Author’s Note: I’ve re-posted this article for your reading pleasure as I am on vacation.
Kids who grow up with no television in their homes either (a) make friends quick with a kid whose family worships the ‘mote, or (b) they read a lot. My utter lack of pop culture references from the mid-seventies through the mid-nineties should do all the explaining as to which path I took.
The outcome being, I ended up with a stellar vocabulary, full of words I’d only ever seen in print and therefore usually couldn’t pronounce correctly. Whatever. At least I knew what they meant.
And there were some I knew how to say. (With feeling). When I was eight my 18-year-old babysitter burned the chicken pot pies that were to be our dinner. My mother never bought us crappy processed food, which meant my brother and I were infatuated with all sugary, well-preserved, and insanely processed foodstuffs.
I was understandably pissed when the sitter burned my only shot at packaged food for the month and filled the kitchen with smoke. To vent my anger I hollered, “What are you trying to do, asphyxiate us?!” She had no idea what that meant, and almost sent me to my room because she thought I’d called her something so horrible, not even teenager her had ever heard that particular obscenity before.
There is also the common problem, among adults and too-smart-for-their-own-good children, of only ever hearing a word or a phrase and never figuring out the correct spelling. There are so many words that sound alike but are spelled differently, and each version of the stupidly exact-sounding word means something completely different. I’ve got their, there, and they’re down cold, but it took a while for me to get affect and effect straight. The English language, in my bitchy opinion, has some definite asinine qualities.
Or perhaps I should ask more questions. Until I was in college and saw this phrase written on the board as a common mistake college sophomores made when writing papers for the professor, I had always thought “For all intents and purposes” was “For all intensive purposes.”
According to Paul Brians, author of Common Errors in English Usage, I’m not the only native English-speaker to screw that phrase up. Which made me feel better for about point seven seconds until I saw the bit where he describes the phrase as “Another example of the oral transformation of language by people who don’t read much.” Ouch, Professor Brians. That was totally uncalled for.
I read plenty, thank you. The books I read (fine literature and lots of science-y non-fiction) just haven’t ever contained that exact phrase. I am still very smart and am an excellent reader. And clearly I have nary a hang-up about the whole intents/intensive blunder.
For the ever-tense prospective college students (and their whacked-out parents), Lynn O’Shaughnessy wrote an informative piece about the UC system and seven facts future applicants may be interested to know.
Take special note of Fact #2 of you’re a California native. And maybe don’t bother applying to the coveted UC schools. Out-of-state students pay more tuition, so they’ll have a better shot at getting in. Which is inconsistent with the black-and-white rules of fair play. Somewhere, someone was just added to my s**t list.
It’s cringe-y and funny and it just upset me and made me laugh until I snurfed green tea out my nose. I think you should read it too. Chag Holland is Cynical Dad and he is capable of making your day better.
I help out in my daughter’s class. I used to just do simple things like copy papers and cut out shapes and crap, but somewhere along the line, someone got the dumb idea that I could actually work with the kids and teach them things. Big mistake. Last week, I was working with a table of kids and teaching them how to carry ones. One of the little boys at the table spoke up.
Boy #1: I’m the best in the class at math.
Internal Chag: Um, no, or you wouldn’t be sitting here with me.
Girl #1: No you’re not! Hamid is!
Boy #1: That doesn’t count. Of course he’s the best at math.
External Chag: Why is he the best at math?
Boy #1: He’s from another country. All they do is math.
That’s crazy talk! That Jay guy writes a whole damn column about education (he’s for it), and I write an education blog (I’m a big fan of the learning as well). So a big yes on college and the campuses they’re attached to. And still, I totally agree with him about not sucking every ounce of fun out of a campus visit. Parents: Release! Retract! Recoil! Unclench! Attend the tour, ask real questions, get some information, then just wander around for a while, with or without your child, and let it all flow over you both. It’s not life or death, people.
Watching this helps one to gain some perspective. And by perspective I mean finally understanding just how much money this country requires to survive, and how little Obama has actually removed. Obama’s killing himself and pissing everyone off in order to save the most pathetic sliver of money. And the fallout from the various federal programs losing their funding is fully, mind-blowingly noticeable. If there’s not a huge line at the border crossing today, I could be in Canada in less than three hours.
Please refrain from acting on the overwhelming urge you’ll have to stick a fork into your forehead after watching that. My father’s advice would be: It is what it is. And my advice is this: We’re all in the same boat so suck it up, sweetcheeks.
How do the parents of a financially well-off kid send their educated, over-scheduled, never-had-to-get-a-job offspring into the real world and expect them to survive without help? No can expect those young adults to have a graceful trajectory; they’ll smack the pavement a few times before they figure out the mechanisms of reality. I recommend the more harsh sink-or-swim approach. Based on my own experience, I would suggest handing out sage advice once the college degree has been earned, along with no more money. It’s the quickest way to teach The Real World Sucks 101.
While my higher education was paid for, not much else was. During my K-12 years, food and clothing were purchased after the monthly allotment of college money was set aside. I looked like a doof in my highwater pants and the worn out, stinky-by-Wednesday two pairs of red knee socks I owned. Two identical pairs were purchased for me every fall, and the day-glo red color never matched a single item of clothing in my dresser.
The refrigerators at both parents’ houses were sad to open, but I re-checked their contents several time a day nonetheless—nothing but bread, milk, generic cheese, and the flats of free eggs my mother got for free from the Avian Sciences Dept. at the University. Eggs that were the edible (we hope) byproduct of fertilization experiments and were either double- or triple-yolked. I would complain loudly right this minute and fall into a pile of twitching heebie-jeebies if I didn’t suspect those cholesterol-laden eggs of keeping me decently nourished during my childhood.
Although I had to learn to survive my financially (and physically) waiflike childhood, I was totally covered as soon as I hit college. I worked all through elementary, middle, and high school to earn money. In college, though, my parents strongly discouraged my desire to get a job. They wanted me to focus on the education we had all suffered to save up for. By the time I entered college, I was quite the self-sufficient little worker bee. By the time I was shaking a professor’s hand on stage and clutching my degree, I was as financially clueless as I’d been in the first grade. While I knew how to work for money, I had never learned how to work to survive on my own. Paying for food and shelter were not something I’d ever done.
I’m not whining, and I know full well that my parents did everything they did to give me the same chances they were given in life. Education is a huge deal in my family; fancy cars are not. Education comes before all else. I hit bottom in the real world pretty quickly once I was really on my own, which is why I fully support the idea of wealthy parents releasing their young into the wild like the helpless little bunnies that they are.
I’m sure it’s nearly as upsetting to watch their kids’ asses get chewed up by reality as it would be to watch a pet rabbit be set free and immediately get taloned up by a bird of prey, but that’s life. You know, the circle of it and all that. It sucks. At some point, kids have to learn to run and to protect themselves with cold hard cash or they’ll be living back at home with their parents (if you’ll have them). Seriously: Teach them now and teach them fast or you’ll all be sorry.
This article in the NY Times will give you a head start.
Brown University undergrads using their powers for good: using the pay-it-forward concept to assist college students with higher education fundage while decreasing (and hopefully obsolete-ing) the need for banks and their Machiavellian student loan schemes.
It’s an amazing idea whose time has come. I’m incredibly impressed with Mr. Simmons and his team for building this project, thereby making a good solution possible for college students who could use some help funding their higher education.
Cody Simmons, Founder, CEO and President of CO-Fund, is crazy busy officially launching Co-Fund.org today, but here’s the press release he smartly sent out:
CO-FUND’S OFFICIAL LAUNCH
Co-Fund, America’s College Opportunity Fund, now publicly accepting donations
PROVIDENCE, RI (May 17th, 2010) – CO-Fund has just publicly launched its website today and is now accepting donations for its students at www.co-fund.org. CO-Fund is a nonprofit organization that enables individuals to sponsor a student’s college education through direct, person-to-person donations.
CO-Fund empowers students to garner support from their community in an easily-accessible and credible fashion while also connecting them with supporting individuals nationwide. Through CO-Fund’s online platform, donors can sponsor a student with as little as $1, with 100% of the donations made to students going toward “closing the gap” of the selected students’ college tuition costs.
Founded by a group of talented and entrepreneurial undergraduates at Brown University, CO- Fund was developed for students, by students. CO-Fund is a unique hybrid: a non-profit mission, scalable and cost effective technology, and the organization and energy of an Internet start-up. CO-Fund succeeds not by making money but by funding and empowering students to succeed.
Akin to micro-giving sites like Kiva and DonorsChoose, CO-Fund connects donors directly to recipients, lowering cumbersome barriers for donors and fostering a rapport between donors and recipients. Instead of offering students zero-percent loans that students pay back, CO-Fund Fellows instead “pay it forward” by supporting other students and communities like their own. As examples, students can pay it forward by working for a CO-Fund partner organization for at least one year after graduation or by completing a community service requirement.
CO-Fund is fiscally sponsored by Rhode Islanders Sponsoring Education (RISE) and its pilot launch includes students and partner organizations (Brown University’s College Advising Corps and College Visions) from Rhode Island, as they seek to validate the effectiveness of their model with a small group of students before scaling to work nationwide. CO-Fund is legally sponsored by Partridge, Snow & Hahn in addition to several corporate sponsors; it has also received recognition and funding in several business plan and social enterprise competitions.
This is how the donating works:
Donating
Individuals submit donations via PayPal through our website, and these donations are then tracked by PayPal and internally through our platform. Micro-donations made directly to students are “temporarily restricted funds,” meaning they are only used for that given individual recipient. Once a Fellow enrolls in college, CO-Fund works directly with his or her college’s Bursar office to cover part of their tuition bill using the money raised.
And here’s the bit I like the most:
“Pay-it-forward” pledge
Students sign a pledge to CO-Fund and their donors to complete one of three “pay-it-forward” options. First, students can work for CO-Fund or a partner organization for at least one year after graduating. Second, students can donate one-fifth of the amount received back to other CO-Fund students within five years after graduating. Third, students can complete at least 100 hours of community service while in college. CO-Fund and its partners then work with the students to make sure they carry on CO-Fund’s social mission and confirm their completion of a pay-it- forward option.
A year ago I was writing and reading wretchedly hopeless posts and articles about newly graduated MBAs who could not get jobs and were swarming back to their recently ditched high school digs to cite the Home is where they have to take you when you don’t have anywhere else to go! rule to their confused parents. Parents who had long since turned their kid’s bedroom into a taxidermist’s suite.
The job market still blows for MBAs (and almost everyone else). But it’s managed to move ever so slightly up the flagpole of income opportunity. I’d say it’s improved at least three eighths of an inch.
According to the Wall Street Journal[link], the meek and the less-than networked will be living on the streets or pursuing another career entirely. Any freshly MBA-ed twenty-something who wants to fulfill their business destiny has to be willing to network to the nth degree, drive the networking and coffee-buying machine, and work their pants off to even get one cup’s worth of sit-down face time with a breathing human who may (or may not) lead to an interview.
In the interest of acquiring the motivational energy required for pursuing a business career in this economy, I would advise first nailing down the minimum wage job most capable of making you loathe yourself and every sunrise you witness. Possibly the best launching pad available is hitting bottom and having to scrounge around in the slimy muck for a while. Which situation makes you run faster? The beautiful cornfields you pass on your evening jog? Or the pissed-off bull someone forgot to latch the gate on, that is now hell-bent on obliterating you on the lame-ass, country-road asphalt of life?
Basically what it comes down to is this: If you’re sniffing flowers and pondering sunsets and saying, “Aww…pretty!” you are not ready to traject (I made that word up). But if you’re hating your bull moment so intensely that you’re running fast enough to leave the words, “Son of a biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii*ch!” far behind you, then you, my friend, are ready for the real world and will be kicking much business-world butt.
If you require more advice and fewer asterisks, please refer to the helpful articles below.
