Perhaps the only productive thought that comes out of ruminating on this topic is, come the revolution, the guidance counselors will be first against the wall. Honestly, I had no idea that the profession of actuary even existed, but I would have likely been rather good at it, having built my own primitive statistical laws as a kid playing with dice and taking grad-level courses in stats as an undergraduate. And gracious did I ask the guidance counselors what was out there.
I entered college as a Nuke E, then rather quickly realized that (at the time), there wasn't much of a career in it if you didn't want to work in a submarine. A guidance counselor could have clued me in to that kind of thing. I switched to physics, as it would be more general, only to, after observing the actual lives lived by the faculty and the PhD students, that the competition was quite fierce for such meager stakes. Noticing that my brilliant professors might have second jobs or rustbuckets to get to work, noting that a few of them were looking a bit threadbare, it was quite a shock.
Guidance counselors ought to have a lot of this information on tap. Perhaps they do now, but at the time, it wasn't available at my high school.
Perhaps we are drawn to this topic if only for the younger generations.
Guidance counselors often have this but have to walk on eggshells because they can’t tell most kids that their parents’ careers were terrible decisions. That results in rage calls, complaint letters, etc.
So they have to take this dumb approach of “assist the teenager with the barely developed brain do whatever whimsical shit he/she wants that might haunt them for life”.
“Sure son, being a clown sounds pretty cool. Here are some 4 year acting degrees that cost $180k. That sounds high but don’t worry because you can easily take it all out in government loans. But it probably be worth it because these are the top schools in the country!”
I entered college as a Nuke E, then rather quickly realized that (at the time), there wasn't much of a career in it if you didn't want to work in a submarine. A guidance counselor could have clued me in to that kind of thing. I switched to physics, as it would be more general, only to, after observing the actual lives lived by the faculty and the PhD students, that the competition was quite fierce for such meager stakes. Noticing that my brilliant professors might have second jobs or rustbuckets to get to work, noting that a few of them were looking a bit threadbare, it was quite a shock.
Guidance counselors ought to have a lot of this information on tap. Perhaps they do now, but at the time, it wasn't available at my high school.
Perhaps we are drawn to this topic if only for the younger generations.