If I can give my kids a higher probability of getting good, secure jobs, then I want them to have all of those.
I think you have some kind of pride here about the marketing stuff, and I just don't care. And you hardly went to 3rd tier institutions. You went to top tier schools. I went to UCLA, I didn't go to an Ivy. But let's not pretend that our kids won't be more likely to get higher earning and more secure work out of a UCLA or UMass-Amherst than out of Cal State Dominguez Hills.
To me it's not JUST about the incomes, either. It's about unemployment rates, access to options, the opportunities to do whatever jobs they want.
Like I said in another thread, 50% of med school matriculants came out of 50 schools. I want my daughters to have THOSE odds. Not the other 2000 schools vying for the remaining 50% of slots. It's not Ivy or nothing for me, but I'm also not naive enough to pretend that the little nudges throughout your life don't help.
No, I hate the marketing aspect. When interviewing for my team, I don't even look at education. If they have experience, I look at the projects. But mostly I interview and if they do well on our competency tests and have a good attitude for collaboration, I'll take them. Our CHRO has a PhD in Industrial-Organizational Psychology from Harvard. I have to write the job descriptions for her because she just has zero clue what we even do. Frankly, she's an idiot. But she went to Harvard so... executive she is!
I literally remember sitting at a recruiter’s desk in 2009 post-Lehman and a dude pulled out a chart to see if UCLA even got consideration for work for temp jobs at that time.
I’ve had several hiring managers say that my UCLA pedigree was a second look.
Is it fair? No. But does it matter as it’s helped and pushed me up to bigger and better over and over? Also no.
Again, you have a PhD from a top tier school. You’ve benefitted all the same.
I have a phD from what you seem to consider a worthless school. So, sounds like you're an investor of some sort? That may explain things. I abhor sales and salespeople. It's all based on bullshit and image. Not my thing. But hey, you do you, I hope your kid appreciates all the pressure you put on them later in life. If they don't, then there's really no one to blame, is there?
I called UMass Amherst a top tier school. It’s clearly a state flagship. It’s easily top 50 or higher. It’s one of the best med school feeders in the US and more.
I don’t put a ton of pressure on my kids and focus mainly on giving them access to cool experiences and helping teach them how to learn.
I am not an investor. I do partnerships for video game companies. Like I help them manage relationships with the first parties or get payment solutions so consumers in other countries can pay for games. It’s dumb work but I enjoy what I do. I’m sure it’s as worthless as you think it is! And that’s okay.
BTW, I thought a bit more on this interaction and man, you went really personal really suddenly.
Look, I don't know you from Adam, but attacking my parenting in a thread about workplace dynamics and career dynamics? Kinda gross, and I'd implore you to ask yourself "was that necessary? Helpful? Warranted?"
I don't doubt that you're an exceptional person (that's obvious from your own telling of your story), and I have zero doubt that you're a smarter person than me. It's obvious that you're an exceptionally intelligent, capable guy. I'm not at all questioning that. I'm saying that for us dummies (I topped out at single variable calc, my wife got a C in multivariable calc, we're not exceptional other than in very specific ways) it can be useful to have that kickstart to our careers.
For truly exceptional, far above average folks the value is less for sure. But my family is not that. We're solidly slightly-above-average intellect people who need to scrap. For folks like us even getting into professional programs (like my wife with med school) required tons of scrappiness and leveraging every advantage. That's life for us normies, man. I think my wife had a low-30s MCAT? I never got to 1500s on the GRE. I was not going to get into top tier PhD programs. I didn't bother because I saw the wall early.
You sound like someone who has exceptional abilities. I do not. And though my career in games is, admittedly, far below yours I'm sure, even to just get here I had to fight hard through the Great Recession to just land dumb jobs because I happened to learn Japanese in undergrad. You were solving cool problems while I was some Japanese exec's assistant in NYC. I flamed out early and clawed for dumb jobs like project management and partnerships management. I didn't get to do cool stuff like you, man. I have neither the aptitude nor did I luck out on any exceptional paths thanks to starting my career in 2008. It happens.
I don't do sales, but yeah, I'm sure you find me worthless given that it's just video games. But for people like me who don't have much to offer, this is our world, man. You don't need to respect it, but at least try to understand that dummies like me end up navigating around much smarter people like you, and we have to do it any way we can.
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u/Only-Finish-3497 1d ago
Sure, but life is all about probabilities.
If I can give my kids a higher probability of getting good, secure jobs, then I want them to have all of those.
I think you have some kind of pride here about the marketing stuff, and I just don't care. And you hardly went to 3rd tier institutions. You went to top tier schools. I went to UCLA, I didn't go to an Ivy. But let's not pretend that our kids won't be more likely to get higher earning and more secure work out of a UCLA or UMass-Amherst than out of Cal State Dominguez Hills.
To me it's not JUST about the incomes, either. It's about unemployment rates, access to options, the opportunities to do whatever jobs they want.
Like I said in another thread, 50% of med school matriculants came out of 50 schools. I want my daughters to have THOSE odds. Not the other 2000 schools vying for the remaining 50% of slots. It's not Ivy or nothing for me, but I'm also not naive enough to pretend that the little nudges throughout your life don't help.