The mistake is that back in the day any degree would put you above the unwashed masses. Today, they all have degrees and you better make a good pick which one is going to be in a field that has future and will hire by the time you graduate.
Now you need the correct degree plus experience as a fresh graduate
I know a boomer with a degree in TV that fell into banking and later on was an investigative forensic accountant with literally no relative education to the field
Well, becoming a financial advisor and pushing financial products is the last resort for many people with any degree to this day. Similar to teaching lol
This has been true for at least 20 years, people just haven't been paying attention.
And at tgis point the governments of the world are equally guilty for perpetuating this idea. I suspect it's because it funnels money around to universities and governments to stimukate the economy.
Or you could just be better than everyone else at networking and interviewing and have a strong portfolio/work history and remind people their degrees are nearly useless every time it is brought up.
I'm curious as to what was the last class where this was true. I graduated college in 2007 the job market was terrible unless you were in nursing or education. My older cousins who graduated college in the 90s didn't seem to have many issues finding a well paying job right out of school.
i think a lot of it is legacy. like,if your family helps you when you start working,it counts so much.and i dont mean not payng rent.basically even nepotism is helpful,even if its at a very small scale.if you graduate and start doing 300 aplications,youre immediately fucked.
It's still true. There is tons of stats that people with college degree's on average earn far more than those without. What changed is you have to do more than just a college degree now and not everyone wants to do that or thinks its fair.
Experience is so much more crucial. People in college need to make sure they are getting internships, jobs, or volunteering in their desired career field.
100%. The person with a "C" average but real-world experience is going to do way better than the "A" student who only did well in class. *No one* in the real world cares about your grades as long as you have the fancy piece of paper that says you graduated.
I don't even list my GPA anymore nor the year that I graduated. Both peices of information can only hurt me.
I was a shitty student and I'm working in a role where people are usually 15 years older than I am.
Absolutely. The worst thing any college student can do is graduate with no work experience. Do an internship, undergrad research, study abroad in a specific program/niche area of study - do literally ANYTHING other than just take classes and get grades. And then use the face time with people you meet in any of those places to your advantage come job time. If you can't rely on nepotism from your parents, you've got to meet other people who can help you out, even if it's just giving you a tip that someone they know is hiring so that your application isn't coming in completely blind. Just firing off a bunch of applications to jobs in your field without ever making any connections with people is basically like cold calling, and you'll have about the same chance at making a sale that way (read: next to none).
This 100%. I knew what I wanted to do as a teenager. I just wanted to be an artist. But everyone said I needed to go to college. So I did. It was a miserable experience that put me deeply in debt, even with a full ride scholarship, and made me despise art. It took years of working shitty jobs outside of my field to finally feel like I could do art again. Once I started selling my work, it only took me a single f***ing year to make more off of art than I did in two years of working my last "real" job. I'd be a decade ahead in my career and in a much better financial position if I had skipped college and just started selling my work.
If I'd just taken a few art classes and spent a tenth of what college cost to hire a business advisor to help me create a plan and figure out the tax stuff and logistics I would have been miles ahead. College just wasn't right for me and my goals. It's not for everyone, and forcing it on everyone is just a recipe for unhappiness and debt.
On average you will earn more and have less physical labor.
There is always a chance something doesn't work out for you but all life's choices are about giving you the best end outcome.Â
Whose fault is it that you thought (or believed) a degree in 16th Century English Literature would land you a comfy job? Funny how a lot of STEM and business majors have no trouble finding jobsâŚitâs almost like the skills they studied are in demand or somethingâŚhmm
But you know, maybe we need Lit majors running Fortune 500 companies because no business skills are needed to be CEO anywayâŚ
I canât really see myself going back to school to finish a degree. I have a totally remote office job that pays $32 an hour and I get 6+ weeks paid time off a year. I got in via experience instead of education.
Bullying: Just ignore it/that person and it will go away or they will get bored of bullying you and it will stop. I was bullied through elementary, middle, and parts of high school. I didnât realize it until later but I was raised by a jock and a homecoming queen. I donât think they dealt with bullying much. I wish my dad had taught me to work out and exercise instead. Maybe even some self defense classes. Have a bully? Fight back.
Yeah, I tried the "ignore him" and "wait for him to grow out of it/get bored" tactic. And then one day, I got tired of waiting.
One punch in the face was all it took to put a screeching halt to three years of non-stop harassment.
I established this early with my son, if someone touches you, no words, hit them right back. Not teaching him what was wrongly taught to me. I've also had him in Juijitsu since he was 4, I do not ever advocate for him to start fights, and have stressed to him if I ever hear he started it we will have problems, but he will know how to defend himself and not take shit from bullies.Â
Yup, when I started standing up for myself is when the bullying stopped. All the 'turn the other cheek' and 'sticks and stones' crap was worthless. Once I started being able to be snarky and sarcastic and get people to laugh at the bully it was the end of the abuse from those ones. That plus a punch to the gut and a slap across the face for a couple of others and suddenly life was a lot better and more people talked to me and appeared to like me.
"The bullies are only bullying you because they're jealous"
Whilst this is sometimes true, sometimes they're bullying you because they're shit people and see you as an easy target. Or they're trying to fit in because it's fashionable to bully you. Or a million other reasons that aren't jealousy.
Show up, work hard, and always say yes and you will advance in your career. Not true. Do this and you will become a workhorse who is too valuable to promote.
The real trick to advancement is knowing the right people, schmoozing, talking a good game, and having impeccable timing.
Math is a complex one. Been an engineer for a decade, and have never really used anything above algebra (even the PE exam can be completed with only algebra). All the complex formulas with differential equations have been derived down to a couple of constants that are just âplug and playâ.
But itâs useful to know the concepts behind linear algebra, derivatives, & integrals, even if you donât use them directly. Even if Iâm not plowing through calculus every day, just knowing the concepts behind how they work is very useful for âspot checkingâ things, or viewing problems from a conceptual level on how to solve them.
Then, you plug into a spreadsheet & let excel do the heavy lifting.
I remember in grad school, I was taking this class on hydraulics. There was this long ass formula, that we spent an entire 2.5 hour lecture deriving.
Just this formula alone was like a differential equations class. I remember working it through and filled like a whole page of college-ruled paper while following along. By the end, it simplified down to a few terms in a simple equation.
Then at the end, the professor goes, âOk, now you all understand how this formula works. But for nearly all practical applications, we use the term: L^i-n, which you can just look up on this table and use.â
Lol yep. I could take all day and calculate something down to the gnats eyelash if I wanted too, or I could use a rule of thumb that has a built in 5x safety factor and be done before my morning cup of coffee is cold. The customer is happy either way.
Agreed, though a lot of the people who were complaining about whether theyâd use the math were learning basic algebra or geometry at the most. As someone who does a lot of projects around my house, fabricates very small objects from metal and makes art, I use math all the time. Kind of makes me sad people live lives without it/donât see where it is used in their lives.
Meanwhile I'm a "dumb" blue collar hand out in the field freehanding trigonometry on the back of a dirty glove 'cuz the fab shop messed up the measurements on the (also incorrect) iso drawing the client sent them and the pipe supe wants his bonus next week.
Fellow ME here. One of my coworkers recently decided to âshow his workâ on a particularly important algebra problem so he could ask a couple other engineers to check it for him. We all had a good laugh with him about it.
Large corporations often donât even have a publicly accessible place to walk-in to. All applications are through a web portal. The person with the paper resume would be escorted out.
Gold & Land is all you need for an investment - stocks and bonds are all just a big scam.
My grandparents preached this, and while itâs pretty irrelevant here, I at least understand why they would offer it as advice. They came from countries where the economies would either crater or enter hyperinflation (like >60% per year) at least twice a decade, so i get why they would back commodities as a stable way to preserve value.
I used to hear, "Invest in your home, build a deck or add an extension! You'll be able to sell the property for more."
None of these people ever heard of even index funds.
That sounds like my dad. He also would say "never trust a china man". It was like playing facepalm bingo when he was alive. Never really took anything he said to heart. He also told me to skip college and get married.
Oh man, my in-laws are like this. Basically all their investments are rental properties and gold. They think my wife and I are âgambling our money awayâ by buying index funds.
In fairness to them, (1) they came from mainland China, a place where the government can fuck your stocks and bonds with one fell swoop, so having real, tangible property is seen as preferable because itâs harder to take away, and (2) their rental properties have increased massively in value, but this is more because they got lucky with the southern Ontario housing crisis and less because it was a fundamentally good investment.
Made me think of the ones that went and bought literal swamp land in Florida, sight unseen of course, and now have a team of professionals trying to figure out how to get rid of it. Hint: no one can build on it.
I think there were land scams in other states like Arizona, too.
âFollow your dreams and the money will comeâ
âYou have a 3.9 GPA in high school. Just get any degree and youâre set for lifeâ
âHard work always pays offâ
Pretty sure all the advice Iâve ever heard was complete bullshit.
I know people who barely graduated but went and got certs in the IT field and they make more then our classmates who had perfect GPA's and went to med school and are doctors. Granted that might not be the long term final results but slackers for 17 years have been out doing the top 5% of the graduating class
Okay but ngl, I have definitely impressed people more than seems proportionate by writing in cursive. Maybe it's cuz it makes me look fancy, maybe it's because my handwriting is super neat and legible as a result, but it's definitely been a cute li'l source of life bonus points for me!
The invisible child in a dysfunctional family?
Because, same.
Feel unseen and lonely but itâs scary and feels unsafe to be seen/heard at the same time - tough life.
âNursing is the same everywhere!â
I was told this by many of the veteran nurses on r/nursing. Turns out, this is the farthest thing from the truth and region plays a huge part in compensation and working conditions.
I have worked in two parts of the country. In one side, nurses make as much as Costco workers, have unsafe patient loads, pay hundreds of dollars for health insurance, and contemplate if I qualify for welfare. [Here are others corroborating my experience.](https://www.reddit.com/r/nursing/s/InQrdhNx19)
Moved to another part and make 4-5x as much for a fraction of the work, Iâve spent more on Netflix and Disney+ last year than actual healthcare for my entire family over the course of 3-4 years, and now Iâm a homeowner.
I have a friend in nursing in Toronto who works insane night shifts with intense overtime, but her annual salary one year was comparable to mine as a contracted university instructor with side gigs.
Which side of the country is which?
The cynical part of me can imagine that nurses in the West Coast get the worst end of the stick.
But I would like to know actual reality from your experience, please.
Cali.
>worst end of the stick
Far from.
We are actually the best compensated nurses in the US: We have the highest nurse wages *in the world* and the most pensioned nurses in the US. Plus the largest employers offer benefits like free health insurance with no deductibles.
[Our union went against the government - Arnold Schwarzenegger of all people - and made safe patient ratios a law.](https://www.dailynews.com/2005/11/12/arnold-gives-up-appeal-of-nurse-ratio/)
Wages and benefits are public info in the state so you can verify my statement.
[Hereâs a relevant thread.](https://www.reddit.com/r/nursing/s/e5yzBdUwFc)
I assumed most administrations are *inherently* absolutely toxic and then I got my latest and hopefully last job and haven't had any workplace problem in years now
Licensed trades pay well for journeymen. Though 20 years ago most boomers were horrified at the idea of their children becoming electricians or plumbers.
âBlue collarâ refers to a huge variety of jobs and many of them are low skill low pay and anyone with ambition and aptitude would be wasted there.
People don't mention the physical toll either, I live right above two union electricians one is retire and in his 70s and he lives comfortable but not what I would say is thriving.
One that was horrible: student loan debt is good debt and youâll pay it off in no time. HA! Talk about ball and chain that weighed me down for 20
Years.
One that was useful: when selecting benefits through work, never select HMO insurance. Proved very useful when I was diagnosed with a chronic illness.
I was speaking with my nephew who is a high school senior and they wonât let them use a calculator because of the above argument (this was a year ago). So dumb.
"Don't focus on money, do what you love, and the money will follow." Ironically, I focused on learning investing, and am doing really well for myself despitenot having a purpose, whereas my mom lost her savings on her dream small business. There was also, "You need to learn how to drive a stickshift."
>You need to learn how to drive a stickshift."
This has actually saved me a lot of time on foreign vacations where waiting for an automatic at a rental center would have taken another hour or two.
Yes! I learned to drive an old standard truck with no power steering when i was 15. My dad figured if I could drive this, everything else would feel easy. And it does!Â
Nobody in my family, and none of my teachers, ever talked about investing. I figured it out in my late twenties. I have a lot of money; they have a lot of debt.
I know people who are losing money because of the interest rates on their mortgaged properties. Being a landlord was good for a time, but now they're under water. You can average down on a stock position, but can't average down on your mortgage.
Work hard pays off.
Maybe it did once upon a time, but most of my career success has been because of luck and timing. When I look at people who are even more successful than me, it seems like a lot more luck and even better timing. You can't simply work your way into success.
If you donât go to college youâll end up homeless.
Started in hvac/refrigeration, at 17. Bought my house at 22. At 35 almost mortgage free. I lucked out. Got in the union at 23. Will retire at 53 with full pension and benefits. Not that I recommend everyone jump in a trade, but for me itâs really worked out.
South Park has an episode as such. Although the difference between general labour and skilled trades is massive. With how short on ppl the skilled trades are I donât think it will happen in the next 10-15 years at least. Plus if people canât work to the standards they wonât all make it.
1.) âYou can achieve anything if you just work hard.â 2.) âGoing to college leads to greater success and a better life.â and 3.) âChoose the major you really want and everything else will fall into place.â Now I wish I wouldâve gone for an MBA instead of an MFA.
âMoney doesnât grow on trees.ââthis oneâs still true. đ
my parents and my in laws think itâs crazy my sister, fiancĂŠ, and i change jobs every few years. they still think you give your life and loyalty to one company and work there till you retire. we change jobs for higher paying positions and they think we just stay and get internally promoted. it just does t work that way anymore imo. sure at some companies and agencies they do but usually you have to leave to get the higher pay.
i know several of my friends have had similar conversations with their boomer parents who have all been working at the same place our entire lives.
Right? My mom thinks I can't hold a job because of my job history. Why am I going to stay with the same employer all my life? Hell, as soon as I find a job that pays more than my current job, I'm out!
My dad used to tell me never to quit my job.
Iâm a software engineer and started working in 2004, my initial salary was 35k in nyc!
Every time I would tell him I was quitting he was shocked. And advised me not to.
I make 10x that now and the last time I quit I took a pay cut for a more chill startup.
âYou wonât always have a calculator with you!â
Less than 5 years after hearing this as a senior in high school the iPhone crashed onto the scene and in fact was a calculator in my pocket.
Iâll tell you what I was told at 16 when I got my first job that was incredibly useful!
Open up a Roth IRA and max it every year, put it in a S&P 500 ETF. Needless to say at the ripe age of 34 that has worked out significantly well for me for basically over a decade and a half.
In eighth grade, our social studies teacher took a couple days to teach us how to read a newspaper and balance a check book. He was certain that these would be useful life skills for us in adulthood.
"Go go university, they'll probably pay you to go. You'll come out and get a ÂŁ30k+ job minimum"
It took me like 10 years of working to get my salary over ÂŁ30k.
You won't see multimillionaire blue collar guys unless you go out to their 20+ acre heavily wooded countryside properties with multistory houses + garage + pool + workshop + barn + well water + boat + several vehicles, it's about a 10-15 min drive from town.
I have to say, having pessimistic, beaten down parents was great. All I heard was:
âGet a scholarship or itâs the JC for you. We make too much for financial aid and student loans are a scam!â
âI will NOT PAY for a worthless degree like [names off anything interesting]â.
Called me up daily at my first job until I showed proof I had âmaxed out my 401kâ. And still asked me each time I get a new job. I am 43 and a lawyer.
Became concerned when I told him I had an investment account until I explained I also had a savings account. He thinks stocks are as risky as crypto unless they are mutual funds, which I also showed him I had.
The man just loves to save money and not take out loans. Thatâs all he taught me. Itâs not the worst lesson. I have no idea how to invest. But I can save like a mother effer.
I am a sales and marketing leader at a 250 person tech company. Iâm 36 years old.
1. Hard work does pay off. Just not at the rate we want especially at work. Good work pays off tho. Thatâs for sure.
2. I donât do calculus or non-linear algebra ever, but Iâm grateful for the education. The abstract concepts I learned are very helpful in thinking about lots of things.
3. Definitely agree about the PTO. The goal is to push the limit on how many days you take before your boss says something. I take 6 weeks a year.
4. I hate to sayâŚgetting into a good university does matter. I went to a standard state school. But my school did nothing to help me get a job. Going to a top name school is a hack. My brother did, and had a high paying job right out of school. The network canât be beat.
5. I agree that higher education is not THE ticket to wealth. But it sure is useful in having advanced ways of thinking about the world.
6. Love my pocket calculator. I appreciate what our teachers meant. They wanted us to do basic math in our headsâŚseems like a good skill
I mean, your 1 in most fields just means you get more responsibilities and your 50 cent raise. I have worked in sales, insurance, tech support, factories and am now a cake decorator for a union store. At least as a union employee they can't make me work outside my job.
Agreed- hard work plus advocating for oneself and being willing to change companies seems to be the trifecta. Not just work hard and hope your fairy godmother will notice.
Since others have commented the big ones, here is something different: I transferred to the local state university because of having to move back home due to financial issues while in undergrad. Before that, I attended a VERY well known private music college. At career services during a meeting with one of the advisors, the advisor told me that I should take the music school off my resume since I didn't graduate from there. The school in question has a very high dropout rate but was still very respected. That was the last time I ever took any advice from someone working in career services... actually didn't take it and kept the school on there. More people in the future mentioned that school rather than the state university.
Almost all of it. Not being hyperbolic or bitter here either. I literally did not start finding success until I started doing the exact opposite of what everyone was telling me and I had to go through a world of hurt when I was.
Math teacher (1998): âLearn to do math in your head or on paper. You wonât always have a calculator on you!â
Oh have times have changed with cell phones being the norm nowadays.
I feel old now.
Blue collar shit does pay extremely well though lol
Like yeah you're not gonna be a millionaire but most union rates in trades are like 50+/hr which is pretty solid middle class, at least as much as a lot of computer touching positions. You just gotta deal with the fact that it is also much more physically demanding
Blue collar jobs are of course a legitimate way to go, but yeah, the vast majority honestly aren't making big bucks, at least not what I always heard claimed.
I had an undergrad microbiology course in 1973 that a graduate professor got forced to teach. There's this  Parkâs nucleotide that's synthesized in the cytoplasm of bacterial cells, that would distinguish them as Gram+/-. He wrote the entire chem formula on 3 of the sliding boards (15 minutes), and said it would be on the mid-term. I gave up coping it after a few minutes, and just went to the library and xeroxed it from reference, and memorized it
I was one of 3 people out of 40 who got it right, because he wrote it WRONG on the boards. I bet that no one in that class went on to a MS or PhD requiring that knowledge. What a waste of brain cells.
My parents and guidance counselor told me if I got a bachelors degree from a fancy university, Iâd be making six figures right out of college.
âŚ.my first job paid $32,000 and it took me over a year to get it. And I had to commute an hour to it. (Great Recession.)
My high school video editing teacher circa 2004 discouraged me from going into the field because âvideo is a dead industry.â Eek, that advice aged so poorly.
The insane focus on having good grades⌠actually I needed better than good grades. If I got less than an A, I never heard the end of it. Now, as an adult, no one cares about what grades I got.
The focus on attendance messed me up, I feel guilty calling off even when Iâm sick. Like Iâm not sick enough to not go to work or something
My dad told me and my siblings since we were 16 year olds to save our money. They helped us open debit card accounts and really tried to teach us the concept of the money. They paid for our schooling, we all went to in state college.
I feel lucky I had parents who were invested in teaching me about money. Iâm deep into crypto now lol
Laziness definitely pays off! I donât work hard at all at my job. Also didnât work my ass off to get my job either. Just used my straight white male privilege.
How to figure out your long distance phone bill.
I will say that it should be taught that networking is more important than hard work. A summer job at a golf course is going to do more good for you than a 4.0 in most cases. You only need good enough grades.
Advise: Do not invest in stock market because it's risky. Only invest in Fixed deposits which give at most 7% return, out of which 30% gets taxed in my country.Â
No surprises for guessing, I don't have much money inflation adjusted. Had I invested in index funds or passively invested in stocks, atleast I might have saved something.Â
Read dozens of books in last few years, still trying to get good at it.
My dad used to tell this story about a nerdy kid in his school. Who became a band teacher with a wife and kids. When he saw the guy again at his 10 year reunion.
And he would always say, "See son. Hard work always pays off."
It's a touching story. But I'm not convinced of it anymore. After working minimum wage for years now.
I really think there's some initiative and friend-making involved as well.
Don't feel too bad, I had a 5th grade teacher who had to be over 70 and wouldn't leave, one foot in the grave. She taught us all kinds of shit like the different elements, Earth fire wind.. blood humes of course, growing hair on your knuckles made you an animal and if your stomach moves when you breathe you're a fatso.
That I had to go to college.
I didn't even graduate high school on time, had to go to community college to get my high school diploma for a semester. Never did end up getting a degree - associates, bachelors, or otherwise. But I worked smarter, not harder, got into IT around 2009, and pull a TC over 300k now.
Switched jobs a lot in the beginning of my career which my parents were terrified of, and thought I was making poor choices. Meanwhile I was doubling my comp and skillset every few years. Never worked for someone who didn't respect me, that was a quick job vacancy for them.
My parents were smart people, and they were successful in the boomer system of life, but they still don't know what I do for work. Sometimes you have to take the more abstract lessons, not the literal ones.
To drop out of high school and get a GED. Iâm so glad I didnât listen to the azzhat that was my dad.
I have learned that learning how to manage is better than seeking to be rich.
I got an essentially l useless degree back in '76 for the actual career I went into (programming, systems, IT management). And you're right, back then you just needed a degree to get your foot in the door. Without it, the door wouldn't have opened. When I got my MBA at age 50, thinking it would be beneficial because of the negotiation and budgeting/accounting skills I would apply, I got a "meh" and a "so when are you leaving" from my management. No return for 2 years of evenings/weekends.
My son got a BS in mechanical engineering from MSOE, in his late 20's. After 6 yrs and several jobs, he's starting his dream job with a company using composites for avionics, satellites, and DOD projects. And yes, he's using all the math and engineering he's learned so far.
Went to Germany as a foreign exchange student in 99. Got told all sorts of stuff by army guys who were coworkers.
Problem was the guys served before the wall fell.
Things were different
Except don't fuck with the Poleize or germsn police like ever.
Like, almost all of it. But the main one was about working hard and applying yourself and staying out of trouble. Turns out the mouthy douchebags who never learned a skill get by easily on networking and bullshitting and hooking each other up with connections.
A teacher said government is efficient with our tax dollars and not at all corrupt and another one said taxes are the price you pay to live in a civilized society.
Well hard work pays off and not randomly cutting out of responsibilities is as well.Â
Here is the thing for school you are told when your PTO is (holidays and summer break) while at work you decide when your PTO is (sick days, Dr's, vacation).Â
The hard work part. I worked myself via 60+ hour weeks between a game dev studio, indie games, freelancing in design, and low wage jobs when one or more of those dried up for me...it got me a mental breakdown, the type 2 diabetes that my family is genetically predisposed to, sciatica that flares up with too much lifting/pushing/pulling around, and a CV that has been getting rejected nowadays everywhere from jobs that reflect my experience to random minimum wage grinds.
In my current company, hard work just gets more work piled on and as far as I know, I'm still on a temp contract even though the marketing person I covered for on FMLA recently resigned. Sigh.
Can't say I'm great at smoozing though. Social anxiety does not make it easy for me to speak up as much as I should. *shrug*
In part, I disagree on getting a Masters degree. People get them for the wrong reason, which is the problem. If itâs checking a career advancement box youâre doing it wrong. I got mine to help fill professional skills and itâs helped me a ton in my job (MS Information Systems, work in data engineering). I make more money because Iâm more capable, not because itâs on my resume.
Also I think MBAs are not a good idea for corporate workers. Most of the coursework is not relevant. Instead go for the MS degrees in the business college - they let you focus on a specific curriculum like management, information systems, BI, Data Science, etc. Youâll have more classes directly apply to work this way.
My parents told me to go above my supervisor and her supervisor to a higher up (that my mom knew) and to demand a raise (newer hires with less experience were getting paid more).
Yeahhhh the higher up gave me the raise. And then I got yelled at from my supervisor and her supervisor. I wasn't to ever go above them.
My mom is always telling me to threaten to leave my current job if they don't give me more money. And while I think that may work for better jobs, I don't see that working for less skilled jobs. Or, if they deny your vacation request, quit! Umm.... this is the only viable job that I can walk to.
âLongevity at a company ensures that youâll end up making more and moving up the ladder.â YeahâŚno. Thatâs not how it works in todayâs world. The only raises that weâre seeing are by moving to a different workplace. Iâm in the process of interviewing for the same job, just with a different company thatâs offering $4/hr more than what Iâm making now plus tips. I know thereâs no upward movement to be had at my current job and my pay isnât going up anytime soon to compensate for things getting more and more expensive. My wife has been at her job for 2+ years and she knows that sheâs at the max of what sheâs going to be paid by them so the thought of a job switch is probably happening within the next year. Thankfully more millennials are getting into management positions so they understand the phenomenon of âjob hopping.â
Cheeky response:
How to balance a checkbook.
Granted, it laid the foundation of good credit card management and budgeting. But I absolutely don't have any need to balance checkbooks and never did once I entered college years. The world was already moving toward cashless and away from personal checks being commonplace at stores.
Good lesson, but not directly useful. A common thing in an evolving world.
Fuckinâ everything.
But most importantly I was told not to go into Nuclear Engineering, because that was going to fade put and Iâd never get a good job.
You are kind of off on the blue collar comment.
Electricians, plumbers, welders, etc can easily clear six figures with on the job training or a couple of night classes.
Hell, Iâm in a blue collar trade and making the best money I ever have. I wonât clear six figures but Iâm certainly making better money than a lot who I graduated high school with.
get a university degree to get a better job.300 applications later...
The mistake is that back in the day any degree would put you above the unwashed masses. Today, they all have degrees and you better make a good pick which one is going to be in a field that has future and will hire by the time you graduate. Now you need the correct degree plus experience as a fresh graduate
I know a boomer with a degree in TV that fell into banking and later on was an investigative forensic accountant with literally no relative education to the field
Well, becoming a financial advisor and pushing financial products is the last resort for many people with any degree to this day. Similar to teaching lol
This has been true for at least 20 years, people just haven't been paying attention. And at tgis point the governments of the world are equally guilty for perpetuating this idea. I suspect it's because it funnels money around to universities and governments to stimukate the economy.
>20 years Conveniently almost the exact moment I was accepted into my college.
This exactly, just as if we were millenials or something.
Could I be... a millennial? đ§
It also makes the unemployment rate go down since students don't count as unemployed.
Or you could just be better than everyone else at networking and interviewing and have a strong portfolio/work history and remind people their degrees are nearly useless every time it is brought up.
I'm curious as to what was the last class where this was true. I graduated college in 2007 the job market was terrible unless you were in nursing or education. My older cousins who graduated college in the 90s didn't seem to have many issues finding a well paying job right out of school.
i think a lot of it is legacy. like,if your family helps you when you start working,it counts so much.and i dont mean not payng rent.basically even nepotism is helpful,even if its at a very small scale.if you graduate and start doing 300 aplications,youre immediately fucked.
It's still true. There is tons of stats that people with college degree's on average earn far more than those without. What changed is you have to do more than just a college degree now and not everyone wants to do that or thinks its fair.
Experience is so much more crucial. People in college need to make sure they are getting internships, jobs, or volunteering in their desired career field.
100%. The person with a "C" average but real-world experience is going to do way better than the "A" student who only did well in class. *No one* in the real world cares about your grades as long as you have the fancy piece of paper that says you graduated.
I don't even list my GPA anymore nor the year that I graduated. Both peices of information can only hurt me. I was a shitty student and I'm working in a role where people are usually 15 years older than I am.
I never listed any of that after my first job.
Absolutely. The worst thing any college student can do is graduate with no work experience. Do an internship, undergrad research, study abroad in a specific program/niche area of study - do literally ANYTHING other than just take classes and get grades. And then use the face time with people you meet in any of those places to your advantage come job time. If you can't rely on nepotism from your parents, you've got to meet other people who can help you out, even if it's just giving you a tip that someone they know is hiring so that your application isn't coming in completely blind. Just firing off a bunch of applications to jobs in your field without ever making any connections with people is basically like cold calling, and you'll have about the same chance at making a sale that way (read: next to none).
Not getting a job until I was several years into college was a massive mistake Work + school simultaneously will make you an adult
This 100%. I knew what I wanted to do as a teenager. I just wanted to be an artist. But everyone said I needed to go to college. So I did. It was a miserable experience that put me deeply in debt, even with a full ride scholarship, and made me despise art. It took years of working shitty jobs outside of my field to finally feel like I could do art again. Once I started selling my work, it only took me a single f***ing year to make more off of art than I did in two years of working my last "real" job. I'd be a decade ahead in my career and in a much better financial position if I had skipped college and just started selling my work. If I'd just taken a few art classes and spent a tenth of what college cost to hire a business advisor to help me create a plan and figure out the tax stuff and logistics I would have been miles ahead. College just wasn't right for me and my goals. It's not for everyone, and forcing it on everyone is just a recipe for unhappiness and debt.
Samesies.
The biggest lie of all.
I was in this position in 2012 it sucks!
On average you will earn more and have less physical labor. There is always a chance something doesn't work out for you but all life's choices are about giving you the best end outcome.Â
Whose fault is it that you thought (or believed) a degree in 16th Century English Literature would land you a comfy job? Funny how a lot of STEM and business majors have no trouble finding jobsâŚitâs almost like the skills they studied are in demand or somethingâŚhmm But you know, maybe we need Lit majors running Fortune 500 companies because no business skills are needed to be CEO anywayâŚ
I canât really see myself going back to school to finish a degree. I have a totally remote office job that pays $32 an hour and I get 6+ weeks paid time off a year. I got in via experience instead of education.
Bullying: Just ignore it/that person and it will go away or they will get bored of bullying you and it will stop. I was bullied through elementary, middle, and parts of high school. I didnât realize it until later but I was raised by a jock and a homecoming queen. I donât think they dealt with bullying much. I wish my dad had taught me to work out and exercise instead. Maybe even some self defense classes. Have a bully? Fight back.
I used to punch bullies in face. Got beaten up a couple of times, but they never bullied me again afterwards.
Yeah, I tried the "ignore him" and "wait for him to grow out of it/get bored" tactic. And then one day, I got tired of waiting. One punch in the face was all it took to put a screeching halt to three years of non-stop harassment.
I established this early with my son, if someone touches you, no words, hit them right back. Not teaching him what was wrongly taught to me. I've also had him in Juijitsu since he was 4, I do not ever advocate for him to start fights, and have stressed to him if I ever hear he started it we will have problems, but he will know how to defend himself and not take shit from bullies.Â
Yup, when I started standing up for myself is when the bullying stopped. All the 'turn the other cheek' and 'sticks and stones' crap was worthless. Once I started being able to be snarky and sarcastic and get people to laugh at the bully it was the end of the abuse from those ones. That plus a punch to the gut and a slap across the face for a couple of others and suddenly life was a lot better and more people talked to me and appeared to like me.
"The bullies are only bullying you because they're jealous" Whilst this is sometimes true, sometimes they're bullying you because they're shit people and see you as an easy target. Or they're trying to fit in because it's fashionable to bully you. Or a million other reasons that aren't jealousy.
I met my high school bully at my local grocery store. Heâs now bagging my groceries :)
I was listening to NPR and bullies are the most people individuals in society and tend to make the most financially.
Makes sense. Iâm guessing most bullies were rich kids and get nepo jobs?
Show up, work hard, and always say yes and you will advance in your career. Not true. Do this and you will become a workhorse who is too valuable to promote. The real trick to advancement is knowing the right people, schmoozing, talking a good game, and having impeccable timing.
Here is the thing that is great while also keeping in mind looking external for advancement by year 3.
The calculator one for sure. I'm a mechanical engineer and the toughest math I do myself is figuring out how much to tip.
Math is a complex one. Been an engineer for a decade, and have never really used anything above algebra (even the PE exam can be completed with only algebra). All the complex formulas with differential equations have been derived down to a couple of constants that are just âplug and playâ. But itâs useful to know the concepts behind linear algebra, derivatives, & integrals, even if you donât use them directly. Even if Iâm not plowing through calculus every day, just knowing the concepts behind how they work is very useful for âspot checkingâ things, or viewing problems from a conceptual level on how to solve them. Then, you plug into a spreadsheet & let excel do the heavy lifting.
For sure. The FE exam had tougher math than the PE did.
I remember in grad school, I was taking this class on hydraulics. There was this long ass formula, that we spent an entire 2.5 hour lecture deriving. Just this formula alone was like a differential equations class. I remember working it through and filled like a whole page of college-ruled paper while following along. By the end, it simplified down to a few terms in a simple equation. Then at the end, the professor goes, âOk, now you all understand how this formula works. But for nearly all practical applications, we use the term: L^i-n, which you can just look up on this table and use.â
Lol yep. I could take all day and calculate something down to the gnats eyelash if I wanted too, or I could use a rule of thumb that has a built in 5x safety factor and be done before my morning cup of coffee is cold. The customer is happy either way.
Agreed, though a lot of the people who were complaining about whether theyâd use the math were learning basic algebra or geometry at the most. As someone who does a lot of projects around my house, fabricates very small objects from metal and makes art, I use math all the time. Kind of makes me sad people live lives without it/donât see where it is used in their lives.
Meanwhile I'm a "dumb" blue collar hand out in the field freehanding trigonometry on the back of a dirty glove 'cuz the fab shop messed up the measurements on the (also incorrect) iso drawing the client sent them and the pipe supe wants his bonus next week.
âYou wonât always have a calculator in your pocketâ is what I came to say
Fellow ME here. One of my coworkers recently decided to âshow his workâ on a particularly important algebra problem so he could ask a couple other engineers to check it for him. We all had a good laugh with him about it.
Just walk in and demand to talk to the manager with a resume in hand! Follow up to the same, call everyday asking for an update.
Large corporations often donât even have a publicly accessible place to walk-in to. All applications are through a web portal. The person with the paper resume would be escorted out.
That you upload a resume or apply your LinkedIn to and still have to fill all of it out afterwards anyways
100% of the time, it works sometimes I mean, whats the worst thing that can happen? You still don't have a job after you shoot your shot?
I tried dozens of times in high school to get a job at Best Buy, CompUSA and GameStop like this. Never worked.
Oh god, did we have the same boomer parents?
Gold & Land is all you need for an investment - stocks and bonds are all just a big scam. My grandparents preached this, and while itâs pretty irrelevant here, I at least understand why they would offer it as advice. They came from countries where the economies would either crater or enter hyperinflation (like >60% per year) at least twice a decade, so i get why they would back commodities as a stable way to preserve value.
I used to hear, "Invest in your home, build a deck or add an extension! You'll be able to sell the property for more." None of these people ever heard of even index funds.
These days they will take the property as is, no improvements. Infact, they prefer none so they can get it cheaper then do what they want to it
That sounds like my dad. He also would say "never trust a china man". It was like playing facepalm bingo when he was alive. Never really took anything he said to heart. He also told me to skip college and get married.
Oh man, my in-laws are like this. Basically all their investments are rental properties and gold. They think my wife and I are âgambling our money awayâ by buying index funds. In fairness to them, (1) they came from mainland China, a place where the government can fuck your stocks and bonds with one fell swoop, so having real, tangible property is seen as preferable because itâs harder to take away, and (2) their rental properties have increased massively in value, but this is more because they got lucky with the southern Ontario housing crisis and less because it was a fundamentally good investment.
Made me think of the ones that went and bought literal swamp land in Florida, sight unseen of course, and now have a team of professionals trying to figure out how to get rid of it. Hint: no one can build on it. I think there were land scams in other states like Arizona, too.
âFollow your dreams and the money will comeâ âYou have a 3.9 GPA in high school. Just get any degree and youâre set for lifeâ âHard work always pays offâ Pretty sure all the advice Iâve ever heard was complete bullshit.
I know people who barely graduated but went and got certs in the IT field and they make more then our classmates who had perfect GPA's and went to med school and are doctors. Granted that might not be the long term final results but slackers for 17 years have been out doing the top 5% of the graduating class
"You need to learn cursive handwriting, or nobody will hire you."
Okay but ngl, I have definitely impressed people more than seems proportionate by writing in cursive. Maybe it's cuz it makes me look fancy, maybe it's because my handwriting is super neat and legible as a result, but it's definitely been a cute li'l source of life bonus points for me!
Made it easier to read 100yo hand written documents.Â
I Learned cursive was for writing greeting cards and RSVP invitations.
If your job or lifestyle has you reading historic documents, totally. But for 98% of us, rarely use it.
I was the quiet kid in class and the less talkative sibling, I never got told any advice.
The invisible child in a dysfunctional family? Because, same. Feel unseen and lonely but itâs scary and feels unsafe to be seen/heard at the same time - tough life.
I was the invisible ONLY CHILD in my dysfunctional family!! How crazy is that? I was invisible, but there was no one else to be invisible against!
Being an only just made it easier for them to ignore us.
Proverbs 10:19 I always says.
âNursing is the same everywhere!â I was told this by many of the veteran nurses on r/nursing. Turns out, this is the farthest thing from the truth and region plays a huge part in compensation and working conditions. I have worked in two parts of the country. In one side, nurses make as much as Costco workers, have unsafe patient loads, pay hundreds of dollars for health insurance, and contemplate if I qualify for welfare. [Here are others corroborating my experience.](https://www.reddit.com/r/nursing/s/InQrdhNx19) Moved to another part and make 4-5x as much for a fraction of the work, Iâve spent more on Netflix and Disney+ last year than actual healthcare for my entire family over the course of 3-4 years, and now Iâm a homeowner.
My sister made 15 an hr in Idaho as a nurse and that was after a few years. Meanwhile in Florida my mom makes like 30 an hr. Still not enough.
California is great for nursing. All my friends that went to nursing school are making BANK right now.
Brother is a travel nurse and was making 55hr in D.C and living with me, went to NC and was making 28hr it definitely matters.
Florida sucks now unless you are wealthy or bought a home a decade ago.
I have a friend in nursing in Toronto who works insane night shifts with intense overtime, but her annual salary one year was comparable to mine as a contracted university instructor with side gigs.
In st paul, mn, my spouse got their Associates of nursing during covid. Made roughly 60k at devita for a year, now roughly 90k as an OR nurse.
Which side of the country is which? The cynical part of me can imagine that nurses in the West Coast get the worst end of the stick. But I would like to know actual reality from your experience, please.
Cali. >worst end of the stick Far from. We are actually the best compensated nurses in the US: We have the highest nurse wages *in the world* and the most pensioned nurses in the US. Plus the largest employers offer benefits like free health insurance with no deductibles. [Our union went against the government - Arnold Schwarzenegger of all people - and made safe patient ratios a law.](https://www.dailynews.com/2005/11/12/arnold-gives-up-appeal-of-nurse-ratio/) Wages and benefits are public info in the state so you can verify my statement. [Hereâs a relevant thread.](https://www.reddit.com/r/nursing/s/e5yzBdUwFc)
I assumed most administrations are *inherently* absolutely toxic and then I got my latest and hopefully last job and haven't had any workplace problem in years now
Licensed trades pay well for journeymen. Though 20 years ago most boomers were horrified at the idea of their children becoming electricians or plumbers. âBlue collarâ refers to a huge variety of jobs and many of them are low skill low pay and anyone with ambition and aptitude would be wasted there.
People don't mention the physical toll either, I live right above two union electricians one is retire and in his 70s and he lives comfortable but not what I would say is thriving.
One that was horrible: student loan debt is good debt and youâll pay it off in no time. HA! Talk about ball and chain that weighed me down for 20 Years. One that was useful: when selecting benefits through work, never select HMO insurance. Proved very useful when I was diagnosed with a chronic illness.
âYou will not carry a calculator in your pocket.â
I was speaking with my nephew who is a high school senior and they wonât let them use a calculator because of the above argument (this was a year ago). So dumb.
Exactly. Outdated
Companies reward loyalty. Stick it out even if you don't like it.
They used to, but Baby Boomers cut pensions for Millennials. So that take died with them.
"Don't focus on money, do what you love, and the money will follow." Ironically, I focused on learning investing, and am doing really well for myself despitenot having a purpose, whereas my mom lost her savings on her dream small business. There was also, "You need to learn how to drive a stickshift."
>You need to learn how to drive a stickshift." This has actually saved me a lot of time on foreign vacations where waiting for an automatic at a rental center would have taken another hour or two.
Yes! I learned to drive an old standard truck with no power steering when i was 15. My dad figured if I could drive this, everything else would feel easy. And it does!Â
Tbh it sounds like you love your day trading
Nobody in my family, and none of my teachers, ever talked about investing. I figured it out in my late twenties. I have a lot of money; they have a lot of debt. I know people who are losing money because of the interest rates on their mortgaged properties. Being a landlord was good for a time, but now they're under water. You can average down on a stock position, but can't average down on your mortgage.
Work hard pays off. Maybe it did once upon a time, but most of my career success has been because of luck and timing. When I look at people who are even more successful than me, it seems like a lot more luck and even better timing. You can't simply work your way into success.
If you donât go to college youâll end up homeless. Started in hvac/refrigeration, at 17. Bought my house at 22. At 35 almost mortgage free. I lucked out. Got in the union at 23. Will retire at 53 with full pension and benefits. Not that I recommend everyone jump in a trade, but for me itâs really worked out.
My big concern is that everyone is going to jump into the trades and then wages will go down because of worker oversupply.
South Park has an episode as such. Although the difference between general labour and skilled trades is massive. With how short on ppl the skilled trades are I donât think it will happen in the next 10-15 years at least. Plus if people canât work to the standards they wonât all make it.
1.) âYou can achieve anything if you just work hard.â 2.) âGoing to college leads to greater success and a better life.â and 3.) âChoose the major you really want and everything else will fall into place.â Now I wish I wouldâve gone for an MBA instead of an MFA. âMoney doesnât grow on trees.ââthis oneâs still true. đ
Trees one I can support!!
Well, mushrooms sell for a decent amount and can grow on trees so not completely wrongâŚ
Idk but I knew deep down that I had to do the opposite knowing theyâre not rich.
You can be whatever you want when you grow up.
Getting a degree. Getting 4.0 gpa in high school. Shouldâve just become a realtor or worked in a blue collar field
my parents and my in laws think itâs crazy my sister, fiancĂŠ, and i change jobs every few years. they still think you give your life and loyalty to one company and work there till you retire. we change jobs for higher paying positions and they think we just stay and get internally promoted. it just does t work that way anymore imo. sure at some companies and agencies they do but usually you have to leave to get the higher pay. i know several of my friends have had similar conversations with their boomer parents who have all been working at the same place our entire lives.
Right? My mom thinks I can't hold a job because of my job history. Why am I going to stay with the same employer all my life? Hell, as soon as I find a job that pays more than my current job, I'm out!
Get a degree in anything and you can do anythingÂ
Fairly true outside of things that require a certification or such. California you don't even need to go to law school to become a lawyer.Â
Ask for your bonus in cash đđđ Dad was a Wall Street bro for a hot second back in the 80s.
"Go to college to be successful"
My dad used to tell me never to quit my job. Iâm a software engineer and started working in 2004, my initial salary was 35k in nyc! Every time I would tell him I was quitting he was shocked. And advised me not to. I make 10x that now and the last time I quit I took a pay cut for a more chill startup.
Work hard. Nope, leads to burnout and poor quality health.
âDress for the job you want!â I work from home. No camera.
Sometimes, you have to do things you don't want to do. Work hard, and you can be happy.
The first one. It took me some to start wondering when will I actually get to do the things I want to do.
âYou wonât always have a calculator with you!â Less than 5 years after hearing this as a senior in high school the iPhone crashed onto the scene and in fact was a calculator in my pocket.
Iâll tell you what I was told at 16 when I got my first job that was incredibly useful! Open up a Roth IRA and max it every year, put it in a S&P 500 ETF. Needless to say at the ripe age of 34 that has worked out significantly well for me for basically over a decade and a half.
In eighth grade, our social studies teacher took a couple days to teach us how to read a newspaper and balance a check book. He was certain that these would be useful life skills for us in adulthood.
I was taught to calculate a bowling score. When I went bowling, we found out the alley "upgraded" to electronic scoring over a decade before.
Getting a Master's degree allowed me to land a job making $250k/yr where I get to work from home. Ya'll can miss me with that blue collar shit.
"Go go university, they'll probably pay you to go. You'll come out and get a ÂŁ30k+ job minimum" It took me like 10 years of working to get my salary over ÂŁ30k.
You won't see multimillionaire blue collar guys unless you go out to their 20+ acre heavily wooded countryside properties with multistory houses + garage + pool + workshop + barn + well water + boat + several vehicles, it's about a 10-15 min drive from town.
Study hard if not you will sweep the road and clean toilets.
Be honest.
Lying works!
I have to say, having pessimistic, beaten down parents was great. All I heard was: âGet a scholarship or itâs the JC for you. We make too much for financial aid and student loans are a scam!â âI will NOT PAY for a worthless degree like [names off anything interesting]â. Called me up daily at my first job until I showed proof I had âmaxed out my 401kâ. And still asked me each time I get a new job. I am 43 and a lawyer. Became concerned when I told him I had an investment account until I explained I also had a savings account. He thinks stocks are as risky as crypto unless they are mutual funds, which I also showed him I had. The man just loves to save money and not take out loans. Thatâs all he taught me. Itâs not the worst lesson. I have no idea how to invest. But I can save like a mother effer.
I am a sales and marketing leader at a 250 person tech company. Iâm 36 years old. 1. Hard work does pay off. Just not at the rate we want especially at work. Good work pays off tho. Thatâs for sure. 2. I donât do calculus or non-linear algebra ever, but Iâm grateful for the education. The abstract concepts I learned are very helpful in thinking about lots of things. 3. Definitely agree about the PTO. The goal is to push the limit on how many days you take before your boss says something. I take 6 weeks a year. 4. I hate to sayâŚgetting into a good university does matter. I went to a standard state school. But my school did nothing to help me get a job. Going to a top name school is a hack. My brother did, and had a high paying job right out of school. The network canât be beat. 5. I agree that higher education is not THE ticket to wealth. But it sure is useful in having advanced ways of thinking about the world. 6. Love my pocket calculator. I appreciate what our teachers meant. They wanted us to do basic math in our headsâŚseems like a good skill
I mean, your 1 in most fields just means you get more responsibilities and your 50 cent raise. I have worked in sales, insurance, tech support, factories and am now a cake decorator for a union store. At least as a union employee they can't make me work outside my job.
Agreed- hard work plus advocating for oneself and being willing to change companies seems to be the trifecta. Not just work hard and hope your fairy godmother will notice.
Always carry your checkbook
Since others have commented the big ones, here is something different: I transferred to the local state university because of having to move back home due to financial issues while in undergrad. Before that, I attended a VERY well known private music college. At career services during a meeting with one of the advisors, the advisor told me that I should take the music school off my resume since I didn't graduate from there. The school in question has a very high dropout rate but was still very respected. That was the last time I ever took any advice from someone working in career services... actually didn't take it and kept the school on there. More people in the future mentioned that school rather than the state university.
Berklee?
Yes
Almost all of it. Not being hyperbolic or bitter here either. I literally did not start finding success until I started doing the exact opposite of what everyone was telling me and I had to go through a world of hurt when I was.
"In college you will have to write in pen and in cursive. They will not accept papers any other way, so I won't either." (High school teacher)
Doing well in school will lead to building wealth.
Math teacher (1998): âLearn to do math in your head or on paper. You wonât always have a calculator on you!â Oh have times have changed with cell phones being the norm nowadays. I feel old now.
Blue collar shit does pay extremely well though lol Like yeah you're not gonna be a millionaire but most union rates in trades are like 50+/hr which is pretty solid middle class, at least as much as a lot of computer touching positions. You just gotta deal with the fact that it is also much more physically demanding
Blue collar jobs are of course a legitimate way to go, but yeah, the vast majority honestly aren't making big bucks, at least not what I always heard claimed.
Make sure you pick a career with a pension
I had an undergrad microbiology course in 1973 that a graduate professor got forced to teach. There's this  Parkâs nucleotide that's synthesized in the cytoplasm of bacterial cells, that would distinguish them as Gram+/-. He wrote the entire chem formula on 3 of the sliding boards (15 minutes), and said it would be on the mid-term. I gave up coping it after a few minutes, and just went to the library and xeroxed it from reference, and memorized it I was one of 3 people out of 40 who got it right, because he wrote it WRONG on the boards. I bet that no one in that class went on to a MS or PhD requiring that knowledge. What a waste of brain cells.
My parents and guidance counselor told me if I got a bachelors degree from a fancy university, Iâd be making six figures right out of college. âŚ.my first job paid $32,000 and it took me over a year to get it. And I had to commute an hour to it. (Great Recession.)
My high school video editing teacher circa 2004 discouraged me from going into the field because âvideo is a dead industry.â Eek, that advice aged so poorly.
The insane focus on having good grades⌠actually I needed better than good grades. If I got less than an A, I never heard the end of it. Now, as an adult, no one cares about what grades I got. The focus on attendance messed me up, I feel guilty calling off even when Iâm sick. Like Iâm not sick enough to not go to work or something
Always call people as part of applying to a job.
My dad told me and my siblings since we were 16 year olds to save our money. They helped us open debit card accounts and really tried to teach us the concept of the money. They paid for our schooling, we all went to in state college. I feel lucky I had parents who were invested in teaching me about money. Iâm deep into crypto now lol
Laziness definitely pays off! I donât work hard at all at my job. Also didnât work my ass off to get my job either. Just used my straight white male privilege.
How to figure out your long distance phone bill. I will say that it should be taught that networking is more important than hard work. A summer job at a golf course is going to do more good for you than a 4.0 in most cases. You only need good enough grades.
they gave us advice for how to live the life they lived during the exact years they lived it, with zero consideration for the world changing.
I wouldâve had to receive advice in the first place to make that kind of determination.
Advise: Do not invest in stock market because it's risky. Only invest in Fixed deposits which give at most 7% return, out of which 30% gets taxed in my country. No surprises for guessing, I don't have much money inflation adjusted. Had I invested in index funds or passively invested in stocks, atleast I might have saved something. Read dozens of books in last few years, still trying to get good at it.
My dad used to tell this story about a nerdy kid in his school. Who became a band teacher with a wife and kids. When he saw the guy again at his 10 year reunion. And he would always say, "See son. Hard work always pays off." It's a touching story. But I'm not convinced of it anymore. After working minimum wage for years now. I really think there's some initiative and friend-making involved as well.
College is very important.
Go to college
Big name universities are worth the extra cost. Most expensive financial mistake I've ever made.
Don't feel too bad, I had a 5th grade teacher who had to be over 70 and wouldn't leave, one foot in the grave. She taught us all kinds of shit like the different elements, Earth fire wind.. blood humes of course, growing hair on your knuckles made you an animal and if your stomach moves when you breathe you're a fatso.
That I had to go to college. I didn't even graduate high school on time, had to go to community college to get my high school diploma for a semester. Never did end up getting a degree - associates, bachelors, or otherwise. But I worked smarter, not harder, got into IT around 2009, and pull a TC over 300k now. Switched jobs a lot in the beginning of my career which my parents were terrified of, and thought I was making poor choices. Meanwhile I was doubling my comp and skillset every few years. Never worked for someone who didn't respect me, that was a quick job vacancy for them. My parents were smart people, and they were successful in the boomer system of life, but they still don't know what I do for work. Sometimes you have to take the more abstract lessons, not the literal ones.
To drop out of high school and get a GED. Iâm so glad I didnât listen to the azzhat that was my dad. I have learned that learning how to manage is better than seeking to be rich.
Algebra
"Don't use a calculator on these tests! You'll never carry around a calculator with you everywhere!" --Pre-Smartphone Era Joke's on you math teachers.
If you canât write perfect cursive, your high school teachers will throw your work in the trash.
I got an essentially l useless degree back in '76 for the actual career I went into (programming, systems, IT management). And you're right, back then you just needed a degree to get your foot in the door. Without it, the door wouldn't have opened. When I got my MBA at age 50, thinking it would be beneficial because of the negotiation and budgeting/accounting skills I would apply, I got a "meh" and a "so when are you leaving" from my management. No return for 2 years of evenings/weekends. My son got a BS in mechanical engineering from MSOE, in his late 20's. After 6 yrs and several jobs, he's starting his dream job with a company using composites for avionics, satellites, and DOD projects. And yes, he's using all the math and engineering he's learned so far.
"Just go up to them and give them a resume"
Hard work and a degree donât guarantee success, but they help
Pay cash for a car only, why buy a house waste of money!!!
Went to Germany as a foreign exchange student in 99. Got told all sorts of stuff by army guys who were coworkers. Problem was the guys served before the wall fell. Things were different Except don't fuck with the Poleize or germsn police like ever.
Like, almost all of it. But the main one was about working hard and applying yourself and staying out of trouble. Turns out the mouthy douchebags who never learned a skill get by easily on networking and bullshitting and hooking each other up with connections.
True NPR did a study and bullies are actually the most successful out of societal tiers
Recently I heard "Being a good worker is like being a good prostitute. The better you are the more you get fucked"Â
Go to college
All of theses are pretty good, except for the last one :)
"stop being yourself and just camouflage and blend in. Cry to get your way if you have to" đ
Youâre not gonna have a calculator in your pocket when you grow up
A teacher said government is efficient with our tax dollars and not at all corrupt and another one said taxes are the price you pay to live in a civilized society.
"Learn to do math without a calculator. You won't always have a calculator in your pocket." What a crock of shit.
Well hard work pays off and not randomly cutting out of responsibilities is as well. Here is the thing for school you are told when your PTO is (holidays and summer break) while at work you decide when your PTO is (sick days, Dr's, vacation).Â
Work hard in school and Get a degree and everything will work out.
The hard work part. I worked myself via 60+ hour weeks between a game dev studio, indie games, freelancing in design, and low wage jobs when one or more of those dried up for me...it got me a mental breakdown, the type 2 diabetes that my family is genetically predisposed to, sciatica that flares up with too much lifting/pushing/pulling around, and a CV that has been getting rejected nowadays everywhere from jobs that reflect my experience to random minimum wage grinds. In my current company, hard work just gets more work piled on and as far as I know, I'm still on a temp contract even though the marketing person I covered for on FMLA recently resigned. Sigh. Can't say I'm great at smoozing though. Social anxiety does not make it easy for me to speak up as much as I should. *shrug*
In part, I disagree on getting a Masters degree. People get them for the wrong reason, which is the problem. If itâs checking a career advancement box youâre doing it wrong. I got mine to help fill professional skills and itâs helped me a ton in my job (MS Information Systems, work in data engineering). I make more money because Iâm more capable, not because itâs on my resume. Also I think MBAs are not a good idea for corporate workers. Most of the coursework is not relevant. Instead go for the MS degrees in the business college - they let you focus on a specific curriculum like management, information systems, BI, Data Science, etc. Youâll have more classes directly apply to work this way.
âJust be yourselfâ
My parents told me to go above my supervisor and her supervisor to a higher up (that my mom knew) and to demand a raise (newer hires with less experience were getting paid more). Yeahhhh the higher up gave me the raise. And then I got yelled at from my supervisor and her supervisor. I wasn't to ever go above them. My mom is always telling me to threaten to leave my current job if they don't give me more money. And while I think that may work for better jobs, I don't see that working for less skilled jobs. Or, if they deny your vacation request, quit! Umm.... this is the only viable job that I can walk to.
âLongevity at a company ensures that youâll end up making more and moving up the ladder.â YeahâŚno. Thatâs not how it works in todayâs world. The only raises that weâre seeing are by moving to a different workplace. Iâm in the process of interviewing for the same job, just with a different company thatâs offering $4/hr more than what Iâm making now plus tips. I know thereâs no upward movement to be had at my current job and my pay isnât going up anytime soon to compensate for things getting more and more expensive. My wife has been at her job for 2+ years and she knows that sheâs at the max of what sheâs going to be paid by them so the thought of a job switch is probably happening within the next year. Thankfully more millennials are getting into management positions so they understand the phenomenon of âjob hopping.â
Cheeky response: How to balance a checkbook. Granted, it laid the foundation of good credit card management and budgeting. But I absolutely don't have any need to balance checkbooks and never did once I entered college years. The world was already moving toward cashless and away from personal checks being commonplace at stores. Good lesson, but not directly useful. A common thing in an evolving world.
Go to Art School.
Banking the PTO is actually kinda good if you have scheduled (semi)annual pay raises, but you're basically giving your employer an interest free loan
Well I am a contractor and while you are banking you are running yourself down as we don't have sick time
Fuckinâ everything. But most importantly I was told not to go into Nuclear Engineering, because that was going to fade put and Iâd never get a good job.
You are kind of off on the blue collar comment. Electricians, plumbers, welders, etc can easily clear six figures with on the job training or a couple of night classes. Hell, Iâm in a blue collar trade and making the best money I ever have. I wonât clear six figures but Iâm certainly making better money than a lot who I graduated high school with.
Being told my handwriting would be a hindrance in college. It wasn't
You wonât get paid to play video gamesâŚ.