<p>They all want to direct.</p>
<p>I learned REALLY fast in my junior/senior year in high school that I really sucked in chemistry and calculus- the pre-reqs for vet school admissions. I did actually shadow a vet last January (am a college junior now) and took a chemistry-related course last spring... I cried at the final!</p>
<p>I really did enjoy shadowing the vet and watching him perform minor surgeries on cats and dogs and I love to be around horses in general. But I had to face my dilemma when it comes to customer satisfaction:
1) Just barely pass vet school and be a so-so vet who loves animals with all her heart- would my customer want just an okay vet?
2) Ace my history major track and be in museum education where my customers can be confident that they're getting their information from the best?</p>
<p>So I have to go with the latter and shelf my dreams of becoming a vet with a degree from Cornell. Neither jobs pay very well but at least they will allow me to pursue what I love to do.</p>
<p>A "C" in chemistry and a C+ in calculus can be a huge wake-up call for someone to realize that their strengths truly does not lie in with the sciences- time to figure out another option! Especially in college- I quickly dropped calculus within 3 weeks after flunking several homework assignments. There really is so much more out there.</p>
<p>I say, let them dream until they get their assignments back in their first semester.</p>
<p>Kids often have unrealistic expectations - which is fine,they don't know enough often to be realistic and sometimes that's a good thing! Where I think a problem comes in is when GC's or parents fail to steer kids to the classes they'll need - essentially starting in 9th grade. Taking CP or ordinary level classes rather than honors is not going to leave the kid where they'll need to be when applying to colleges pre med or pre vet etc. Which is not to say they can't enroll in the local U for pre whatever classes, just that they'll be way behind others and may well have to take remedial classes at their expense. The local college will be happy to take their $$'s with minimal entrance requirements but they'd have been better served IMHO had they tried some more difficult classes in HS and ruled some things out pre-college.
I'm sure this sort of advice is given by GC's at private and some public schools but sometimes I've seen unrealistic expectations/goals nurtured rather than confronted with the realities of what's needed.</p>
<p>There are a LOT of careers working with animals that don't involve veterinary. Animal husbandry (farm animals), vet tech, dog training, dog grooming, animal massage (don't laugh! I have friends who pay a lot of money to have their dogs massaged), professional dog show handler, dog show secretary, dog magazine writing/editing/publishing, dog breeding, etc. </p>
<p>I think where our schools go wrong is in having a limited imagination. "Likes animals" becomes "vet" and not one of the many other possibilities; "likes math" becomes "actuary" and not the many other possibilities; "loves PE" becomes professional athlete instead of referee/trainer/physical therapist....</p>
<p>
[quote]
"likes math" becomes "actuary"
[/quote]
</p>
<p>yikes! I've never heard that one. Tell me it isn't so. When D was in 8th grade the bookkeeper took over math classes when the regular math teacher quit. But bless her, she quickly made it clear to the faculty committee that the "math" she did every day was no basis for an eighth-grade math curriculum. D is now at a very academic LAC, AP'd out of calc, doing number theory and lovin' it. Please don't tell me HS would have directed her into actuarial studies.</p>
<p>Vet school isn't as impossible as some of you may think. You must be a good student, but you don't have to take Calculus, have super high SAT scores or take all AP classes. </p>
<p>Besides, I would welcome a student who had professional ambitions. I tend to fall over when the student wants to be a famous DJ, film anything, music video something or, my personal favorite, a newscaster.</p>
<p>I went to school with one of those "loves animals" types - she said she loved dolphins and the ocean, so she wanted to be a marine biologist. She was never really that good at math or science and those plans went right down the drain when she was failing her intro-level biology course at the local state college. I don't think she ever considered what she wanted to do outside of that. I know another person who insists she wants to be an actress, and since she doesn't need to go to college for that, she isn't going. I sometimes ask her what she'll do if it doesn't work out, and she asks me why I have to be so negative and mean to her, don't I believe she can do anything, etc.</p>
<p>Sometimes I think that people consider me "boring" or "unambitious" because I don't want to go to school for 8 years and do something impressive, I just want to do something obtainable that won't bore me to death. But then I think that 90% of those people probably aren't going to end up doing that, anyway, are they?</p>
<p>I don't think that it's bad that HS seniors are ambitious and hope to go on to graduate or professional school. </p>
<p>the real disconnect is that HS students really don't realize how many different career options are available to them. Because of that, when they are asked what they hope to pursue, they say the same things over and over again: doctor, lawyer, vet, and so on. </p>
<p>I'd wanted to be a doctor since I was three, and actually made it to med school. For the longest time I fretted over what I would do I didn't get into med school, and kept on the path simply for lack of knowing what else to pursue. I realize now that I would be heading to grad school for a job that I didn't realize existed until a college freshman, and didn't realize I would enjoy until I was a 2nd semester junior. Obviously I'm glad to have achieved my original goal, but I sometimes wonder how things might have been different.</p>
<p>my cousin went to an american high school against all of our families wishes. he was pursuing harvard medical school like me. he visited many high school counsellors and all the told him was "go to college, go to college, go to college, go to college" he called them 'incessant robots" </p>
<p>hahahhahaha, in japan we laugh so at incessant robots like your counsellors. they bothered him so much with their talk of repeatedly going to college, that he went into trade school and now is making houses electricity. his annual income for which he gets after taxes is 90,000 a year</p>
<p>probably 3 times what the high school counsellors make in their inhabitants in teh united states!</p>
<p>I hope that you guys don't offer your sad advice to young people. In my opinion, the only way that poverty and hunger and violence will ever be erased from our world is if people are ambitious and have crazy goals. How will anyone achieve great things if they set their goals low? I think it's better to encourage young people to be ambitious so that they have something to look forward to and pursue happily. Don't be a stick in the mud.</p>
<p>that is easy! please take a long glimpse at my previous quote!</p>
<p>"this is a very selfish attitude and would not be accepted in my mother land! but then again, this may summarize nicely the entitled attitude of the current north american generation. "if i want it, i can try for it, even if it wastes time and resources" the inhabitants of north america have such luxury to have such thoughts! imagine what a teenager in africa thinks! perhaps if those in the western world were less selfish about spending their time, money and world supplies, there would be more to go around for the remainder of those on this earth."</p>
<p>if north americans did not conglomerate all the wealth (which is propogated by wasteful use of resources such as going to college to become a professional when that individual can clearly not compete with smart persons), then everyone would have a little bit more, and there would be not as much need for someone of unfortuante place to rob a store or steal a car.</p>
<p>we would not stand for this at TOKYO U. we would just throw someone out of school who was not smart but tried to be a doctor. my cousin goes to college in texas and he says that the students who are not serious just get drunk and are hung over and get C+ average (like your president!). THIS IS WASTEFUL!</p>
<p>less waste = less hunger........the dippidy equation!</p>
<p>I really don't see how hunger in Africa has anything to do with this. Which country do you think already contributes the most aid to third world countries? Cause I promise you it's not Japan, nor do I see them opening their doors and giving away their wealth to those in need as you suggest.</p>
<p>Dippity Doonut:</p>
<p>Not everyone 'wastes' the country's resources by being overly ambitious and holding (possibly) unrealistic goals for themselves. It is something that makes the United States unique to many other countries around the world. We give those who have possibly made mistakes in the past or have taken longer to 'grow up' a second chance at being happy in their careers.</p>
<p>I'll use myself as an example and I apologize to those who have heard this a million times...</p>
<p>I was a mediocre student in high school (2.91 UW average, ~30% in my class), slightly above the national average on the SAT (1120 in 1999), and very average ECs (worked up to 2 jobs at a time, was involved in ~2 clubs/year, youth group, etc.). In many countries I would have been tracked into a vocational or secretarial school for my secondary/finishing education.</p>
<p>However, due to the opportunities in the US, I was able to go to an above-average public school for college. I went in ready to actually perform at the level I was capable of performing. I had dreamed to double major in environmental studies and business, go on for an MBA and then open up a outdoors camp for under-privileged children. It may have been an unrealistic goal that would 'waste' my parents and my own resources (I'm leaving my country out of it, I didn't use much financial aid), but I entered college as an idealisitc college freshman ready to take on the world!</p>
<p>Well, I didn't end up double majoring in environmental studies and business, but found my passion for geology. I majored in geology, earned magna cum laude and departmental honors and recently defended my master's degree (still polishing my manuscript for final approval of my committee). Tuesday I'll start my PhD at the University of Wisconsin which is ranked third in the country for producing geology professors. I found my passion is to teach geology at the undergraduate level and hope to be a geology professor within 5 or 6 years from now. </p>
<p>Most countries would have given up on me before my undergraduate studies and tracked me into a career I wouldn't be passionate about. However, the United States gave me a second chance to prove my worthiness in academia and I'm on the track to a fruitful career as an academic.</p>
<p>That brings me to your quote:</p>
<p>
[quote]
which is propogated by wasteful use of resources such as going to college to become a professional when that individual can clearly not compete with smart persons
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I am not a smart person, I have a baseline intelligence to work with, so I work hard to keep up with others who may have a higher 'raw' intelligence. You do not have to be smart or inately intelligent to succeed in the US, that's part of the attraction and beauty of the system. I don't judge other countries for their systems, they work in their own ways as well, but don't judge ours without an accurate representation of what the system produces (both 'successes' and 'failures').</p>
<p>stargirl, you're right that this thread is getting a little garbled. It's fair to admit that we in the U.S. do consume a hugely disproportionate share of the world's resources. Yes, we're wasteful. But unlike our poster from Tokyo, I can't see education itself as an important factor in this wastefulness, despite all-too-accurate allusions to drunken dissolution by many unmotivated students. No, I hope that at least some of those slackers will learn enough about their world to start caring and maybe do something to make it better.</p>
<p>ophiolite, you're living proof that my hope for a better world lies in education; we cross-posted, and I might as well have saved my pixels.</p>
<p>All this talk about getting a C in Calculus `and therefore not doing science/math careers kind of made me laugh. My dad is a mechanical engineer with several patents, etc. and lots of experience in his field, and he took Calc 3 times! Maybe people are too harsh in determining what careers people can and should have!</p>
<p>I have encountered many parents who are unrealistic about their children's intellects and have unrealistic goals about their children...</p>
<p>you think being unproductive at college is not wasteful? what planet you reside on? seriously? think of the thousands of dimwits at college not contributing to the work force? just drinking, acting stupid, going to raves, or whatever they do? that is hundreds of millions lost to your economy every year! for nothing! in the motherland these people would become skilled tradesworkers. make economy more efficient! less wasteful! make family proud!</p>
<p>you dont see 'girl gone wild' in japan. those college girls would be kicked out. that not college! thats wasteful! wake up.</p>
<p>wolfpiper: im glad you not at TOKYO U, we would probably leave you in a dark room, locked.</p>
<p>Wolfpiper, you make an excellent point. Half the people who take Differential Equations flunk it the first time--including an awful lot of very successful engineers!</p>
<p>Dippity,
Huh? I don't understand!</p>