Is it any wonder shops are closing down...

OhLook wrote in post #17290629
What if you have no interest in business and no talent for it? You might flunk out. If not, you'll certainly have to take jobs that bore you. If I'd had to major in business, I think I'd have decided to skip college entirely. I studied what I liked and then made do with the income I earned. Living frugally was no problem; I felt virtuous about it. I'd been raised that way, as my parents had been poor during the Depression and retained some of their habits. Save instead of spending, eat the leftovers, mend your socks, turn off the lights when you're not looking at anything. In general: live within your means.

There's nothing wrong with a modest lifestyle. It has a long and respectable history for artists and intellectuals. Middle-class expectations have swollen to include luxuries like new (and excessively large) cars and cable TV and electronic gadgets. One size of budget does not fit all. Let's not advise all kids to do the same thing--or, worse, force kids to do it--while ignoring who they are. Young single people can get by well enough without big salaries. Later, if supporting a family becomes important to them, they can reevaluate the options available at that time. Those options will surely differ from the ones available now. The job market is always changing.

Well, and you hit the nail on the head - there's a choice involved.

I have a big problem with people who go into "fartsy" degrees and then are all bent out of shape because it relegates them to the lifetime of poverty or working jobs they hate, and just like the girl in the photo above, think that some mysterious 1% stole their God given right for a comfy lifestyle. Yes, the bankers took the middle class to the cleaners and got away with it, but that girl had very little chance to be middle class AND be employed in her chosen field under any circumstances.

I've been raised in a very comfortable environment and went through a rather scary economic spell in my mid-20s. I know what the poverty means, and first of all it means that you work a menial job which has nothing to do with what you wanted to become, and often takes up so much of your time that you really can't be doing what it is you want to be doing. Hard to be a struggling artist when you must work 40-60 hrs a week between 2 jobs just to have a roof over your head and some food. The struggling part will be just fine, it's the artist part that is iffy.

And good luck "re-evaluating" your options when you are 40 with no marketable degree or skill and with a family to support, competing for entry level positions with young, energetic, better educated, far more flexible kids. You need to provide for your family, you don't have funds to go to college and get a different degree, and most employers see you as a bottom of the pile choice. By that time, for most, the ship had sailed. Unless you have a wealthy family that can support you, or are particularly good at business, or are very lucky, or have iron will and superhuman endurance and can work full time and go to school / learn a trade afterwards while at the same time taking care of the family - for years, this is it. Whatever choices you make in the few years starting with senior high school will define your life.

Amamba wrote in post #17292069
And good luck "re-evaluating" your options when you are 40 with no marketable degree or skill and with a family to support, competing for entry level positions with young, energetic, better educated, far more flexible kids. You need to provide for your family, you don't have funds to go to college and get a different degree, and most employers see you as a bottom of the pile choice.

Did you think I recommended having children before figuring out how to support them?

Amamba wrote in post #17292069
Well, and you hit the nail on the head - there's a choice involved.

I have a big problem with people who go into "fartsy" degrees and then are all bent out of shape because it relegates them to the lifetime of poverty or working jobs they hate, and just like the girl in the photo above, think that some mysterious 1% stole their God given right for a comfy lifestyle. Yes, the bankers took the middle class to the cleaners and got away with it, but that girl had very little chance to be middle class AND be employed in her chosen field under any circumstances.

I've been raised in a very comfortable environment and went through a rather scary economic spell in my mid-20s. I know what the poverty means, and first of all it means that you work a menial job which has nothing to do with what you wanted to become, and often takes up so much of your time that you really can't be doing what it is you want to be doing. Hard to be a struggling artist when you must work 40-60 hrs a week between 2 jobs just to have a roof over your head and some food. The struggling part will be just fine, it's the artist part that is iffy.

And good luck "re-evaluating" your options when you are 40 with no marketable degree or skill and with a family to support, competing for entry level positions with young, energetic, better educated, far more flexible kids. You need to provide for your family, you don't have funds to go to college and get a different degree, and most employers see you as a bottom of the pile choice. By that time, for most, the ship had sailed. Unless you have a wealthy family that can support you, or are particularly good at business, or are very lucky, or have iron will and superhuman endurance and can work full time and go to school / learn a trade afterwards while at the same time taking care of the family - for years, this is it. Whatever choices you make in the few years starting with senior high school will define your life.

Gee mister, you seem swell...

elrey2375 wrote in post #17292492
Gee mister, you seem swell...

Just being realistic.

For every person who's managed to turn their life around at 40 starting from the gutters there's 99 who didn't.

I know far too many people who spent 12-15 years after school trying to figure out what is it they like in life, just to wake up stuck making $15 / hour & going nowhere. Time likes to play tricks on you - there's still plenty of it one day and then none the next morning.

OhLook wrote in post #17292281
Did you think I recommended having children before figuring out how to support them?

So people who can't be bothered to plan for the future - or think that having an income is secondary to doing what they love to do - are all of a sudden going to change once they are ready to start a family ? No, the majority will have kids first and then think how to feed them. Besides, the biological clock runs out fast - any woman who has kids after certain age is risking major complications to their health. No time to wait another 5-10 years it takes to get a degree / trade and start making enough money.

Amamba wrote in post #17292522
So people who can't be bothered to plan for the future - or think that having an income is secondary to doing what they love to do - are all of a sudden going to change once they are ready to start a family ?

I didn't say that. I didn't say anything like that. I'm not responsible for any such distorted versions of what I say.

Today, after seeing my doctor, I had blood drawn for tests. With this thread in mind, I asked the venipuncturist whether training for her work had taken a long time. I was thinking that what she does would qualify as learning a trade, the kind of skill you've been talking about. There's always a demand for lab work in health care, so the work is steady. It doesn't require an expensive education that parents will balk at funding. Maybe this is the kind of thing you want your children to be able to fall back on. She said the training didn't take long, but finding a job did. Her first job was awful. She worked in a rest home where patients with dementia kicked and screamed when she took blood samples. The nurses could have helped her but didn't. It seems to me, then, that training for something practical, as opposed to studying something frivolous, doesn't necessarily make a person secure and financially independent.

OhLook wrote in post #17293445
I didn't say that. I didn't say anything like that. I'm not responsible for any such distorted versions of what I say.

Today, after seeing my doctor, I had blood drawn for tests. With this thread in mind, I asked the venipuncturist whether training for her work had taken a long time. I was thinking that what she does would qualify as learning a trade, the kind of skill you've been talking about. There's always a demand for lab work in health care, so the work is steady. It doesn't require an expensive education that parents will balk at funding. Maybe this is the kind of thing you want your children to be able to fall back on. She said the training didn't take long, but finding a job did. Her first job was awful. She worked in a rest home where patients with dementia kicked and screamed when she took blood samples. The nurses could have helped her but didn't. It seems to me, then, that training for something practical, as opposed to studying something frivolous, doesn't necessarily make a person secure and financially independent.

Sorry - don't want to be rude but that's a ridiculous example that only proves my point.
She spent what, a whole 4 months training for it ? If that ? It's not even an associate degree, it's a support tech - all she needs is a high school diploma and some very basic training. And she's still better off than having no skill at all, just for the heck of it I looked it up and it seems the average salary is about $37K - about $18 per hour, beats flipping burghers at McDonalds for less than half the pay, or working retail.

She could've got Radiology training, 2 years Associate degree, about $55-60k after earning some seniority (that's in Midwest, I assume over there in the Land of Fruits and Nuts the salaries are higher due to the higher cost of living). That won't make you rich but it's a living wage with some butter on your bread. And then the nurses (who, depending on the level of training, range from Associate through Masters, with corresponding salaries) wouldn't act as snooty. I guess she never stops to help the janitor either ?

As to my children, I expect them to go to college, and, provided we stay healthy and employed, we will pay for their education - at least the Bachelor's - and strongly encourage them to get into Master's. But only if they select degrees that will help them achieve financial security.

She didn't say the training was four months, more than four months, or less than that. We didn't discuss the janitor. I guess it's easy to fill information gaps with whatever insinuations you please.

Amamba wrote in post #17293530
Sorry - don't want to be rude but that's a ridiculous example that only proves my point.
She spent what, a whole 4 months training for it ? If that ? It's not even an associate degree, it's a support tech - all she needs is a high school diploma and some very basic training. And she's still better off than having no skill at all, just for the heck of it I looked it up and it seems the average salary is about $37K - about $18 per hour, beats flipping burghers at McDonalds for less than half the pay, or working retail.

She could've got Radiology training, 2 years Associate degree, about $55-60k after earning some seniority (that's in Midwest, I assume over there in the Land of Fruits and Nuts the salaries are higher due to the higher cost of living). That won't make you rich but it's a living wage with some butter on your bread. And then the nurses (who, depending on the level of training, range from Associate through Masters, with corresponding salaries) wouldn't act as snooty. I guess she never stops to help the janitor either ?

As to my children, I expect them to go to college, and, provided we stay healthy and employed, we will pay for their education - at least the Bachelor's - and strongly encourage them to get into Master's. But only if they select degrees that will help them achieve financial security.

...you have a completely unrealistic view on how the working poor live their lives: and you are taking a ridiculously complex topic and using a few cherry picked anecdotes that reflect your worldview to make your point. And that point really isn't relevant to photography at all.

OhLook wrote in post #17293539
She didn't say the training was four months, more than four months, or less than that. We didn't discuss the janitor. I guess it's easy to fill information gaps with whatever insinuations you please.

It's easy to look it up, actually. The training package that includes ventricology certification (it appears there was more in this particular program) was listed at 15 weeks. That's under 4 months. The average salary is also easy to find.

banquetbear wrote in post #17293550
...you have a completely unrealistic view on how the working poor live their lives: and you are taking a ridiculously complex topic and using a few cherry picked anecdotes that reflect your worldview to make your point. And that point really isn't relevant to photography at all.

The whole discussion was about people who can afford to go to college but chose to pursue art instead. Not about people from poor background for whom going to college may be more difficult. Although even there, the problem is not as much with getting education (which is more accessible than some people seem to think, I know several people who went to the local community college and then transferred for the final two years to the major university, ended up paying less than half of what it would typically cost) but with having the school prepare you for being able to go to college. Access to good schools tends to correlate with income, since the school quality is one of the major drivers of real estate prices, at least here.

Amamba wrote in post #17293565
The whole discussion was about people who can afford to go to college but chose to pursue art instead. Not about people from poor background for whom going to college may be more difficult. Although even there, the problem is not as much with getting education (which is more accessible than some people seem to think, I know several people who went to the local community college and then transferred for the final two years to the major university, ended up paying less than half of what it would typically cost) but with having the school prepare you for being able to go to college. Access to good schools tends to correlate with income, since the school quality is one of the major drivers of real estate prices, at least here.

...the discussion was actually about how camera shop assistants don't know much about cameras. How many camera shop assistants are pursuing art? Got any stats? If you haven't, then I really can't see how this diversion is relevant to either this thread or photography.

Amamba wrote in post #17293565
It's easy to look it up, actually. The training package that includes ventricology certification (it appears there was more in this particular program) was listed at 15 weeks. That's under 4 months. The average salary is also easy to find.

So the training program is exactly the same in Fruits and Nuts Land as in Flyover Country? How do you know this? And where exactly did you look up a transcript of our imaginary conversation about her refusal to help the janitor?

Something's wrong here, and not only because janitors at such facilities typically come in after hours, when the staff is gone. You ignore the good points that other people make and instead press forward with promoting your view of the one and only right way to conduct one's work life, while slamming people who choose to take a different path or have to take a different path. If you're as snide with your offspring as you are on this forum, you're holding back their emotional maturation.

That's a serious misstatement. Part of the discussion was about people who want to study art in college but are forced to study something else, or else skip college entirely, because a parent insists on making their decisions for them and they don't have money of their own.

OhLook wrote in post #17294164
So the training program is exactly the same in Fruits and Nuts Land as in Flyover Country? How do you know this? And where exactly did you look up a transcript of our imaginary conversation about her refusal to help the janitor?

Something's wrong here, and not only because janitors at such facilities typically come in after hours, when the staff is gone. You ignore the good points that other people make and instead press forward with promoting your view of the one and only right way to conduct one's work life, while slamming people who choose to take a different path or have to take a different path. If you're as snide with your offspring as you are on this forum, you're holding back their emotional maturation.

That's a serious misstatement. Part of the discussion was about people who want to study art in college but are forced to study something else, or else skip college entirely, because a parent insists on making their decisions for them and they don't have money of their own.

You think a parent should be FORCED to pay for college?

When a child turns 18, he/she is legally an adult (in the U.S.). I think an adult should be able to decide if he/she wants to go to college or not. Once an adult has made that decision, he/she must live with it.

I also think that if he/she has chosen to go to college, he/she should be able to make his/her own decision as to what he/she wants to study in college. Again, if he/she makes a bad choice, he/she must live with it. It's his/her problem. It should not be societies problem.

As for parents, if parents have the money to help their child to attend college, well and good. But that is their choice. It is not an obligation. After all, the parents are adults and they may spend their money as they wish.

Now, a parent may choose not to help their child to attend college for any number of reasons, not the least of which is the child wishes to major in a subject of which the parents disapprove. That is the child's choice and right, and the refusal to provide support is the parents' choice and right.

So, if you wish to earn that Masters in Sumerian Linguistics, go right ahead. That is your choice and your right. Nobody's stopping you.

If your parents do not wish to pay for you studies because they see no future in them, that is their choice and their right. You must simply find an alternative means of financing your studies.

If, when you finally get that Masters, you find that nobody wants to hire you because Sumerian Linguistics is simply not relevant to their business, that is your problem, and you must learn to live with it. And if you are burdened with $50,000 in student loans, you must learn to live with that, too.

As a very old book says, you reap what you sow. So, go ahead and get that Masters in Sumerian Linguists, or other equally worthless subject. McDonald's is always looking for counter personnel.

And when you've finally mastered McDonald's (about a year, average), you may be able to move up to Best Buy.

Willie wrote in post #17294212
You think a parent should be FORCED to pay for college?

No, and I don't think a parent CAN be forced to. I also don't think all parents necessarily know what will be best for their children later on. There's no cut-and-dried formula that applies in all families and in all economies. Many people make a living at work that others deem artsy-fartsy. I could mention a highly relevant example here if someone's privacy weren't a concern.

Parents don't have to pay for college if they don't like a child's choices, but they should know that they may be causing a lifetime of regret and bitterness because "the teachers encouraged me to become a professional musician, but I'm wasting my best skills in this mind-deadening job with the IRS because the old man disagreed." They might also think about the consequences for family relationships if they support one child through college but not that child's sibling. When a parent and child approach an impasse about what the child is to do after high school, I'd say a meeting with a school counselor is in order.

I think parents should, at a minimum, cooperate with institutions that award scholarships. I couldn't get one because my mother wouldn't fill out the form.

OhLook wrote in post #17294164
So the training program is exactly the same in Fruits and Nuts Land as in Flyover Country? How do you know this? And where exactly did you look up a transcript of our imaginary conversation about her refusal to help the janitor?

Something's wrong here, and not only because janitors at such facilities typically come in after hours, when the staff is gone. You ignore the good points that other people make and instead press forward with promoting your view of the one and only right way to conduct one's work life, while slamming people who choose to take a different path or have to take a different path. If you're as snide with your offspring as you are on this forum, you're holding back their emotional maturation.

That's a serious misstatement. Part of the discussion was about people who want to study art in college but are forced to study something else, or else skip college entirely, because a parent insists on making their decisions for them and they don't have money of their own.

Are you taking everything that literally ?

She's complained that nurses wouldn't help her (a lab technician) do her job.

A nurse will spend 2 years getting her Associate degree. A Registered Nurse is a 4 year college degree. There are also Masters' degrees in Nursing. Each subsequent degree carries different responsibilities and different pay levels. They are usually overworked. None of them will typically spend their spare time (which they don't have) doing a low level job that requires whopping 4 months of training if there's someone being paid to do this.

I am asking if she would help a janitor. Substitute this for something else, lower order than a blood tech.

As to CA requirements, the "Nurse Assistant" program in a CA college (which includes blood taking if you dig into requirements) is exactly 4 months long. Google is your friend.

http://www.cryrop.org …stant%20-%20Certified.pdf''

So if that girl can't, for whatever reason, spend more than 4 months of her life getting a profession, she shouldn't be complaining that this profession sucks. She's still better off than at McDonalds.

I worked overtime & took Master's level engineering classes at night at a college 45 miles away from my job. Think of leaving house just after 6am and not coming home until midnight 3 times a week, then working on your assignments the other evenings (I hope you love high order differential equations), for 4 years (had to skip a few semesters because of a crazy work schedule). A lot of people I worked with did the same thing - working 55 (minimum required) hours a week, paying their way through college while gaining experience. I understand that the people who went to crappy schools or didn't have parents' pushing them to learn are screwed up from the start. But I have zero compassion for people who did get a decent school education but then complain that it was "impossible" for them to get a college degree. I know a few. You don't have to go to the top school full time paying $50K a year to get a degree - there are choices.

OhLook wrote in post #17294419
No, and I don't think a parent CAN be forced to. I also don't think all parents necessarily know what will be best for their children later on. There's no cut-and-dried formula that applies in all families and in all economies. Many people make a living at work that others deem artsy-fartsy. I could mention a highly relevant example here if someone's privacy weren't a concern.

Parents don't have to pay for college if they don't like a child's choices, but they should know that they may be causing a lifetime of regret and bitterness because "the teachers encouraged me to become a professional musician, but I'm wasting my best skills in this mind-deadening job with the IRS because the old man disagreed." They might also think about the consequences for family relationships if they support one child through college but not that child's sibling. When a parent and child approach an impasse about what the child is to do after high school, I'd say a meeting with a school counselor is in order.

I think parents should, at a minimum, cooperate with institutions that award scholarships. I couldn't get one because my mother wouldn't fill out the form.

As a parent, it is my responsibility to try my best to prevent my children from making decisions which could have life long negative consequences. Yes, what the consequences could be is my opinion, based on the data available to me, but that's the best tool I have. I am not a micro manager and I am fine with them making mistakes but not when these mistakes could be life defining, and not in a good way.

It's great if you can make a decent living in arts. You should be really proud, since you beat some serious odds. Most "professional artists" I know are either working other jobs, or have someone supporting them financially.

Anyway, this discussion is now going in circles. Let's agree to disagree.