A university professor advises potential students to not apply for a prestigious (=expensive) university, probably including his own. Seriously. Why? Because due to the increasing tuition cost, they won’t be able to pursue their dreams after graduation.
The burden of student loans they amassed while getting their degrees would be too great to take the risky but motivative path of joining a startup or founding their own business. Instead, they are forced to choose a more financially rewarding position, at least in the short term. Several years later after paying their debt, they can do something they want.
The scenario makes sense. But does it work?
According to my own experience and tales from elsewhere, no. There is a fact that isn’t advertised very often: Once you live inside a framework, you will become a part of it. The scary part is that you realize it until you lose the framework. You might think of yourself as a prisoner biting his time, but rarely you realize that you are also making yourself a guard for that small eco-system.
Joni Mitchell’s classic song says it right (though originally it was meant for something different)
Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got
Till it’s gone
In The Shawshank Redemption, a long-time prisoner gets freedom at the end of his life, only to realize that his life existed only inside the prison. He chooses to hang himself.
These prison walls are funny. First you hate ’em, then you get used to ’em. Enough time passes, gets so you depend on them. That’s institutionalized.
And the more high-paid a position is, the more risk-averse it becomes. Every single prestigious job requires you to work inside a “proven” framework. You have rooms to assert your creativity, they tell you, but that creativity must be applied to finding a solution inside that framework.
Yet the first and most important thing you need when starting a new challenge is an out-of-the-box thinking, because you are joining the game as a latecomer. But is that easy if your creativity has already been modified to work inside your previous box?
Of course, the world isn’t divided between prison and freedom, and most of us choose a stepping-stone approach instead of a complete makeover. In my case, I started as an electrical engineer (which ended up in disaster), then switched to a technical support for an international company, followed by a technical writer in Taiwan, sliding into a nomad technical translator as of now.
I learned I was no engineer the hard way, but leveraged whatever engineer-ity inside me for subsequent paths toward a more satisfying life. Even though the initial match-up ended up in disaster, engineering has been with me all along. I totally embrace the life I have now, but…sometimes I still think what my life would have been if I had chosen a completely different degree or the first job. I know, the life I have now is the only and the best. But still.
The first thing we should ask ourselves before agreeing to a less ideal career in exchange for security isn’t “How long does it take for me to get back on track?” It is “Will I be okay making this choice a part of me for the rest of my life?”
Does it sound too much like a marriage? Yes, it does. And leaving a career is not unlike having a breakup or a divorce either. It is doable, even multiple times, but each time the scar remains—and forms us along the way. Eventually things will turn out for the best, but the idea that we can “clean up” several years of experience in us is utter nonsense.
Spot on. The naivety of people on this point is astounding. I consider the very casual way a lot of young people approach relationships/romance nowadays largely nihilistic, in the sense that they also are under the misconception that they can take or mutually use one another for their own benefit without any long term side effects. If that’s really the case, you’re genuinely emotionally disturbed; but I don’t think most people are, but they become a little disturbed along the way for having too cavalier an attitude.
My mom once said to me, “people should protect their heart the way they do their bank accounts.”
Yeah, relationships or careers are like tattoos—they stay visible somehow. But so is everything else we do in our lives, and hence, the “clean” history we believe we might have is also a result of constant tattooing which somehow ended up looking plain. Tattooing is inherent in our interaction. The problem is believing that it is just watercolor painting. You can’t wash anything away, dude. Live with everything.
Just another thought, it is becoming more and more difficult to retain
the sense of integrity of your knowledge and skill set, as boundaries
between
“different” knowledge and skill sets are becoming more and more blur.
That may increase the risk of clinging to the framework in wh
I honestly believe we need to practice “life” skills first, go out on the street and do whatever we want to do, and only when we find what we truly want to do, start higher education. Is that asking too much?
I think that the mode of enrolling to higher education that you suggested should be more popular and common but it should not be limited to.
Ha ha, “hold on, that’s not the only option” sounds so…Asian to me, may I say? I have that urge—whenever I hear a strong opinion I instinctively want to counteract, if only to dilute his voice. My desire to keep things harmonious does run deeply inside me. Maybe that’s why I intentionally voice my opinion clearly.
I was thinking of allowing to complete Bachelor degree (for example) in long years – far longer than 8 years currently allowed should be considered simultaneously. I was a bit concerned that otherwise “a good job to enter a good university” competition may start immediately…
If that happens nobody wants to get out of the university (including me) and a university turns into a city with all variety of functionalities. We’ll see.
Just another thought, it is becoming more and more difficult to retain
the sense of integrity of your knowledge and skill set, as boundaries
between “different” knowledge and skill sets are becoming more and more blur. That may increase the risk of clinging to the framework in which you currently reside in and which gives you a sense of boundary of things to care about.