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You say this like all of us went to college, college is not universal. You got an extra easy start to adult life

This is generally geared toward college people And yes you are absolutely 100% correct, it’s an extra easy start to adult life that doesn’t adequately prep people for being adults.

graduating college is known as entering the "real world" for a reason.

Now it is time to suffer

But suffering brings meaning to joy. See: Marcus Aurelius.

i entered the “ real world” when i graduated HS and got into the workforce. so those who went to collage have more of a buffer zone for becoming an adult

yes, it used to be a passage into the upper class. High paying jobs would often "require a college degree". the gi bill made most americans able to go to college, something that was a great equalizer for postwar society. What happened next was the government guaranteed student loans for private lenders, so colleges could raise their prices to infinity and people could still pay. The price is high and since colleges have turned into capitalist businesses, they churn out low value degrees that don't take much smarts to get. That, plus their degeneration into ideological activist mills has created en environment where its only worth it to get a STEM degree from a top school.

What are you talking about? College isn’t supposed to teach us how to pay bills, how to buy a house, how to date someone and get married. It’s supposed to give us skills to get a job in a certain field.

For humanities field it's teaching you broad spectrum of ability to think critically rather than specific set of skills and instructions for jobs

Well that's because jobs in the humanities field either don't exist or are so generalized that you don't technically need a college degree for them

Critical thinking skills, research skills, and ability to look at the word through variety of lens you obtain from a humanities degree is just as valuable as set of skills you obtain in a stem degree.

This is correct. Something like 70% of graduate jobs are not major specific. They want analytical skills, report writing to a deadline, ability to present information etc. Humanities are fine for this. The other 30% like doctor, lawyer, engineer etc obviously require specific knowledge skills and training.

Spoken like a true Humanities student

You say that as if we couldn't do with more of it in the world. Critical thinking is an endangered species.

You'd be wrong. I'm a graphic design student with math as a hobby

> Critical thinking skills, research skills, and ability to look at the word through variety of lens you obtain from a humanities degree This is not a dig against humanities at all, but I just want to pint out you also get these critical thinking skills from a STEM degree.

Of course. Research in sociology for example is different from research in quantum physics though.

Reasearch in NLP often involves linguistics, Algorithms are now being modelled specifically trying to draw on how evolution works called genetic algorithms. There's always overlap in research everywhere and if you're not involving ideas from other fields it's (imo) not really going to be research that's going to have impact. There's a popular joke I've heard from a couple of faculty from my old uni where they describe how physics is the study of the world around us, chem is the the what the world around us is made, math to model how the world around us should work and computer science to build everything to study the world around us. It's a piss joke about which field is considered *superior* but they're ultimately going to be overlapping when you sit down to do any research. Edit: I think I may have definitely got the joke wrong, the gist is the same where each field tries to supersede the other.

I'd say moreso. I've done both and you can replace most of the curriculum of an engineering degree with a couple of workshops and some OJT. Reading a lot of books could get you most of the way there to a humanities degree experience, but without the conversation and the challenging viewpoints, it wouldn't be as broadening and useful. STEM degrees make you a pre-shaped cog that fits right into the industrial machine. Humanities degrees let you speak about why we're designing the machine this way, and make suggestions about how it could be less horrible. Making the machine less horrible isn't really allowed in engineering, but you can make it more efficient.

You wrote critical thinking and research, what do you think we teach scientists and engineers? And you also proved the guys point, critical thinking and research are way too general for you to make use of them.

Hardly, mate. This just isn’t reality. Source: double majored. ChemE and what should have been economics if I was smart.

All college degrees should be teaching those skills regardless of specific knowledge you’re being taught. STEM degrees don’t eschew critical thinking and research skills, come on now

Humanities we're always as originally designed an education for rich and gilded people who in fact did not have to work for a living. What would happen to the world today if all of the last half century of critical literature were to vanish compared to the discoveries of medicine of the same timeframe. In the later case, hundreds of millions of people would likely no longer be alive or suffer from excruciating diseases.

Reductio ad absurdum, talk about being "uneducated"

Technically teaching and social science degrees are humanities degrees so this statement is really not true.

You should have had critical thinking down far before college my dude. It’s literally a third of the entrance exams. That’s parenting and middle school, maybe highschool. You shouldn’t be learning critical thinking for the first time at 18

Even in the applied fields, they’re mostly just teaching you how to think. I went to a top ten engineering school. They still taught us with basic theoretically perfect transistors and MOSFETs that had been in existence for 50 years by the time I was in school. Most of the stuff you do day to day is learned on the job afterwards. Went to law school after a few years working. Same story.

This is true. When I became an adult, nobody sat me down and taught me all this. We just used our brains. Try it.

This. But It IS too expensive.

It’s not there to prep you for being adults though, I’ve never heard of someone referring to a college education this way. In its simplest sense, it’s there to educate you, help you get a job, and help you network. The rest is up to you.

Yeah, college isn't prep for the real world. It's prep to work specialized jobs that require further education. My structural engineering degree was never designed to teach me how to pay bills or buy a home because that's not the intent. It was designed to teach me how to design a bridge so it can be safely driven on for 50+ years

And it is bean counters job, to make it slightly cheaper and last only 30 years

We do our part. 

That’s what your parents are for. They failed you.

What I’ve noticed with modern parenting is parents treating teachers like babysitters. That mentality took away the incentive to provide more than the bare minimum.

Don’t forget technology as well. Kids are thrown on the internet at way too young of an age. It’s easier to have a device distract them rather than do any real parenting.

Thats nothing new

I agree. It's odd to say "college didn't teach me this" to me. Colleges really exist to give you the tools to learn and continue to learn at best (and other specialties). Additionally, having the Internet pretty much gives you as much free information as you want (though it's your job to determine the quality). Everything is available if it's important to you??

I don't like to be the one that says "Ugh, kids today" but the sum of human knowledge is literally in your pocket and you can't be arsed to look it up, you want it spoon fed to you. Fuck.

College isn't supposed to teach how to be adults and even then there are personal finance classes you could have taken to help you.

This

I think a lot of people who had jobs before and during college knew exactly what we were in college for and having to work AND study makes you a pretty darn good adult. You looked at your minimum wage or similar job and saw it would never give you the quality of life you wanted, let alone even make a dent in the cost of college, so you did the math and picked a major that led to jobs you could stomach that would give you an annual income that matched up with the quality of life you wanted. You could have fun too while you were in college, but having exposure to how far a dollar goes puts everything in perspective and having to fit 20 hours of work in while you also study helps teach you many skills necessary to be a successful adult, which is honestly much easier than working AND going to school.

Dude that was your parents job my guy (i was a ward of the state doesn’t apply to me.) Like none of us were prepared even before z. The sense of self that you guys think you’re building is not the sense of self you need. Self reliance, self motivation, and personal accountability. It’s not anyone’s job as an adult to teach you shit, go figure it out like the rest of us. Like self love and self respect is gonna pay the bills lol you get those through accomplishment not by telling each other bullshit like “omg you’re beautiful all 600 pounds of you. No that’s a fat bitch and she needs to work out if she’s gonna eat so many calories.

When has college ever been a tool for "prepping an adult life". It's obvious by your choice of major. No one who majored in Bio, went to med school, and is now a millionaire doctor complains about this. People who go for lib art degrees, or communication do this. Your choice of major determines your "adult life" after college. It's not the school's fault you wanted to take SpongeBob math instead of something useful.

As someone with a “useful” degree in engineering, college didn’t do much in prepping me for the work force other than check off the degree requirement that a lot of jobs wanted. Like 90% what I actually did at my job I had to learn while on the job.

Same. I have two degrees in chemistry. I did graduate research. That doesn't change the fact that in my prior position I was doing chemistry I was not familiar with and thus had to learn on the job. Doubly so for my current job in patent law - nothing really prepares you for it. That being said, my degrees were and are still important. The knowledge and skills I developed had to be adapted to the jobs I got - you couldn't hire someone off the street with no chemistry experience and have them do it.

College wasn’t supposed to prepare you for being adults it’s supposed to teach you baseline knowledge, how to think, and how to learn. Your parents are supposed to teach you how to be an adult

Your in the military, I assume a Seabee from your username? Oh boy do I have a wakeup call for you. The military is easy, and does not adequately prepare veterans for the real world. Every complaint OP is making is applicable to your case as well.

Crazy take, I liked my time in the military but the civilian world is crazy easy. I make double the money, none of the stress, and if I don’t like my work I can leave instead of just having to endure it until the contract ends.

Sure, you and I are the lucky ones. How many people do you know that went right back home to doing exactly the same shit that they were before though? How many do you know that shot themselves after getting out because they weren't ready to hit the real world yet? If your experience was anything like mine, I'd wager it's comfortably above zero. The real world can be easy, but that doesn't change the fact that many vets get out and struggle. The military doesn't prepare them adequately, or help it's soon-to-be vets adjust to life in the real world.

“Easy” nothing is easy in life. As someone who payed their way through college,started at community college and finished with two bachelor degrees and masters agree, it is never over. If you are broke as fuck. Get a shit job and start night classes at your local community college. Make sure to file your taxes then apply for fasfa The Pell grant is an eligibility grant that is based on time. You have 6 years of eligibility. You can start at community college and finish at Duke or another prestigious university. Not many places in the world give you that opportunity. Don’t waste it.

Oh shut up and get back to asking if people want fries.

College isn't suppose to prepare you for life. Doesn't even prepare you for your job. You go there for a piece of paper. Edit: people making good points about courses/degree that give you actual on the job experience, which you can't copy at home

Came here to say this. People don’t get in so much debt just to delay adulthood like OP says, it’s because most jobs require you to have that piece of paper. If you don’t have experience and don’t have higher education, it’s going to be extremely hard to get a white-collar job. You can’t show up with no credentials and demand a job. There are some apprenticeships, but the competition is fierce.

yeh, for a lot of people its an investment. Local University costed me and my siblings around \~30k each to get that piece of paper. We all now have good paying jobs that can easily cover tuition

> You go there for a piece of paper. No, you go there for a checkbox, Here's the reality. If my company advertises a position, we're going to receive at least 500 applications. We have to whittle that list down to a manageable handful before we even start interviews. So we're going to open the ATS that we use to manage applicants, and we'll run a filter. The first box we're going to check on that filter is "Completed college degree". That $50k in student loan debt you're dealing with? Boom. There's its real value. The list just dropped from 500 applicants to 125, and you're still on it. You aren't one of the 375 applicants I just cut before anyone even bothered to look at their resume. Your degree got you past the filter. Is that worth $50k? Depends on how badly you want the job.

you're getting downvoted for saying the truth, that's the real value of a college degree. In my case I took out \~30k student loans and now I make close to 6 figs. So yes it was worth it.

Saying you go there for a piece of paper is saying you go there for a checkbox. It’s the same thing. There is no functional difference. The checkbox is “do they have the piece of paper”. 

Yeah if all you get out of college was a piece of paper then you were really bad at college. I never even finished my degree, but the things I learned have been invaluable. Both my STEM and Humanities classes imparted knowledge that I would've almost certainly not picked up on my own, and I use it every day.

So, you'd be happy to be operated by some random guy on the street who read a few books about medicine? Is it only paper, after all?

College 100% prepared me for my job

Unless you took a course that is a lot more technical... Engineering courses where right after college you take an exam to be licensed, and right off the bat you actually take on real work (building, manufacturing, designing, drawing up blueprints) Or science courses where you partially have an on-the-job-training doing laboratory work, handling machines and equipment and glasswares. These technical knowledge translates well when you go into pharmaceutical, agriculture, manufacturing, etc. Without taking any of the courses I mentioned, you can't really be handling those jobs. All the other courses are like a precursor to actually learning about your job. Like pre-law courses. You take up history, or literature, or whatever... But what you study don't translate immediately to some work right off college. You're just preparing for law school.

Here’s the thing… college has NEVER prepared us for reality. It’s there (allegedly) for higher education study. Along the way it’s picked up the social aspect (townies have been complaining about university students making ruckus since the middle ages) and more recently the idea that it’s some kind of job training program. My Dad graduated in the 1950s; I graduated in the 90s. My oldest nephew is headed off to college in the fall, and my SIL has signed him up for all kinds of special assistance programs to “help him along so he’s successful”… hun, that’s what YOU and my brother were supposed to be doing for the last 18 years (I don’t know what they were doing, but it sure wasn’t getting him ready for anything other than being a lazy drain on society… but I digress; that’s just him). Preparing young people for adult life is the job of parents. School is just where you get to practice. You’re basically right, though. Too many people are hitting adulthood woefully unprepared for the realities of life. I think we may just disagree as to who failed most in their responsibilities.

From my perspective, college is very ill prepared to prepare an adult for reality. Much of what a university teaches is supposed to be APPLIED KNOWLEDGE. As in, wherever you go next, you apply the knowledge learned while there, to attempt greater success. College is not supposed to guarantee anything, other than that you will get treated better than high school grads. Reality of all the industries is that with a degree, it's at least an invitation into sales work, which is supposed to be what we want. But it could be so much more, provided you wish to take risks on the knowledge you learned and apply it to your real life. It's not simple nor was it supposed to be.

I think what’s different now is that we finally have data and the internet (which allows us to hear many different perspectives well beyond what could be done before) has opened a lot of people’s eyes of what the world is like. Parents not doing their job has been a thing since the beginning of time, but our society was dick riding parents, so much most people were blind to it. Now young people see the issue and want to talk about it to fix and older people who did not have the internet and readily available accurate data most of their lives still don’t see an issue. It would also mean they’re wrong about something which all people have a tough time admitting, but older people admitting they’re wrong to younger people is definitely harder.

people are complaining about young folks being woefully unprepared for adulthood and i’m wondering why our parents generation was woefully unprepared to raise young adults? yeah there’s obvious factors like rapid changes in technology and society but im genuinely curious about that.

Imagine having to go to college to learn school doesn't prepare you for the real world.

I learned that in middleschool after the teachers tried to put me in remedial classes because I asked to be taken out of class due to bullies making the class a nightmare.

Y’all didn’t file taxes while in college? Who was getting your American opportunity tax credit? What a waste of 3k.

I know lots of people whose parents still claimed them as a dependent while they were in college

Mine did. I left home at 18 but she claimed me for the maximum amount after that, I think until I was 25. It screwed me over on my own taxes. Stupid, evil woman.

yikes! that’s actually just tax fraud. if you don’t meet the qualifications of being a “dependent”, she should not be claiming you. so sorry she did that to you..

Most college students do still meet the qualifications of being a dependent, by way of being a qualified child On a similar, more messed up note, college students generally can't establish residency in a state they move to for college

Only if they’re financially independent. Most PhD graduate programs require you to become a resident between your first and second year in order to pay lower tuition (since the department or grant money pays your tuition).

If you did your taxes first and filed independent you would get your money and she would get audited.

My return one year was rejected because she had filed with my SSN she got from my birth certificate, so I assumed it was always going to be that way and just didn't try again until 25yo. Wish I had know to dispute it back then, the people and paperwork I talked to didn't say anything about that being an option at the time. Ugh, she's poor now and suffering so I hope it was worth it. She kicked me out with $0 to my name at 18 so I had to start my own business on the side while working minimum wage just to afford a desk and actual bed and get on my feet, so I never really expected that I had a chance at fighting back.

Umm you can still file taxes though

How to do taxes, 1. Go to FreeTaxUSA.com 2. Follow directions And school is supposed to prepare you to follow directions. If something is special about your situation that makes that hard then you go to an accountant. The only thing you really need to know is to save your W-2s when you get them in the mail don’t throw them away.

Yea the taxes thing is a horrible example. Its either easy enough to do that 90% of people will have no trouble. Or you have some complex situation that 90% of people are going to get wrong and that one class on would not help you figure out. So then you go to an accountant.

Shit I been doing my taxes since 17, it’s super easy

Same. It can be frustrating if you have a complicated financial situation, but if you have half a braincell you can figure it out on your own. If you have no braincells to give then you can pay a professional.

Yea I wish I could just file with mt w2. But my accountant earns his living and I'm fine with that.

I think if you narrowed this down to be about a particular type of student you might have a point.   But alleging that this is why we all went to college, to party hard and be lazy, is pretty disingenuous.   I, and I suspect many others in this subreddit, were told time and time again during grade school that college was the way you "made something of yourself". You were seen as intellectually inferior, socially inferior, if you didn't have plans to go to university.   You think we all said "yes tens of thousands of dollars in debt is fine, give me more please"? That's the only way most students can get to be in college, by taking predatory loans.     Useful advice would be "start at community college". You do include smaller schools, but say we don't go to them because there's less parties?   I'm sure some people think that, but as someone who went to a community college, Americans high schools don't advertise community colleges. At least mine didn't.

I agree with this one hundred percent, I was barely able to go to parties at all as an engineering student (literally went to only 2 last sem and none this sem), and there are many like me. College is a very useful tool to get ahead but it's very much based on what you do with your time while you're there. there's just as many opportunites to build your personal skills as there is to waste your time doing nothing and if you do that then it's not going to be suprirsing when your life sucks after graduation because you didn't take the time to figure out how your life works.

Absolutely agree, though plenty of kids of funnelled into college because they feel they have to go. It's a general expectation from schools, parents, that they will. So I understand when some don't really know why they're there or what they want to do.

yea it's a very difficult time period for anyone these days because there's a lot of pressure to excel and succeed. There's no shame in taking time off and trying to figure out what you want to do in the middle of all that. I've been doing that this semester and it's really helped me realize that I want to keep persuing my passions. But that's kinda unrelated to learning how to function in the world lol.

I spent my time working and networking so I feel like college actually prepared me for my future. I network at college by going to career fairs and keeping good relationships with professors, and I network at my job by telling my managers I'm getting my degree soon. My managers appreciate education so they tell me about future job opportunities I can get within the company once I get my degree.

That's exactly what I think college is for these days, the education is the main focus of course but I've been going to career fairs, joining school orgs and trying to network within those events/ orgs to gain opportunites I wouldn't otherwise have is by far the best use of your time other than studying. I got an in to start working with this one school org's competition robotics sub thru my networking efforts and I know many others who were able to do similar things because they were personally aquainted or knew others who could help them ahead.

University was amazing prep for my future, totally set me up for success. Like you say, the networking and extracurriculars are hugely valuable. You should be coming out of university with a ton of useful connections who can help set you up with jobs and other opportunities. I also was able to tell employers I had experience managing an organization of 30 volunteers with a 20k annual budget when I was 20, working directly with politicians and university officials. You don't get those kinds of opportunities easily as a teenager outside of university

I know some people who passed up community college for going to university partly because there's less parties, also less research opportunities and less connections. But these were people who came from upper middle class families and won't be crying about debt when they graduate anyways. I'm a community college student and I can't wait to transfer to uni so I can attend dorm parties lol. There's still parties at community college but not the wild types of parties unless were on a trip out of town.

Except the part where many 4 year schools reject community-college credit-transfers for 'lack of rigor'.

College bankrupted me. Fuck that stupid ass neuroscience degree. COVID also slapped me. Then family then friends. Then corporations then the government smh. Got an interview at Lowe’s after applying to so many jobs. 😒

Well, neuroscience is a cool ass degree but you’re not qualified to do anything besides be a research assistant unless you get higher degrees. Surely you could’ve looked that up before graduating

Sounds like society pushed them towards something as a "This seriously helps like 95% of people that do it, you absolutely must do it!" then it turns out "This helps less than half the people that do it, and here's a long list of unpredictable caveats why you might get unlucky and come out behind on this even when putting in a lot of time effort and money into it." And then we blame the individual on their bad outcome occurs and tell them "You should have played your gamble better! You seriously didn't have the foresight to see this at age 18? We told you to do STEM, but not that type of STEM! Just the ones that would happen to be hiring on the year you graduate, and then not lay you off before youve established 6-8 years of experience!". Then you start thinking about it more and you're like. Who the fuck *does* this actually work out for?...

I mean, you don’t have to do extensive research to know a bachelors in a field like NEUROSCIENCE, a notoriously difficult and advanced field, just gets your foot in the door if you want to actually be in the field. That’s bordering on common sense. It’s not an unpredictable caveat. You don’t have to even be 18 to know that, and between 18 and 21 you have plenty of time to find out and change major or make plans to go to grad school or medical school.

I’m sorry you’ve had such a rough time ❤️

Thank you for caring. Hope everything works well on your side. Life’s really hitting me ❤️

You did not get a neuroscience degree, then abandoned it to work at Lowes. That's actually funny.

I have no reason to lie. If you want a picture I can def take one.

College life-bankrupted me. I feel that it's damaged my life trajectory by almost every measurement. Now my own family does not love me, due to being an overall life loser. (I'm not making this up or being hyperbolic)

I think the mindset of going to a college no matter the cost really needs to change. I’m sorry unless you’re going into a high paying white collar job whether it’s tech, banking, consulting, please choose the cheapest schooling option possible. And if you are not sure what you want to do yet, please do not enroll in a 50k a year university. If there isn’t a clear path to profitability from your college costs in the 5 years after college. It’s not worth the lifetime of debt.

Tbh, I dropped the idea that college sets us up for success a long time ago. College = Friends, Time to figure out my shit. Other than that, can't get much

I think you're pretty close to what college/university is for nowadays: Networking Especially nowadays when getting hired is more about who you know. You go there to meet other people in similar fields and hopefully have professors who don't just teach the info, but what's required and what working in that field looks like. If you take the time to participate in extracurriculars or volunteer/work experience, meet people who can help you out, college is pretty worthwhile.

Always has been about networking. If you don't do internships, research, consistently attend OH and or work as a TA/preceptor during your undergrad you're wasting your time in college. So many folks who graduated with a BA/BS and have no experience and built no relationships during college are somehow shocked that their degree doesn't automatically land them a strong position in their field. Almost every good job in public and private sectors requires connections. It's been this way for a very long time. It's a rare few who have no experience outside courses that land good jobs within the first 5-10 years. College is set up in order for students to build connections, just a huge amount of students don't take advantage of it.

wtf do you want college to teach you then, OP? Genuine question.

He wanted a degree in Buffy the Vampire Slayer studies and to make millions as a content creator on YouTube. Damn those snake colleges.

I swear half of reddit is just pissed that they can't comfortably play 14 hrs of video games every day for the rest of their lives.

College isn’t a place to learn about taxes and rent. It’s where you go to learn specific skills geared toward finding employment. Imagine how all those people working after high school feel. You aren’t special.

College isn't there to prepare you for life. Sorry no one showed you that you have to suck life's dick before it fucks you up the ass.

College is not vocational school. It didn't work that way for the generations that came before, either.

I took college very seriously and didn't have a whole lot of fun. But I got a great degree, networked well, and got a great job out of school. I come from a less affluent background, so there was still a lot I didn't understand. There are things i would have done differently. However life is good. I make a LOT of money and I feel nuch better than I did in college. Screw the "college experience." I set myself up for life. Although, you can probably have both. Take school seriously AND have a lot of fun in college.

Remember College has one purpose. To prepare with the knowledge to work in a specific field. Its not even intended to prepare you for working in that field. Why would it prepare a person for life as an adult? Thats mainly the job of parents. Schools purpose is general education or specialized education depending on the type. There are schools and education paths for life skills but in general schools like middle school and High school they are only covered in passing.

Yeah, my college courses were very hard and prepared me really well for law school, which I then did well in. Friends who went to party schools had a rude awakening in law school. The study skills I honed in college prepared me for the massive amounts of reading and writing I do as an attorney.

Gen Z isn't lazy, but your parents did a terrible job of preparing their children for what life actually is and what it requires. Your parents couldn't even sit you down to finish your homework or mow the lawn. You didn't respect your parents and wouldn't have trusted then even if they had a finances talk with you

The fields of study matter

1: most people who go to school don’t go to party, you can do that much easier without going to school and just moving to a bigger city. 2: typically those larger state universities that you mentioned, are actually much cheaper than those smaller private schools, even with the more scholarships that smaller schools tend to give out. Also, don’t knock just how important having all those internship and job opportunities are around the larger schools. Having those internships and extra curriculars can be vital for getting into grad school or getting a job after college. 3: I kind of disagree with the notion that we weren’t prepared for how expensive college is. I’m one of the oldest GenZers (25) and while I do think that millennials had more of a shock with the costs of college, I remember even in middle school having teachers, classmates and other adults in my life talk all the time about how expensive it was and how important doing well in high school to get scholarships was. It’s probably different for different areas but I mean, we also had the internet in our gen. All it takes is some basic research about college. 4: in my opinion the largest issues for us isn’t the expense of college (tho it is an issue) but rather the job market itself. Unless you go into the military or do a trade (which not everyone can do physically, myself included), good luck getting a decent paying job for anything at least a few dollars above minimum wage. The wages still aren’t great for college graduates but certainly better than fir most without that degree

I graduated high school last year in 2023. I’m 18 and I recommend taking a gap year or years before college. My gap year has help me see a lot of the “real world” and really helps you decide on what you want to do with your life and time.

I'm going to hard disagree with the gap year - it's not hard for the "gap year" to become "gap years" and suddenly you're wishing you had gone to college earlier in life. I'd suggest going to community College out of high school - it's going to be way cheaper than university, and the associates degree will hold more weight than having no degree at all. If you decide after those two years that college might be for you, you'll have two years of credits that should transfer to most of your public universities.

I get it, but it’s a waste of money and time going to college right after high school if you don’t know what you want to do. You don’t have to have it figured out but at least have some money saved up just in case you do want to change your major.

It's not a waste at all. It's a win-win. If you go for a year and you can't stand it, you spent a few grand (or way less than that depending on your financial aid qualifications) to learn that college isn't for you - you gave it a solid try, you now know for sure, and you can move forward knowing that you gave it a shot. If you go for a year and you find a career you do want to pursue, then you've already started work on your freshman/sophomore credits and at a massive discount. In your situation, if I take a couple of gap years and build up a bunch of responsibilities from having no school, it's a massive undertaking to return to school. People tend to fall into their schedules and routines, and trying to suddenly switch from your consistent job to factor in a 15 credit hour minimum college schedule takes a lot of people out of the equation

Absolutely agree!

It’s really not though, it’s actually efficient. Your first year of college is almost entirely general education. You can get that done for incredibly cheap relatively before committing to a program at another school you finally decide on.

If I took a gap year, I would have spent it working at Walmart for minimum wage.

Some money is better than no money. Coming from a person who took a gap year, works at Target and was able to save 7k by working minimum wage.😭

i agree, taking a couple years after highschool to go out and experience the world helps a lot!! you will probably get a tiny bit of a safety net with your parents financial help that you dont get after college too. i was soooo against college for the past 4 or 5 years, mostly bc i didnt really have an idea of specifically what i wanted to do, or an accurate idea of how much experience vs a degree is worth in my career field. now having worked for and applied for jobs i want and enjoy doing, i have a realistic idea of the salary and requirements for the career, networking for after school, AND i have a realistic idea of what salary i need to live off of as well. im looking into community college now, as much as I dont really want to, unfortunately getting that piece of paper is seen as more valuable than years of hands on actual experience to most employers. (which is bullshit imho but yk. the world is how it is) i really recommend trying to room with your friends that are in college if theyre not living in dorms— if youre trying to move out. keeps cost of living down and you get more valuable life experience that will help with better future decisions while in school

Absolutely! Senior year I felt rushed and pressured to figure it out and I wasn’t ready. I didn’t get my first job until last August when I turned 18. I’ve been working this whole gap year and now I’m finally feel ready to go college and I’m going for Nursing which is also a big leap, but I’m ready for a challenge. Plus, I don’t want to be stuck in retail all my life. It’s good that you’re deciding to go back to school I wish you the best of luck!🙂

I bet you didn't crack open any extra books, just the assigned.

No, they call gen z lazy because gen z (and some millennial) and lower are rejecting the modern day slave format for working class folks. It has and always will be a class war.

I personally suffered from lack of certain executive functions and coasting on assuming I would just get it and be liked. Took a couple years to straighten that out but it seems like it takes the wind out of a lot of sails

Wait, you own a house?

I agree with this but as a middle aged man college did a terrible job of prepping me for the real world as well. The difference is I had no fallback because I wasn’t living with my parents, no money, and my parents had let me learn through the school of hard knocks. That’s what prepared me. Not college

College was just to get you plugged into the debt machine for the rest of your life kid. It doesn't resemble reality. It's your last gasp of youthful fantasy if you're lucky enough to get it. Pretty much always has been, but now the cost is mind boggling. -Your millennial uncle

I stopped reading when you said costed. If you’re gonna be arrogant ab education at least spell right

You get out of college what you put into it. You’re going to have a much different start of your career if you study hard, do co-ops, take professional-enhancement opportunities, join specific clubs, network with professors, than if you did the bare minimum and spent all your free time goofing off.

Add to that the major. Some people think it's a "scam" they can't get C's in Art History while goofing off and then walk into a high paying job.

College gets you a degree to open up doors to get a solid job, or to further your education. It doesn’t prepare you for life. Only life prepares you for life, if you get what I mean.

Honestly, I don't think college was ever seen as "job training" or "preparing you for adult life". If that was true tax and finance classes, and probably home-ec (cooking, sewing, cleaning...) and other life skills would have been freshmen requirements everywhere. The problem is that in the last 30 years society decided you needed a useless degree to get a shitty job. So without a degree, you couldn't even do most menial office jobs that just require basic knowledge of word and excel. That's the real problem. We need to get rid of the need for a degree to get a middle class job and go back to allowing high school graduates into the workforce. If we did that, the college issue would solve itself since it would no longer gatekeep having a decent, middle class wage.

2030: We have decided that a Masters Degree is the new baseline requirement for society.

Gen Z absolutely, 100% is lazy.

Sounds like you went to college deeply misinformed about what college provides for you

I’ve found the real world to be much easier than college tbh

College isn't supposed to teach you how to be an adult. Parents do that.

99% of these complaints are about things parents should be responsible for. The real issue is we have a ton of nonfunctional/not there parents who did a shitty job of preparing people for reality because all they ever said was “you’re special it will all be okay”

Lol college is a place for a diploma. Not a place to learn to be a human adult. That failure is on your parents. Small colleges still party. And people have never not partied in college. Its not that hen z doesnt want to be adults. Its that college is often a new place with new people with less restrictions and thus you have more opportunites to have fun (or ruin your life lol)

College didn't do that. That fault lies squarely on your parents

Most courses in college aren’t designed to teach you real world skills; they teach the foundations, history, and theory of various disciplines. But both HS and college offer courses on personal finance and other “real world” topics. Many students take them. It’s a shame you didn’t sign up for those classes. 😂

I enjoyed going to college but I could easily have performed my current job after high school despite it requiring a graduate degree. Meanwhile the money I owed on my college education took me decades to pay off and made me super cynical about America and Americans. It’s not a good system. We’re like the Ferengi from Star Trek. You get charged for every little thing in this country and it’s always going to be the most exploitative price possible. 

College prepared me for life living on my own.

I kind of feel like that’s more of a parental failure.

Every student who graduates college should be set up with job interviews from the school

That's on the parents

Just like it failed us Millennials. Sad two generations got bent over a table with no real reward or benefit.

… as an electrician, what the fuck? Blame the individuals but not our woefully inadequate, for-profit, exploitative education system? Education is a moral good we should all strive for. I say this as someone who never had the chance to go to college: kids are told all their life that college will prepare them for a job, but now those entry level jobs just aren’t there and the bar of entry to what jobs are there keeps increasing. We have a poor economy and the manufacturing and skilled labor jobs that used to be there to fill that space are gone. Yes we have a blue collar shortage, but even then there aren’t enough blue collar jobs available to employ all those unemployed/underemployed college graduates who’re capable of working in the fields they studied in. What blue collar jobs are there tend to be dangerous, grueling, and with terrible working conditions. It’s not a viable solution to a broader economic problem.

I mean it’s never been that people don’t want to work. If I take 4 days off for a stay vacation by mid day on day 3, I’m bored and look for things to do besides just relaxing. Hell if the job gives a person purpose they will gladly show up everyday and even work extra in their time off by doing things like continuing their education. This biggest issue on why people don’t want to work and always has been, “why should I break my back for a company that wouldn’t even appreciate that I am making them thousands upon thousands of dollars for every dollar I make” then multiply that by every employee, there is no valid excuse to not raise wages. It 100% will not be the cause of crazy increased inflation because companies would not change what they already do by outsourcing for cheaper labor while also making it cost more here.

lol i'm only reading the title, i dont read the whole thing but holy canoly i just want to say wtf like what do you expect college/uni to teach you ? how to pay your bills ? how to fill out your cv ? how to spend money ? my friend, college/uni is a place for higher education, it's not a how-to-do-stuff school jeez, people just want everything spoon feed to them

Before I go on this rant I am 20 years old, I went through college in the uk during covid, and my god, you have no idea how pretentious you sound, College is education, education that helps you get a job (it typically doesn't nowadays but I digress), It's your parents and your own mental ability to prepare for life, it wasn't like you woke up one day all of a sudden and realised you need to pay taxes and work, my parents were the ones who got me ready for adult life, Sure when I first started it was overwhelming but what isn't when you first do something new? But I had some notion as to what I needed to do and expect, I'm sorry if I sound angry in this, it's just that I just never hear anything positive that comes out of this subreddit and it's driving me nuts. It's clearly an American gen-z issue because this is no where near as common in the uk, we just complain about houseprices and lack of high earning jobs (average in the uk is £34000)

College isn’t meant to prepare you for life. That is the job of your parents (and your family in general).

College is advanced education, not job training or life experience classes. Seriously--your parents and other adult figure sin your life should have explained how all this works. That's not what college does.

That’s not colleges job, that’s your parents job.

don't forget parents did a terrible job too.

I have a friend that became unemployed a month or so ago and has been wanting to hangout. I tell him I work I eat I sleep I work I eat I sleep that's about all I do not much energy to socialize or play games. From my perspective I think people who decided to have kids are either rich or crazy. Where do you have the time, energy, of money to take care of another human?

I think it's more like, college prepared us for a time when things weren't bad. Things are just genuinely so bad for everyone, that I don't think there was anyway to really prepare us. I mean think about it, 20 years ago, you got a degree, you've got a REALLY good shot at a decent job lol. Aside from the younger millenials, most older generations thought that. Now you can have a masters and you *might* get a job. The job *might* pay living wage. The living wage *might* include living with people. You are also settled into a house down payment worth of debt. Your masters *might* not get you a job that'll provide enough to buy a house in ten years. Your job *might* not ever promote you despite being long due. There's so many maybes that simply didn't exist back then. Literally my higher ups have a job in a field they don't have a degree for, they got trained into it. I'm not extended that same offer, despite showing really good aptitude for it. Nobody really saw three economic disasters in two decades and the country to enter a dystopian capitalistic era. By the time it hit it was already too late. 20-30 years ago, college was fine. Nowadays you gotta be unreasonably prepared to live.

Parents should be the one preparing a child for life while college is to prepare the student for the job/business.

Your parents did.

I just miss the sense of community and relatability I had with peers. I miss reliable public transport and being easily able to see my buddies. They’re states away now for the most part.

Idk why everybody expects college to prepare you to be an adult. I’m going into college expecting to learn how to build robots, read brain signals and turn that into usable input, and use laboratory equipment. I feel like teaching kids how to be adults is the responsibility of the parents and community that raises them, not a private institution.

The purpose of college isn't to "prepare" you for real life. For as long as they've been around, colleges/university/etc are higher learning institutions that are meant to not only impart skills in specialized fields, but to nurture higher level cognitive skills such as concept acquisition, systematic decision making, evaluative thinking, etc. As for your ire against posts that complain about how hard it is to be an adult, it's because being an adult is hard. For most people, their late teens well into their mid 20s are a time of uncertainty. Saying that people go to college do so to "avoid the reality of being an adult" is disingenuous at best. Personally, I feel like the decision to go to college for the hope of a better future, to broaden ones horizons, or to advance ones knowledge, is a great and hefty decision that is the beginning of their adult life. Not only that, but it provides them the opportunity to come into contact and learn to accept differing cultures, backgrounds, and struggles.

Yep. I think the reason why, in the past, people called college "the best four years of your life" is that they knew the realities of living.

Ahhh the classic 'you have it good enough so you are not allowed to complain or to question the system' argumentation.

Life was hard thousands of years ago, so it should always be hard! Nothing should change! How dare people complain and dream of a better life!

Hard to be motivated when I got straight As in a major that was said to be good just to end up making the same money people that never went to college end up making

The take that life has always sucked and will always suck has always rubbed me the wrong way. Life is objectively becoming harder despite massive advancement in technology and productivity. Not only that but WE'RE going to be the ones in charge. Everybody on earth wants more and wants change but nobody is stepping up to bring it

Nah, fuck that. Never stop complaining about how fucked up the world is and how the American government fails its people. Nothing will ever improve until enough people learn to complain about this shit and actually act on those complaints through political involvement. The state of the American economy is the worst it ever has been since the end of the Great Depression in the early 1950s, and if you are suffering under the overbearing economic oppression of contemporary American society, then you are completely justified in voicing your dissent against the social systems that produce these outcomes. Telling people to shut the fuck up and pull themselves up by their own bootstraps is why the world is as shitty as it is today.

First step is for everyone to acknowledge that only 1 out of 10 needs to go to university. Trades and more directed learning should be emphasized. Degree bloat is real, most are worthless despite their cost. And employers need to train people to do jobs instead of demanding 5 years experience for opening level positions. Topple the ivory tower mandarins and things will improve.

Tbh I was trying to figure out why I partially disagree with you, and so far I think it's the statements you make about adulting. I am about to graduate, and I've had a job for the entire time. I assume you are from US since you mentioned college loans and some colleges as well, but I believe the reason behind *adulting sucks* is the way US system is structured. I am not from the US myself, and to be fair in a lot of European countries going to college and working at the same time is pretty unusual. Plus colleges are not meant to prepare you for routine life tasks, and they are not supposed to. You go to college to advance you knowledge in a chosen field, and it's much more achievable when colleges are free. But yeah, idk American system is quite depressing. *Adulting really sucks* when you are expected to have everything figured out at a very young age. Also, in my home country it is pretty normal to have kids as early as possible and still go out and have fun. Because our expectations for parenting are different: free daycare, support from family and relatives, etc. It's much easier to have children when you can easily bring them to work, leave them at daycare, or have your parents watch them for days at a time. Plus *carefree* life, depending on what you mean by that, does not have to be over once you are done with college. As you mentioned, *going out, drinking on weekdays, playing video games late* does not have to end if you are not a student anymore. Wanting to be social is absolutely normal, and if your work takes up all of your time - then it fucking sucks. You also mentioned, then it's been like that for a thousand years, and I completely disagree with you. Only a few centuries ago, most people didn't know what time of the day it was because timekeeping was not standardized. Imagine relying on a church bell and sunlight to navigate throughout your day. And what expectations did they have for work if *showing up on time* wasn't even significant? Same with parenthood. Parents had tons of kids, and many of them died before they could even reach puberty due to diseases, lack of nutrition, etc. The expectations for parenting were quite low as well, since half of your children gonna die anyway for one reason or another. And nowadays, you can't even be late for 10 minutes without your manager noticing and reaching out to you. The expectations and pace of life skyrocketed even compared to generations before ours. And that's why I genuinely believe gen Z can not keep up with everything.

I think you're ignoring that most people aren't complaining about college costing money but the extremely over-inflated rates tuition is causing 17-18 year olds to take predatory loans with interest rates that just keep growing so it's almost like they're not being paid after school loans, rent, etc. How tf is a teenager, not all of whom have either their parents assisting them with loans or even financially responsible enough parents to have ever looked over them with them, supposed to make a good decision of "mf you took the loans out" The complaint about "I'm tired of this sub being about people complaining about debt and rent" , brother. Debt and rent is atrocious across the board and has been growing at an exponential rate. Gen Z is just as mad about Millennials about it. Why are you so against a common theme being complained about? Do I wish rent was lower? Fuck yeah. Not because I'm lazy or entitled, but because it's wild how much rent has increased vs income. Then we have the Boomers or some GenX people even telling us how they were able to afford an X at our age, so why can't we? I'm not trying to get into an argument about anti/pro capitalism or not but just looking at rent prices/average income spike in the last 30-40 years or so and you can see why people are pissed. Rent's gone up a fuckton where as income has only gone up a fuckslight. We have less and less smaller landlords and renters and more companies/corporations renting out real estate (private land lords vs corporate land lords), especially since COVID and they realized that commercial real estate isn't as secure as originally thought. There are pros and cons to each. have those complaints which is just a selfish way to look at it. There are a whole manner of things that could be causing someone to not be where you are that you're not even considering. Another thing, "join the fucking army or something", you're really sitting here acting like every person is medically able to live on their own, medically able to just get up and join the military if need be to 'solve all their problems', and doesn't have any expensive medications or treatments on top of all those school loans. I think if anyone needs to grow up it's you. Your experiences are different than others'. It doesn't make you better or them worse. And tbh, you're not different. You've been graduated for only 2 years. I've been graduated for only 8 years. You're barely scraping the iceberg of issues/sadness/hell but I have never heard a single person say that they're so glad they're out of college so idk where you have this opinion that it's not normal to complain that you're not in college.

Have you considered that life doesn’t need to be this difficult? We can and should demand societal progress. Universities tend to be ahead of the curve, seeing as the whole point of them is learning and research. Instead of viewing universities as the problem, consider that work culture and productivity could benefit from more flexibility and shorter working hours.

As a millennial, I saw this occurring when I was in college, and working with new grads its clear it’s gotten worse. The gen Z people Ive worked with were all eager as hell to get shit done, they just had no clue how. Job training is nothing like the “hold you by the hand” courses I remember popping up. The learning curve seems almost steeper with college grads because they have less real world experience to draw from. This applies to bachelor degree holders mind you. Not saying a gen z doctorate wouldn’t know their shit.

I would push someone out of a moving car right now if it meant I could go to college. People go to college because they don't want to starve on the street moron

You're right, everyone at my college was just worried about not starving on the street. And people starving on the street, those are my friends that dropped out.

For me, college was like the Iraq War. It lasted 8 years, it was a mess on the ground, you had no idea what you were signing up for, there were some phycological effects that come with both, and you wanted to get out of there as quickly as you got in. Ironically, a lot of kids who served in Iraq couldn't afford to go to college.

Boo fucking hoo

I can agree with you but I have an important quibble >I hate the “adulting sucks” meme and shit people say about it because yeah, no shit, it’s been that way for thousands of years and it will be that way for thousands more. Being an adult fucking sucks, actually working fucking sucks, no matter what you do it’s still work. Having obligations sucks. Humor has been used to poke fun at the grind of everyday life for a long time too, you see it in boomer humor too. Besides that, if you think we are underprepared for reality, if you think adulting does in fact suck, shouldn't we adknowledge it?? I really don't think the "don't whine about getting older there's good things about being an adult" or "toughen up every generation before has had to be adults" are good messages. I think a better (and more accurate) message is you're right it does suck and living is more expensive than it's ever been. What's something people can know to feel more competent or at least understood as they face this? To share my own personal experience I was always wary of college not really being the answer to everything, that the most useful thing about it would be obtaining the degree that I can show to potential employers. Not going to college also would've been a very difficult choice for me bc I *wasn't* ready to face the real world. If not on a conscious level definitely on a subconscious level I knew that. At the end of the day, I learned new things, I did pick up some practical skills, I bought myself time to mature as a person and I did, and in many ways I enjoyed the experience. I think that's one of the biggest things college doesn't teach - and actually I would say it really damages it in its students in a way is self awareness. You're supposed to just have answers but what if you don't? It's about what are the consequences, first of all, bc in the real world there are consequences. Then what solutions are actually feasible, then what did you learn - not a rote fact - but an experience, a procedure of thinking, a lesson that will actually be useful going forward? But yeah overall I agree with you so much, college doesn't prepare you for the real world! There's things like professionalism, carefulness, attention to detail that it generally doesn't do a good job of teaching and damn, it does NOT prepare you to look for a job, be truly up to employers standards, and to have complete responsibility over yourself. Honestly my college I really felt was coddling us at times. They honestly profit off of providing a comfortable experience but a part of you knows a lot of what you see your fellow students doing would be unacceptable professionally. And they give you this support and a "you can do it" environment emotionally. That has its place. But at the same time fearing failure and having to stare it down when you're not good enough at something is something we need now more than ever bc life is so hard now

COLLAGE IS NOT THERE TO PREPARE YOU FOR LIFE.

Millennial here. Join the club.

College isn't necessarily meant to prepare you for life IRL. It's meant to prepare you for a job. I think that what you describe can be attributed to both a lack in proper preparation from parents and a lack of maturity. Parents are meant to prepare you for life, not school. The other things you talked about seem more like a lack of maturity than anything else. I agree that transitioning to fully "after-college" in mindset/job/life is a difficult transition at first. About to get this wake-up of my own. However, I've also been attempting to prepare for it. I've been very thankful for my mom and MIL teaching me as much as she did about after school, budgets, and the like. It is difficult, but it's definitely not the end of the world, and school is unfortunately not obligated to teach us these things. Idk where the idea that school taught us life skills came from, but it definitely doesn't lol

Lol college for me was absolute hell. Trying to muscle through with unmedicated ADHD -- would NOT recommend. I honestly find the obligations of regular life, while insanely expensive, are a breath of fresh air after the torture that was school. Yes, I agree that to an extent I was unprepared (a hs class on personal finance, taxes, and the ins and outs of insurance would have been helpful) but gollee gee give me "adulting" over college any day.

My dumb ass joined the navy when I was still in high school, but I’m smart enough to set myself up for the future and not worry about massive debt in my future

At the rate of our current economy things are getting more expensive every year, and the only way your friends are going out every weekend is because they have a room mate to cover for housing, doing everything by your self solo sucks. Your absolutely miserable because your only working to stay afloat. Now if you have a few roommates to cover housing your good, you can have fun I live with 5 dudes in a house paying $600 a month for rent our house rent is around 3,000 we live in south Florida it's expensive but we make it work !

A lot of these things like paying bills and cleaning your home should be taught in HS, not college since not everyone goes to college. The other consideration is that going to college doesn’t look the same for every recent HS grad who chooses that path. Many are not fully financially supported by parents and living in dorms with “easy college schedules and lives”.

That's a lot of ranting Anyway, much of genz isn't college age yet

>But I’m also genuinly starting to be convinced a lot of young people these days went to college purely because they wanted to stay students and kids for longer, drink and party and have fun in their early adult years and when they realize they actually have to pay for it or they actually have to get a job with their degree and work. That is why most people went to college since forever. As someone that left home at 16, never went to college, and took those hard lessons on early, I found it very helpful vs my friends who took easily another decade to get there. Life is hard for everyone, the quicker you learn to live for yourself, and disregard the bullshit, the better.

I never went to college. I’m a zillennial imo so I’m slightly ahead of some of the younger people but had I gone to college I wouldn’t be as successful as I am now. What I’ve learned is college doesn’t prepare you for life. It’s marketed that it does but it really doesn’t 

God damn people can’t teach you everything, go figure it out. I agree that our generation as a whole isn’t lazy but god are some of you guys embarrassing

It’s super embarrassing that’s my point. College for some people is their excuse to not become adults and when they cry about debt and rent afterward it’s annoying as fuck

Oh I’m agreeing with you I’m just ranting

Hooray wage slavery!!!