re: Parents of late teens: what are you routing your kids to?

quote:

---

Become an electrician intern and start your own company. Both my grandsons went the college route fraternity etc

---

My Godson is taking this route. Working arse off right now learning. Told him it will probably be a year or two before he can approach the owner to ask about shadowing him on certain days.

My son is in college with the intention of being a vet. Who knows if that will work out, or not. Regardless of what he finishes college in, I told him that I would pay for his MBA. My thoughts are that you either have to know numbers, or pay someone who does if you ever want to own your own business.

Daughter is in HS still. During a tour of Tulane, she told the group that she wanted to major in Political Science. I threw up in my mouth. After asking about this on the ride home, she mentioned financial services or civil engineering. Fingers crossed.

$.02 rant.

quote:

---

Honest to God, college is becoming for fools at this point unless you have a future follow up plan.

---

The logic that has kept the poor in their place for generations.

Do you not think too many kids are going the college route that shouldn’t?

2.7 gpa, no honors or AP, no parents money to pay tuition and room & board, 22 act……should that kid borrow 100k to go to a lower level college?

quote:

---

2.7 gpa, no honors or AP, no parents money to pay tuition and room & board, 22 act……should that kid borrow 100k to go to a lower level college?

---

That kid showed they were either below average intellectually and/or lazy and will struggle doing well at most things, imo.

If lazy was the main problem they probably grow out of it.

Ours said the exact same thing. Doesn’t want to go to college. Says he wants to be a welder. I don’t think he even knows what a welder is. He is 13

quote:

---

Military for my boys

As both want to be pilots

---

Are they Academy material, i.e.,

1. Extraordinary grades
2. Eagle scout
3. Perfect vision
4. A record of meaningful extracurricular service and volunteerism
5. Letters of Recommendation from important, or well known persons.
6. Connections to your congressman and /or US senator

My son was given the opportunity to apply to the Air Force Academy through a close, personal connection who is an ambassador for the AF academy. He also worked in the Whitehouse during the second Reagan administration as a liaison for NSA assigned to support Reagan. Additionally, his son graduated from the AF academy as a C130J pilot and is now a full Captain and has been the primary pilot flying around Sec War Hegseth. My fiend confirmed, yesterday, that his son is deployed over in the Iran conflict but his son could only tell him he was being deployed. No other details.

As an ambassador, he spends a lot of time with the staff interviewing potential candidates and making recommendations to the base commander, who is a long-time personal friend of his. Anyway, due to my son's interest in engineering, which started when he went with me to a casual business meeting with the head of engineering for the ISS at NASA. He took my son through the astronaut training center and exposed him to a lot of prototype vehicles and living stations for use on Mars. It really whetted his interest in aerospace engineering. Additionally, he met Walt Cunningham, Apollo 7 lunar module commander. Turned out, they both have(had) the same birthday, and Walt would call me on his birthday and ask to speak with my son to tell him happy birthday. Walt had an engineering degree and for five years he encouraged my son to pursue an engineering degree. He's passed away, now, but along with Walt, I've had some good influencers to help me guide my son, and I feel very blessed and fortunate for that.

My friend and myself, we worked together as a shadow engineering and development team with lots of defense contractors, SpaceX, Tesla, NASA and others too numerous to name. We had spent a lot of time with my son discussing space systems that my friend and I worked on together. One day, he offered to promote my son and recommend him to the base general, but my son turned it down and told him that he appreciated the offer, but he'd rather earn his spot like that than land it on a favor. My friend was genuine in his offer, but he and I both smiled and appreciated my son's resolve to earn his own way in life.

What I did learn along the way is that every Congressman and every US Senator, can make a single appointment to each if the military academies. More than half never make that appointment because nobody thinks to go to them for these appointments. So... food for thought for you.

quote:

---

quote:Any medical field. Most engineering fields.

---

quote:

---

Both are dead men walking

---

quote:

---

Didn’t answer question

---

Lazy and/or dumb people shouldn’t go to college.

So college isn’t for everyone. Lazy and/or dumb people aren’t likely to be successful in the trades either.

Long story short, world needs ditch diggers too, but lazy ones aren’t gonna do well.

quote:

---

Do you not think too many kids are going the college route that shouldn’t?

2.7 gpa, no honors or AP, no parents money to pay tuition and room & board, 22 act……should that kid borrow 100k to go to a lower level college?

---

I agree with you that too many kids are going to college. But I wouldn't tell smart kids from well funded families to skip college for the trades. Some on the OT seem to think everyone should do trades.

quote:

---

Elons robots are going to gut the entire medical field.

---

People outside of medical have zero clue of the logistic challenges.

And that’s not even in the emergent setting where seconds and minutes count.

Medical/Billing/Coding….sure but practitioners especially in emergent/critical setting are not going anywhere.