Ready Your Kids for Change

Parent Cafe
1

My daughter is a HS senior, so we are playing the wait and see game right now. She has been accepted to a great school in the early action round, but it is not her top choice (why did she apply EA to a less than top choice school - well, it was well thought out, but beyond this post).

The more I look at CC posts and just having some recent alumni interactions with current college students, the more something becomes crystal clear to me. This moment of clarity can be summed up as:

It does not matter what you do in college. What matters is who you become in college.

It is true that some degrees are marginally more marketable than others when you get out - but nothing - I repeat, nothing - will guarantee a bright and secure future for our children. Those days are gone, if they ever really existed at all.

Now, that is not to say that our kids will not be fantastic and have a great and meaningful adulthood. Quite the contrary, there are more exciting opportunities today than when the parents on this board were entering the workforce. We are in the midst of a revolution as significant as the industrial revolution at the turn of the last century (and prior). It will take a generation or more to play out and many are experiencing the pain of this transition right now. This revolution is about being nimble, resilient and optimistic.

Set the expectation with your children that they will have to learn for the rest of their lives. Learning will not stop when you get out of school. In fact, college today teaches next to nothing about your first job. That first job will lead to many jobs in the future where you will have to reinvent yourself over and over, learning new industries, new markets, new job functions, etc.

It will be hard, but it will also be awesome! Those who learn to learn and keep learning throughout adulthood will be just fine. This is the most valuable skill they can acquire in college.

Imagine your child sitting for a job interview: The interviewer asks, “Tell me about yourself.” Their response is, “Well, I have lots of skills and talents, but probably my favorite thing is just learning new things. How much learning is involved in the job we are discussing?” I do a lot of hiring of college kids and I would be completely blown away by that response.

Anyway, thanks for reading my rant. All the best!

2

“Set the expectation with your children that they will have to learn for the rest of their lives. Learning will not stop when you get out of school. In fact, college today teaches next to nothing about your first job. That first job will lead to many jobs in the future where you will have to reinvent yourself over and over, learning new industries, new markets, new job functions, etc.”

Spot on.

New jobs are being created every year. How many jobs exist today that didn’t 10 years ago? How many careers have been altered by new technologies? Young people must be educated for jobs that don’t exist yet.

3

The process of becoming never ends. Learning contuse as well. One thing son likes about his job is that is he still learning (and being paid a lot- computer software engineer means continued intellectual challenges). His college career not only included a lot of math courses (his primary major) but many pure electives for his own enjoyment beyond breadth requirements. Creating a reader/learner begins in early childhood.

4

Teach your kids to evaluate their achievement not by the number of honors received, the money earned, the power acquired or the professional recognition attained. In a rapidly evolving economy, they need new (and better) standards by which to measure themselves. Teach them to ask themselves, "How did I challenge myself? Did I acquire a new skill or knowledge (or am I in the process of doing so?) Did I have an impact in a positive way? Did I connect with someone new or at a deeper level than previously? Did I discover anything about myself that is important? Am I carrying ‘baggage’ that I don’t need and how do I get rid of it? Was I my best self in that interaction and if not, how do I fix that or do it better next time?

If they can cultivate the habit of looking at achievement in this way - rather than as something that gets validated externally - then they will be more ready to handle the curve balls that life invariably will throw their way. With the economy in transition, those curve balls are likely to be coming faster and harder than before. Learning how to learn is a great - and essential skill - but our kids also need to know how to ‘self-validate’ when the external world tells them that the job, the way of life, the people they thought would be there always, aren’t any more. Being resilient is hard: Find ways to measure success that don’t depend on external validations.

5

Both matter.

If you neglect your studies and fail courses, making it necessary to take extra semesters to graduate, that matters.

If you drink to excess and this leads to alcohol poisoning, unintended sex, or injury in some kind of accident, that matters.

If you get arrested or expelled, that matters.

If you fail to take advantage of the college’s academic and extracurricular offerings, that matters.

Of course, who you become matters, too. But part of the way that you become that person is through your behavior at college.

6

Perhaps I’m missing the point, but I feel what you do greatly affects who you become.

We have stressed with our children to take advantage of as many opportunities as possible. Doing “things” in college not only pads your resume, it helps you to acquire/build skills and learn more about yourself. As you participate in “things” you meet more people…which exposes you to different viewpoints and possibilities.

I’m in the camp that there have never been any guarantees. I believe in maximizing opportunities, while staying true to your values.

I agree with this point, but in my opinion “learning to learn” can and should be “acquired” during the high school years. In college and beyond one can work on improving that skill set and applying it to more challenging material.

Two things come to my mind when I think about “learning to learn”…

The first has to do with the peer tutoring. In elementary school I think it was a useful tool when used in moderation. Then in high school, peer tutoring was a good way to get service hours while reinforcing knowledge obtained in previous classes…not a bad thing. (I always said that I became a better student once I began ‘learning how to teach’.)

The second situation involves my daughter. She had a questionable teacher for freshman year honors geometry. Instead of trying to get her switched from the class, we (my daughter and I) sat down with the book every day and for about the first month…reading every page, discussing and working through the proofs and homework problems. It was time consuming and took a lot of effort, but she soon said she didn’t need me anymore. She cruised through the course and her subsequent math classes.

The teacher, who didn’t teach, actually helped my daughter to teach herself. Sometimes it pays off to not rush in and rescue your child from a difficult situation. It really helped her confidence.

7

Your EA comment confuses me. Does it matter if it was her first choice? It still is good to have an early acceptance to a school that she is willing to attend – takes some pressure off.

8

I realize that constant change is the new norm, but I can’t help but think that it will be an exhausting way to live. Having to always reinvent yourself and have your resume out gets harder to do, especially as you get older or you need some routine and security to function well. The young can do it, but not forever. In the past, people struggled with a lot of problems that technology has largely solved, but at least they didn’t feel the need or obligation to constantly reinvent themselves. If you were born to a farmer, you were a farmer, and that was that. Not that I’m idealizing the old days, but the constant need to self-define and transform brings a certain type of stress and pressure unknown in more traditional societies.

9

I agree, NJSue. I don’t even think it’s possible to be on the constant reinvention cycle. Not if you are trying to be competent at your current job, raise a family, and be a good friend/community member/relative. Not if illness or other family trauma intervenes (and it will eventually for all of us). There are times in our lives - often long periods - when treading water is the best you can do. Reinventing yourself isn’t always possible. That’s why it’s important to find other ways of self-validating. It doesn’t mean that there is something ‘wrong’ with the world if you are under-employed or even unemployed for a while - it just means that our expectations for ourselves needs to change and we need to plan for uncertainty. Stay out of debt. Keep clear on the difference between wants and needs. Take connected to what matters to you most. And yes, reinvent when you can.

10

“It does not matter what you do in college. What matters is who you become in college.” - with both of my kids it was crucial for them to “do in college” what they have planned to do and it was also very important to grow personally. So, I disagree with the first half and agree with the second half. I told both just one simple thing: “Always keep in mind why you are at college and not somewhere else, many loose this prospective”. Both of them realized that the college grades were important for them. S. improved his academic standing a lot at college, while D. was able to maintain her level. Both successfully pursuit the learning outside of lecture / classes, both worked while at college and both successfully transition to the next step after college. I can only hope that their own kids will do just that. Simple, straight forward approach seems to be working well, no reason to change.

11

This is just a personal observation, but with my own kids (now age 29 and 26), I have noticed far more personal growth during the years after college than I did during their college years. I’m not saying that they didn’t mature and learn a great deal in college – they did. But college is a unique environment, and much of what happens there is not directly applicable to adult life. They learned more and developed more after graduation, and what they learned has been more applicable to the rest of their lives.

I think that the decade after college is crucial to “becoming” the person you will be – often more so than the college years.

12

I’m in my 50s now, working in software. Not a day goes by when I don’t spend at least a couple of hours learning new stuff. I go back and re-read many of my old CS text books and find value even in that. You just can’t afford to stop learning in the current world.

13

@2sk211 Same here. The Internet was not out there when I studied CS in college - yet somehow I’ve ended up with my latest career incarnation focusing on managing folks who work on content management systems. Every couple of years my job has changed significantly and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Constant learning and reinvention keeps me young. Well, also working around so many 25-year olds!

I think the intent of the “it doesn’t matter what you do in college” was more around how what school you attend and what you choose for a major does not lock you into one and only one possible future. Sure, if you screw around in college it will hurt you, potentially long-term, but if you work hard and have drive, you can end up going in any number of career directions that may or may not be directly correlated to your alma mater or your major.