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Joined: Oct 2011
Posts: 2,856
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If one career pays (say) five times as much as another but requires twice the hours (80 vs. 40 per week), some people, especially males, will choose the former. They can in theory retire early and enjoy more leisure in their 40s and 50s. The start-up dream is to solve your lifetime financial problem with a few "insane" years of intense work. I'd say the 40s and 50s are a little late in the game to be attempting to make genuine connections with other human beings, especially after having lived a lifestyle since K that provides limited opportunities to figure out how to do so. And since genuine human connections are pretty much a requirement for mental health, I'm sticking with "insane."
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Joined: Jul 2011
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I'd say the 40s and 50s are a little late in the game to be attempting to make genuine connections with other human beings, especially after having lived a lifestyle since K that provides limited opportunities to figure out how to do so.
And since genuine human connections are pretty much a requirement for mental health, I'm sticking with "insane." Some of these people are fraternity/sorority presidents, etc. Having roomed with one who went into I-banking, I'm fairly certain of this.
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Joined: Feb 2010
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There aren't many tenure track professorships at research universities and staff positions at national labs. The world does not need many mediocre research scientists. Therefore only academic superstars should try to get PhDs. An advantage of going to a Harvard, MIT, Princeton, Stanford etc. is that you get to compare your abilities to those of the best students in the country. Finding out that you are only mediocre in that crowd is painful but can save you half a dozen years of your life trying to get a PhD unless you have blinders on. Ahem. Greg Mankiw, quoted below from a speech he gave at the Chapel-Hill Chauncy Hall prep school, currently chairs of the economics department at Harvard. His views are similar to to mine, but he wised up before I did and switched fields. I don't understand gifted students intending academic careers (and their parents) who avoid the Harvards/MITs etc. because they are too "competitive". Gifted students need to measure themselves against other gifted students, and the most gifted students cluster at certain schools. https://www.chch.org/ftpimages/39/misc/misc_131313.pdfOkay. Fast forward to my own high school graduation. It is 1976. Gerald Ford is
president. Everybody is playing Bruce Springsteen’s breakthrough album Born to Run and Bob
Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks (which, by the way, is Dylan’s best album).
At the time, I was the school math geek. I took all the hardest math classes, took more
math classes on the weekends at a nearby university, spent the summer before my senior year at
a summer activity focused around math and astrophysics, and won the school math prize. I
thought I was pretty hot …..Well, you get the idea.
When I went to college the next fall, I started off as a math major, thinking I would end
up being a professional mathematician. I was doing what economists call pursuing your
comparative advantage, which means doing what you are good at compared with other people. I
thought if I was so good at math compared with my high school classmates, it would make sense
to turn that talent into a career.
But then something happened: I met some other students who were really good in math.
And I mean really good. These were the kind of kids who not only took hard math courses in
high school and did well in them, but they spent their free time competing in the international
math Olympiad. They were in an entirely different league than I was. I felt like I was the most
valuable player on my little league team, and all of a sudden I was practicing with the Red Sox.
Over time, I realized that I was pretty good in math, but far from a star. I was good
enough to take college-level math classes and pursue a more quantitative career, but I was
probably not cut out to become a professional mathematician.
So here is my second lesson for you: You may think you are good at something, and you
may think you know what you should spend your life doing, but you may well be wrong. You
will learn a lot about yourself during your first few years of adulthood. Be prepared to change
your mind about your path in life and about your self-image. I know I certainly did.
I realize that is a bit of a downer. But don’t worry: The story will get better. Mankiw's speech was mentioned by David Henderson http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2013/06/greg_mankiws_st.html .
Last edited by Bostonian; 06/03/13 07:34 AM. Reason: longer excerpt from speech
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I don't understand gifted students intending academic careers (and their parents) who avoid the Harvards/MITs etc. because they are too "competitive". Gifted students need to measure themselves against other gifted students, and the most gifted students cluster at certain schools. Because is costs $250,000. So the choice is between the parents being able to ever retire vs. funding their kid's college. For instance, my BIL chose Duke over Harvard because of the 75% scholarship he received.
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Joined: Feb 2010
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Because is costs $250,000. That reason I perfectly understand and consider quite valid. My post referred to "overly competitive environment" reason, which has been mentioned by others on this thread.
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That reason I perfectly understand and consider quite valid. My post referred to "overly competitive environment" reason, which has been mentioned by others on this thread. I suppose then you have the possiblity of reactive depression as their egos are shredded.
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Joined: Feb 2011
Posts: 5,181
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Because is costs $250,000. That reason I perfectly understand and consider quite valid. My post referred to "overly competitive environment" reason, which has been mentioned by others on this thread. It depends on the individual, I'd say. This isn't about a peer cohort in the intellectual sense-- OF COURSE having a true peer cohort is the best thing for HG children and adults. OF COURSE. But-- the out-competing mentality associated with Tiger Parenting (and, let's face it, matriculation at any institution that actively PRIDES itself on only admitting 2%, 4%, 6%... of applicants) is setting up that kind of hypercompetitive environment in those admits. They have to compete like that to GET IN. Now, if your goal in life is to be at the top of your profession, and you're willing to "out-compete" your colleagues to get there, then that kind of environment is probably a fine idea. But there are people who are not made that way. Constitutionally, they are collaborative and pro-social in their very souls. It would be a grave mistake to place a person like that into that kind of setting, where one regards peers as "opponents" in an elaborate and very, very expensive game of musical chairs. Many introverts would also find that kind of environment actively draining-- as any introvert knows all too well, there are people who are intensely draining, and a lot of them tend to be aggressive, competitive, and extroverted. Not all people have the same social needs.
Schrödinger's cat walks into a bar. And doesn't.
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Joined: Oct 2011
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When "competitive" equals "willing to work 14 hours a day at a single thing," then yes, that's overly competitive. In the same way, if I'm in a foot race with someone, and they're willing to throw themselves in front of traffic, then I'm perfectly content to let them win (if you want to call it that).
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Joined: Jul 2011
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Constitutionally, they are collaborative and pro-social in their very souls. It would be a grave mistake to place a person like that into that kind of setting, where one regards peers as "opponents" in an elaborate and very, very expensive game of musical chairs. I don't think it's as much "opponents" as it is "enemies" or "existential threats". After all, there is only one winner.
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Joined: Sep 2012
Posts: 128
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In IT, "consulting" just means "I don't work permanently for the organization I'm currently working for." In some situations, it's just white-collar jargon for "temp agency." In other situations, you're paying for well-developed and/or specialized expertise. It depends on the firm, mostly.
And sometimes you think you're hiring well-developed, specialized expertise from a highly-reputable company, only to find out the person hasn't got a clue.
Sometimes you even find that one of the many consultants working on a major project submitted a timesheet for 21 full work days, in a month with only 20 work days, and the logs indicate he never logged on. This made me LOL, down to the timesheets.
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