For 20-Somethings, Ambition at a Cost(nytimes.com)
nytimes.com
For 20-Somethings, Ambition at a Cost
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/03/fashion/for-20-somethings-ambition-at-a-cost.html?hp&_r=0&pagewanted=all
119 comments
This comment really rubs me the wrong way, probably because I was raised by two foreign parents who had a similar plan for me. From the day I was born, their wish was for me to carry on the torch of physician-ship to the point where I was threatened to be cut off from all their support if I had chosen to pursue a career I was more interested in.
Medicine is great and interesting, but I'd be lying if I said I don't obsessively regret exploring my other interests on a daily basis. I'm now $200k in the hole and trying desperately to incorporate my current medical education with my other self taught skills that I wish I'd gone to school to study. And lately I've been stressed out beyond belief as I need to make the decision whether to fully commit to this career and dedicate another 5 years of my life to grueling medical training that'll yield a comfortable living, or to jump ship after graduation to follow a dream that might very likely leave me broke, and maybe happier. All because my folks had a plan.
Medicine is great and interesting, but I'd be lying if I said I don't obsessively regret exploring my other interests on a daily basis. I'm now $200k in the hole and trying desperately to incorporate my current medical education with my other self taught skills that I wish I'd gone to school to study. And lately I've been stressed out beyond belief as I need to make the decision whether to fully commit to this career and dedicate another 5 years of my life to grueling medical training that'll yield a comfortable living, or to jump ship after graduation to follow a dream that might very likely leave me broke, and maybe happier. All because my folks had a plan.
It greatly bothers me that rayiner's post is showing up as 'dead', presumably because it was either downvoted too much or just flagged too much.
Anyway. So while we're all giving out examples and anecdotes, here's mine: I'm from an Asian family of 5, I was the only one who was given the 'follow your dreams!' advice out of the 5 (there's a long/funny story behind this). I did end up being the only one who went to school for a non-STEM field (literature/music).
Guess who's the only one unemployed out of the 5. Guess who wishes who was forced to stick to a STEM field? If I have children, damn right I'll force them toward STEM field, enroll them to a school with reputable robotics programs, expose them to folks who're in engineering/medical fields, etc.
Do read qzxt's relevant post: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5308799
And lastly, because the idea of censorship doesn't sit well with me, here is what rayiner posted:
My parents had a plan for me and my brother growing up: I'd be an engineer and he'd be a doctor. At some point when we were old enough, we asserted yourselves, and I went into law and he went into banking. But in retrospect I'm glad my parents didn't just tell me "follow your dreams!" If it were up to me as a teenager, I'd just sit around all day masturbating and eating Cheetos. Kids need more direction than that.
Here is the thing about kids: they're not very smart. And they don't know it. My infant is convinced that if she sucks hard enough on my arm milk will come out. At 17 I was no less misguided just about different things.
You can always quit your professional job that puts food on the table to follow a more capricious path. But when your teenage dreams collapse against the hard ground of reality, you can't usually do the opposite.
Anyway. So while we're all giving out examples and anecdotes, here's mine: I'm from an Asian family of 5, I was the only one who was given the 'follow your dreams!' advice out of the 5 (there's a long/funny story behind this). I did end up being the only one who went to school for a non-STEM field (literature/music).
Guess who's the only one unemployed out of the 5. Guess who wishes who was forced to stick to a STEM field? If I have children, damn right I'll force them toward STEM field, enroll them to a school with reputable robotics programs, expose them to folks who're in engineering/medical fields, etc.
Do read qzxt's relevant post: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5308799
And lastly, because the idea of censorship doesn't sit well with me, here is what rayiner posted:
My parents had a plan for me and my brother growing up: I'd be an engineer and he'd be a doctor. At some point when we were old enough, we asserted yourselves, and I went into law and he went into banking. But in retrospect I'm glad my parents didn't just tell me "follow your dreams!" If it were up to me as a teenager, I'd just sit around all day masturbating and eating Cheetos. Kids need more direction than that.
Here is the thing about kids: they're not very smart. And they don't know it. My infant is convinced that if she sucks hard enough on my arm milk will come out. At 17 I was no less misguided just about different things.
You can always quit your professional job that puts food on the table to follow a more capricious path. But when your teenage dreams collapse against the hard ground of reality, you can't usually do the opposite.
Couldn't that have been easily avoided with "Follow your dreams, but here's what you're likely to get paid with each of your career choices..." advice?
My sister and I are both good little half-Asians. My (white) mom eventually won the childrearing battle, so we were raised under the "Follow your dreams, we just want you to be happy" advice. Guess what? We both ended up in high-paying STEM careers anyway. Why? Because we both liked science anyway, and we were aware of (but not beholden to) average career salaries for the various fields we were looking at.
Now, there were a lot of times this could have gone otherwise. My sister almost double-majored in anthropology; I almost majored in philosophy or sociology. Oh, and I almost dropped/flunked out of college twice. But we didn't, because we had this background knowledge of what the real world was like and were somehow able to make smart decisions anyway.
There seems to be this assumption in this thread that teenagers are stupid. I reject that - I certainly wasn't stupid as a teenager. Of my teenage friends that were stupid, it was usually because their parents were stupid, and so the parents wouldn't be able to make better decisions than them anyway. Rather, teenagers are ignorant - they lack life experience, so they often don't have the full picture. The cure for that is to provide all the relevant information and then let your kid make their decision, it's not to make the decision for them.
My sister and I are both good little half-Asians. My (white) mom eventually won the childrearing battle, so we were raised under the "Follow your dreams, we just want you to be happy" advice. Guess what? We both ended up in high-paying STEM careers anyway. Why? Because we both liked science anyway, and we were aware of (but not beholden to) average career salaries for the various fields we were looking at.
Now, there were a lot of times this could have gone otherwise. My sister almost double-majored in anthropology; I almost majored in philosophy or sociology. Oh, and I almost dropped/flunked out of college twice. But we didn't, because we had this background knowledge of what the real world was like and were somehow able to make smart decisions anyway.
There seems to be this assumption in this thread that teenagers are stupid. I reject that - I certainly wasn't stupid as a teenager. Of my teenage friends that were stupid, it was usually because their parents were stupid, and so the parents wouldn't be able to make better decisions than them anyway. Rather, teenagers are ignorant - they lack life experience, so they often don't have the full picture. The cure for that is to provide all the relevant information and then let your kid make their decision, it's not to make the decision for them.
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I think a lot of Asian parents in particular have good intentions in this regard but don't understand the realities of a career in medicine. The hours in medicine are brutal, the pay is much less than most people believe, and virtually everyone goes massively into debt to finance their medical educations. Going into engineering or computer programing is a much surer route to financial success.
Still, these parents' hearts are in the right place. "Follow your bliss" is a great plan when you don't have to pay for it. A more responsible plan, if you don't want a profession like medicine or law, is "Develop a useful trade for income and pursue your passions on the side." If your trade involves things like computers, sales, or marketing, it can often contribute to success in your passion projects as well.
Still, these parents' hearts are in the right place. "Follow your bliss" is a great plan when you don't have to pay for it. A more responsible plan, if you don't want a profession like medicine or law, is "Develop a useful trade for income and pursue your passions on the side." If your trade involves things like computers, sales, or marketing, it can often contribute to success in your passion projects as well.
> Going into engineering or computer programing is a much surer route to financial success.
It wasn't 12 years ago...
It wasn't 12 years ago...
Just curious, are you $200K in debt from going to both public undergrad and public med schools?
In general, many people complain of high med school debt, but if one looks closely the reason is that they choose private over public and not with their choice to go into medicine per se.
In general, many people complain of high med school debt, but if one looks closely the reason is that they choose private over public and not with their choice to go into medicine per se.
"Just curious, are you $200K in debt "
My wife (is younger than I am) graduated within the last 8 years from PUBLIC medical school and has roughly 200k in debt when we got married although I'm not certain what that debt is from or how much was already paid off etc.
My wife (is younger than I am) graduated within the last 8 years from PUBLIC medical school and has roughly 200k in debt when we got married although I'm not certain what that debt is from or how much was already paid off etc.
I had asked about both PUBLIC UNDERGRAD and PUBLIC MEDICAL SCHOOL.
State University of New York Undergrad including all expenses is about $22K per year (just checked) or about $90K
The NY State Med School Tuition is about $30K per year or $120K + living expenses.
So for around $250K one can get both Undergrad and Medical Education.
A number of people graduating from medical school have large debt precisely because they do not choose to go to both public undergrad AND public medical school.
4 years undergrad private school can be about $250 K for tuition and living costs. Thus, by choosing to attend public undergrad and medical school can cost the same as private undergrad alone.
State University of New York Undergrad including all expenses is about $22K per year (just checked) or about $90K
The NY State Med School Tuition is about $30K per year or $120K + living expenses.
So for around $250K one can get both Undergrad and Medical Education.
A number of people graduating from medical school have large debt precisely because they do not choose to go to both public undergrad AND public medical school.
4 years undergrad private school can be about $250 K for tuition and living costs. Thus, by choosing to attend public undergrad and medical school can cost the same as private undergrad alone.
He did say "200k in debt when we got married," which suggests to me at least that he is talking about all of her debt, from undergrad and medical school.
Still, $250k is a shitload of debt. Putting back a solid $2k/month towards the principal (not even counting interest here) would still take a little over ten years to pay it off.
Still, $250k is a shitload of debt. Putting back a solid $2k/month towards the principal (not even counting interest here) would still take a little over ten years to pay it off.
"The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do."
Hey, I can conjure up random pithy quotes too:
"The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, usually fail to do so."
"The people who don't think they can change the world, sometimes do anyway."
No idea how any of this is relevant to the OP.
"The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, usually fail to do so."
"The people who don't think they can change the world, sometimes do anyway."
No idea how any of this is relevant to the OP.
...in Walt Disney movies.
Generally true but definitely survivorship bias
Med school is probably all right. Of course robotics and advancements in AI are going to take away some of these jobs (personally I'd prefer IBM Watson to look at my genetic data and results of the blood tests, rather than some human doctor), but there would certainly be some jobs in medicine.
Betting against AI has been a winning play since the history of AI. AI isn't any closer to replacing a human doctor today than it was in the 1980's. Maybe some day, but we're talking fundamental breakthroughs in the field, not incremental advances from existing techniques.
True, but look at the timeline for your daughter. Assuming she was recently born, and, given that few from a school like Penn would want to be a rural family physician, assuming she's going into an elite specialty (cardiology, neurology, oncology, etc), she's THREE DECADES away from getting started in her line of work. And that's a generous projection. More likely, she'll need to be hyperspecialized, an expert in some obscure niche area like cancers of the eye, in which case she would need more and more education, and I doubt Google's engineers are going to just chill out and wait for her.
Not trying to be a downer here. I'd rather the world have more aspiring doctors than talent agents, but let's also respect the march of progress, and acknowledge the cruel fate of all that stands in its way.
Not trying to be a downer here. I'd rather the world have more aspiring doctors than talent agents, but let's also respect the march of progress, and acknowledge the cruel fate of all that stands in its way.
I understand the point your making, and I don't disagree with you, but let's say I'm skeptical of Google's ability to do anything other than help my find my porn more easily. AI has just been such a miserable failure for decades. Indeed, Google's big advancement came from incorporating human intelligence (encoding in the graph of links between pages) into the search process! I'm not saying it's not going to happen, but rather that it's like manned missions to mars. Always just 20 years away...
As an aside, being a rural doctor is amazing. They're in very short supply, and therefore the salaries are correspondingly quite high.
As an aside, being a rural doctor is amazing. They're in very short supply, and therefore the salaries are correspondingly quite high.
"since the history of AI" <-- lol. This could be said about any recent technology with a short history.... electronics in your pocket, for example
AI peaked and declined when most people here were small children.
It doesn't seem like you know very much about modern AI work. Watson was on Jeopardy two years ago.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strong_AI
Watson is not AI. It can't reason. It's a very big, very fast search engine with access to a ton of documents. It's not based on any theoretical breakthroughs, just the natural advancements in computing power. It's very useful, but something that can't reason isn't going to create the sea-change people think will come out of AI, and Watson doesn't get us any closer to that goal than we were decades ago.
I'll give an example. Google's search engine has been a hugely successful application of certain AI concepts. But it is not AI. It can use the link structure of the web to help you find documents, but it could not, for example, recreate the link structure between a set of documents.
Watson is not AI. It can't reason. It's a very big, very fast search engine with access to a ton of documents. It's not based on any theoretical breakthroughs, just the natural advancements in computing power. It's very useful, but something that can't reason isn't going to create the sea-change people think will come out of AI, and Watson doesn't get us any closer to that goal than we were decades ago.
I'll give an example. Google's search engine has been a hugely successful application of certain AI concepts. But it is not AI. It can use the link structure of the web to help you find documents, but it could not, for example, recreate the link structure between a set of documents.
Well, you can call it whatever you like. But, I'd certainly prefer google self-driving car to a taxicab with a human driver. And I don't see how is that much different from a robot performing a routine operation by the way. So here goes these surgeon jobs, alongside with the cab drivers.
...no, you wouldn't. It is untested in plenty of environments right now, and being able to drive around Palo Alto guided without killing anyone is nice but not nearly enough.
One day, of course, it'll be amazing and safe. But AI has a history of its promising advances being perpetually pushed to the future.
One day, of course, it'll be amazing and safe. But AI has a history of its promising advances being perpetually pushed to the future.
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I love this comment. This is exactly how parents need to be thinking. Yes, being a doctor is a relatively safe career choice now, but your kid is going to be graduating from college in a decade...
A decade ago, I was posting on web forums looking exactly like HN on a 1.9 GHz P4 laptop. My laptop has gotten smaller since then, and my cell phone faster, but the world doesn't look that different.
A decade ago a consideration that a computer can diagnose a patiant better than doctor was a joke. Now check out this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZsPc0h_mtM
Expert systems of this kind have existed for decades now, and what Watson does could have been done, on a smaller scale commensurate with CPU/memory power of the time, in the 1990's.
It is a question not of system existence, but of performance relative to your average doctor. And once commercially deployed systems would start outperforming your average doctors these high-paying doctor jobs are bound to change somehow.
The answer to that question was a definite no, some 20 years back. And no, some 10 years back. Now, the answer is yes. And in some 20 years it will be resounding yes. Why? First, because medicine gets less and less 'shaman based' and more and more evidence based. Some 20 years back you could't scan a region of your DNA and figure out that you have a particular versions of couple of proteins that wrecking havoc in your particular case. Now you can. Second, there've been improvements in statistical models and natural language processing. To the level that computers can actually outperform humans in these murky areas. An IBM success with Jeopardy is a good example. Combine these two, take into account that computers are less likely to overlook hard evidence (like DNA data, incopatibilities with medications, etc), and you would also want an expert system to look at your health data, diagnose, recommend treatments and monitor the progress.
Either way. I still think that a "med school is probably Ok" could be a good advice to a kid.
The answer to that question was a definite no, some 20 years back. And no, some 10 years back. Now, the answer is yes. And in some 20 years it will be resounding yes. Why? First, because medicine gets less and less 'shaman based' and more and more evidence based. Some 20 years back you could't scan a region of your DNA and figure out that you have a particular versions of couple of proteins that wrecking havoc in your particular case. Now you can. Second, there've been improvements in statistical models and natural language processing. To the level that computers can actually outperform humans in these murky areas. An IBM success with Jeopardy is a good example. Combine these two, take into account that computers are less likely to overlook hard evidence (like DNA data, incopatibilities with medications, etc), and you would also want an expert system to look at your health data, diagnose, recommend treatments and monitor the progress.
Either way. I still think that a "med school is probably Ok" could be a good advice to a kid.
I understand that this is HN and people are optimistic about the potential of technology, but betting against technology changing everything tends to be a winning bet more often than the otherwise.
When I was a kid, I wanted to be an aerospace engineer. I read books in the 80's talking about how we'd have manned Mars missions in 25 years. I actually went to engineering school for aerospace, but by then I had realized humans wouldn't go into space in a real way within my career.
Is it possible that some derivative of Watson is going to replace doctors? Maybe. Or maybe it'll just change what doctors do for a living in the same way auto-pilot changed what pilots do for a living.
My bet is that 20 years from now isn't going to look that dramatically different from 20 years ago, in a fundamental way. I remember 1993 (a year before President Clinton's first term and a year before Amazon was founded) and it wasn't all that different. We made phone calls and sent faxes instead of using e-mails, there was no Twitter, Facebook, or smart phones, but life was pretty similar.
When I was a kid, I wanted to be an aerospace engineer. I read books in the 80's talking about how we'd have manned Mars missions in 25 years. I actually went to engineering school for aerospace, but by then I had realized humans wouldn't go into space in a real way within my career.
Is it possible that some derivative of Watson is going to replace doctors? Maybe. Or maybe it'll just change what doctors do for a living in the same way auto-pilot changed what pilots do for a living.
My bet is that 20 years from now isn't going to look that dramatically different from 20 years ago, in a fundamental way. I remember 1993 (a year before President Clinton's first term and a year before Amazon was founded) and it wasn't all that different. We made phone calls and sent faxes instead of using e-mails, there was no Twitter, Facebook, or smart phones, but life was pretty similar.
Dude, I look at 1993 and compare it to today and am totally amazed at how much life has changed.
In 1993, your circle of friends was pretty much limited to the people in your town. Maybe you had a pen pal, but that was considered to be a rare novelty and took real work to maintain. Now, I have friends all over the world, that I keep up on their day-to-day lives. When an earthquake hit SF in 1989, my reaction was "Oh, that's too bad, I feel bad for anyone who died. I'm sure we'll be talking about this in school today." When an earthquake hit Japan in 2011, my reaction was "Has anyone heard from Jennifer yet? Is she okay? I know she was in Sendai..." And I had friends all over the globe - India, Colombia, DC, Boston, Morocco, LA - asking the same thing.
In 1993, if you were meeting a friend for an event at an unfamiliar place, you called them up beforehand, specified an exact time and place that you would be, wrote down the directions or brought along a road map, and prayed they would be there when they said they would. If you got lost, you had to pull over until you could look at the map and memorize new directions. If you couldn't find each other in the crowd, you were out of luck. If you hit traffic on the way in, you'd hope they didn't think they were being stood up and apologize profusely. Now, your calendar pops open a notification when it's time to leave, taking into account traffic. You hit a button, and your cell phone navigates to the destination, automatically rerouting you if you take a wrong turn. You can't find your friend, you call or text them. You don't know what they look like, you call them and see whose phone rings.
In 1993, if you wanted to start a company, you worked your butt off for a big employer to learn the ropes of your industry. You spread your network as far as it could go. You sought out mentors. You begged for funding. And then you hired lots of people to make your dreams come true, and if your dreams were wrong, they all got laid off a couple years later. Now, you Google [startup]. You read a bunch of blogs. You download lots of open-source software. You build something, you launch it, you post it on Hacker News and a bunch of blogs, and if your dreams were wrong, you've wasted maybe a year of your life.
If your life isn't all that different from 1993, it's more likely because you're still living in the past than because the world is the same as 1993. "The future is here, it's just not evenly distributed yet." For some people, the world is wildly different from what they expected 20 years ago.
In 1993, your circle of friends was pretty much limited to the people in your town. Maybe you had a pen pal, but that was considered to be a rare novelty and took real work to maintain. Now, I have friends all over the world, that I keep up on their day-to-day lives. When an earthquake hit SF in 1989, my reaction was "Oh, that's too bad, I feel bad for anyone who died. I'm sure we'll be talking about this in school today." When an earthquake hit Japan in 2011, my reaction was "Has anyone heard from Jennifer yet? Is she okay? I know she was in Sendai..." And I had friends all over the globe - India, Colombia, DC, Boston, Morocco, LA - asking the same thing.
In 1993, if you were meeting a friend for an event at an unfamiliar place, you called them up beforehand, specified an exact time and place that you would be, wrote down the directions or brought along a road map, and prayed they would be there when they said they would. If you got lost, you had to pull over until you could look at the map and memorize new directions. If you couldn't find each other in the crowd, you were out of luck. If you hit traffic on the way in, you'd hope they didn't think they were being stood up and apologize profusely. Now, your calendar pops open a notification when it's time to leave, taking into account traffic. You hit a button, and your cell phone navigates to the destination, automatically rerouting you if you take a wrong turn. You can't find your friend, you call or text them. You don't know what they look like, you call them and see whose phone rings.
In 1993, if you wanted to start a company, you worked your butt off for a big employer to learn the ropes of your industry. You spread your network as far as it could go. You sought out mentors. You begged for funding. And then you hired lots of people to make your dreams come true, and if your dreams were wrong, they all got laid off a couple years later. Now, you Google [startup]. You read a bunch of blogs. You download lots of open-source software. You build something, you launch it, you post it on Hacker News and a bunch of blogs, and if your dreams were wrong, you've wasted maybe a year of your life.
If your life isn't all that different from 1993, it's more likely because you're still living in the past than because the world is the same as 1993. "The future is here, it's just not evenly distributed yet." For some people, the world is wildly different from what they expected 20 years ago.
"AI are going to take away some of these jobs"
Population aging and people will always abuse their body and create a need for medical care delivered by a human. And as people live to older ages the base individual becomes more likely to need medical care (wish I had a better way to put this) whereas in years past that person would have died at an earlier age and not required any medical care at all.
Population aging and people will always abuse their body and create a need for medical care delivered by a human. And as people live to older ages the base individual becomes more likely to need medical care (wish I had a better way to put this) whereas in years past that person would have died at an earlier age and not required any medical care at all.
Don't we also have a glut of doctors and lawyers? Going to medical or law school is no longer a golden ticket, especially considering the costs involved.
There is a huge shortage of doctors in the U.S. and it getting worse as the need for doctors goes up as the population ages.
There is indeed a glut of JD's and MBA's, but even within that supply and demand plays a role. There is no glut of say Harvard JD's or Wharton MBA's. You can tell, for the price of taking the LSAT or GMAT, what you odds of getting a job after graduation will be. No such assurances in fields like media or advertising, where luck plays a huge role in getting a job and no just pedigree.
There is indeed a glut of JD's and MBA's, but even within that supply and demand plays a role. There is no glut of say Harvard JD's or Wharton MBA's. You can tell, for the price of taking the LSAT or GMAT, what you odds of getting a job after graduation will be. No such assurances in fields like media or advertising, where luck plays a huge role in getting a job and no just pedigree.
There are shortages in areas, but often those are in smaller cities and rural areas. Primary care is probably the least palatable medical position to be in at this time. If you want to go into specialized medicine, there are indeed bigger opportunities, but often bigger time and money investment requirements. Nurses are also taking over some of the responsibilities of classically trained doctors.
Medicine is probably one of the more stressful work environment to be in, often with work/life balance suffering, so while positions may pay well, it may not actually lead to a happy life.
Politics and luck play a part in practically every career field. Having parents who can help support and bankroll you into a high-end medical or law school is lucky in and of itself.
Medicine is probably one of the more stressful work environment to be in, often with work/life balance suffering, so while positions may pay well, it may not actually lead to a happy life.
Politics and luck play a part in practically every career field. Having parents who can help support and bankroll you into a high-end medical or law school is lucky in and of itself.
> There are shortages in areas, but often those are in smaller cities and rural areas.
It's true there is no shortage of doctors wanting to live in Manhattan or San Francisco, but most of the country lives in smaller cities and rural areas. Even parts of Chicago have doctor shortages: http://www.uchospitals.edu/news/2013/20130227-doctor-shortag...
See: http://www.washingtonpolicy.org/publications/notes/looming-d...
It's true there is no shortage of doctors wanting to live in Manhattan or San Francisco, but most of the country lives in smaller cities and rural areas. Even parts of Chicago have doctor shortages: http://www.uchospitals.edu/news/2013/20130227-doctor-shortag...
See: http://www.washingtonpolicy.org/publications/notes/looming-d...
> There is a huge shortage of doctors in the U.S. and it getting worse as the need for doctors goes up as the population ages.
This is true to an extent - the shortage is in primary care, but at the moment there are two issues with the field: the huge costs of medical training in the US and the fact that the cost of healthcare in the US is twice that of the rest of the OECD nations, tendency rising. Something will have to be done, but it's impossible to predict what is going to give.
Combined with the fact that medical training lasts ten years, it is an uncertain proposition.
This is true to an extent - the shortage is in primary care, but at the moment there are two issues with the field: the huge costs of medical training in the US and the fact that the cost of healthcare in the US is twice that of the rest of the OECD nations, tendency rising. Something will have to be done, but it's impossible to predict what is going to give.
Combined with the fact that medical training lasts ten years, it is an uncertain proposition.
Huge glut of lawyers, yes, but not doctors.
Shortages are often in poor areas, rural areas or smaller cities/towns which results in less pay. Shortages can probably also be found in specialized medicine. Nurses are encroaching on more general areas such as primary care, and there has been a definite upswing in the amount of people in nursing schools.
Parents should probably shift from just saying their child is going to be a doctor or a lawyer, and focus on what kind of doctor or lawyer their child is going to be, as that could influence their salary and quality of life many times over.
Parents should probably shift from just saying their child is going to be a doctor or a lawyer, and focus on what kind of doctor or lawyer their child is going to be, as that could influence their salary and quality of life many times over.
What a utilitarian way of looking at things. Maybe the teenager won't be some top-dog talent scout, but you sure can find work in the music industry if that's your thing. Or taking care of sick dogs, teaching infants, whatever floats your boat.
It will make you less than an ideal cog, so you probably won't make as much money as you could in other professions, and you'll probably struggle at first rather than being recruited. You might struggle a great deal, in fact. But if your aim is not riches and you can squeeze to put food on the table, so what?
I hope that consideration was your reason for skipping the lecture on fellatio, and not mere propriety.
It will make you less than an ideal cog, so you probably won't make as much money as you could in other professions, and you'll probably struggle at first rather than being recruited. You might struggle a great deal, in fact. But if your aim is not riches and you can squeeze to put food on the table, so what?
I hope that consideration was your reason for skipping the lecture on fellatio, and not mere propriety.
I think OP's comments about being a good Asian parent are pretty silly, but the kind of wishy-washy "everything works out in the end" reasoning that you use here is exactly what has gotten so many young people stuck in the position described in the NYTimes article. One must to consider the economics of things to plan for the future. You cannot get a liberal arts degree on the hope that things will work out. Well, you can, but then you're going to spend a decade in unpaid internships before you finally suck it up and learn to program.
It seems like snake-oil education is culpable, with folks enrolling in college for nebulous reasons. Young people are having problems because of student debt tied to degrees that aren't doing anything for them. The "everybody should aspire to college" ethos is dying quickly, but not without collateral damage.
I completely agree about useless degrees, but we're talking about 18-year-olds smart enough to get into college. They are responsible for wisely choosing what to study.
Sometimes you just want to be able to pay the bills and have a prayer of not working two jobs.
It's fine to encourage your child to excel. But please don't plan out her life. It's an exercise in futility, not to mention the fact that you usually get the opposite results.
Your delivery is a bit crass, but I think your basic point is good: students need to hear about supply and demand in the job market.
I think they're mostly told "follow your dreams," "do what you love," etc. Those are good messages, too, in a different way, but they need to be given a realistic balance with what skills are marketable.
Personally, I learned that painful lesson by getting a post-college journalism job that paid exactly what my pre-college summer factory job had paid. "Yay for an education," I thought. And that was before the recession. For mostly unrelated reasons, I ended up in programming, but I don't want my kids to have to learn the same lesson for themselves.
I think they're mostly told "follow your dreams," "do what you love," etc. Those are good messages, too, in a different way, but they need to be given a realistic balance with what skills are marketable.
Personally, I learned that painful lesson by getting a post-college journalism job that paid exactly what my pre-college summer factory job had paid. "Yay for an education," I thought. And that was before the recession. For mostly unrelated reasons, I ended up in programming, but I don't want my kids to have to learn the same lesson for themselves.
One issue with my upbringing is that my parents told me to follow my dreams but failed to convey that following my dreams would still require intense dedication and endless hard work. I don't know if this is everyone's experience, but "follow your dreams" can sound a lot like "you can dream and want your way into wonderful things if you want it enough and you dream big enough." When in fact the appropriate lesson is more like "if your dreams are ambitious and in a glamorous profession there's a good chance you will have to work even harder than the med school kids unless you're incredibly lucky and don't count on being incredibly lucky."
I became a professional programmer for mostly pragmatic reasons (though I've always had an interest in programming), but I believe the lessons I learned as a programmer will serve me well when I eventually take another serious shot at arts/entertainment (if you can even call my first attempt serious). A lot of the hard work that goes into arts and entertainment are intentionally kept away from us, in part because it would strip away some of the "magic" and in part because a lot of people don't care how things work. As a younger person I would read books or watch movies and think I could write or direct works like that because I'm clever and entertaining and a good writer. After a few years hacking I know that being clever is worthless without great habits. I believe having that sort of mentality will take you a long way in most fields.
I became a professional programmer for mostly pragmatic reasons (though I've always had an interest in programming), but I believe the lessons I learned as a programmer will serve me well when I eventually take another serious shot at arts/entertainment (if you can even call my first attempt serious). A lot of the hard work that goes into arts and entertainment are intentionally kept away from us, in part because it would strip away some of the "magic" and in part because a lot of people don't care how things work. As a younger person I would read books or watch movies and think I could write or direct works like that because I'm clever and entertaining and a good writer. After a few years hacking I know that being clever is worthless without great habits. I believe having that sort of mentality will take you a long way in most fields.
My advice runs like this: find a trade. Find something that pays. If your parents and your personal net worth is not sufficient to not have to work at all, you really are not doing favors to your future self by getting a degree in something that won't give you a net bonus.
Doing what you love is nice. But let's talk about the reality, which is often, "Doing what you love as you sink into bankruptcy and having to take multiple jobs that exploit you so you can eke out some hours per week doing that hypothetical loved job". I heard a joke lately: a successful musician is one that only has to have a part-time job. (I have known multiple people in this situation).
Let's say you want to marry and have kids, or own a house, or travel to Africa/Asia/etc. How do you accomplish this by paying the student loans every month which eat up your savings? (They aren't wiped out via bankruptcy in the US). Do you defer your life? That's no good. Do you subject your family to poverty to fulfil your dreams? Do you just hope that your family doesn't wind up with a chronic medical condition(s)? In my opinion - and I admit, I'm a STEM person - it's irresponsible to not examine your desires and determine if you can pay the bills with this career at 35-40 years of age, with the usual responsibilities.
I'd rather see more people being plumbers, electricians, etc, and doing their dance, music, etc in the evenings than see yet another art/humanities major working three jobs and wishing their career would get started. I am all for education in the humanities, but it needs to be pushed back into high school more so that everyone gets a liberal (free person) arts education and has the freedom to pursue some 'higher' eduction or not without feeling as if they lost out on learning the 'soft & creative side' of things. At least that's my opinion!
I am truly blessed in that I can do something I moderately enjoy (programming) and get paid relatively well for it. That's a rare position to be in.
Doing what you love is nice. But let's talk about the reality, which is often, "Doing what you love as you sink into bankruptcy and having to take multiple jobs that exploit you so you can eke out some hours per week doing that hypothetical loved job". I heard a joke lately: a successful musician is one that only has to have a part-time job. (I have known multiple people in this situation).
Let's say you want to marry and have kids, or own a house, or travel to Africa/Asia/etc. How do you accomplish this by paying the student loans every month which eat up your savings? (They aren't wiped out via bankruptcy in the US). Do you defer your life? That's no good. Do you subject your family to poverty to fulfil your dreams? Do you just hope that your family doesn't wind up with a chronic medical condition(s)? In my opinion - and I admit, I'm a STEM person - it's irresponsible to not examine your desires and determine if you can pay the bills with this career at 35-40 years of age, with the usual responsibilities.
I'd rather see more people being plumbers, electricians, etc, and doing their dance, music, etc in the evenings than see yet another art/humanities major working three jobs and wishing their career would get started. I am all for education in the humanities, but it needs to be pushed back into high school more so that everyone gets a liberal (free person) arts education and has the freedom to pursue some 'higher' eduction or not without feeling as if they lost out on learning the 'soft & creative side' of things. At least that's my opinion!
I am truly blessed in that I can do something I moderately enjoy (programming) and get paid relatively well for it. That's a rare position to be in.
Interesting what parenthood does to your thinking isn't it?
There is a high probability that at some point you wife will have to choose whether she wants a relationship with her daughter or she wants a daughter physician. I don't know how to characterize it but its especially hard on mothers and daughters in my observations. Of course your daughter could fall in love with the idea of being a doctor and poof, problem solved. Not to worry there is a lot of runway between now and then. Just keep your eyes open.
That said, there has always been an amazing amount of externalization (not sure if that is a thing) with kids who seem to go through the process of picking a future that would translate them into the person they want to be, for reasons that they may or may not accurately perceive. I did a Big Brothers thing in the early 80's with young men trying to find their way. They often aspired to being professional athletes. Some truly loved the game, they thought up strategies, they figured out shots they missed or things they could do better, some were focused on how many hot chicks really would just sleep with you because you were like, famous or something. Clearly, young men in the latter category weren't going to succeed against the guys in the first group.
To summarize my point, passion in a highly contested field, gives you the strength to reach your potential in spite of the setbacks. And when your kids start talking about what they want to be when they grow up, its always good to double check how they arrived at that answer.
Your daughter will have dreams, and passions, and misconceptions. As her parent your goal should be to let her find her passions, see through the misconceptions and realize her dreams. Doing that in the teen years is especially tough.
There is a high probability that at some point you wife will have to choose whether she wants a relationship with her daughter or she wants a daughter physician. I don't know how to characterize it but its especially hard on mothers and daughters in my observations. Of course your daughter could fall in love with the idea of being a doctor and poof, problem solved. Not to worry there is a lot of runway between now and then. Just keep your eyes open.
That said, there has always been an amazing amount of externalization (not sure if that is a thing) with kids who seem to go through the process of picking a future that would translate them into the person they want to be, for reasons that they may or may not accurately perceive. I did a Big Brothers thing in the early 80's with young men trying to find their way. They often aspired to being professional athletes. Some truly loved the game, they thought up strategies, they figured out shots they missed or things they could do better, some were focused on how many hot chicks really would just sleep with you because you were like, famous or something. Clearly, young men in the latter category weren't going to succeed against the guys in the first group.
To summarize my point, passion in a highly contested field, gives you the strength to reach your potential in spite of the setbacks. And when your kids start talking about what they want to be when they grow up, its always good to double check how they arrived at that answer.
Your daughter will have dreams, and passions, and misconceptions. As her parent your goal should be to let her find her passions, see through the misconceptions and realize her dreams. Doing that in the teen years is especially tough.
I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic with that last paragraph, but if you're going to forcefully mold your child like that it will either have the opposite effect or they will go along with your plan and grow up with no ambition and no self-determination. There is a balance between doing what will put food on the table and what their desires are, and if either of the two are out of balance, they will not lead a self-fulfilling life. Your method is essentially telling kids to think inside the box and do what will get you the most money.
And what's the deal with the weird Asian stereotype obsession.
And what's the deal with the weird Asian stereotype obsession.
I see your point, but I think there's a danger in trying to prescribe too specifically. The risk is that you end up saying "hey, this field was in great demand and had great pay when I was your age, go do that!".
Things change, by the time your daughter is of work age there will likely be new field opened up that don't exist today at all and perhaps some that exist now will have disappeared, shrunk or become much less lucrative.
I think there's wisdom to encouraging kids to really think about their choices though in more detail than "this sounds cool!".
A good rule of thumb is to ask "what job would you want to get from studying this, and if that doesn't pan out what is the backup plan?" If the backup plan is "I will teach" then proceed with caution.
Things change, by the time your daughter is of work age there will likely be new field opened up that don't exist today at all and perhaps some that exist now will have disappeared, shrunk or become much less lucrative.
I think there's wisdom to encouraging kids to really think about their choices though in more detail than "this sounds cool!".
A good rule of thumb is to ask "what job would you want to get from studying this, and if that doesn't pan out what is the backup plan?" If the backup plan is "I will teach" then proceed with caution.
tldr; teach kids that they can't have it all; happiness is #1 in importance but money is a VERY close #2.
I'm a young Asian guy with very white-washed parents. Many statements below are generalizations.
Two lessons from my parents: (1) money is very important and (2) you must be excellent in your career (in that order).
Chinese, specifically, are all about wishing wealth onto one another. Although too much focus on wealth accumulation can be a bad thing, it is at least a "good problem". Many of my peers have the intelligence and ambition but villainize the concept of doing something for the money. The article itself implies that these 20somethings are the victims to their wealth-accumulating bosses (who, from the description of it, are entrepreneurs who run very high risk operations). Too many upper-middle children brought up in the early 90s have seen money's ugly side: divorce, Wall-Street, Jim Carrey's Liar Liar etc. These 90s kids are brought up by overworked parents, anti-money tenured teachers and non-profit workers. The media and the occupy movement have made it worse by victimizing these 20somethings encouraging more people to villainize wealth.
It's also important to note that the parents are out of touch with today's job market. Parents of today's 20-somethings feel like it was ONLY their hard work that got them there and consequently that their children are entitled to pursue their dreams. They forget that their generation had unions, pensions, government jobs, low interest rates and most importantly the creation of dual income. Today's 20somethings face those debts, specialized jobs, dying industries, outsourcing and lots of competition.
That being said, I think parenting for the next generation (or even re-educating 20somethings now) it's all about a balance. I don't think you have to push your daughter to be a physician necessarily. Young people just have to understand and appreciate the value of money which means teaching them about taxes, the value of health benefits, financing, leasing and investing. With that in mind, they can find a good solution or at least a compromise.
EXAMPLE USING ABOVE RANT: Daughter wants to be a ballerina. Explain to her that the prima ballerina (#1 dancer) earns less than $140,000 per year and that her career is very short. The expected pay for a ballerina falls short of $10,000/yr. If she wants to do ballet, she can find her another career that has better earning potential and dance as a hobby.
I'm a young Asian guy with very white-washed parents. Many statements below are generalizations.
Two lessons from my parents: (1) money is very important and (2) you must be excellent in your career (in that order).
Chinese, specifically, are all about wishing wealth onto one another. Although too much focus on wealth accumulation can be a bad thing, it is at least a "good problem". Many of my peers have the intelligence and ambition but villainize the concept of doing something for the money. The article itself implies that these 20somethings are the victims to their wealth-accumulating bosses (who, from the description of it, are entrepreneurs who run very high risk operations). Too many upper-middle children brought up in the early 90s have seen money's ugly side: divorce, Wall-Street, Jim Carrey's Liar Liar etc. These 90s kids are brought up by overworked parents, anti-money tenured teachers and non-profit workers. The media and the occupy movement have made it worse by victimizing these 20somethings encouraging more people to villainize wealth.
It's also important to note that the parents are out of touch with today's job market. Parents of today's 20-somethings feel like it was ONLY their hard work that got them there and consequently that their children are entitled to pursue their dreams. They forget that their generation had unions, pensions, government jobs, low interest rates and most importantly the creation of dual income. Today's 20somethings face those debts, specialized jobs, dying industries, outsourcing and lots of competition.
That being said, I think parenting for the next generation (or even re-educating 20somethings now) it's all about a balance. I don't think you have to push your daughter to be a physician necessarily. Young people just have to understand and appreciate the value of money which means teaching them about taxes, the value of health benefits, financing, leasing and investing. With that in mind, they can find a good solution or at least a compromise.
EXAMPLE USING ABOVE RANT: Daughter wants to be a ballerina. Explain to her that the prima ballerina (#1 dancer) earns less than $140,000 per year and that her career is very short. The expected pay for a ballerina falls short of $10,000/yr. If she wants to do ballet, she can find her another career that has better earning potential and dance as a hobby.
It's unfortunate that the word "hobby" carries such negative connotations. A hobby is something that you do for the art, because you want to do it. The ability to engage in hobbies was once considered a mark of cultured aristocracy.
My advice to my kids would be: if you want to pursue something like art, dance, writing, music, etc., get a practical no-nonsense job. Look for something with sane work hours and that's a seller's market labor-wise. "Boring" fields like accounting are a good bet. Then live below your means, save, and pursue your art seriously. Make a commitment to it above other things. Then, if someday you advance to the point that you can support yourself via your art, you can dump the day job. But even if that never happens you didn't sacrifice your happiness.
My advice to my kids would be: if you want to pursue something like art, dance, writing, music, etc., get a practical no-nonsense job. Look for something with sane work hours and that's a seller's market labor-wise. "Boring" fields like accounting are a good bet. Then live below your means, save, and pursue your art seriously. Make a commitment to it above other things. Then, if someday you advance to the point that you can support yourself via your art, you can dump the day job. But even if that never happens you didn't sacrifice your happiness.
"But now that the baby is here, my wife has done a total 180. "Penn undergrad then med school" is her new plan"
Keep in mind that it's rather difficult to predict the job market (and payscale) 25 to 30 years in advance (assuming "baby" now, undergrad, then medical school, residency, intern etc, loans, then employment).
As an aside, back when I went to Wharton (undergrad) which was a long long time ago entrepreneurship (my major) wasn't exactly viewed as a serious path to take. And Wharton at the time had the number 1 UG business program.
Keep in mind that it's rather difficult to predict the job market (and payscale) 25 to 30 years in advance (assuming "baby" now, undergrad, then medical school, residency, intern etc, loans, then employment).
As an aside, back when I went to Wharton (undergrad) which was a long long time ago entrepreneurship (my major) wasn't exactly viewed as a serious path to take. And Wharton at the time had the number 1 UG business program.
At one point in the article, one person spends all night working on a $35k marijuana harvest and gets paid in the morning with a breakfast burrito.
Someone is a spectacular failure at hardball negotiating.
Someone is a spectacular failure at hardball negotiating.
"No pay, but great blackmail opportunities." But on a serious not, it mentions she worked in San Francisco, so it was probably legal.
Isn't it illegal at the federal level? Maybe report it to the DEA?
You're a real piece of work. Maybe you should try and blackmail people for committing the 'crime' of sodomy next.
Point of fact: sodomy is not a crime and is protected under the constitution. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_v._Texas
Well that's awesome and I did not know that was now the case. Thanks for the information!
My intent was that it's skeevy as hell to blackmail someone for growing cannabis. If there were very specific extenuating circumstances then I'd take that into account, yes. Still, federal prosecution of drug crimes often results in long periods of incarceration. I don't think that's justified for anything less than violent crimes.
HN readers might be advised to watch the new documentary called The House I Live In - it has footage from 20 states documenting the ineffectiveness, hypocrisy, and profiteering inherent in the War on (some) Drugs.
http://www.thehouseilivein.org/
My intent was that it's skeevy as hell to blackmail someone for growing cannabis. If there were very specific extenuating circumstances then I'd take that into account, yes. Still, federal prosecution of drug crimes often results in long periods of incarceration. I don't think that's justified for anything less than violent crimes.
HN readers might be advised to watch the new documentary called The House I Live In - it has footage from 20 states documenting the ineffectiveness, hypocrisy, and profiteering inherent in the War on (some) Drugs.
http://www.thehouseilivein.org/
I think you are missing the joke, or it went way over your head.
The point is that it's also "skeevy as hell" - plus probably really bad management - to ask someone to maintain your $35,000 asset (possession of which could also get you in a world of legal trouble) in exchange for just a breakfast burrito.
Ignoring the morality of the entire subject, paying someone roughly $5 for many hours of work maintaining a $35,000 asset is just poor decision making.
You probably want to make sure that the people taking care of your $35,000 asset (and the business that goes along with it) are happily paid, otherwise you might find you don't have that asset anymore.
The point is that it's also "skeevy as hell" - plus probably really bad management - to ask someone to maintain your $35,000 asset (possession of which could also get you in a world of legal trouble) in exchange for just a breakfast burrito.
Ignoring the morality of the entire subject, paying someone roughly $5 for many hours of work maintaining a $35,000 asset is just poor decision making.
You probably want to make sure that the people taking care of your $35,000 asset (and the business that goes along with it) are happily paid, otherwise you might find you don't have that asset anymore.
These are all fair points and I've upvoted you.
Apparently it's common to pay trimmers in 'scissor hash', ie what THC laden goop one can scrape from cutting shears, bud to smoke and food. Perhaps this employee was only paid with a burrito but I think it may be more likely she was compensated in both food and drugs. This is not to say the employers was acting fairly though.
Apparently it's common to pay trimmers in 'scissor hash', ie what THC laden goop one can scrape from cutting shears, bud to smoke and food. Perhaps this employee was only paid with a burrito but I think it may be more likely she was compensated in both food and drugs. This is not to say the employers was acting fairly though.
It sounds to me like the 75 year old who's socking 34k per crop into a retirement account and conscripting employees from an unrelated company to assist (OTC, of course) in the harvest while compensating them with a breakfast burrito is a much greater piece of work.
(edited because grammar)
(edited because grammar)
>You're a real piece of work.
Ad hominem much? What a useless statement.
Ad hominem much? What a useless statement.
[deleted]
How much does the DEA pay?
I wonder if the fact that all of the example "rock star" professions are in industries that are, at best in a transitional period and at worst are dying has anything to do with the proliferation of unpaid internships and poor working conditions and salaries.
The real problem is educating college students early on about the ramifications of their choice of major. Perhaps this also calls for an evaluation of which subjects are emphasized in American high schools as well.
The real problem is educating college students early on about the ramifications of their choice of major. Perhaps this also calls for an evaluation of which subjects are emphasized in American high schools as well.
This is an excellent point. In the five years since I graduated college, I've seen so many friends blindsided by the difficulty of actually making a living in their chosen professions. Now that some are considering having families, they're shocked again at the impossibility of continuing their current jobs while enjoying life in the city.
Colleges could certainly help by explaining that money matters (instead of simply encouraging students to follow their passions, as many colleges do), and that success in certain industries can be particularly elusive. However, it's understandably hard for colleges to figure out what's going on in the labor market, which is always in flux. It's actually REALLY hard to make sense of the job options out there, and the risks involved for each: employers aren't transparent about salaries, job titles are difficult to parse, and the career trajectories + risks implied by various entry-level jobs aren't obvious (even to the employers themselves).
Colleges could certainly help by explaining that money matters (instead of simply encouraging students to follow their passions, as many colleges do), and that success in certain industries can be particularly elusive. However, it's understandably hard for colleges to figure out what's going on in the labor market, which is always in flux. It's actually REALLY hard to make sense of the job options out there, and the risks involved for each: employers aren't transparent about salaries, job titles are difficult to parse, and the career trajectories + risks implied by various entry-level jobs aren't obvious (even to the employers themselves).
Passion, yes. When I was in undergrad the rising mantra was "follow your bliss." I think now it should have been "fund your bliss".
Don't suggest this too loudly... the rest of us would have more competition! The solution can't be to have everyone be STEM... the solution will require something far more outside the box than that.
Are unpaid internships something that's uniquely common in NYC? I scan Craigslist all the time for freelance opportunities and almost every single unpaid gig in New York is touted as an "internship". I have never seen this in listings in Dallas or Austin. Internships are incredibly murky things. You cannot, legally, get free labor from someone for the sole benefit of the business. The DoE has cracked down on this type of thing before. One would assume that in a strong liberal city like NYC, this sort of nonsense wouldn't happen often.
http://www.amazon.com/Intern-Nation-Nothing-Little-Economy/d...
There are some mentions of NYC internships in this book... along with research, etc. Pretty good (very anti-Internship in general).
There are some mentions of NYC internships in this book... along with research, etc. Pretty good (very anti-Internship in general).
You have to remember that while liberal, NYC is at its core a business focused city that has a long history (for US standards at least) in business.
With that in mind "internships" i.e. unpaid labor for the inexperienced is almost expected proving ground for the up and comers.
In reality, the "best" internships can go unpaid because their target market is students from top universities who come from affluent backgrounds whose parents could easily afford an apartment in NYC over the Summer.
That being said, I'm being general here. A lot of startups pay (and should pay) for programmers. Actually, us programmers have it pretty good. Try to a paid business internship in NYC sometime.
If you're in "real" business not a creative industry like Fashion, Music, or Publishing you can get paid professional level salaries, for instance Investment banking interns get paid get paid a few thousand a month.
Don't forget the author's own confirmation bias; the author is in an industry that relies on unpaid internships, and probably has many friends, who are also in unpaid internships in related fields (i.e. fashion, non-profit, etc).
Interesting piece, though they focus only on what they call "rock star" professions, like music, publishing, and the movies. Professions which have always used their supposed status to prey on the young.
One solution: become an account or plumber, or software developer, and laugh all the way to the bank.
One solution: become an account or plumber, or software developer, and laugh all the way to the bank.
Software Developer? A lot of the 20 something developers I know also work 60+ hour weeks while only getting paid for 40. Whether its because they want to be 'rock star' developers or because its just become the accepted norm in the industry is up for debate though.
It's not an accepted norm in the industry. Only in some parts of the industry. I've worked at 2 out of the top 10 largest tech companies in the world and at both the expectation was generally circa 40 hours.
They aren't making 22k/yr is his point though. A US based dev, who is working 60 hours per week, and not making 50,000$+ is doing something wrong (or chose low pay for a cool company etc)
Not necessarily. I think a lot of developers are subjected to employment myopia, because they tend to reside in areas with a high concentration of startups that pay well and have generous benefits and "perks." Outside of those areas, the space is dominated by corporate entities, consultancies and other bastions of bureaucracy. These companies can get away paying little because they are entrenched in their market and face very little competition for developers from startups.
People who live in or attend school in non-tech-centric cities are often screwed. There are few companies that offer attractive employment opportunities, and those that do are in a position whereby they can hire only the best. (To be honest, I think that this is true everywhere. All startups want to hire the absolute best, and only the best. It appears otherwise because the best are the vocal minority. For every Google engineer on HN that made 120k out of college and extols the ease of finding lucrative employment, there are probably several developers who went to community college or a state school that spend their days in a cubicle in a Palo Alto office park for 30k per year. We just never hear from those people.)
So, I think a more accurate statement is "A US based dev, who lives in New York or San Francisco who went to Stanford and who is working 60 hours per week, and not making 50,000$+ is doing something wrong."
People who live in or attend school in non-tech-centric cities are often screwed. There are few companies that offer attractive employment opportunities, and those that do are in a position whereby they can hire only the best. (To be honest, I think that this is true everywhere. All startups want to hire the absolute best, and only the best. It appears otherwise because the best are the vocal minority. For every Google engineer on HN that made 120k out of college and extols the ease of finding lucrative employment, there are probably several developers who went to community college or a state school that spend their days in a cubicle in a Palo Alto office park for 30k per year. We just never hear from those people.)
So, I think a more accurate statement is "A US based dev, who lives in New York or San Francisco who went to Stanford and who is working 60 hours per week, and not making 50,000$+ is doing something wrong."
I'm not so sure. I went to college in a non-tech city in the middle of the country and all of my peers, many of whom stayed local, were making at least $55,000 working for boring companies (USAA being a big one). This was not an elite school either.
No startups, nothing sexy but if any of those companies recruiting us offered <$55k they were laughed at.
No startups, nothing sexy but if any of those companies recruiting us offered <$55k they were laughed at.
http://monster.salary.com/SalaryWizard/Software-Developer-I-...
http://monster.salary.com/SalaryWizard/Software-Developer-I-...
http://monster.salary.com/SalaryWizard/Software-Developer-I-...
So that does seem like the ballpark figure, with the following 2 caveats: I don't know how reliable Monster is for this kind of data, and I picked three cities off the top of my head roughly in the middle of the USA that I don't think of tech centres but I don't know how out-of-touch I might be in that regard.
So that does seem like the ballpark figure, with the following 2 caveats: I don't know how reliable Monster is for this kind of data, and I picked three cities off the top of my head roughly in the middle of the USA that I don't think of tech centres but I don't know how out-of-touch I might be in that regard.
Everything is up to you. You definitely can be even non US, work remotely and make way more :)
I'd say that the more you approach "coolness" in the software industry, the more you can expect to be ridden for extra hours. Game developers are probably as close as possible to other creative popular types and have to pay for that status very dearly, while hundreds of thousands of enterprise developers toil in obscurity with pretty guaranteed 40h weeks.
That's a shame...on those 20 somethings you know and on their managers. I can see working north of 40 hours during an important crunch time, but only if my superior(s) is/are aware and planning for the post-sprint crash that's an inseparable part of our human condition. Stress takes its toll.
Google Image Search: work hours vs productivity
Productivity Presentation: http://www.lostgarden.com/2008/09/rules-of-productivity-pres...
Google Image Search: work hours vs productivity
Productivity Presentation: http://www.lostgarden.com/2008/09/rules-of-productivity-pres...
Granted, those 40 hours give them a salary above the median US household income in most cases.
It's interesting to note that (unless I missed something) all the struggling ambitious 20-somethings interviewed for the article are women. (I don't include Ross Perlin, who was interviewed not because he's struggling but because he wrote a book on the subject.) Is this a coincidence, or is it part of a broader trend? If the latter, it suggests that the problem may be even worse than it looks. Such ambitious careers arguably cost young women more than they cost young men, since women use up a scarce resource (peak fertility) not sacrificed by their male peers.
I'm not a programmer, but I make a pretty good living at age 21 doing e-commerce marketing. I also got married last December to my girlfriend of 7 years. I honestly attribute most of my early success to the fact that I started on my career so young since I knew I wanted to be married soon, and thus needed to have independent income (I.E. first side money business at 15, first unpaid internship at 17, first career job at 18, etc.).
Thinking back, I definitely would have been an unprepared for life by the time college ended if it hadn't been for that confluence of events. I never really though about what I would do before, and I never had any economically sound interests (I almost went to high school for voice acting and singing!).
Thinking back, I definitely would have been an unprepared for life by the time college ended if it hadn't been for that confluence of events. I never really though about what I would do before, and I never had any economically sound interests (I almost went to high school for voice acting and singing!).
"According to a 2011 Pew report, the median net worth for householders under 35 dropped by 68 percent from 1984 to 2009, to $3,662." That's something to think about: college debt, etc.
Even worse, the report says 37% of householders under 35 have zero or negative net worth.
The report is a bit opaque though with the wide <35 category - you'd expect a big difference between 21 and 34 year olds so lumping them together makes it hard to tell what's going on. The full report is at: http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2011/11/07/the-rising-age-gap...
The report is a bit opaque though with the wide <35 category - you'd expect a big difference between 21 and 34 year olds so lumping them together makes it hard to tell what's going on. The full report is at: http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2011/11/07/the-rising-age-gap...
This may be dumb, but what does "householders" mean? I assume it's not "homeowners". Does it just mean someone that is in a settled relationship (ie part of a household)? Because I assume there must be some distinction from just "individuals".
Household, is a single person or group of people living together.
I read that line 3 times just to make sure I read it correctly. Its pretty unbelievable.
The "cooler" a field is, the more unbalanced it is from a supply/demand point of view for labor and the more you're going to have to bust your ass to get anywhere in it. People need to understand this.
It's even true within fields. You can usually find 40/hr week jobs in software that pay a good or even great wage, but they're usually doing boring stuff: business apps, IT support, financial stuff, etc. But in sexy areas like game development you're into crazy 60-80 hour work week for no pay territory again.
It's even true within fields. You can usually find 40/hr week jobs in software that pay a good or even great wage, but they're usually doing boring stuff: business apps, IT support, financial stuff, etc. But in sexy areas like game development you're into crazy 60-80 hour work week for no pay territory again.
This article is a pretty good argument for Scandinavian style workplace regulation. There's lots of bad regulation over here, but restricting working hours is something that's easily justified. It's sad to see some people working these crazy hours.
And this is why I'm so glad I skipped college and enlisted. 6 years of military and I walked right into a $75k/yr at 25 years old.
Had my 10yr reunion recently and I was the only one that owned their home.
Had my 10yr reunion recently and I was the only one that owned their home.
I didn't really interpret this as a knock against college. More like a cautionary tale about "entry-level" work in hyper-competitive industries that end ups amounting to slave labor with no future prospects to speak of.
I really can't understand, for instance, why one of the characters here interested in producing would seek toxic employment with the dying movie studios. With platforms like Kickstarter that circumvent traditional barriers to the entertainment industry (and other creative sectors), it's hard to imagine a bright future for old, gatekeeping jobs. She would probably be better served looking for marketing or sales work at a tech company.
I really can't understand, for instance, why one of the characters here interested in producing would seek toxic employment with the dying movie studios. With platforms like Kickstarter that circumvent traditional barriers to the entertainment industry (and other creative sectors), it's hard to imagine a bright future for old, gatekeeping jobs. She would probably be better served looking for marketing or sales work at a tech company.
Societies (particularly US society) are getting more competitive every single day. Lowered barriers to entry, better tools, increasing automation, and other factors are going to support this trend continue well into the future. We are already seeing companies give some entry level jobs to interns (I'm sure some of you have seen this, and there's more about this trend in "Intern Nation.") For those who want to compete, it's going to be non-stop self-learning, retraining, and networking:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/22/business/to-stay-relevant-...
We've entered an era of "Hypercompetition."
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/22/business/to-stay-relevant-...
We've entered an era of "Hypercompetition."
> The median net worth for householders under 35 dropped by 68 percent from 1984 to 2009, to $3,662.
In case anybody else was wondering, those figures are in 2010 dollars, adjusted for inflation.
In case anybody else was wondering, those figures are in 2010 dollars, adjusted for inflation.
Thank you. Do you know how much of that change happened between 2008-2009 (b/c of recession), by any chance?
Quite a lot of it; the youngest demographics were hit the hardest, by percentage. See the section "The Great Recession" in the page the article links to:
http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2011/11/07/the-rising-age-gap...
http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2011/11/07/the-rising-age-gap...
> and representing their company at all hours.
Giving an over-tired, over-worked, under-paid child the password to your social media accounts is probably a really bad idea.
Giving an over-tired, over-worked, under-paid child the password to your social media accounts is probably a really bad idea.
As a college senior approaching graduation in May, I am thankful to have chosen an engineering path and to have learned programming.
I'm with you on that. But frankly, I'm glad my passion was in STEM. Because as a kid, I had no interest in thinking about my future financial security. I just happen to be lucky that pursuing my interests coincided with good career prospects. So what do we do with all the people that hate STEM as much as I hate going to night clubs?
I was particularly surprised by the referenced outrage over the 65+ hour-per-week job solicitation. 65 hours per week, although inordinate, isn't entirely outrageous. It equates to 12 hours per weekday plus a half day over the weekend, which is effectively the hours I'm subjected to by school, and is well within the realm of what I'd be willing to work if it was the difference between employment and destitution.
> 12 hours per weekday
8am waking up 9am finished breakfast / shower 10am finished commute to work 10pm finished workday 11pm at home
even if you cut commuting out of the equation you won't have a life. that may be fine with you if you work on something that is important too you... however it is fine to be outraged by this!
8am waking up 9am finished breakfast / shower 10am finished commute to work 10pm finished workday 11pm at home
even if you cut commuting out of the equation you won't have a life. that may be fine with you if you work on something that is important too you... however it is fine to be outraged by this!
...and I thought graduate school was bad. I average a 50-60 hour week, but at least my adviser doesn't expect me to be on call.
Calling Bullshit on Unpaid Internships: http://www.irishstu.com/stublog/2011/06/30/calling-bullshit-...
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This article might as well be about the game development industry
The job market is weak, but there are jobs out there. Not just programming. Nursing, accounting, etc. Tons of baby boomers getting ready to retire means opportunities for young people. But those opportunities are not in oversubscribed professions like media and music.
Before we had our daughter, my wife, being from the west coast, was like 'oh, you shouldn't put too much pressure on kids--they should be what they want.' I, being Asian, thought exactly the opposite. But now that the baby is here, my wife has done a total 180. "Penn undergrad then med school" is her new plan. Like a good little half-Asian.