<p>This is why I sometimes doubt the sincerity behind some thread starts. We should be able to choose an unlicensed phych, that’s somehow freedom of choice? Well, I guess we can have a cup of coffee, unload to a friend, if that helps. And I suppose we could hire a neighbor kid to tend to a recovering family member. Some private schools still don’t require a teaching credential. Some young relatives went to an unaccredited college and were surprised at the limitations that imposed on some govt sponsored opportunities.</p>
<p>The China article- a kid with a comm coll degree in the “design of offices and trade show booths” - this tells us what? </p>
<p>My thoughts to Bel- not all kids are right for college and not all educational opps are right just because they exist and someone can get a loan. But we have to know our kids, assess their potential and not be arbitrary about one test or stat being some significant cutoff. We have to be careful about putting so much faith in a test that we constrain them. </p>
<p>And, I reallly wish posters would stop putting so much faith in the common media, as if it is a set of learned scholars deigning to reach down and educate us. Ok, I am unloading here.</p>
<p>Dog bites man in these articles. Kid with an MBA from Metropolitan college is competing against Harvard MBA’s and discovers that they often get the nod in a tight job market. Stop the Presses. This is BIG NEWS.</p>
<p>There is typically a difference between making an appointment and attending a session with a licensed therapist and sitting down with a friend over coffee to vent. You can’t sue a friend for malpractice if they tell you to go off your meds and you end up in a psych ward. You can’t (or shouldn’t) “Unfriend” your therapist on Facebook if he/she is trying to teach you strategies to get out of a violent or toxic marriage. You don’t submit your paperwork to your insurance company and get your friend reimubursed for their time after your sessions.</p>
<p>Why? because you have an expectation that a “professional” meets some standard of care which has been determined by his or her peers and a review board in that profession. Young people who don’t want to ultimately meet the requirements of their profession need to think long and hard before enrolling in a degree program.</p>
<p>How many kids do I meet a year who grouse and complain that after three hard years of law school they have to “waste” an entire summer studying for bar exam. Really? You were smart enough to get into law school but too stupid to read the fine print and realize that your JD is worthless until you get admitted?</p>
<p>I feel terrible for the kids in this and similar articles… but at some point, you have to wonder… what were they thinking?</p>
<p>The entire concept of heading off to college is a non sequitor…it fascinates me that we even have discussions that set hard limits on “who” should attend college based on A.</p>