Parents pressuring sister to major in "something useful".

Parents Forum
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<p>You know there was a thread a year or so ago about going into the film/movie industry. I remember one of the people responding worked in the industry and I think they said to just start off getting a job, any job in the industry. I can’t find the thread, but I thought the suggestions given where very helpful. </p>

<p>Anyway, if your sister has no idea what she wants to do or is excited about college I suggest a gap year doing something else. Your parents would be better off paying to support her working as an intern somewhere than wasting money sending her to college. You said she wanted to stay close to home, well there has been talk about studios opening up in Plymouth and Weymouth. Not sure if they are still on but it might be worth looking into.</p>

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There’s actually a huge film production center being built in Plymouth. A lot of movies are now made in Boston as well.</p>

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Sounds like a bit of a self-esteem issue in your house. From your posts, it sounds like you are in the pre-professional system. Are your parents (or you) comparing her to you? Have they done it before?</p>

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<p>Perhaps the most useful thing to do is have her apply to schools where she will have a very large number of options in terms of a field of study - schools like UMass-Amherst, Tufts or Boston University.</p>

<p>Most high school students don’t have a clue what they want to do for a living, and rightfully so. Even if your parents are concerned, she will be able to take whatever courses she likes the first year of college and still have plenty of time to pick a major that will make her employable (ie, there is no need to pressure her now).</p>

<p>I just got back from transfer orientation at Ithaca College, and I think that would be another good school for your sister to consider. They have lots of programs that are preprofessional but also lots that are liberal arts. She could enter as an Exploratory major.</p>

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<p>Your sister might also want to look into UNC-Wilmington. You might also want to read this information along with your sister:</p>

<p>[UNCW</a> Film Studies | About Us](<a href=“http://www.uncw.edu/filmstudies/about/about-the-department.html]UNCW”>Department of Film Studies | UNCW)</p>

<p>I think that for this school to be a match, her SAT scores would need to be raised a bit, but this school is probably within reach with a few more points on the SATs. Perhaps she should try the ACTs as well. I think that a school like Tufts is too much of a reach.</p>

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<p>Also, have your sis check out extension/continuing education courses in the universities in your area. For instance, Harvard’s extension school offers film studies/video film making classes for non-degree students on Saturdays, in the evenings and on-line. The cost ranges from $700 - $1200/semester. That way, she could better know where her interest lies before committing to a 4 year university.</p>

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<p>Note that the OP’s sister has not indicated that she is interested in majoring in anything having to do with film or film making…</p>

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<p>Fendrock,
I disagree. Upon re-reading the OP, there is evidence that the parents have discussed film studies as a possible field of study. They warned her that “studying film is a waste of time.”</p>

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<p>The OP says “my sister is a huge film buff, but exhibits no interest in filmmaking.”</p>

<p>It is possible that she has alluded to a major in film studies, but perhaps only because she was under pressure to name any kind of major.</p>

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<p>Film studies and film production are two different majors, analagous to the difference between majoring in English Literature vs. Creative Writing.</p>

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<p>If I were your parents, I would have 2 questions for your sister. The answers would determine whether I would pay for college, inexpensive or not:</p>

<p>1) Do you have a particular career/interest/major you want to pursue, and are you willing to work hard at the GenEd classes you’ll be required to complete, along with your major?</p>

<p>2) If not, are you excited/motivated/willing to work hard to become a generally educated person, even without knowing what career you’ll end up in, exploring possible career options, but also doing the hard work of learning about literature, art, science, math, philosophy, etc?</p>

<p>If the answers to both questions were “no,” then I wouldn’t pay for college. I would set up a reasonable timeframe during which I would support her financially (in gently decreasing amounts) while she looked for a job and began supporting herself.</p>

<p>I would also tell her that if her feelings changed over the next few years, then we would reconsider college and I’d be happy to fund it toward a specific degree or a keen interest in pursuing a broad, general education.</p>

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<p>Correct. My sister enjoys film deeply, but she isn’t the sort of person who is willing to get dirty with production work, screenwriting, or non-linear video editing. She is more of the film critic type. (For example, she lectured to me once why films like “Kick-ass” do not constitute art.)</p>

<p>According to my sister’s own research, there is a distinction between film studies and film production. </p>

<p>My sister can be quite intellectual at times - but only when the subject of discussion is about film. My parents (and even me, to an extent) see this as an inherent weakness, because she seemingly is unwilling or unable to extend this sort of intellectualism to something else.</p>

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<p>I try telling my parents that - but since they are immigrants from a place that churns out hundreds of thousands of young engineers per year, they are generally dismissive of the liberal arts (unless it’s science, economics, or math).</p>

<p>Initially, when I was applying to college, my parents were far more relaxed about the process. They encouraged me to study something useful as well, but they didn’t push me quite as hard as they are pushing my sister now. I chose finance/economics and I am relatively satisfied by my choice. This was in late 2008.</p>

<p>Partially, they saw me as more of a hard-driving, pragmatic person who can be trusted to make the right choices and do the right thing. However, they believe that since my sister is so passive, she might be less able to make good choices for herself, unless they push her in the right direction (as they are doing now).</p>

<p>Also, I believe part of the problem stems from anxiety over the recent economic crisis which took place after Lehman Brothers fell into bankruptcy. My parents read news and horror stories about the unemployment rate, unemployed/under-employed graduates with astronomical debts, etc. </p>

<p>My sister is smart. Yes, she is quite removed from the world, but perhaps a year in college and away from the bubble at home will do her some good. </p>

<p>Thanks for all the advice, everyone. I think I’ll tell my parents to back off for the time being. She hasn’t even applied to college yet…</p>

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<p>You know somebody has to be a film critic, maybe your sister will get to be one. I’m sure Will Shortz’s parents were horrified when he created his own major studying puzzles, but he’s made it into a career. My high school friend whose main interest was reading romance novels is an editor at a publishing house that publishes romance novels. Lots of other people are happy having not to demanding 9 to 5 jobs that give them time to pursue their hobbies and that’s fine too.</p>

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<p>With the whole family buzzing around demanding that she make long term career choices right now, it’s no wonder that she prefers to escape into classic movies.</p>

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<p>Surely not unemployable for all purposes–but perhaps not many prospects in her field!</p>

<p>I wouldn’t go massively in debt for this degree without a plan on how to pay it off. It doesn’t have to be in a film job.</p>

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<p>Thank you, Compmom. It’s hard to get many parents to understand that one doesn’t typically go to college for four years and come out set up for a rewarding lifelong career in their college major. If an undergraduate major has an obvious professional counterpart, it will generally help the student to get an entry-level job. The most useful majors for undergraduate work are those which require students to draw upon multiple disciplines and develop expertise in exploring information and constructing understandings from what they find. Those skills get the student promoted into leadership positions long after the entry-level job from the career-related major has concluded. And ironically, those skills come from majors which many parents are likely to assume to be less “useful.”</p>

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<p>I think everything will work out as long as your sister doesn’t take on too much debt, so a low cost college is essential - and she should have ongoing work experience while in school. Being grounded in the small amount of work experience while in school will help her find her own way to bring her intellectual and “pays the bills” worlds into functional alignment.</p>

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<p>How about mentioning that there will be thousands of jobs available to you and your sister that don’t even exist today? I’m one of the baby boom generation. I work in computer support (after having done a few other things). There was no such thing when I was in college.</p>

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<p>for all you liberal arts optimists, I quite realize loads of Lib arts majors do very well in a wide variety of fields, in business, govt, NGO’s etc, etc</p>

<p>But I would be concerned about this </p>

<p>“Problem is, I worry a little myself. My sister isn’t exactly an ambitious type, and when she’s not in school, she spends all day watching films from the 1940’s/1950’s. She is a very quiet type and doesn’t have many friends either.” </p>

<p>Doesn’t sound like the kind of person who is going to take a humanities degree and found an NGO or get a great job in sales, does it? Or maybe even has the gumption to network their way into a film critic job at a media outlet?</p>

<p>She wants to be the next Pauline Kael. Pauline Kael, of course, graduated UC Berkeley. And was Pauline Kael. I am guessing that that kind of pure liberal arts intellectualism, if its going to lead to a career at all, will do so only via schools this youngster can’t get into. </p>

<p>Ergo, I too would be hesitant to go heavily into debt without either a more “useful” career path, or some evidence of a more outgoing personality (and of course young people at this age DO change)</p>

<p>I would consider either U Mass, or trying out working first, or some kind of gap year. Or as someone said, public U AND working to get a feel for making a living.</p>

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<p>I also don’t know why people accept an English major and not a film studies major.
After 100 years, there are films that have shaped the culture, have extraordinary original screenplays and music to support them, and even have an impact on history. </p>

<p>The Buffalo Symphony Orchestra recently had an evening of music by John Williams. He is a respected composer, but his music was first played onscreen before elevated into the concert hall. Does that mean the music wasn’t worthy because it was written for a movie first?</p>

<p>It took half a century for many Art History departments to offer courses in Photography, too, because the work was done in a camera and not by oil/acrylic paint. Now there are whole museums of photography, and there were not 50+ years ago. Pure bias and wait-time to catch up with accepting technology’s role in the cultural arts. </p>

<p>Choosing a major in film studies can be an organizing mechanism, through which a student engages in the humanities. To write a solid piece of film criticism, depending on the film, requires a student do research in history (to evaluate the film’s authenticity), literature (to analyze how a novel was adapted, for example, and at what cost or benefit to the original work of literature). Critical thought is essential.</p>

<p>Not every family will be comfortable with someone declaring a major in something they deem “useless” such as English, History or Philosophy. But the more film becomes part of our culture, the more it will become a source for academic inquiry.</p>

<p>Personally, I think my kids spend equally valuable time watching an excellent movie as reading an excellent book. There’s nothing so magical about reading when many published books don’t challenge. Films (some, not all) challenge. Like most books, most films end up in a dustbin and others are or will become influential, memorable or even classics.The sight of a h.s.'er reading gains praise; watching a film, scorn. That shouldn’t be, IMO. </p>

<p>If the OP family is as intellectual as they express here, try to stretch into this idea and see how it works for you. Film Studies is not basketweaving.</p>

<p>I’m in no way commenting on what your particular sister, with her particular personality should do. </p>

<p>I’m just standing up for Film Studies as a quality major in 2010. I also wonder if parents fretted over their university students choosing “English” just several hundred years after the Guttenberg press was invented :wink: In those days, Cartography would have been the practical, business-oriented major, or maybe Spanish and Portugese, to go pump money out of the Royal Family for the next seafaring expedition. :p</p>

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<p>I do not know frankly, how you can make any difference if you are not accepting financial responsibility. As far as I can see, there are 2 parties: a girl who is going to college and parents who are paying for it. Anybody else will have to assume real life participation (since 3rd party cannot go to college instead of a given girl, 3rd party will have to assume responsibility of paying at least partially before trying to influence outcome). Sorry, but I just do not see it other way.</p>