I love the video below. It fits into many of the categories about which I regularly write: education, debt, work, business and even Christianity. It talks about one of the major themes of the Chapman household both when I was a kid and when Kelly and Christian were kids. I think it even applies to graduate degrees. It is nice to do what you love, but you have to put beans on the table first. One of the best pieces of advice I got from Grandpa Milo was to love what you do (your work) whether you love it or not–it does not do any good to hate it because you have to do it anyway. That was right up there with one of my other favorites–you are going to eat what we give you and you are going to like it whether you like it or not.
I am not sure Mike Rowe would approve, but I think this dictum applies to higher education, too. I agree with Mr. Rowe that way too many people go to college, not so much because going to college is a bad thing or they are not able to handle it, but because the educational product they purchase neither leads to a job nor really teaches them anything of value–quite to the contrary actually. I write regularly about why I think it is important, if one goes to college, to study something hard that leads to a job. That generally means a STEM degree. STEM degrees are rarely fun and require a lot of hard work, but because industry needs people who get math, they are worth doing. Liberal Arts degrees generally are not. I have written about this a lot (just enter “STEM” into the search box and you will see) and there is actually scholarship by guys like Charles Murray to back this up.
So, now our kids, after earning STEM degrees, are getting PhD’s at good universities. Are they worth it? We are not sure yet. Neither of the kids even really know what they want to do with their lives, but neither of them have any debt and they both have undergraduate degrees that are in high demand and they are both getting paid to get their PhD’s. They are paid well enough to have small apartments, eat, travel (a little), keep up a car, etc. In addition, they are both provided tuition, fees and health insurance. Are they miserable a lot of the time due to the fact that what they are doing is very hard, very time consuming, requires them to work while many of their same-age friends go skiing, surfing, partying, hiking and traveling? Yes. Would they say what they are doing is in any way fun or even something about which they had a lot of passion before they started? No. Do they have passion about what they are doing, a sense of accomplishment for what they have done and a growing love and interest in their academic areas? Yes.
The big question though is whether they will be able to put beans on the table with the tools they got from the path they have taken? They are doing that already and it should only get better. On second thought, I think Mike Rowe might approve. Check out his foundation here. It has links to interesting articles and videos on a choices, lifestyles and values that would help both individuals and the entire country if more people embraced them.
One of the hazards of typing for a living at a computer screen for most of the day, every day is computer eye fatigue. Kelly, Christian and I all spend most of our days at a computer and we are familiar with the phenomenon. Yesterday, Christian went to the optometrist for an eye test and was told his eyesight was perfect. That is good, but I do not think that is the whole story. I looked around a little and found some stuff that makes me think I might want to get a special pair of glasses to use at the office for all the time I spend at a computer screen.