Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I didn't hate school but wasen't a good student, I just wasen't very interested. I took shop courses not college preparatory. Drafting came easy to me, I got A's without trying.
I was kind of irresponsible I graduated HS in 61, I wasen't a hippie but was in that era.and have always thought that if I had gone to college I probably would have dropped out.
I wound up being a machinist during the heyday of aerospace in southern Calif. not a bad trade. Kids coulden't do it today or at least much less chance of working. Construction trades today are out for non college young people illegalls have completely taken that over.
I have enough money to not worry about it but I have lived very frugually all my life. My house is OK but in a kind of poor neighborhood, its safe enough just small old houses on small lots.
There are so many really nice neighborhoods around here as I go places on the outskirts of Los Angeles I wonder how does so many people have so much money?
I realise most of these people including college graduates bought their house 35 years ago and at the time wondered if they could afford it and were careful with their money so they could.
I only ended up with an associates degree, it worked out fine for me but that was 30 years ago. I was lucky and was able to retire at 55 with 30 years working for the same place and moving up the ladder. Now to do the same job that I did, typically any person hired has a post graduate degree. Times change and a post grad degree seems what more and more employers are looking for.
I flunked out from partying, went to tech school and got into programming at just the right time. 35 years later it has made almost no difference. I say almost because 2 or 3 times during my career there were openings I could not apply for. I never went long without employment and I was never turned away from anywhere I longed to be; just at the points I was looking I might have to trim a list of 10 openings to 7 because 3 didn't say "or equivalent". I had kids late; one in college and others in high school. I am not hung up on them going to college but hope they at least learn a trade if they don't.
I didn't hate school but wasen't a good student, I just wasen't very interested. I took shop courses not college preparatory. Drafting came easy to me, I got A's without trying.
I was kind of irresponsible I graduated HS in 61, I wasen't a hippie but was in that era.and have always thought that if I had gone to college I probably would have dropped out.
I wound up being a machinist during the heyday of aerospace in southern Calif. not a bad trade. Kids coulden't do it today or at least much less chance of working. Construction trades today are out for non college young people illegalls have completely taken that over.
I have enough money to not worry about it but I have lived very frugually all my life. My house is OK but in a kind of poor neighborhood, its safe enough just small old houses on small lots.
There are so many really nice neighborhoods around here as I go places on the outskirts of Los Angeles I wonder how does so many people have so much money?
I realise most of these people including college graduates bought their house 35 years ago and at the time wondered if they could afford it and were careful with their money so they could.
I graduated in 1960 and wanted to at least get two years in at the local Junior College...as it was called then. My dad said "No" so I did what was 'expected', got married in 1961 and had kids. In retrospect it was probably not a bad thing that I didn't go to college out of high school. I was raised by very strict parents and I think, once 'let out', I might have gone a little crazy with the freedom. So, I had to wait another 14 years to get there but I did. I do regret only being able to do three years and not getting my degree, but who's to say I'd be using it today anyway? I did okay without it, albeit NOT in the profession I was going for.
My dad was a machinist during the aerospace age in So Cal too. That's how we ended up there from AZ when I was 11.
This thread really brings home the generational differences in post-secondary education.
Silents (my parents' generation) only went to college if they were rich or were nerds (generally speaking). Now in my parents' case, they did go. They were not from rich backgrounds (were lower middle class) but were nerds.
Boomers were a mixed bag. Earlier and poorer Boomers tended to follow in the Silent footsteps. Later and wealthier (or at least, upper middle class) Boomers went to college for the most part.
We X were expected to go to college the only exceptions tended to be people from disfunctional families in the hood or a minority of people from higher economic strata than the underclasses.
Millies have ODed on college and it has cost them ... college costs are way higher than they were even a mere 15 - 20 years ago. College debt is seriously hindering Millies.
Hopefully by the time the Homelanders reach college costs will be lower.
Probably one of my biggest regrets is not getting a degree but mainly because it limited my income throughout life and it is something I am now kind of ashamed of. Oddly enough, both of my parents had advanced degrees obtained in the 1940s yet I never finished college. As a young person, my obvious talent was art but the "starving artist" stereotype gave me pause to pursue that seriously. As it turned out, I have a very good head for business but without the degree unless I had been entrepreneurial it would have been hard to succeed. It was a different time when I came of age as one could make an adequate living without the degree and standards of living weren't as high as they are now. Life got in the way too of furthering my education.
This thread really brings home the generational differences in post-secondary education.
Silents (my parents' generation) only went to college if they were rich or were nerds (generally speaking). Now in my parents' case, they did go. They were not from rich backgrounds (were lower middle class) but were nerds.
Boomers were a mixed bag. Earlier and poorer Boomers tended to follow in the Silent footsteps. Later and wealthier (or at least, upper middle class) Boomers went to college for the most part.
We X were expected to go to college the only exceptions tended to be people from disfunctional families in the hood or a minority of people from higher economic strata than the underclasses.
Millies have ODed on college and it has cost them ... college costs are way higher than they were even a mere 15 - 20 years ago. College debt is seriously hindering Millies.
Hopefully by the time the Homelanders reach college costs will be lower.
Lots of silent generation people went to college and were not rich. They just went to cheap state colleges--my dad and older relatives did that back in the 1930s/40s. I am a pre-boomer (but I identify with the boomers) and I couldn't have gotten away with NOT going to college. College wasn't as expensive as it is today. I had to get a master's later on to qualify for a teaching job in my state.
I think a lot of today's kids would be find getting a two year degree. College has become a waste of time and money for a lot of today's kids. It's just a shame that the lower level jobs aren't there anymore--either been shipped overseas or taken over by illegals. College used to be for the rich and for those who could just barely afford it but were smart and wanted a well paying interesting job.
Back in the day, I think people who didn't go to college didn't end up with such a bad life after all. Today everyone's expected to go to college and that's misguided but what else can they do? What is a Homelander?
Funny as I was just thinking about this the other day.
My family was poor and there never was really any thought of me going to college. To my parents life was you went to high school and then got some sort of job and struggled along for the rest of your life. I got bored and quit high school in 10th grade and joined he Coast Guard to avoid the draft. Wound up in the tire and auto service business and meandered along with that until I was lucky enough to find an opportunity to get my securities licenses. Retired last year after 21 years in that field and we should be just fine in retirement.
A couple of years ago, before she passed away, my mother mentioned to me that she was told by the school that if I applied myself I could be a doctor or an attorney or anything that I wanted to be. I didn't say anything, but my first thought was "Why in the heck was I never told that and encouraged to stay in school and then go to college?" But they were never encouraged by their parents so they did what they knew best.
It was a different time and in the end things turned out OK. But I do sometimes wonder what my life would have been like if I had gone to college.
I've worked with now older folks who faced exactly that situation. They never went to college, but, instead, claimed they had degrees and went to work in white collar jobs with large companies.
I asked them about lying on their application, and their thinking was, "They needed to work and were able to do the job, yet, financial and other circumstances prevented getting a degree, and the lack of a degree, automatically disqualified them from getting the job. Thus, 'if they excelled in the job, then the degree was only an unnecessary piece of paper ... and, If they didn't, then they wouldn't be able to keep the job anyway."
In one case, they were found-out later, but, due to excellent job performance, no action was taken. In another case, they were never discovered. In both cases, they are now successfully retired. Without debating the morality of the situation, I can understand and, to some degree, agree with their approach.
The difference between then and now, however, is significant! -- Today, the online availability of information, makes it improbable that people could pull-off such an approach, while it wasn't so difficult 'back then.' Of course, it also depends on one's ability to present themselves as an articulate college graduate, which most young high school grads can't do.
Last edited by jghorton; 08-10-2015 at 04:00 PM..
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
