It’s in STEM. Like I said. I want to be the one of the only people among my peers who is supporting themselves, cause then, people will impressed with me for it. Otherwise, it’ll just seem like I’m only doing what I’m supposed to do.
"It’s in STEM. Like I said. I want to be the one of the only people among my peers who is supporting themselves, cause then, people will impressed with me for it. "
It seems really important that other people are impressed with you. Why is that? What if you were self supporting but none of your friends noticed?
“I want to be the one of the only people among my peers who is supporting themselves, cause then, people will impressed with me for it. Otherwise, it’ll just seem like I’m only doing what I’m supposed to do.”
Wow-what an ugly attitude. Why do you want your friends to be jealous and others be impressed? Why wouldn’t you want your friends to be successful too? Why wouldn’t you want the adults around you to be happy to see most of the youth graduating and being self supporting instead of being jealous of one “star”? What a strange approach.
The young people I know support each other’s goals and even help them out when they can. They don’t act all self-important and holier than thou when they catch a break if the others don’t.
You talk less like a soon to be college grad than an immature high schooler and I hope you’re just pulling our leg. If anything, I’d think people around you are glad their kid is not so self-important, whether or not they’re working and self-supporting.
Because then I can show them that I’m truly their friend by helping them out financially. I can tell my friends that I would help them with money if they ever needed it, but the only way for me to show it would be for us to be in a situation where I’m making more money than them. And no, I don’t want to feel self-important. I want to feel needed. In-fact, by helping my struggling friends out rather than just laughing in their face and continuing to let them struggle, I would be showing them that I don’t feel superior to them and that I want to help them.
You want your friends to struggle so you can be their savior? Do you see how awful it is that you hope that YOUR FRIENDS will be SO POOR that they need financial help not from their families but from a fellow college student / new graduate?
If you want to feel needed, get a dog. Whatever you do, don’t get a cat, it’ll wreck your savior complex.
That’s what I would say. It won’t be nearly as special as you think it will be to be supporting yourself after undergrad school.
Okay, now I think I understand how it works. I was under the impression that the kids who graduated from college on time were supported by their parents while the kids who graduated older, 23/24, were paying for it themselves. Now I understand that most students, no matter how old they are when they graduate, have their parents supporting them while in college, and then immediately after college, they’re on their own. I’m glad I understand now. I was confused for a while.
calmom I have some news for you. If you get a part-time job at MacDonald’s, you’re employed. They’re not saying that 94.4% of recent college grads have high-paying jobs pertaining to their degree and are supporting themselves. And “recent” probably means people who graduated within these last 3 years.
That stats show that 1 out of 8 employed college grads is “underemployed” – that is, have settled for jobs that don’t require a college degree.
That means that 7 out of 8 - 87.5% - are NOT working part time at McDonalds, but have jobs that are appropriate for their educational levels. If we apply that to the 94.4% overall who are employed, that gives 82.6% who have found appropriate jobs. That’s more than 4 out of 5.
But you are right: there is that bottom 17.4% who are doing worse than their peers, and I suppose many of them are living at home and depending on their parents. Since you seem to have a loser attitude and do nothing but make excuses about why you can’t find a job when the economy and job growth is the best it has had in years - you probably will manage to find any number of reasons not to to get a job .
I feel kind of sorry for your parents.
I do want to get a job right away, but I just don’t want to feel left out if I don’t. So I guess the only people who are dependent on their parents in their mid 20s are those who didn’t go to college at all.
Btw, a previous poster just said that just because someones parents were supporting them didn’t mean they had a right to control them, but you seem to think otherwise. And your daughter was probably supporting herself long before she graduated college. That’s how it works. People whose parents supported them through college are highly unlikely to be able to support themselves immediately after graduating. They’ll either become independent well before they graduate, or well after they graduate.
I didn’t say that. I think that if you live in a place, you have the follow the rules of the place where you live. As long as someone else owns the place, you have to follow the rules that they set – even when you do own a place, often there are rules set by a homeowners association that have to be followed.
It seems that your parents have a curfew a their home. That’s their right. Their house, their rules. It has nothing to their being your parent – most homeless shelters also have curfews and they serve people of all ages. You want to set your own hours then you will have to either negotiate with your parents or move to your own place.
No, she wasn’t. She did work to pay for her own food, books, and incidental expenses at college, but I paid whatever was required for tuition and housing beyond what was covered by her student loans. She has paid her own way through grad school. That was the deal I made with each of my kids: I would pay for 4 years of college, but they had to complete those 4 years within 5 years of the time that they graduated from high school, and any time they were not in college they would not get financial support from me.
You are trying to somehow make a case that there is something odd or unusual about my kids, but there isn’t. They were just raised with the expectation that they would become adults and take care of themselves after college, just as their peers were. My daughter is still good friends with a large number of kids she has known from elementary school, many from kindergarten. They all are employed and living on their own. Most have college degrees- one young man chose to go into the military instead.
This doesn’t even make any sense – unless you are referring to kids whose parents gave them generous allowances so they never had to earn money all through college.
The cost of tuition alone at most private colleges and many state universities is well above what a high school grad could possibly earn, without considering the cost of food, housing, etc.
Some parents do pay for everything for their college kids, but many do shift some but not all of the responsibility to their kids early on.
You have simply created a fantasy for yourself with no support whatsoever. You clam that you are majoring in a STEM field but you don’t seem to have any understanding of math, science, or logic.
It is incredibly difficult for a young person to support themselves in college unless they have generous scholarships, because of the high cost of tuition, and the obvious need to attend classes. But once the student graduates, there is no impediment to getting a full time job, and most full time jobs that a college graduate can get would easily pay enough to cover basic expenses for a modest lifestyle.
What’s your impediment? Why wouldn’t you be able to start work full time after you graduate? Why don’t you think that you’ll be able to manage your expenses on the starting salary you’ll earn?
Okay, how is one supposed to pay their own through grad school if they go straight their from undergrad? And I also don’t understand what you mean by “4 years within 5 years”? College is 4 years, not 5 years. I think if a kid does not longer than 4 years, than you should let them be on their own, so they learn a lesson, because that means they were just plain lazy. I’m only taking 3.5 years to get mine, and I hardly feel overworked. Taking 5 years is inexcusable.
Some students are in five year programs. Some students take a gap year. Some students change their major. Some students have medical issues which arise while they are in school which interrupt or slow down their education. Some students cannot afford to attend school full time because they have to work.
There are all kinds of legitimate reasons it could take someone more than four years to graduate.
You have a sad little fantasy playing out in your head about how everyone is going to admire you if you become self sufficient. You are imagining loaning people money with your “high” wages, and everyone will be impressed and sing your praises. But you are not going to seem that impressive to others. It’s like the new parents who are ecstatic that their child learns to walk really early. They swell with pride, and brag to others about their child’s precociousness. But eventually all the other toddlers learn how to walk, within months of their own. They realize their child is not really such a superstar as they believed. Your friends will eventually get jobs of their own and be self sufficient as well. The fact that you did so right out of college will be a big fat “so what” at that point.
Stop looking for outside validation.
OP, try to understand the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic self worth. Here are some definitions.
"Intrinsic self worth is basically self love. When you feel intrinsic self worth, you are happy and satisfied with yourself as you are. Someone with intrinsic self worth does not require external awards, kudos, gold stars, or the acknowledgement of authority figures (parents, priests, teachers, etc.) in order to feel good about themselves. Someone with intrinsic self worth loves themselves unconditionally.
Someone with high intrinsic self worth is very difficult to control since they do not need the external approval of others for validation. Those with Extrinsic Self Worth however may be manipulated by manipulating the externalized rewards (gold stars, trophies, power, money, etc.) that they have been trained to need in order to feel good about themselves."
Pursue goals because it is what YOU want, not because you will get validation from others. The validation, the praise, etc is nice. But icing on the cake. A life is made because you are living within your personal expectations, your priorities and moral sense of what you want your time on earth to exemplify. Others may agree or disagree, but if you have a sense of inner conviction, various opinions will not make or break you.
Now some of this is culturally dependent on how and where you grew up, and the messages from your family of origin as well as peers. But a strong intrinsic sense of self worth helps you weather the storms and upsets that enter most of our lives as the years pass.
If you are having trouble with this concept, getting some counseling can be helpful.
Prp, why are you so disdainful of parents who do help their kids? I have two kids who graduated a year ago. Both live in their own apartments and have paying jobs and they are responsible for their own rent, utilities, food, etc.
However, we “match” what they put in their 401ks. Their apartments are furnished with our old furniture, etc so they had to buy relatively little. And when each of them moved in, we did a major Sam’s Club run to load them up as much as possible.
My son is here for the weekend and I slipped him $100 because it was sitting in my wallet and I just plain felt like it, no other reason. He’s also loading up on some of our canned goods, spaghetti, cleaning supplies, etc because that helps his budget and it is inconsequential to mine. Be my guest! I welcome this. If I want to slip my hard working son some money, or take my daughter shopping and “subsidize” her work wardrobe by buying her nice makeup and outfits, I don’t see why it’s a) anyone else’s concern one way or the other or b) morally inferior to not doing so.
Certainly their friends don’t care or judge them for this. It’s not their friends’ business either how much or how little we support or help them.
" I said. I want to be the one of the only people among my peers who is supporting themselves, cause then, people will impressed with me for it. "
D has a friend in a very high cost of living city and the friend has her own apartment versus sharing with a roommate. The friend mentioned casually to her that she is being supported by her parents. D is neither “impressed” nor “unimpressed”; it just is what that family chooses to do with their money. It is simply not anyone else’s concern or business, really. If they would rather ensure their daughter is in a safe neighborhood in nice surroundings and it takes a subsidy to ensure that, oh well! It’s not my job to count other people’s money or monitor their spending habits. You would do well to think along the same lines.
OK, some general wisdom.
- Don't loan money to family or friends and don't expect them to do so to you. (Not counting parents/college)
- Don't talk salaries with friends. It's not polite and it will create an unhealthy dynamic to the relationships.
- Supporting yourself is not having a nice apartment/house with all the amenities of adulthood. It's a safe place to live with basic services. iPhone plan not required. Roommates allowed.
It’s nice that you want to help people, but I think you would benefit from a few sessions with a counselor to discuss your motivations. Why do you need so much outside validation? True friends don’t expect their friends to support them. Why do you want to surround yourself with people who do? And why do you think it’s okay to overtly encourage people to live beyond their means so that you can swoop in and save them? True friends don’t do that.
It appears to me that you have a need to feel superior to those around you. That’s a horrible attitude. If you’re willing to give your money away to anyone who asks, you’re likely to have lots of “friends” looking for frequent handouts. Unfortunately, if you get married your plan is a recipe for a disasterous relationship with your spouse and children. Please schedule some sessions with a counselor. I think you need more help than you can get on an anonymous forum.