Go to grad school without really looking at all my options. I’m okay with the degree that I have, but a different one would have worked out better for me and the opportunity cost was huge.
Why was this thread not started a year ago?!
Great thread so far. Am I allowed to disagree, or at least state contradictory experience?
I went to college and was extremely unmotivated. I think that each of the first six semesters I went through a period where I was ready to drop out, but didn’t do it. Somehow it all came together, I figured out what I wanted to do, loved my senior year, went on to professional school and my career has gone very well.
YMMV of course.
To go along with this. Take whatever the so called “experts” say about trends in the economy with three large grains of salt.
Early this year all of the experts said that mortgage rates would be climbing soon, no way they could go lower so it would be a good idea to refinance now.
Fuck you.
Ha! Don’t major in English. Cue Avenue Q.
Graduate school in the humanities. Or, get an MA if you must to please yourself, but no doctorate. Not a statistically good move.
Don’t live in a clueless bubble while in undergrad/grad school. You’re there to learn about your field, which not only means the thereotical stuff, but also practical skills that will be marketable once you graduate. For instance, afraid of stats? Well, don’t think you can just get a “stats for dummies” book and be set. Actually take a class in it. Learn SAS or another computer language (like R). Get hooked up on a job board and actually look at what skills employees are looking for. Then learn them. Don’t think you can put stuff down on your resume that you don’t know how to do and that you’ll be able to “pick it up” once you get the job. That’s a set up for embarrassment during the interview and possible termination if you get the job and your lie is revealed. Learning job-pertinent skills in school is so much easier than afterwards, when you have no money or access to a university computer lab.
Invest in a mutual fund
Invest in an IRA
Invest in a 401K (unless your employer is matching contributions)
Invest in real estate (with any expectation of not losing money… I totally understand the desire to own your home)
Of course, since I’ve done those things over the last ten years, my opinion may be biased. Let me re-word and sum up:
Buy any service that you didn’t know you needed until the person selling it told you that you did.
Also, when you’re a student, don’t hang around the professors who hang around with students.
Don’t accept stock options in a startup as something of value… in lieu of something with real, immediate value. Don’t be impressed by people who offer them to you.
Sattua, may I interest you in zombie insurance?
Seriously, you need that peace of mind.
Heh, I misspelled peace as “piece” on first draft
No you di’int!
Amen, brother.
Get engaged at 19.
Get married at 20.
Get married, at any age, because you think that being married, by definition, will be better than being single and dating.
Do:
Be loyal to your spouse or SO.
Be loyal to the rest of your family.
Be loyal to your values.
Do NOT:
Be loyal to your job. If you find something better, dump that job like a red-headed crackwhore sleeping on your couch. Believe me, your job ain’t gonna be loyal to you. Staying in a job because it would have been a bad time for them to lose me is one of only two really big regrets I’ve had over the last ten years.
I’ve sounded this alarm on another message board so often that people there hate me for it, but I wouldn’t recommend going to medical school. At least, not unless you really are totally 100% sure that simply the act of practicing medicine itself, not any financial rewards or personal or social benefits you believe may come with it, is your absolute number one interest and passion in life. And not only that you love practicing medicine, but that you won’t mind spending nearly a decade of your life (medical school + residency) as the low man on the totem pole in an academic medical setting, which is totally different from the family doctor in a neighborhood outpatient office you may be picturing when you envision being a doctor. And you should REALLY be sure of this, not just trying to convince yourself that you’re sure of it because you want to have valid reasons for going to med school even though deep down these imagined financial/personal/social benefits are your primary motivation.
I went to medical school because I thought it was going to make women like me. Now I regret it and don’t like medicine, but am in too much debt to back out.
I’m with you, bro. That almost happened to me, and I absolutely sympathize. I know how confusing it can be making that decision during college and after graduation, and while I don’t consider myself a particularly lucky man, I lucked out by deciding to strike out on my own after graduating instead of go to med school.
Arcite’s right. Medicine is a calling. If you’re not sure you want to be a doctor, you don’t want to be a doctor.
I know four doctors in their personal lives. All of them hate their work. I think they weren’t really prepared for what the long hours and emotional costs add up to.
The NICU doctor is the least happy.
Actually, my dad went into medicine solely for the financial reward, and has been blissfully happy with his career choice. His only regret is that he didn’t take the FRCS qualifying exams in the UK, which would have allowed him to the US 30 years ago and make eight times as much money over that period.
On the other hand, my mother went into medicine as a calling and never much cared for it.
Don’t take an all third class train in the third world, even if it’s another day till another train comes.
Never say the words, “What the hell, I couldn’t feel any worse!”, it will only end badly, I promise.
And don’t believe for a second you can’t be more lost. You can be. I have been. In the woods. Now you know.
On that note, I used to go walking alone in the woods in northern Manitoba, without a cellphone or telling anyone where I was or anything (well, we didn’t really have cellphones then, so I really didn’t take one). I stayed on the path, but if I ever strayed and lost the path, it could have been the last anyone ever saw me.
Some young woman wrote into Ask Marylin and asked, if she absolutely had to go to college but had no inclination to any field whatsoever, what should she choose. Marylin’s response was, “Medicine or Law. If you have an equal chance of hating your job, it’s probably better to hate a job where at least you’re making decent money.” 