves jumping multiple, often very difficult, hurdles.</p>
<p>However, physician, lawyer, and investment banker have their own hurdles to jump which are so often ignored by students and parents:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Physician: Take pre-med courses. Get at least a 3.7 GPA in pre-med courses and overall. Take MCAT and get a high score (at least 10 in each section). Do pre-med extracurricular activities. Apply to many medical schools, do interview. Hope to get in at least one. Take out mountains of student loan debt to attend medical school. Graduate, try to get residency somewhere. Work at residency with long weird hours. Eventually get a real physician job and deal with student loans, insurance companies, malpractice insurance, non-compliant patients, etc.</p></li>
<li><p>Lawyer: Choose courses and major to maximize GPA. Get at least a 3.8 GPA. Take LSAT and get at least 175. Apply to top 14 law schools. Hope to get in at least one. Take out mountains of student loan debt to attend law school. Do well in law school and graduate. Hope to get hired to a partner-track position at a good law firm, so that you won’t have to take out daytime TV ads recruiting those who have been in accidents or exposed to asbestos or something like that. Work long, stressful hours. Hope to make partner, and hope that the law firm does not go out of business.</p></li>
<li><p>Investment banker: Get into HYPM. Graduate. Apply for jobs at investment banking companies. Hope to get hired. Work long, stressful hours in an expensive place to live. Hope your employer does not go bankrupt.</p></li>
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<p>It is fine to warn the student about the risks and hurdles standing between the student and the dream, but it is not really a good idea to push alternates without also warning about the risks and hurdles of those alternates.</p>
<p>I have a feeling that the OP’s daughter won’t feel the high GPA requrement for med school and a good law school is a challenge, considering what the OP has said. And besides, what college student (particularly at an elite school) doesn’t already know that. </p>
<p>The physician path does involve a lot of long hours studying (in med school) and then to complete a residency, but I’ve never heard of anybody NOT getting matched into residency or completing said residency. And dealing with insurance companies and malpractice is not a serious burden except for select specialties like Ob/gyn. Let’s be honest: once you get into grad school, it’s easier to become a working doctor than it is to become an english professor. And the financial benefits are generally greater (although the debt issue is something to consider as you said.)</p>
<p>I still think that you shouldn’t do med school unless you have a strong interest in biology, though. If you don’t, then the long hours will seem like hell.</p>
<p>Financial reward isn’t the only piece, or even the most important piece (by far) of a happy life. </p>
<p>My child wants to be a physician. I’m not sure it’s a good fit for a lot of reasons. I’m keeping my mouth shut because that’s for him to discover not for me to try to manage and control.</p>