This post is so far from my own world view that I cannot even find anything to say.
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We have been having some conversations with my daughter who is applying to grad schools regarding the concepts of prestige. Does going to a prestigious school open some doors for you? Yes, I think so. Out of college that name might get you in the door easier than others, but following you through that door may be others that come from lesser known schools. And once the work starts, no one cares about where you were to school anymore. Promotions arenât based on where you went to school but the work you do and the person you are. Someone who relies on the name of their school to get ahead might find themselves falling behind. Being good at what you do and being a person that others like and want to be around is important.
Does prestige guarantee success or happiness? Definitely not. Sometimes people get into their careers and realize what they enjoy doing is different than what they expected. And working all day, every day, at something you donât like can cause burnout quickly. And most people, as they mature, realize that doing something they like with their life, over something that impresses other people, is what is most important. In addition, when you have a family, priorities can switch. Coordinating job locations with a spouses job can be tricky. Having a job with hours that allow you to be active in your kids life likely becomes important. Your kids donât care where you went to school.
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In previous posts you said you were a med student. That really scares me. Is this the attitude that you will use with your patients? Someone who is not living up to your expectation of what their life should be has fallen and their life is a tragedy? Iâm not even sure what to say to this except that I hope I never have a doctor who has this attitude.
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Not everyone can be (nor wants to be) a CEO, successful business owner, law partner, hedge fund president, hospital chief of staff, etc. My understanding is that those jobs can be incredibly stressful. Success isnât a salary; itâs doing something you donât hate that puts food on the table.
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Success is not measured by money. Money is a necessity in being able to care for ourselves, but more than what is necessary to survive is not directly correlated with our happiness. And being in a job that outsiders think befits us is not necessarily success. Being content with our lives is about so much more than the job we have or the balance of our investments. People often make choices that others donât understand, but that are right for them.
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To be fair, Harvard does say on their website that their aim is to produce world leaders in whatever field their students go into.
By their own standards, most Harvard graduates would be failing Harvardâs own metric for success.
I donât blame kids for thinking that in order to be a successful Harvard/top school graduate, you have to be a world leader or game changer of some kind when itâs pretty much what Harvard says they do on their site.
Itâs why so many kids are desperate to get into Harvard. Harvard says they produce world leaders on their site (but donât acknowledge that the vast majority of Harvard graduates cannot be world leaders because there arenât that many world leadership spots in the world).
Schools canât have it both ways. If the metric of success is world leadership according to Harvard, can OP be really blamed for thinking that going to Harvard and not ending up a world leader is failing?
Itâs Harvardâs own standards that they say on their website.
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Iâm going to sayâŠsome of our smaller and more rural areas NEED well qualified doctors, and lawyers, and business people. I applaud folks doing that.
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In the general workforce out there, in MOST situations, at some point, nobody gives a rip if you went to the moon and backâŠoneâs ability to succeed in a work place, regardless of your education credentials, will be based on how well you play with others in the sandbox.
If you throw your toys, push other kids on the playground, throw sand in their faces, and act like an arrogant butthead, then eventually one WILL hit a wall at work where you arenât able to proceed further. And then oneâs arrogance will become, in part, oneâs downfall.
EVERY JOB, even the people flipping burgers at McDonaldâs, involves working on a team of some sort. It could be a team of construction workers, a team of ditch diggers, or a team of healthcare professionals doing brain surgery on a patient.
I could think of a lot of reasons why some people would âfall offâ as the OP put it. Here are some just right off the top of my head:
- spouse/partner got a job requiring them to move
- close family member (like a parent, spouse, child) is very ill, and the person who âfell offâ needs to be closer to home, not have as much of a jet-setting/super star work lifestyle
- person got burned out on the rat race
- person not only got burned out on the rat race, but rat race swept them up into lifestyle of heavy drugs and/or alcohol. Person ended up in rehab, needed to be in a job that was kind of âawayâ from the old work culture of "lives of the fast & furiousâ
- person had a major illness which made them question what the heck their purpose in life was - for example, cancer will do that to a person
- person got way too cocky, ended up eventually getting fired/laid off from their hot shot job and because of their cocky attitude, had a hard time getting new job, so they had to settle for a job thatâs a lot more humble
- just suddenly decided one day âWhy am I doing this?â and decided to switch gears
What your high school self might not have realized, also, is that while from your perspective it seemed like the person really missed their old life, what is ALSO possible is that the person was just fondly reminiscing their old âwork hard, play hard, party like itâs 1999â life. That doesnât necessarily mean that the person wants to go back to it.
Whether the âfalling offâ thing is a BAD thing depends on oneâs point of view. And thereâs lots of different ways of looking at the situation.
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Why in the world do you think these people âfell off?â Did it ever occur to you that perhaps theyâre doing exactly what they want to do and donât care about your expectations for them? Several of my classmates from HBS pursued careers at a level that apparently wouldnât impress you, but they are quite happy with their lives nonetheless. One of my classmates went to work for the Post Office after graduation, worked there for four years, then left to have a family (five boys, eventually) and never went back to work. Zero regrets. I dropped out of HBS partly because the payback wasnât there for me. Iâve had a very successful and lucrative career, but it wouldnât look like that to you. Itâs the misguided idea of what certain levels of education should look like/produce that is the âtragedy.â
The ROI on education happens in the mind, not the wallet or the eyes of others.
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Agree with this assessment. This and prior threads demonstrate an unhealthy need to criticize others, which would be sad in anyone but actually harmful in a physician. I mean this to be helpful: OP, please consider counseling. Maybe being on this website is âfunâ for you, but if you find a thrill in upsetting others, then it should be considered a quality in you that may benefit from some guided introspection. If you have recurring or intrusive negative thoughts about people around you who are doing no harm to you, then that would also be a symptom that should be addressed by a professional.
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That!
Iâm in no way comparing my education nor my career potential with this particular person.
But, I certainly did well enough while very young, my first job made more than my Dadâs. Bought a two-bedroom condo 2 years later to manage taxes, travelled worldwide, rose through the ranks.
At some point, the âcorrectâ move would have been to keep following the head-hunters, switch jobs, each time grabbing an even better title, and of course demanding a healthy pay increase.
But instead - at some point, I was âcontentâ with my life, âbig enoughâ house, ânew enoughâ cars, living in suburbia, not traveling, but had the real âluxuryâ of eating dinner with my family every day, doing nightly story time and weekend excursions, be at the school bus twice a day, and later play shuttle service to all the school events and sports mid-day.
None of the above would have been possible, if I had decided to commit myself to a more and more demanding career that certainly was open to me.
Wouldnât change a thing!
I know a lot of people âsucceedingâ, if finances/titles/recognitions were the measure - but completely failing in life.
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By your assessment, I too probably âfell off.â But you know what? I am happier than I have ever been doing what I love, even if itâs not what I was âexpectedâ to do. I got every fancy advanced degree in the book and use exactly zero of them currently. But I love my job - it pays decently, is low stress, and gives me great work-life balance, which seems to be a sad rarity for many these days. I left the stress, I left the pointless competition. I am happy. You can kiss my you know what.
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OP, you remind me a little of Holden from Catcher in the Rye. Have you read Salingerâs book?
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You should consider proctology as an area of specialization as it will minimize your forced interpersonal interactions with common folk.
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Agreed - everyone should keep the lack of life experience of the OP in mind. Their B&W judgement of a seemingly gifted person is probably not that uncommon for that age, even if not everyone will voice it and phrase it that way.
Hereâs a chance not to take offense, but to add context and share a perspective that young people have not benefitted from â yet.
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I hear there are a lot of openings in that fieldâŠ
(Sorry, that was teed up too perfectly to resist.)
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My spouse works for a company out of Boston relatively high in the corporate ladder. He went to a well regarded state flagship. He has all sorts of subordinates that went to fancier schools than him. I assume theyâre all living their best lives. The only way I find this tragic is if there was life altering debt involved that is following someone for many years and affecting quality of life.
Itâs no coincdence that in general the students at high end privates come from wealthier families. High end schools also spend a fortune on marketing - creating world leaders, affordable for all, magical faculty, blah blah blah. As always, take marketing materials with a grain of salt and a discerning eye.
I was coincdentally in Boston last week. I was on campus at a number of schools. I was struck how I saw a bunch of very average and typical young adult behavoir. I also chatted with a young man about to graduate who was quite ho hum on his undergrad experience at one of these schools.
Honestly, this OP reads like it was posted by a young teen. My high school senior has more nuanced thoughts than this. So odd. Life is what you do, not where you go to college. As life goes on you find your own career and life balances. Every choice has ramifications and things are rarely black and white.
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Please donât poo poo my suggestion and donât forget to tip your waiters and waitresses. Good night.
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I agree to a pointâŠBut the OP is apparently a med student? To me, this is more the maturity level of a 12-year-old. If a middle schooler had written this, OK, that ignorance is forgivable, but this is not only an adult, but a college graduate, with presumably some life experience under their belt (have they interacted with patients? held internships? interacted with other people?). Time to grow up.
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DH went to undergrad at a state school with an 80% acceptance rate, and then took a winding path through med school and residency. After practicing for a decade, he earned a PhD and went to work in a high profile lab at Columbia, publishing regularly in high impact journals. Lots of prestige, but terrible hours and even worse pay. He missed patient contact, and felt that medical research is more effective when guided by physician experience. He left research to do a medical fellowship. Now, he spends most of his time seeing patients at hospitals youâve never heard of, doing public education in science and medicine, and volunteering for nonprofits.
Is my husbandâs life tragic because he stopped doing research? Maybe his life was a failure from the start since he didnât go to an Ivy, or even a Top 100 university for undergrad.
He doesnât have fame, prestige, or anything that makes him feel superior, but he has the respect of his colleagues and community, the love of his family and friends, and the absolute adoration of his dogsđ.
Iâm not even going to go into the âtragedyâ of what Iâve done with my degree, which is become a stay-at-home mom and volunteer in my communityđ.
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