<p>This is something I've been thinking about. And I just don't have an answer. If someone just isn't very good at academics - they try but their grades are mediocre at best, and their math and science skills are horrid - what should they do after high school?</p>
<p>We all hear the horror stories about kids who go to college because everyone else does. Either they crash and burn after a year or two and only have debt to show for it ... or they make it through, but because they aren't math or science oriented, have a worthless degree and can't find a decent paying job and have even more debt to deal with.</p>
<p>So what should this kind of person do instead? All the trades that require less than a four year degree - dental hygienest, a computer certificate, ultrasound tech, vet tech, etc - require some competence with science and/or math. </p>
<p>I can't think of any realistic options. Not everyone is a great student. Not everyone is good at science and math. Does that mean they get to make $10/hr the rest of their lives?</p>
<p>Our local community college has loads of certificate programs. If you take the gen ed requirements, you get the Associate’s Degree, but you can take just the classes in the major and earn the certificate.</p>
<p>You can make a lot of money in the trades and have a very nice life. Look into the community college to see what is offered. You can be a mechanic, and electrician, a plumber, a chef. There are really all sorts of careers to pursue.</p>
<p>friends son took a 15 week course in sheet metal and fabrication from CC and landed a very nice job with Boeing. 401k, health insurance, school reimbursement, 3 weeks vacation and possibility to move up in the company.</p>
<p>Jury is still out on my kid who has started her own company and is either gonna be a godzillionaire or a fly by the seat of your pants artist…but shes happy.</p>
<p>Not everyone can become a mechanic, electrician or plumber. They all require a technical aptitude that many don’t have. Especially people with math and science difficulties. I think a lot of two-year degrees are as hard as four year ones - they’re just shorter. So if you aren’t technical, you’re not going to do any better learning to be a plumber than you would majoring in something technical that earns you a BA.</p>
<p>This isn’t a question about me … I do have someone in mind, but it’s also a larger question for this country in general.</p>
<p>One of our local defense contractors has an after-school job program for high-school kids doing electronics work. They have training after high-school for full-time positions.</p>
<p>So many things in addition to construction trades and manufacturing certificate programs like - small business owner, insurance agent and claim adjusters, firefighters, air traffic controllers (I think this is still true), real estate agents, retail (although one might need a degree to move up quickly with a large organization), restaurant business, graphic arts, resort industry, communications industry (cable, phone, etc.), gas and oil industry, wellness industry, journalism… probably more, but these just off the top of my head. $20,000 - $25,000 can go along way (if you start at $10 an hour) for an 18 year old with virtually no expenses save transportation and rent in an apartment with others. And people do get raises if they have earned them. There are plenty of college kids who start out at age 21 after college with $25, - 30,000 a year jobs plus they have loans to pay off. Granted the potential is there that the college graduate will out-earn a non-college graduate by their mid-thirties but there will also be plenty of non-college graduates out-earning non-college graduates by their mid-thirties. Do what you enjoy because you can’t predict the future.</p>
<p>yes BC, I forgot those type of electronics work jobs - in IT, in defense, in communications industries.</p>
<p>H’s brother, who was a special needs kid in high school, took a certificate program in janitorial services. He is ow a janitor and makes enough money to support himself. The local cc/tech school has all kinds of options, from agricultural programs, to CNA certification, to wind turbine specialists. There is probably a good fit in something for just about everybody. And at a cc certificate program, the training is mostly hands on, very different from the traditional academic setting.</p>
<p>There are MANY vocational jobs that don’t require a high level of math or science(remember, competence in math doesn’t mean AP Calc BC, nor does CC level science mean AP Physics). It’s not an either-or.</p>
<p>My S has a CC certificate in welding, but his job is due to the construction experience he got prior to that. It’s very technical and specialized, and he learned most of it on the job. He makes very good money-well more than $10/hr. While he’s tested out at the “genious” level in math, all he needed for the cert was algebra, which he tested out of and tutored other students in.</p>
<p>D’s dance teacher makes a good living in cosmetology so that he can dance. My niece was in management in retail clothing, but loves cars and got a management job in a car maintenance chain and learned on the job. One of my older D’s friends is closing on her AA degree in public health and will work with low-income mothers, another will graduate this spring with an AA in communications and has jobs lined up. My good friend’s H has no degree but makes a very good living running cable in large office buildings. He has to travel for this, but it’s a good job. </p>
<p>And so on. Not going to college doesn’t doom anyone to a life of poverty. You need some drive to make it, but it’s not hopeless.</p>
<p>Nothing, absolutely nothing comes easy…you also need drive to finish college, decent grades don’t simply fall from the tree into your lap cause you are a good kid and the teachers like you, like they can in high school.</p>
<p>Many kids are not ready to go to college and could use a break from academia. The drop out rates show that clearly. In many ways, those parents whose kids know they don’t want to go to college are fortunate in that they are not shoving the square peg into the round hole simply because the momentum is to do so. I know too many people who have spent a lot of money, had family battles and are emotionally torn up from trying to go with the off to college tide when that was not what their kids wanted to do. </p>
<p>In some areas and at some schools, a number of kids don’t go on to college. In fact, some kids who should be going don’t end up going or go locally when they may have had a good shot to widen those horizons and go off somewhere. We shake our heads at those cases. But, it’s also the case that there are kids living in areas where it’s close to 100% college accept rate for all graduating seniors and you are looked askance if your kid isn’t going to college or isn’t going to a name college. It’s unfortunate that we don’t recognize that there is no one size fits all here. </p>
<p>One of DH’s cousins had a very tough time in high school, got into some trouble, joined the navy and a couple of years later upon leaving the service got his record stetted and found a decent job. Ten years later, he decided to go back to school, took him four years to master the courses to get an AA degree from a local school, and is now taking night classes paid for by an employer to get his bachelor’s. He’ll be in his forties before it’s done, and it’s been a long arduous process, but he and his wife have very good jobs, are very much middle income, own a nice house, and his employment options are great with the type of work he does. Though he wants his children to go directly to college after high school, he acknowledges that there was no way he could have successfully. He barely made it through high school and the thought of further education was absolutely not something he would have even considered. His parents tried very hard to get him to into the comm college route, and he says he would have flunked out almost for certtain with the attitude he had, as all of his buddies from those days did who were sent to colllege by well meaning parents. Sometimes it takes a lot more time, if ever, for someone to make a commitment to go to college, and sometimes without that commitment the attempt is not going to be successful.</p>
<p>Around here, a near 100% to college community, there are a lot of young adults livng with parents who dropped out or are taking a break from college after going directly there after high school. Wish there were some way one could see the completion of college rates rather than the going to college rates of high schools. It’s gotten so that a lot of schools as well as families basically shiunt the kids off to college without making other opitons available.</p>
<p>Your friend won’t need geometry for many CC certificates or degrees. He/she will probably need to take a placement test, though, which will place them in the right level of math. Some CC’s have non-credit remedial classes to help with math and LA deficits. </p>
<p>A little secret-my S flunked HS geometry, despite getting a perfect score on a college-level standardized geometry test and testing at college level math in 6th grade. Why? Because he was bored out of his mind but had been placed in “average” level classes, got low scores because he hated the class, but couldn’t get advanced because of the low scores…you get the idea.</p>
<p>There might be something else going on with your friend. My brother barely passed HIS HS math classes and considers himself poor in math. But hand him a drawing of a remodel and he’ll tell you down to the centimeter how much wood you will need. All he needed was a practical way to apply math and he was fine. Your friend may find vocational school closer to their needs than HS.</p>
<p>My BF has no college education and makes very good money working for the IT dept in a bank. And because he didn’t incur student loan or other debt, he was able to put a LOT of money away which has helped us settle down quite comfortably. He will be able to support a family on his income, probably better than I could.</p>
<p>That said, he has very real skills and loves his field-- computers are his heart and soul. He is the star of his department. His sucess is a combination of luck, skills, and making good choices. He needed all three to get where he is.</p>
<p>" All the trades that require less than a four year degree - dental hygienest, a computer certificate, ultrasound tech, vet tech, etc - require some competence with science and/or math. " </p>
<p>I’ve assumed these practical training programs would not need math skills beyond those required for a hs diploma. Can others with more direct experiece comment on that?</p>
<p>The requirements for entrance for a degree in Dental Hygiene at my daughter’s CC include anatomy and physiology, college chemistry and Algebra II. So you don’t have to be great in math but I would see someone that’s math-phobic or with poor arithmetic skills having a hard time getting into the program.</p>
<p>BTW, my daughter is taking Calculus 2 this semester in a campus with about 6K students. Her class (it’s the only calc 2 class offered this semester) has 17 students. She is one of only three girls in the class.</p>
<p>My brother went to a trades school and learned to become a mechanic. He owns three houses and now does service writing. I Googled the place to see if it was still around. It is. And has expanded to include things such as welding and HVAC and basic refrigeration.</p>
<p>I knew someone in that position who took a medical billing certification course, which I think was only about a year. I’m not sure if it worked out for her or not, but it is what came to mind.</p>
<p>As I mentioned, the math taught in my S’s welding program was basic algebra, in a course designed specifically for construction trades. </p>
<p>I just looked up the entrance requirements for some of the many programs at one of the largestn (and award-winning) CC’s in the city. The following AA degrees (with cert-only options) require only ElIGIBILITY for algebra or even PRE algebra, as determined by transcripts or a placement test (you can test out): graphic design, various woodworking programs, including construction and cabinet making, social services, opticianry and culinary arts, and I think, apparel design. There are many other programs, but I don’t have time right now to research them all. The dental hygiene program does have a strong math and science entrance requirement, but I’d think anyone destined for that training would have an affiinty for both to begin with.</p>