The warnings we got in high school

Throughout high school, there were a lot of lies they told us about our futures and what we should expect. In my case, I was lucky to grow up in a conservative state. I never heard the advice "do what your heart tells you and the money will follow".

A lot of the real world knowledge came from my sociology teach oddly enough. She was the best teacher I had in high school because she didn't lie to us. She told us like it is. Being that she taught sociology, she didn't bother to follow the book or teaching materials for a good 70% of the semester. She boiled down sociology to the following statement.

"Life sucks and then you die." She really didn't sugar coat it at all. When you go or your friends go to college, they may have different experiences and become different people. During one class session, she was trying to convince one of the students not to major in journalism. The journalism industry is pretty flooded and good paying jobs are highly competitive. The student that was resisting eventually went on to participate in the OWS protests. It was from my sociology professor that I heard about the reality of the college system. She stated that college degrees are no where near as useful as they were in the past because college degrees have become more and more common in the last few decades. As a result, the job market became more and more competitive. Not only that, but tuition was constantly increasing in price. I only wish she could have more insight about what a worthwhile and worthless major was.

I had an economics teacher that was a conservative. During one of our class sessions, he mentioned that raising the minimum wage does nothing to help the poor. As the cost of labor increases, business have more incentive to fire excess staff and move towards automation.

I had a teacher that taught personal finance. She told the class a story about how her son was completely set on going to a traditional college to get a four year degree. She was trying to persuade her son to consider all of his options. She mentioned that trade schools only take two years to complete, are much cheaper than traditional colleges, and provide a man with good work percipience before entering the labor market. This was the closest I ever came to a teacher specifically recommending becoming an automotive mechanic, welder, or carpenter.