My Son & College
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One thing that I think really hurts students today is this new culture of making it "acceptable" to be older and older without any idea of what they want to do. When I was in high school, long ago, there was a pretty strong expectation that you were behind the eight ball if you weren't working a job in high school and weren't well established in your path by sixteen or seventeen. At that point, you had to have already been preparing to get into college since you were 13 (if you weren't on your path by then, you started getting held back like I did) and by fifteen your class choices were determining what college or career options would be readily available to you and you were having already to pick college vs, vocational training, by sixteen you were to be looking at specific college options, and by seventeen you needed to be applied and hopefully accepted to at least somewhere (if that was your path.)
Today it should be way more demanding than that. With college optionally starting three to four years earlier and using college instead of high school as a more and more normal thing (it's just part of high school here in Texas now) you have to be solidly preparing for at least the broadest scope decisions by around twelve or you are losing ground even in the general sense.
And none of that is for the super ambitious "picked a career early and are teaching themselves" kids, this is just for the generic "want to go to college for something" kids.
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@penguinwrangler said in My Son & College:
@dustinb3403 well he is interested in it. That is why he will take coding next year at the vo-tech his senior year of high school. To see if he really wants to do it.
My worry would be, what if he takes a coding class, it's a really good class, he learns a lot.... and hates it? That's really awesome that he ruled it out at that point, but what then? Is he committed to a year of it at that point? What's the fall back plan to "discover another area of interest?" Is this a 99% sure he'll like programming kind of thing? Or is this a 15% "discovering his interests" kind of thing?
It's ridiculous that schools don't teach programming universally by 14. Everyone needs to be exposed to it, and early. No one anywhere in a country like the US should have to opt in to a programming class and certainly not by high school.
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@scottalanmiller said in My Son & College:
Wow, that's going to make for rather a challenge. However, all of us around my age learned to program without the Internet, so it is definitely possible.
I was around 10 years old when I got my "V-tech Pre Computer Power Pad" and was addicted to the BASIC programming program and tutorial.
No internet on there.
But I didn't pursue programming as a career, even though I was very interested in it as a child. Instead, I went the IT route, and have only recently got back into my interest of programming (starting with PHP).
Anyways, I was doing my thing well before high school ended, i knew i wanted to do IT then and didn't use a class to see if I did or not.
I went to a technical school not to figure out if I wanted to do IT or not, but because I thought I needed it to get a job. I was already well into that stuff before starting degree work.
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Did he wreck desktop machines just to find out how they work when he was kid ?
I mean if you know that he likes this and it seems he should, to get the training, but I dont mind the idea as long as he have shown to you that he loves what he does, and that will basically set him for the next decade then he can figure out anything else.
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@penguinwrangler said in My Son & College:
@scottalanmiller said in My Son & College:
@penguinwrangler said in My Son & College:
@dustinb3403 well he is interested in it. That is why he will take coding next year at the vo-tech his senior year of high school. To see if he really wants to do it.
Why is he not doing it right now, to find that out, before spending his senior year in classes figuring it out? Classes are a terrible place to get exposed to career or job options. Programming in a class is nothing like the real world. And if it is anything like high school programming classes I've seen recently, you've got a very high chance that they won't teach programming at all. My niece just did this and her "C# programming class" never wrote a line of code. I'm pretty sure she got an A in a class and doesn't even know what programming is having taken it!
He isn't doing it right now because he lives with his mom, who doesn't have internet access. Making it a bit harder to access the online material to learn.
Either pay for his internet, or get him an unlimited data plan that he can use as a mobile hotspot. If he is interested in this type of tech, he needs to have the internet as resource for learning.
I agree with what others have said. I was doing this type of stuff when I was 8 years old. 14 is late to be started doing this. Definitely get him a raspberry pi and internet connection. Otherwise he will be very behind.
Oh and forget learning anything useful in a high school computer class. The person who is teaches it was probably a reject in the field. Otherwise they wouldn't be earning $40k a year teaching high school kids computers.
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@irj said in My Son & College:
Oh and forget learning anything useful in a high school computer class. The person who is teaches it was probably a reject in the field. Otherwise they wouldn't be earning $40k a year teaching high school kids computers.
More likely getting $35K and only teaching that class on the side!
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@scottalanmiller said in My Son & College:
@irj said in My Son & College:
Oh and forget learning anything useful in a high school computer class. The person who is teaches it was probably a reject in the field. Otherwise they wouldn't be earning $40k a year teaching high school kids computers.
More likely getting $35K and only teaching that class on the side!
Yeah. those teachers dont give two shits about the kids ....lol
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@irj said in My Son & College:
@scottalanmiller said in My Son & College:
@irj said in My Son & College:
Oh and forget learning anything useful in a high school computer class. The person who is teaches it was probably a reject in the field. Otherwise they wouldn't be earning $40k a year teaching high school kids computers.
More likely getting $35K and only teaching that class on the side!
Yeah. those teachers dont give two shits about the kids ....lol
Not very likely. Mostly because even the most casual student likely has already surpassed them in job opportunities.
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@scottalanmiller said in My Son & College:
@irj said in My Son & College:
@scottalanmiller said in My Son & College:
@irj said in My Son & College:
Oh and forget learning anything useful in a high school computer class. The person who is teaches it was probably a reject in the field. Otherwise they wouldn't be earning $40k a year teaching high school kids computers.
More likely getting $35K and only teaching that class on the side!
Yeah. those teachers dont give two shits about the kids ....lol
Not very likely. Mostly because even the most casual student likely has already surpassed them in job opportunities.
Some of the worst students in HS become teachers or cops.
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@irj said in My Son & College:
@scottalanmiller said in My Son & College:
@irj said in My Son & College:
@scottalanmiller said in My Son & College:
@irj said in My Son & College:
Oh and forget learning anything useful in a high school computer class. The person who is teaches it was probably a reject in the field. Otherwise they wouldn't be earning $40k a year teaching high school kids computers.
More likely getting $35K and only teaching that class on the side!
Yeah. those teachers dont give two shits about the kids ....lol
Not very likely. Mostly because even the most casual student likely has already surpassed them in job opportunities.
Some of the worst students in HS become teachers or cops.
It's a known phenomenon, we see it in mental health fields too. Students who struggle, often get extra help from teachers. They start to see value in teachers. So those with the worst education behaviour often see teaching as more important than those that excel in school and didn't need help from teachers as much. So there is a huge gravitation for struggling students to become teachers. Plus, struggling in school means it is harder to get exposure to other fields making teaching one of the few jobs that you get exposed to regularly.
Kids who have mental health issues tend to spend a lot of time with psychologists and then often gravitate to being mental health professionals themselves because it is something that they are exposed heavily to. While kids that never need to see doctors tend to never picture themselves working in that space.
So in many cases, those kinds of fields tend to heavily fill up with the people you'd actually want least to work working in them.
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@scottalanmiller said in My Son & College:
@irj said in My Son & College:
Oh and forget learning anything useful in a high school computer class. The person who is teaches it was probably a reject in the field. Otherwise they wouldn't be earning $40k a year teaching high school kids computers.
More likely getting $35K and only teaching that class on the side!
That is not how public schools employ teachers, generally.
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@jaredbusch said in My Son & College:
@scottalanmiller said in My Son & College:
@irj said in My Son & College:
Oh and forget learning anything useful in a high school computer class. The person who is teaches it was probably a reject in the field. Otherwise they wouldn't be earning $40k a year teaching high school kids computers.
More likely getting $35K and only teaching that class on the side!
That is not how public schools employ teachers, generally.
Oh, I didn't mean that he ONLY teaches on the side. I mean that he only teaches that one CLASS on the side. Might teach other, non-programming classes, the rest of the time.
I know my nieces' school does this. They have a science teacher who sometimes teachings a "programming" class by request. It's less than 10% of his workload.
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@momurda said in My Son & College:
@jaredbusch said in My Son & College:
@momurda said in My Son & College:
Also, your 17 year old will probably change his mind next week. And then again the week after that. And again this afternoon.
This is a bunch of shit.
No it isnt. I added a conditional probably at the beginning. The vast majority of people at 17 are clueless about what they want for their future, except for some nebulous 'to get a job' type goal that their parents have foisted on them.
Just because you swear and berate people on a forum doesnt make you correct.I agree with @momurda, I don't think most 17 yr olds know what they really want to do with their lives. The rare few who do, are light years ahead, of course, but that only makes them the rare few.
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@scottalanmiller said in My Son & College:
@momurda said in My Son & College:
@jaredbusch said in My Son & College:
@momurda said in My Son & College:
Also, your 17 year old will probably change his mind next week. And then again the week after that. And again this afternoon.
This is a bunch of shit.
No it isnt. I added a conditional probably at the beginning. The vast majority of people at 17 are clueless about what they want for their future...
Sure, but if you are talking about the vast majority you need some context...
- The vast majority of people can never consider working in any tech endeavor.
- The vast majority of people never find a career, they just have jobs (if that.)
- The vast majority of people are equally clueless at 40 as they are at 17.
And I'll agree with that too.
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@dashrender said in My Son & College:
@momurda said in My Son & College:
@jaredbusch said in My Son & College:
@momurda said in My Son & College:
Also, your 17 year old will probably change his mind next week. And then again the week after that. And again this afternoon.
This is a bunch of shit.
No it isnt. I added a conditional probably at the beginning. The vast majority of people at 17 are clueless about what they want for their future, except for some nebulous 'to get a job' type goal that their parents have foisted on them.
Just because you swear and berate people on a forum doesnt make you correct.I agree with @momurda, I don't think most 17 yr olds know what they really want to do with their lives. The rare few who do, are light years ahead, of course, but that only makes them the rare few.
Maybe the most important thing is that by 17 you...
- Have known for many years that you had to know what you were doing by now or were going to face hardships because of it.
- Have committed to some beginnings of a path whether you like it or not.
- Have no excuse for not having planned to the best of your ability.
- Deep down really have a good feel for what you like and don't like as you're way, way older than when so many of your peers are already choosing careers, colleges, programs, vocational schools, etc.
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@scottalanmiller said in My Son & College:
@irj said in My Son & College:
@scottalanmiller said in My Son & College:
@irj said in My Son & College:
@scottalanmiller said in My Son & College:
@irj said in My Son & College:
Oh and forget learning anything useful in a high school computer class. The person who is teaches it was probably a reject in the field. Otherwise they wouldn't be earning $40k a year teaching high school kids computers.
More likely getting $35K and only teaching that class on the side!
Yeah. those teachers dont give two shits about the kids ....lol
Not very likely. Mostly because even the most casual student likely has already surpassed them in job opportunities.
Some of the worst students in HS become teachers or cops.
It's a known phenomenon, we see it in mental health fields too. Students who struggle, often get extra help from teachers. They start to see value in teachers. So those with the worst education behaviour often see teaching as more important than those that excel in school and didn't need help from teachers as much. So there is a huge gravitation for struggling students to become teachers. Plus, struggling in school means it is harder to get exposure to other fields making teaching one of the few jobs that you get exposed to regularly.
My wife is an exception this this - if not Straight As, near straight As in HS, and a high 3.x in college. She tutored in HS and college - she always wanted to be a teacher.
But when the BS of HS around here grew too much, she bailed and moved onto the local community college...
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@scottalanmiller said in My Son & College:
- Deep down really have a good feel for what you like and don't like as you're way, way older than when so many of your peers are already choosing careers, colleges, programs, vocational schools, etc.
I draw the line on this one. I'd say less than 20% of my peers (in my class specifically, not nationally) had any plan. And for those that I've run into since then - many still do those 'jobs' you spoke about, not an actual career.
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@dashrender said in My Son & College:
@scottalanmiller said in My Son & College:
- Deep down really have a good feel for what you like and don't like as you're way, way older than when so many of your peers are already choosing careers, colleges, programs, vocational schools, etc.
I draw the line on this one. I'd say less than 20% of my peers (in my class specifically, not nationally) had any plan. And for those that I've run into since then - many still do those 'jobs' you spoke about, not an actual career.
They had plans, they just weren't bragging about them. By 17, half the class has already actioned whatever plan they are starting. May not look like a plan to you, because it's not a big huge career path, but it's a plan and in motion.
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I started learning to code in High School, have a CIS degree. I worked as a generalist for 8 years before becoming a developer and systems integrator for the last 3. Having the degree has opened doors, but SAM is right, my peers that started coding in middle school write circles around me. It is embarrassing.
What has kept me in a great job has been mainly the following:
- I show up to work everyday, never call in sick
- I don't make excuses and own problems
- I complete tasks without management
- I can learn new things
- I stay on top of new trends
- I can use basic logic
The 4 year degree shows that I can stick to things and greenlights any HR hurdles, and most of what I learned in school specific to writing code, I never used.
I vote work on getting your kid a little daily stoicism, and don't be scared to toss him in the deep end and let him swim.
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Why not just buy him an Auduino Uno kit and a cheap laptop. No internet needed, it's cheap, and quick for him to discover if he likes programming or not.
