Would you recommend your children to follow your footsteps??

[Moemg]

I worked many years in Nursing and while I enjoyed it I never pressed my children towards medicine . My son graduated from MIT with an engineering degree and my daughter graduated from BU with an education degree .

[kaudrey]

I don't have kids, but in my family it was sort of Like Father, Like Daughter for both my sister and I, in different ways.

My dad was an engineer who built submarines. He stayed at one company his whole career and retired early with a pension.

My sister is an engineer, but she is a professor. Still, she has her tenure and will likely stay there for a long time.

I was a finance major and got my CFA charter, so different field. However, I have been with the government for 17 years (2 different agencies), and will likely stay until I retire early.

Different careers, but we all had/have "safe" jobs that will provide us with good pensions and security. The conservative nature us "kids" have toward our financial lives definitely came from our parents!

[calmloki]

No kids of our own, but we have my neice and nephew a block away - offered to cover all but living expenses if they wanted to do any college of their choice. Caveat was that they had to maintain passing grades at a minumum - fall below passing and they paid the next term, if they got passing grades we would start paying again. Neither have taken advantage of the offer. My nephew, who's plenty sharp, claims to admire and want to emulate me. The bad deal is that he sees me home a lot and doesn't realise that it took some decades to get to this point and that i am on call all the time. Don't make a big drama about keeping the tenants happy and the places in good order, so i guess it looks like i'm doing darn near nothing for decent dollars. I'd be really happy if he just figured out that the world doesn't owe him a thing...

[Midpack]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Enuff2Eat "i would tell my kids to do whatever make them happy..." if i tell my kids that they will all be beach bum.

The right careers are those defined by a convergence between viable work that will provide a stable livelihood and (sorry you don't want to hear it) "whatever makes them happy." The trick is to satisfy both.

It's your job to help them keep the former in mind and seriously encourage them to consider the latter (being a beach bum isn't serious of course) - this is a decision they will live with for a long time, and it will be a big factor in their quality of life. It might involve some job shadowing while they're young to help them decide. Don't let them base being a doctor on Gray's Anatomy, let them visit an ER or watch actual operations on Discovery channel. Or better yet, I'd guess most professionals would be willing to talk to a "kid" whose serious about their chosen profession. It's a mistake to want to become a doctor or a lawyer because it's big money - you could be wealthy and miserable for 30-40 years. But as you say, pursuing some obscure degree may not satisfy the "viable work that will provide a stable livelihood." There are a surprising number of people with obscure degrees working in basic retail or other fields where a degree isn't required, I feel for them.

I don't think following in parents footsteps has much to do with it. My father was an Orthopedic Surgeon and I'm an Engineer. It's been a good career, but I wish I would have been conscious of the "convergence" when I was choosing a career. I might have been one of the lucky few who makes a good living at something they love to do...

[ziggy29]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Midpack The right careers are those defined by a convergence between viable work that will provide a stable livelihood and (sorry you don't want to hear it) "whatever makes them happy." The trick is to satisfy both. It's your job to keep the former in mind and encourage your kids to consider the latter. It's a mistake to want to become a doctor or a lawyer because it's big money - you could be wealthy and miserable for 30-40 years. But as you say, pursuing some obscure literature degree (I'm not knocking literature!!!) may not satisfy the "viable work that will provide a stable livelihood."

Well said, and I agree. Put another way -- it's not all about maximizing wealth and it's not all about being a slacker who can't make ends meet because of their career choice.

But once you've reached a certain level of income, IMO, liking your job and your working conditions become more important that incrementally more pay.

[retiringby50]

Quote:

Originally Posted by calmloki offered to cover all but living expenses if they wanted to do any college of their choice. Neither have taken advantage of the offer. I'd be really happy if he just figured out that the world doesn't owe him a thing...

That's the thing that gets me... here they both have an opportunity that many would love to have, and they won't take advantage of it. I know it's not true for everyone, but I think college has got to open more doors that it closes, right? When I hear that we have the highest number of college grads... and it's only 50%, that's quite disappointing.

[Art G]

Quote:

Originally Posted by retiringby50 That's the thing that gets me... here they both have an opportunity that many would love to have, and they won't take advantage of it. I know it's not true for everyone, but I think college has got to open more doors that it closes, right? When I hear that we have the highest number of college grads... and it's only 50%, that's quite disappointing.

I'm actually surprised it's that high. In America today, there are more ways to strike it rich than ever before, including countless game shows and lotteries. Why bother taking the hard route through education when so many of our youth are seeing the money you can make through athletics and Deal or No Deal?

[Orchidflower]

In a word, NO. I tried to sway my son into a business degree, but he found his own path and chose political science in college.
It is way to early to see if it pays off, but, if his love of the subject is any indication of future success, he should do smashingly well in whatever he does with it. He has very high abstract thinking, highly analytical, a quick study and understands complicated concepts like theology; whereas, I tune totally out on too much political or theological talk. Different strokes.

[BunsGettingFirm]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Enuff2Eat Like Father, like Son or like Mother, like Daughter .. that's what i was told. My father was an entrepreneur but half of his children, including me decided to igo into science/engineering and the other half went on to become business owner. Every now and then when we have family reunion, i can't help but to notice that the other half (business) of the sibbling tends to do much "better" than the professional. Well, it's all depends on one definition of doing "better" mean. I do know that in my profession as i get older, the technology seems impossible to catch up, as a result my job tends to be more stress and vulnerable as i am aging. if you have to do it all over again. would you recommend your children to follow your footsteps please, don't tell me ...."i would tell my kids to do whatever make them happy..." if i tell my kids that they will all be beach bum. enuff your comment please.

I think Paul Graham summed it up very well in a recent essay. He said, and I paraphrase: The startup owners are like lions in the wild. They worry more, but they also seem more happy at the same time.

I'm currently looking into buying a business. Don't worry, it's still so far away that the owner and I are still correcting each other over the letter of intent. Then I started writing a business plan for the business, and I can't tell you the 100 things big and small that I had to think about, and that's just on paper!

[BunsGettingFirm]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nords Too late. Our kid already wants to join the Navy. At least we've managed to get her to move USNA to #4 or #5 on the list. And while she can't (yet) join the submarine force, she wants to drive ships for a couple years and then transfer to the Civil Engineering Corps and/or the Reserves. But she sees NROTC as the perfect solution to finding summer internships and a post-college job. We've been encouraging her to look at tuition-free schools (Olin College of Engineering) and other schools that don't have ROTC units. We've been encouraging her to look at local engineering firms with high-school or college internships. No joy so far. Part of the problem comes from her seeing our skills and our lifestyle. Another part of the problem comes from her believing all of our sea stories. So now we work extra hard to point out the disadvantages of a military career and to tell her the straight facts, but like any teen she thinks we're just trying to talk her out of sex, drugs, rock&roll, and all the other military "good deals". Our only real progress came after we told her "When you wake up at USNA two mornings after Induction Day and think 'OMG I've made a terrible mistake', we want you to be absolutely sure that it was your own damn fault. But we'll always love you, honey!" It's possible that she'll try NROTC for a year or two and then decide that she can handle her own job search. Just as long as it's her own damn fault decision.

Tell her about the salt peter part, and she'll be left with only drugs and rock& roll.

[gryffindor]

I had children who are 3 & 7 so its a little early.

My thoughts currently are to tell them to pursue their passion but to teach them a set of financial skills that will work with any career.

The average person switches jobs 10 times in their lives, so teaching flexibility and creativity will likely be more important than the actual career to start with.

[barbarus]

It's really supprizing to read so many recommendations to pursure engineering/IT/science. These were certainly areas in great demand and with better than average pay ten years ago, but times have changed.

Read any of UofC professor Norm Matloff's articles on the net about the offshoring of IT and the importation of H1B critters into the USA to undercut wages.

Also read this guy's site. Economic News


A person is washed up in IT by his/her mid 30's. After that, you usually have to move into a relatively scarce management position or find another pursuit.

There will be many respondents that post how well their doing and that there is a "crying need" for technical people but a little research shows otherwise. Some, of course, are prospering in engineering and science but many are not. (A number of engineers have been going to the much more lucrative financial world, for instance, and are now quants on wall street.)

There are a significant number of old timers, some even as elderly as 40 or even 45, holders of Ph.Ds, who are w*rking at Walmart-type j*bs.

I would advise any boys and girls out there to thoughtfully research these fields before entry. Do not believe any one person,(including me). Digest any article, no matter how effusive, with a jaundiced eye. Dig in to get the real story.

[whitestick]

Having ER'd at end of November 2007, I'm still current enough to speak to this. I definitely feel that there are still good jobs to be had in the IT field, that are not management nor financial. However, a knowledge of those disciplines, and appreciation for their issues and concerns, is desperately needed by those that ascribe to the technical side of IT. Like pretty much all of the professional areas of the last century, there is a continuing need to cull out the low value, or lower cost delivery of portions of the field, while flexibility, agility and continuous improvement in achieving delivery of higher value services in those fields will still offer lucrative jobs. My own career progressed through the areas of low level detailed design, through senior level engineering and architecture, to compliance assurance to meet the best practice corporate guidelines of other engineering effort. Certainly technical in aspect, and while the more senior levels are in continued high demand, the initial areas of low level detailed design are ripe for outsourcing to low cost engineeering mills.
I believe the areas of fault lie with the academic institutions that don't adequately prepare the candidates for real life work, because they are too busy chasing the research grants and book deals that reward the professors, and images of the schools to bring in more students and government dollars, without scrutinizing the end product for true value to the real world. It's amazing to me that we are "graduating" students who believe that they can into the world and manage chunks of businesses, having never stepped foot into a factory, or spent time with front line employees meeting customers and determining what value is needed from those businesses. The new expectation of value seems to be what can we break up this business into and sell off its pieces for, to get some incremental value for the invested dollar, rather then how can we create a product that is needed and desired, and that will build upon itself to create new value. IMHO

[Meadbh]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Midpack I don't think following in parents footsteps has much to do with it. My father was an Orthopedic Surgeon and I'm an Engineer. It's been a good career, but I wish I would have been conscious of the "convergence" when I was choosing a career. I might have been one of the lucky few who makes a good living at something they love to do...

I know two orthopedic surgeons who are also engineers. They both feel that there's great synergy between these two disciplines. For example, one of them told me he is often approached by vendors of new implantable devices that do not meet the engineering requirements for the job they are expected to do in the body.

[BunsGettingFirm]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Meadbh I know two orthopedic surgeons who are also engineers. They both feel that there's great synergy between these two disciplines. For example, one of them told me he is often approached by vendors of new implantable devices that do not meet the engineering requirements for the job they are expected to do in the body.

It's true. Find a combination of computer science and something else. At first I thought I was trying to be a master of nothing, but then a recent finance IT project showed me the value of knowing two disciplines. I was able to walk through the international finance stuff with the finance people and then write in detail the test plan for the engineers. Too bad the project got canceled. Otherwise, it would have been a heck of a resume builder.

As for some one else who mentioned age bias, yeah, I don't know why there is such an age bias. Frankly, all the new languages are just variations on a theme. Java and C# looked very much like C++ to me, and every procedural language and scripting language have their pluses and minuses, but with some effort, you can essentially do the same thing in any one of them. The same goes for VHDL and Verilog, so doesn't practice and experience make for better programmers? OK, granted I have not yet learned Ruby and Python, but I'm sure I can pick those up in 4 weeks a piece.

I can say with all honesty that the only weird language that I have learned was this "production system" I learned in grad school. Trying to get all the rules to fire off simultaneously the right way was a real pain.

[Art G]

My 16 year old son has recently informed us that his plan is to apply at West Point, and if he doesn't get accepted, he wants to join the Marines. This totally caught me by surprise as I don't see him at all as a Marine, and quite frankly I don't feel I've raised him tough enough to exist there. Of course, I've suggested he attend college first and then if he's still interested in the Marines, he can always apply as an officer, but he's convinced he'd do better by doing a term in the Marines first.
I'd love to hear from anyone out there who may have been a Marine, or have any input in this manner. Quite frankly, while I'm not at all thrilled by his recent plan, I can't say joining the military wouldn't help him greatly.
I took him to a recruiters office, hoping he'd get some insight, but the recruiter tried to paint him a picture of playing video games all day.