@sax I have learned that sometimes the path we have in mind for our children are not the path they see for themselves. I agree with you on the learning new things. One day one of those new things will be the trigger that clicks something in our children’s brains. It just takes patience and deep breathing. 
One of the kids in our neighborhood started mowing lawns for folks when he was 15. By the end of HS, he had a truck, two huge mowers and was hiring his friends to help with all the job he had. Fast forward: he is now 27, has ten people working for him, and is doing really well. I hear he went to the local CC for business courses in the evenings at some point to better grasp how to deal with the financial side of the business. He has a fancy pickup truck, a house (in the DC area, a non-trivial accomplishment) and a boat.
Am following this thread with interest, too – while one of my kids has his degree, he hasn’t latched on to a path yet. As much as he loved his major, I don’t see him as a 9-5 cubicle guy. He needs something more active, and your collective experiences are helping me to see his future through different lenses. Thank you.
I’ve written before about my daughter, who left college midway through her junior year. An extremely bright and creative person, she was just sick of academia. In any case, 2 weeks after dropping out she had a full-time job as a receptionist in a small law firm. Then about a year later she totally switched gears and worked for a doggy daycare place. That didn’t work out well and eventually she found another law firm to work for, where she is blissfully happy. She is the only employee in an office with just 2 lawyers, so she gets to do absolutely everything, including a lot of paralegal work. It does bother me because she could easily be the lawyer rather than the office worker, but they make it clear how much they value her brains and hard work, she is learning all the time, and she would rather be happy than rich, so it’s all good! I admit that deep down I wish she would just finish the darn degree, but at this point it seems like that’s my problem, not hers.
My 27 year old nephew has dyslexia and barely got through high school, he knew college wasn’t for him. However, he’s gifted with numbers and is currently doing very well on the pro poker circuit. He supports himself, and has started to invest in real estate.
I know lots of guys that work for ski resorts in the winter and find something to do every summer.
One guy I know is a ski patroller in winter and a river raft guide in the summer. He seems pretty happy with his life.
Certainly not traditional or boring.
I am always amazed by the cool careers people seem to find in the action sports industry or music/TV biz.
Ok, I’ll join in…
D was/is very bright, very lovely, very talented vocally. She had an extraordinarily rough high school experience but entered college with high hopes. At that time, I joked about her major-of-the-week: accounting, music, math, theatre were all in the mix. By the end of 1st semester, she wanted to transfer to a conservatory for vocal performance: scrambling for auditions and applications while away at college was a real challenge. Then came the car accident in semester 2 with a concussion severe enough to remove her from school for the remainder of the semester. Luckily for her, the applications and auditions had been completed by then. She rested up over the summer and started a different college path that fall. Then she changed her major from vocal performance to musical theater. By the end of the year, it became clear that her body was not going to allow her to complete the dance part of the program – lots of neck pain from accident. She thought about majoring in acting but that would take 3 more years at full tuition – not something I was willing to fund. Then she decided to take a semester break to try and figure out how she wanted to proceed. That turned into 2 semesters. In the meantime, she had met a man and entered a relationship (during the year of musical theater major.) She worked in retail, then at a financial services firm. Then she got hired as a contractor doing contract analysis (which she had been doing at the financial services firm.) The contracting employer hired her as a full-time employee before she had even completed 3 months of her 6-month contract for a very generous wage with benefits. She and the boyfriend got married. She is very, very happy and is pursuing a degree in accounting/finance online, part-time.
It’s not the path I had envisioned for her, but I remind myself that I tried very hard to raise a daughter who made her own decisions. Maybe I succeeded.
My brother is a ski patroller (has his EMT and a lot of other certifications) and works construction in the summer. Makes much more money in construction, but considers patrolling his career. Been doing it for more than 30 years. He could make more money being an EMT, but doesn’t really like that and just has the certification because then he gets paid more as a patroller.
I have a family member who grew up in the northeast, attended one year of college in the northeast playing a sport which he enjoyed but decided college wasn’t for him. Got a job working with an enormous commercial farming industry in the Dakotas. Spent a few years learning many valuable skills, traveled with the company experiencing different geographic areas, loves living out of the northeast and has been making tremendous money. Just started going to a trade school where he is learning to fix Diesel engines. He is very happy and making more money than any of the Ivy League kids will fresh out of college.
We have friends who own franchises in a national restaurant chain. Dad believes that the cost of college is not a good return on the investment. He plans to take his first son’s college money and set him up in the business. Honestly, I think they at very smart. These people have complete financial freedom and live an amazing life.
“He could make more money being an EMT” - Interesting. I have friends whose 30ish year old son works in EMT, but they lament that most of those jobs paid only $14/hour . Just looked at Payscale - median is $11/hour… up to $15 possible. I suspect experienced EMT supervisors would make more.
But $14 is more than $11, which is sometimes what he makes as a patroller! He gets paid a base salary, then a small amount for each certification he has, like $.30/hr for avalanche training, $.25/hr for chair evacuation training, $.45 for EMT training. He loves it, he has seniority so has the shifts he likes. He was once offered a promotion to be an investigator, but he hates the paperwork and knew that even for the extra money it wasn’t worth it to him.
It sounds like the plan of doing ski patrol with summer construction work is a good combo for @twoinanddone . At least he gets to “ski for free”, Lots of different paths out there… not all college/desk job.