Instead of College

For those of you who have not had the opportunity to go to college, I would suggest that this article very enlightening:

For a woman whose life took another path, a teacher’s reading list taught her everything she needed to know.
Steph Clemence always intended to go to college. But life has a tendency to throw obstacles in the way.

https://www.rd.com/article/mrs-clarks-book-list/

Through it all, the reading list was a constant in her life, traveling with her even on vacations so she could refer to it while prowling flea markets and used bookstores for the next book on the list. (She never bought the books in advance; she looked for the title only when it was the next one up.) When the original list wore out, she typed up a new copy. And then another.

The Reading List of 100 Books

I really like the fact that it was always" Mrs Clarke's book list" - not "some teacher from school"'s list. Teachers are such powerful mentors to young people; thank you all for what you do.

It's been almost 20 years since I was in college, and even then they didn't teach these works anymore. I had stories by Sandra Cisneros and The Things They Carried in my Intro to Literature classes. I was so glad to have been given a Great Books-type education in High School, which was a list similar to this, that my mom had me sit down and read for four years. It opened up the whole world to me and was better than ANYTHING I got at the three universities I went to. This is real education: an open mind asking questions of a book until it gets them. Full stop.  

I remember twenty years ago my grandfather saying, "They will always need people to dig ditches".

I never thought I would see the day, but it is so true. It took twenty years, but an ex-girlfriend had a Masters Degree in Child Phycology and she made half of what I make in alternative energy with only a high school education (of sorts). I say "of sorts" because I use my local technical college to fill in areas that will help my career out, like I took a 6 month course to get my high-pressure steam license so I can operate industrial boilers, and am taking another one so I understand electrical substations better. After that, it will probably be a class on programming PLC's. I use college, but target specific areas of study, with my employer paying for the courses.

I tried to convince her to get her Doctorate in Child Phycology, but after spending seven years in college, she did not want to do college anymore. I cannot blame her really. The money just is not there. But the trades, that is a different story; even doctor's need their cars to be worked on, or electricity to flow to their houses.

I have found that many people do not have a clear understanding as to what their expectations are of going to college.  If it is to get a formal education…then by all means, they should go to college.  If it is anything else, the equation can become far more complex.   Then, there is the issue of Mission Creep where the person begins college with one goal and, at some point, changes it …often without realizing that they have done so.

Certainly, if the starting point is to get a well paying job, then there are many options to consider.


Oddly, or maybe not, in counseling settings when I would break down the individual goals into a series of “ …if you got that, what would you have …” questions, the ultimate goal for virtually everyone is to be happy.  I thing most of us would agree that there are many more paths to happiness.

John F Dean wrote:I have found that many people do not have a clear understanding as to what their expectations are of going to college. ...  

Certainly, if the starting point is to get a well paying job, then there are many options to consider.

I knew why I was going to college because I wanted to be a teacher.

To me, many kids out of high school have no idea what they want to do with their lives.

Some others think they want to make one career only to change their minds in midstream to something else.

As much as getting an education costs these days, I feel the end goal might be to get a well-paying job as John mentioned.