higher education
Words of advice for not-so-young people: my thoughts on getting value from a degree with few years of higher education a little later in life
Originally written circa 2016
First of all, I like that you are thinking about the end goal. That is good. Now I want to challenge you to think about that goal from some different perspectives.
I’ll say up front that anything I suggest will be a lot of damn work. I do not have any magic words.
Let me organize my thoughts in 3 chapters.
Chapter 1: the myth of the dream job
Chapter 2: some ways to think about work
Chapter 3: tying it together
Chapter 1: the myth of the dream job
This whole conversation revolves around a central question – “what do you want to do?” A question that is easy to ask, but strangely difficult to answer.
This question is central to this discussion because, what I will recommend, is that you go to school and get a degree only as a means to an end. A degree is only worth your time and money if you can say, “I want to do/be something, and the degree is a step in that direction.” So you need to set a goal for what you want to do.
If you struggle to answer this question, you are not alone. Many people do. I struggle to say what I want to be doing 5 or 10 years from now, and I like what I am doing now. In my experience, many people who are happy with what they do would not have known 5 or 10 years ago that it was what they wanted; they found their way into a good job by some combination of will and opportunity.
We’re asked as kids “what do you want to do when you grow up?” and conditioned to give answers like: I want to be a… ballerina, or astronaut, or fire-fighter. Or maybe “I always wanted to be a doctor so I can help people” or something like that. Notice these are all occupations children know about. When I was a kid I never said “I want to be a gas turbine combustion engineer”. Sometimes we hear of someone who “always” wanted to do something or other, scientist or astronaut or whatever. But, in my experience, those people are rare.
Then there is the myth that there is something deep in your heart that you really want to do, or some place you belong, and you must get in touch with that “soul mate job” and go do that. This is bullshit. For most of us, the things we really want to do are not marketable. If I could do anything, I would sit at home and listen to music and drink tea. And ski about 100 day a year. But I’m a sloppy skier. I will never get paid to ski. Nobody is going to pay you to do what you want, that is a pipedream. Now sure, I know, somebody out there always wanted to be a singer and now they are, or always wanted to be this or that, and now they have great satisfaction. Maybe people who go to concerts and write reviews come close, but that’s a hard way to come by money. Somebody gets to be president, but most people who apply for that job are not selected. Some people can make it big on show or stage, but the closest I’ll ever come is clown.
Some does make it big. Some people get paid to ski. Some people get to ride horses, or whatever.
But those people are very rare. For the other 99% of us, we have to settle for something we just don’t hate. That is why it is called work and not play. Personally, I enjoy what I do.. most of the time. Some of it, sometimes, I don’t. I agree that it is very important to do work you enjoy, but I reject the myth of a dream job. Instead of wasting your time looking for your soul mate job, I will try to offer some practical advice for the other 99% of us.
Next is the problem of knowing what you want. It is a deceptively simple question because humans are notoriously bad at knowing what we want. This has been studied. People are especially bad at telling you what they want if you ask an open-ended question; they are much better at choosing from options. Since you are interested in psych, maybe you should research this problem. I have encountered this at work, allow me to elaborate.
Companies these days (including where I work) have reexamined the problem of how to know what customers want. In the past it was all about getting the “voice of the customer”, that is, talking to customers and asking them what they want. But this way of thinking is outdated. Apple does not ask people what they want. Apple tells you what you want before you know it is an option. Google does not ask customers what they want; they monitor your online behavior and form models to predict what you will do next. Most highly successful tech companies are moving to this approach. The reason is that people are very lousy at telling you what they want, especially if you ask an open-ended question.
Let me give an example. Suppose you could go back to the late 1990’s or early 2000’s and gather market data on portable music players. Suppose you took a survey to ask people “what do you want in a portable music player?” You would get answers like.. light-weight, long battery life, doesn’t skip, etc. So you would write up a marketing report saying the next big product should be a CD player that is, light-weight, long battery, doesn’t skip. And you might say that EVERYONE IS GOING TO WANT THIS. But wait, you asked an open-ended question. The innovative tech companies gave people an option. They said, effectively, option A is a cd player, light-weight, etc. and option B is a portable MP3 player that fits in your pocket and synchs to your computer. Before long, it would be clear that NOBODY wants the first option. A completely different answer when you ask the question differently. Given options, people’s spending behavior, not their words, will tell you what they want. The reason is that, until they see the options, they don’t know to want the other thing.
One last example before I move on.. sometimes I come home from a long day at work and I am mentally exhausted. My wife says “what do you want for dinner?” Even trying to answer that question is tiresome. But the question is: “we have left-over pad Thai, or chicken and broccoli, or I can make some spaghetti” then it is much easier for me to say “pad Thai please.” Again, options.
So here is the point. Don’t try to find your true love of a job. Find a methodical way to present yourself with some options.
Chapter 2: some ways to think about work
I want you to think about what work you might do, and I want you to think about it 4 ways. Consider:
(1) Profit margin
(2) Hiring spread
(3) Start time
(4) Bridge job
Profit margin: If you will work in a certain industry, think about what kind of profit margin can be made. That is, the difference between what it costs to make a commodity, and what it sells for. For example, if you work in a sandwich shop, and the raw materials of a sandwich cost $5 to make, and you can sell it for $10, I would say that is a pretty good margin. Unfortunately, most sandwich shops have much lower margins. Think about some high-margin businesses… software and music – programs sell for much more than the cost of a disc and some manuals. Prescription drugs – a small bottle of pills can sell for hundreds of dollars, whereas the materials might cost just a few dollars. There are high-margin businesses in places you might not expect. Car maintenance for example.. the cost to repair a car is often much greater than the cost of the spare parts. If you need a transmission repair, you will pay more to have it done because you need your car back, and you don’t want to (or can’t) fix it yourself. I once had to order a replacement key for my Honda Civic hybrid - $150! There was some kind of electronic security feature making it more secure than old-fashioned keys. The metal and plastic cost is much, much less. I have found that the ski industry has great margins, if there are luxury hotels by the mountain where people pay hundreds of dollars per night. Almost all healthcare is like this, because, when people are sick or in emergency, they are not in a position to shop for bargains. I have political/moral issues with the way healthcare is financed in this country, but I recognize that it has very good margins.
The reason why this is so important is that the profit margin is the money the employees live on. Software companies make good margins, and they can afford to hire programmers at a good salary. Doctor’s offices make good margins, and everyone working there can benefit. The more margin you start with, the more you can afford to give employees as salary and benefits.
Now think about some low-margin industries. Volume retailers (such as Wal-Mart, KMart, Target) for example. They sell stuff for just pennies more than what it costs, and make their money in volume. As a result, most people who work there do not have good salaries. There may be some corporate benefits but not a lot left for employees. Perhaps the regional manager of multiple stores, but for the other 99% it is tough. There is just not enough extra money to take good care of everyone. In fact, historically, a lot of the work done to support that business model has come from China, below our minimum wage.
Most food service businesses are low margin, except some of these fancy restaurants in big cities where people pay $100 per plate. Fancy chef can be high margin. But more often, the $10 sandwich costs $8 to make, and the $2 profit has to pay the bills and the payroll. This is how you get servers making less than minimum wage with the rest coming from tips. Car sales is low margin because it is so competitive. A lot of car deals close at just a small fraction above cost. Smart manufacturers have learned to sell the car at the lowest price possible and then make up the difference with services and spares (like my $150 key).
One quick way to check this is to google the median salary of a person working in that field. For a software engineer, I saw $93,000 – so you know there are some good margins there. For a veterinarian I see about 85, which is also quite good. For a human doctor it is closer to 300, so we obviously pay more for human care than for pets.
So the point is, you want to think about possible lines of work in industries where there are high margins. Most healthcare industries are like this, but there are many others.
Hiring Spread: This is what I call the ratio of how many jobs are available to how many people apply. Ideally, there will be lots of jobs open and few applicants. Before I left Greenville, we posed an external position for the first time since the recession. We had 9 highly qualified people apply for the one job. If you would run for president, there might be dozens of candidates, but only one person hired. On the other hand, there is almost always a shortage of nurses. A quick way to check this is just to look at how many of those jobs were hired in previous years; this kind of data can be found online. Be careful though, It is not the total number of jobs, but rather the spread between number of jobs and number of (qualified) applicants. There are millions of jobs in food service, but also millions of applicants. So look for options in fields where lots of people are hired, and with a good hiring spread.
Start time: This is the time it will take you to start doing a job, if you decide tomorrow that is what you want to do. It depends mainly on how long you have to go to school. You want to set your goals on something that can be done in a reasonable amount of time. Medical doctor, for example, has great margins, but you need a full degree, plus a medical degree, plus residency. This is not my area, but I know it can take many years to get into that type of job. And during those years you are spending money on school and not earning enough. But there are other fields related to medicine where you might need only a 2-year degree.
For a given job, understand what qualifications you need, and how long it will take to earn them. Assume it will take a little bit longer than the ideal, because you still have real life to deal with.
Bridge Job: That leads to the fourth thing, which is a bridge job. This is something you can do soon, to start building your resume for what you eventually want to do. And preferably it will pay enough to get you through school. For a vet, this might be veterinary assistant, which can be done with a 2-year degree. Look for something you can start while still working on the degree. At first, it might be a good idea to volunteer just to get your foot in the door. But be reluctant to volunteer, because part of the idea of the bridge job is to help fund the larger goal. Let’s say you to be a dental hygienist, just for example. A bridge job might be working behind the counter taking appointments. Any work you can do in the dentist’s office is then building your resume to eventually get to the higher position. Ideally, your plan would say, “I want to do this and it will take so many years to get there, and, in the meantime, I want to work this bridge job to help me get there. You should lay out that plan with milestones and dates. Then, figure out where a degree fits into the picture
Chapter 3: tying it together
My advice to you is this: brainstorm different job options. Don’t limit the list based on what you want to do. That will come later. Start by brainstorming a list of possibilities. Get help from a friend for an extra perspective. Take a quick shot to assess them based on those 4 factors. Do some online research for the top options. You say that you like psych and want to be a counselor. Great! Put that on the list. But compare it to other options and see if it holds up. Once you have some good options that measure well on those 4 scales, lay out a more detailed plan.. what does it take to get from here to there? When can you start school, when could you apply for a bridge job? When can you get to the final goal? If you think it through to that level of detail, you will probably find that some options look more attractive, and others, less. Now, only now, that you have some options laid out in detail, start to think about which do you like and which do you want. Give yourself specific options and think about which would be least objectionable.. which do I hate the least?
Let me tell some stories.
Someone studied psych at the University of Florida. He had a minor in classical literature. He then got a masters of fine arts in creative writing (or something similar) from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He worked in a book store for a while, and worked for a small publishing company in England for a time. Later, married with kids, he needed something more. He went back to school and got a 2-year degree to become a physician’s assistant (PA) which he now does for a good salary. Those others degrees were honorable, but do not contribute much to what he does now.
That one was true, now I’ll make one up.
Someone finds that she needs to get a better job, so she decides to go to school. Now what to study? “Well, I’m interested in history, so I’ll get a degree in that.” 4 years and thousands of dollars later, she has a history degree. Now to get a job. “How about the national museum of history? maybe I could be the curator there.” So she applies for that job. It turns out, they are hiring for that job, but there are 10 applicants, some of whom have been doing that work for many years. She later learns that this position is posted about once in ten years, and typically, whenever it is open, there are at least 10 applicants.
Now here’s another one.
The same person who is interested in history does some research and learns that the curator job has 10 applicants per one job. Not happy with these odds, she looks for other options. Some options she considers are: vet, the person who administers X-rays at the dentist, dental hygienist, pharmacist, or something in sales. She selected these options based on their profit margin, hiring spread, start time, and bridge jobs. Of these options, she decides that the X-ray one is most attractive. So she gets to know some people in the dentist office and asks for help to lay out the plan. She enrolls in a 2-year program at a technical college and applies for a job behind the counter at several dentist offices. One of those offices hires her in, allowing her to work and go to school at the same time. Within a few years, she is able to move up to better positions and better salary. Along the way, she realizes she doesn’t really like the X-ray work, but would rather assist the dentists. She gets to know people who do that work, and modifies the plan as she goes. Although it is not as interesting as the museum job, she is able to get moving quickly with a manageable school cost.
Be aware that the plan will likely change. That is OK. What is important is that you have a plan to work on. You can improve on a bad plan. You cannot improve on “no plan”. When I moved to Orlando to study engineering (2001) I had different goals. I wanted to work in the space tourism industry (seems like a bad idea in retrospect). But I had a plan. The bridge job was to be a coop at the space center in Cape Canaveral. That never happened. But, along the way, I was able to build connections and get work with one of my professors doing research in the energy industry. I later decided I like that field better, and I modified that plan. This is to be expected.
If you are interested in a subject, great! Study it at home. Get the books and read them on your own time. Trust me, it will be much better financially than paying a college to give you a degree in that field.
But I believe you should only go to school and get a degree if it is part of a bigger plan. You should not invest your money and the years of your life in a degree just because your parents want you to, or because society expects it, or because you think it will get you a job, or because you find the subject matter interesting. Those are all bad reasons to buy a degree. They are certainly bad reasons to take on debt. The only good reason starts from a plan. A plan that says “I want to do/be something specific, and to get there, I will need this degree.” And it may not be just a degree. You may also need some on-the-job experience. Also be thinking about how to get that. Although not ideal, consider volunteer work, if it will build the resume you need.
And the goal that you set will not be your dream job. It will not be what you were born to do. It will be something more practical. Something that you can see yourself doing for a long time without hating it. Something that will pay reasonably well and that can be started in a reasonable amount of time, with a good number of opportunities available.
