The degree of the correlation will vary tremendously depending on how you define success. If your definition of “success” is often tied to highly advanced degrees, such emphasizing fields that usually require a MD or PhD, there will be a noteworthy correlation with those focused on and successful in education during HS/college. If your definition of success instead focuses on “having a spouse and kids” or “hobbies that make for interesting Facebook photos”, then you are probably going to see little correlation, likely a small negative one. I’d suggest trying to focus on what makes you happy in life, rather than focusing on how your life ranks compared to others from your HS class.
I agree that the end goal of “success” is defined very differently by different people. What I see largely missing from this discussion (although @NJSue almost touched on it), is that we also have to look more broadly at the characteristics that lead to success (however defined). On this board, for some valid reasons, academic achievement and hard work in high school is the be-all-and-end-all. But many people have skills other than intellectual that can make them become–or at least help them become–happy, productive adults. People skills, intuition, empathy, insight, organization, leadership. I have two kids. My son, now a college freshman, is highly academically gifted and a successful student. I worry sometimes about him holding a job in the real world because he is off-the-charts spacey and lacking in executive functions. My 10th grader struggles terribly in school; she has significant learning disabilities and does not put as much effort as she should to overcome those disabilities. But she has real leadership skills and people skills and could convince Midas to turn over his money. I am cautiously optimistic that once she gets through (we ALL get through) the pain of high school (and hopefully college), she will find a career that is suited to her abilities and interests and will be “successful.”
@NJSue, I thank you for your post #38, but my point in #37 was that perhaps we should not just consider those in the HS graduating class, but also should include the hoards of dropouts / flunkouts.
“Just because they weren’t in AP classes with me didn’t mean that they were doomed to poverty or bound for prison”
No, but the kids who flunked out or dropped out or were chronically truant and didn’t graduate were much more likely already coming from poverty, and also more likely to be headed for a more troubled future than the graduates.
Your comment about whether or not the happiest people are the C (or even B) students reminds me of the age old saying “Ignorance is Bliss”. I happily choose knowledge instead - it is the lifelong love of learning that I inherited from my parents, and hopefully have passed on to my pups. Knowledge leads to better decision making, which leads to more successful lives, regardless as to how you measure success.
But the definition and the goal of success is different from person to person. One can only share how his success during certain period (say, HS) correlated to his success later on. There are plenty of very very successful college drop outs. Would it be MY success or my family success? Not at all. In our family, we must to be successful in HS and college to be successful later. Reality of those who ended up at the very top after dropping out of college has nothing to do with the reality of our family, we do not possess what that successful dropout possessed. I do not see how it could be a general question with general answer. For one the event of dropping out of school frees resources to be used somewhere else. However, it is not applicable to many others. So, what is a point of keeping it in mind the fact that somebody got to be very successful after dropping out?
3puppies, the choices in life are not “be highly academically focused in hs” or “become truant and flunk out.” There’s a lot of gray in between and you jumped straight to the extreme.
“Your comment about whether or not the happiest people are the C (or even B) students reminds me of the age old saying “Ignorance is Bliss”. I happily choose knowledge instead - it is the lifelong love of learning that I inherited from my parents, and hopefully have passed on to my pups. Knowledge leads to better decision making, which leads to more successful lives, regardless as to how you measure success.”
No, it’s not “regardless.” My H is an elite school-educated physician. He employs a dozen people as receptionists, techs, etc., none of whom have fancy degrees, and I daresay none of them were likely academic superstars in hs. Their path isn’t the path we would have wanted - but our paths aren’t anything they aspire to either. We are more successful financially - but if they are self supporting and happy with their lives and jobs, who am I to say they aren’t successful by their own definitions? Indeed, they consider the all- encompassing 24/7 nature of our professional jobs to be the antithesis of a successful life.
I think we collectively need to get over ourselves if we believe we are inherently superior.
Grandma used to have an admonition - “You think your sh*t don’t stink?” whenever we’d get too big for our britches. I don’t think I am inherently superior to anyone, but I do think the choices I have made for myself and in raising my own family have generally been the best for our own circumstances. I don’t know enough background about other people’s misfortunes, or why they have made their own decisions, but I will confess that from time to time I find myself, like most other humans, judging some of the choices that others have made. If you are being honest with yourself, despite how intellectually distasteful it may seem, you’ll admit that you judge others in some way or another all the time.
I fully recognize that there are lots of others who are much more successful in some ways than I am or my pups are, but not necessarily as successful in other respects. It is far easier to judge the truant teen drug addict than it is to visit him in prison, or even write him a letter.
I intentionally went to the extremes to make the point that everything is not so cut and dry- if the generalities don’t always work at the extreme, how would they be expected to apply in the various shades of grey in between?
“but I will confess that from time to time I find myself, like most other humans, judging some of the choices that others have made. If you are being honest with yourself, despite how intellectually distasteful it may seem, you’ll admit that you judge others in some way or another all the time.”
Oh, of course. But I also try to recognize that most people aren’t really quaking in fear of my judgment, because people make their own choices for reasons that suit them. IOW, if I walk into a store and see someone with a purple Mohawk and I think to myself - he sure looks stupid, thank goodness I’ve got such superior aesthetic taste - he probably isn’t devoting one brain cell to worrying whether that conventional suburban middle-aged mom over there “approves” of his look or not.
President George W Bush giving the commencement speech to the Yale class of 2001:
“To those of you who received honors, awards, and distinctions, I say, well done. And to the C students I say, you, too, can be President of the United States.”
Well, there are value neutral life choices that are a matter of preference, like a hairstyle. However, even something inconsequential like hair can have implications, depending on the context. Wearing that purple Mohawk to a job interview for certain positions might be fine. For other jobs, it would be a terrible idea. Sometimes people make risky choices with a full understanding of what might happen and are completely able and prepared to accept both favorable and unfavorable outcomes. No one has a problem with those people. But there are other individuals who convince themselves their risky plan will work out for them, (eg. not taking high school or other job preparation seriously) despite very low odds, yet simply aren’t in a position to handle a negative outcome. When the most likely outcome happens, they are left with no plan B and no safety net, and thus fall upon the charity of friends, family or the government. Some of us take issue with these individuals and have trouble seeing their choice as merely a different definition of success.
I thought “self supporting and not a harm to others” was a given in this discussion. I thought we were discussing things more along the lines - if you “only” become an X instead of a Y, are you not successful in life (or have you wasted your education).
Sure, but define self-supporting. Does that mean having saved sufficient money for college so your kids don’t take out massive loans and later default on some of them, thereby giving the shaft to taxpayers?
Reviewing these posts, the best recommendation I have for the OP is to get off facebook…
Also, is it enough for a couple to be self-supporting (and capable of supporting their children)? Or much each individual adult be self-supporting? Does the definition of success allow for family situations where a couple decides that one person should be a stay-at-home parent or work part-time for a period of time during childrearing? Or is that failure?
I really don’t like speeches like this. Yes, there are C students who accomplish impressive things, and yes it is fair to give people credit even if they aren’t great students, especially if they eventually reevaluate their priorities and work harder. What he’s really saying is “slack off and don’t worry about your schoolwork because none of that is really worth caring about.”
Might as well have said, “be born with lots of valuable familial connections and just live off those.” It would be a lot more honest.
In general you need to keep a balance when you give speeches like this. I mean ultimately you want to inspire everyone to do better. Are you going to give the B students a scolding? Some of them are students that actually struggled for one reason or another, some got those Bs after a lot of hard work and some yes are spoiled or whatever.
The GWB comment was a JOKE, people.
And yet some people will still take it seriously the same way some people are inspired and want to replicate the “college dropout breakout success” story, thinking they are destined to be Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg rather than one of the very many others who did substantially worse than the average college grad.
I have siblings that had too many kids and didn’t want to be bothered to work, so he ran away and didn’t support the kids he had either financially or emotionally. So I don’t think that we should exclude “self-support and not a harm to others” as part of the definition of success in this conversation since there are those who fail at that.
That would fall other “harm to others.” Sorry I wasn’t clear.