Is higher education worth the investment in today’s economy? Join us on the Balanced Blueprints podcast as we welcome Aiden, a high school student, to dissect the complexities of the modern college decision-making process. Reflecting on the past 20 to 40 years, we reveal how shifts in job market expectations have influenced the value of degrees and presented new opportunities in trade professions. Learn how to navigate these changes and make informed decisions that could impact your financial future.
Ever thought of college shopping like buying a car? We break down the negotiable nature of college expenses and the significance of aligning these costs with expected post-graduation income. Discover how leveraging a college's alumni network can open doors to career opportunities, and why high academic performance may not always equate to intelligence. We discuss the balance between grades, networking, and the invaluable skill of asking the right questions, especially in a job market that increasingly values practical skills over academic achievements.
Struggling to balance work, school, and social life? Find out how treating classwork as a job can set a structured schedule, making the transition to post-college life smoother. We delve into strategies for using college resources effectively, such as tutoring programs and professor office hours, to boost academic success. Explore the importance of internships and the flexibility of changing majors, understanding that reassessing commitments can lead to discovering your ideal career path. This episode is packed with insights to help you navigate your college journey and beyond.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Balanced Blueprints podcast,
where we discuss the optimaltechniques for finances and
health and then break it down tocreate an individualized and
balanced plan.
I'm your host, justin Gaines,here with my co-host, john
Prober, so in this episode we'regoing to do something a little
different.
I have Aiden here with me.
He's a high school student,he's shadowing me for the day,
and so we're going to get alittle bit of the financial
(00:22):
perspective as well as someother perspectives from a high
school student on what they'rethinking about when they go and
look at colleges or look attheir next career step.
And obviously John and I havebeen through that.
We've had two very differentpaths as far as approaching that
.
We had two very differentcollege experiences too.
For degree selection.
I went to one college, stayedthere.
(00:46):
John transferred into siena.
So he went to, went to onecollege right and then
transferred to siena, so you hadtwo colleges or yeah and did
abroad and did the yeah and youdid abroad and I did not do
abroad.
So two very differentexperiences.
And then, um, I know that we'vetalked about it at great
lengths in our personal livesabout how we wish we knew a
bunch of stuff that we didn'tknow going into it and probably
(01:08):
would have made differentdecisions and just approach
things differently.
So this will be interesting tosee, how you know, flash forward
10 years from when we weremaking this decision, see if 10
years changes the thoughtprocess and the questions, and
then hopefully be able to answerthem and have good, good
podcast out of it as well.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
So I'm excited I don't know what the questions
are so this will be.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
This will be interesting.
We'll probably get some uh outof left field questions, but,
aiden, kick it off.
What's your uh?
What's your first question forus?
Speaker 3 (01:37):
I think, jumping into it, one I've been thinking
about do you think navigatingthe college scene has changed in
the last 20 to 40 years and ifso, if any significant change,
what would you do about it?
Speaker 1 (01:51):
So has college changed in the last or
navigating the decision changedin the last 20 to 40 years?
I would say yes only becauseyou know economies are different
, job placements different, allthose things are different.
So I do think you know going tocollege early 2000s, 90s, 1990s
(02:15):
.
You know going to college then.
If you went to college, itreally didn't matter what you
got a degree in, you wereguaranteed a higher income
immediately.
It automatically put you into ahigher income earning bracket.
It made it so you had theability to make that higher
income.
Flash forward to today, and Iwould say that, like when we
graduated college, john and Igraduated in 2019.
(02:38):
When we graduated college, Ithink there was a high
probability that college wouldresult in a higher income, but
it wasn't necessarily guaranteedand I think even now it's even
more so a case of there arecertain degrees that if you get
them and you specialize in thatarea and you stay in that
industry, you'll have a higherincome, but if you get other
(02:59):
degrees, it's not going to haveany impact on your income or
your job placement.
I think there's a lot of moneyto be made right now in the
trades.
I think, if you for thoseindividuals that have an
interest in that space and wantto work with their hands and
want to have that as theircareer.
I think they'd be crazy to goto college.
You can make way more than acollege grad right out of
(03:22):
college if you go an apprenticeand become a plumber, an
electrician, a carpenter.
Those trades for the longesttime were demonized when john
and I were in high school.
You know it was the.
It was the quote-unquote dumbkids who did that, and now those
quote-unquote dumb kids aremaking great money and laughing
all the way to the bank.
So I think you know it's.
(03:43):
It shouldn't have beenstigmatized.
It was stigmatized and now it'scausing a massive labor
shortage.
But, john, I am curious whatyour take is on this as well.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Yeah, agree with everything you say.
I think what it really doesnowadays is highlight the
importance of you should reallyknow what you want to do before
you go.
And that's because of thatshift in terms of I think, like
you said right, when wegraduated, was probably the turn
of bachelor's degrees notreally holding the weight that
(04:15):
they used to hold, and thatmakes it tough because the price
of them have probably only goneup.
I was going to say they staythe same, but gone up of them
have probably only gone up.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
I was going to say they stay the same, but gone up.
No, no, well, and the price?
The other thing too, is you gotto look at price from a price
to average income earning aswell and the price to average
income has grown.
It's outpaced the growth.
As average income has gone up.
The cost of college has gone upat a much faster rate.
So if they were the same, thenyou'd be in a similar situation.
(04:45):
But the fact that your averageincome, just in general in the
general labor market, theaverage income compared to the
average income previously, thepace at which those have grown
have been very different andcollege has just gotten more and
more expensive in that ratiocomparison, which is why you
need you know, you need to know,you need to know that you're
(05:06):
making the right decision whichis a tough thing to put on a
high school kid.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Oh, it's extreme.
So I, just to speak frompersonal experience and what I
went through, I explored andtried to figure out throughout
college and I would recommendnot doing that because it's a
very expensive way to exploreand there's a lot of ways that
you could actually broaden yourmind a lot better.
So at least I was lucky enoughto travel a little through
(05:32):
school, but I felt the effect ofmy college degree because I may
have not gotten the best onefor what I wanted to do, because
the school didn't offer maybethe right one, because I went to
school without knowing that Iwanted to do that.
I have felt the effect of it tothis day of I need more
schooling to, I guess, make upfor the lack of schooling I had
(05:56):
in, you know, certain fields.
So I strongly recommend I'lljust close, you know that
question of that of really knowwhat you want to do and if that
means a gap year, if that meansworking a job until you know,
because you're just socking awaymoney and college will be even
easier to pay for.
That's what I strongly recommend.
And if you even have any adultsthese days, as I know some that
(06:18):
do that still say, oh, to getahead.
You need to get a master'sdegree or a college degree or
school is the most importantthing.
They're very dated for all ofthe reasons Justin said.
They're still thinking about itin their time period, which
they're right.
They're right for their timeperiod, but it's changed.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
What else do you have for us?
Speaker 2 (06:41):
Number two.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
Or follow up questions to that, if you have
follow up questions, becausethat could also be the case.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Not for this one, but you did kind of segue into my
next question when you weretalking.
How would you suggest balancingfinancial independence versus
spending all your focus on theactual college and the grade
grades?
Speaker 1 (06:59):
Good, question that's a good one on the actual
college and the good grades.
Good question.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
That's a good one.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
How do you balance financial independence and
focusing on the education andgetting good grades?
Explain what I did and thenlet's take it from there.
I always tell people one whenyou're looking at colleges,
looking at colleges and I guessthis analogy in the current
market doesn't necessarily apply, but I always used to say,
looking at colleges, looking atcolleges and this I guess this
(07:23):
analogy in the current marketdoesn't necessarily apply, but I
always used to say looking atcolleges is like shopping for a
car.
Nobody pays the sticker price.
The reason I said that fallapart because most people are
paying above the sticker priceright now in our little, in our
briefly outside of COVID world.
But I'm sure that's going tocome back down where you know.
The sticker price is negotiableto a sense.
(07:44):
Most colleges offer scholarshipsin-house.
You have scholarships you canget from other organizations
depending on what you'reinvolved in.
But I think, in order tomaintain your financial
independence, you have to knowwhat the college is going to
cost you, what you're going toschool for and, as a result,
since you know what you're goingto school for, you're going to
know the average income for thatprofession when you graduate
(08:06):
college.
I'm a huge proponent that yourcost of going to college each
year should not exceed theannual pay after taxes of the
profession you want to go into,pay after taxes of the
profession you want to go into.
So if you have a professionthat the average pay after
college is $60,000, you knowyou're going to be in the what's
(08:29):
that put you in the 22% taxbracket.
Marginally adjusted, you'reprobably bringing home $48,000
to $49,000 a year, which meansyou should not be paying more
than $48,000, $49,000 a year forthat degree.
Because if you go outside ofthat ratio of dollar for dollar
postgraduate income, you're notgoing to be able to afford the
(08:50):
loans and paying that stuff off.
And so doing that allows you tokind of narrow down the scope
of what degrees are worth goingto college for and which ones
aren't.
But I also you brought up, youknow getting good grades, and I
also feel that the reason whyyou go to college is to purchase
a network, and what I mean bythat is very similar to when you
(09:13):
join a country club.
You pay membership dues inorder to have access to those
people.
I think you're doing the samething when you go to college.
I think you should look at thealumni network of the college
you're going to.
I think you should look at youknow the size of the college and
take into account all thesefactors, because you don't know
who else is going to apply andwho else is going to go there,
or who the current students are.
You also don't know whatthey're going to turn out to be,
(09:34):
but what you can look at istheir network base from alumni.
Where are their alumni gettingjobs at?
Where do they currently work?
Most people, if they see thesame college on the resume, it's
going to help you open the door.
It's going to help you get theinterview.
Not necessarily is it going tohelp you get the job, but it's
going to help you open the doorto get the interview.
(09:56):
And then you have to sellyourself in the interview.
But if you go to a college andyou're not getting that access,
and then you have to sellyourself in the interview, but
if you go to a college andyou're not getting that access,
then your grades might play alarger role.
But I'm a huge proponent thatgrades don't measure
intelligence, they measureobedience, and so if you're
really good at following rules,you can get a 4.0.
If you don't like followingrules, you're probably not going
(10:18):
to get a 4.0 because you're notgoing to do the things the way
you need to do them in order toace every single class.
I did not graduate with a 4.0.
I didn't even graduate with a3.5.
I didn't even graduate with a3.0.
But my income earning now andeven my first year out of
college, was in the top 10,probably in the top 5% of my
(10:40):
college graduate cohort.
And that's because when I wasat college I was working, so I
was building my resume and I wasfocused on networking
opportunities and getting infront of the right people so
that I had strong ties into thealumni base, so then I could
leverage those relationshipsinto job opportunities, into
(11:01):
other things.
The education and getting goodgrades is important, but I don't
think it's the primary reasonand the primary focus you should
have, simply because thereality is, when you get into
the labor markets and get intothe real world, you may have to
pass tests in order to getlicenses, but then when I have
questions about insurance stuffor I'm working on a case and I
(11:23):
don't remember something, I turnto Google and I know the right
question to ask.
And that's the important partis knowing the right question to
ask, because we have a world ofanswers at our phone with
Google.
So if you just if you know theright question to ask, you can
find the right answer.
Knowing the right answer isn'tthe issue.
Knowing the right question toask, you can find the right
answer.
Knowing the right answer isn'tthe issue.
Knowing the right question toask is the issue.
And so if you have a firmunderstanding of the knowledge,
(11:46):
which means you have, you know,a C plus to a B minus in the
class which is a 2.7,.
I think you have enoughinformation to be able to ask
the right questions.
Asking the right questions isgoing to open more doors than
having all the right answers inyour head, in my personal
opinion.
John, you may feel otherwise,but let's, let's get your take
(12:07):
that's what's tough is.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
I don't feel otherwise, but in the more
science fields you have to dootherwise.
So I I agree with you, butthey're probably looking you
phrased it in a great way.
They're looking for moreobedience because they put, in
my opinion, too much weight onthe grades, the regurgitation,
(12:31):
the memorization.
It's needed to a degree.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
I think part of the reason in the medical field too
because that's the other thingis that you're talking medical
health sciences, I'm talking,you know, business stuff very
different components, becauseyou know, in the business world
you can just go off on your ownand start your own business and
prove yourself that way, or workfor somebody and work your way
up the chain.
The health world, though, youhave to have some sort of way to
weed out and rank people.
(12:57):
And so in those fieldsabsolutely you know, if you're
going to law school, you knowyou're going to get a medical
degree grades are going to behighly important because they
have to rank you in some way.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
But here's, I guess.
So here's the thing is you haveto play their game to a certain
degree, and I'm very bad atplaying their game, so that's
why I may have not done the bestas others, because I think some
of the best practitioners inthe health world these days are
the free thinkers.
But I think almost all of themdid play the game to get to
where they had to be and thendid the free thinking.
(13:29):
So I still wrestle with that,but I would say I agree with you
.
That's probably more important.
Slightly depends on the degree.
And then the only other thing Iwould recommend is on-campus
jobs.
I loved that.
They work so well with yourschedule.
So I tutored, I did some thingslike that, so that was a great
way to bring in money and thenjust work during the summers.
(13:49):
That really helped me.
I mean, I paid my college offpretty quick and that's mainly
because the second we were outduring the summer I worked and
then I didn't.
You worked off campus, I know,which is also very feasible but
I was on campus, covered myhouse.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
That's true too, and then and then, yeah, most of my
stuff was off campus for sure,which makes it more difficult.
You got to have a cartransportation to get there.
Yeah, oh, it definitely isanother thing to juggle, but you
did bring up a good topic thatwe used to talk about all the
time, which is we can tellpeople the college isn't worth
the money because we went there.
Yeah, somebody our same age,working in the same field, can't
(14:26):
say that if they didn't gothere and it's the whole.
You can't, you know you can't.
Just you can't discouragesomething that you don't know.
And because we've been tocollege, we know, and so we have
the ability to say that itwasn't worth it.
And so it's just ironic becausesomebody who didn't get a
college degree you know, any oneof our friends that didn't get
college degrees could say theexact same thing that we're
(14:47):
saying, and they would bediscounted because they didn't
play the game.
But because we can, becausewe've played the game, we can
now say you know, it's a game.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
I don't know what's better, but it's just the irony
of it.
It's just the irony of it.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
It's that club or that cult or that world that you
have to be a part of in orderto discredit it.
It's very true, very true.
Speaker 3 (15:13):
I think there are great points there.
I will say I do tend to side alittle bit more.
I will say I do tend to side alittle bit more.
I do side a little bit more onJohn's side, where the opening
yourself up, alumni and gettingthat network started is great
and I do think for a businessone that would be almost 100% of
(15:34):
the priority and for a medicalfield, I definitely see how it
would be skewed a lot towardsthe other side of playing the
game.
I think I would, with minebeing engineering, electrical
engineering.
I think it would be a healthymix of both.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
You need a good network too, You're going to
need the grades for that.
Any engineering degree.
You're going to need the grades.
Speaker 3 (15:55):
But also coming out of college.
You're going to need thenetwork, especially with what
I'm going to do.
Right For sure, and thankfullyI have already started.
I have a couple of friends whohave good connections with the
CIA and Lockheed, which is whatI'm interested in.
Perfect, but I think the gradesare equally, if not more,
(16:16):
important in that circumstance.
Right For sure.
The next question, which doesgo a little bit under the
balancing aspect Normally youwould have a work and social
life balance in an adult life,but with college specifically, I
think that adds a school part.
Placing yourself in the shoesof a college student, how would
(16:39):
you achieve this balance andwhat would you do?
Speaker 1 (16:42):
So you should view your class work as your job, and
so when you go from college toworking, the only thing that
should shift out is if you're afull-time student, that should
be your job.
And so, yes, we're saying, goand get other jobs outside of
that, and so that just means youknow, adding that into your job
(17:07):
requirements.
But your primary focus shouldbe the schooling, and the
schooling, when you graduate,will just be replaced with the
job.
So if you're spending 40 hoursa week on school work, when you
go and work and you have anoutside job, so you're spending
50, 60 hours a week.
Most careers that you get intoyou're going to be expected to
do 50, 60 hours a week when youstart out, and so you're just
(17:28):
going to swap out yourschoolwork and the jobs that you
were working for your actualjob and, if you can, early on in
your schooling career, if youcan set yourself up that way and
not operate like most collegekids where they just do it on a
whim and do it whenever theywant to.
(17:48):
But you set, OK, I'm going totake, you know, you might like
morning classes, you might take9 am classes or you might like
evening classes, but pick atminimum an eight hour window
that you're going to do work,and that eight hour window is
when you do your classes and youdo your homework and you do
your group projects and all ofyour work is done in that eight
hour window.
And then occasionally you'llhave to meet with a group
outside of those hours or youmight have to work more than
(18:08):
those hours, and that's verysimilar to how it is in the work
life.
But I think the hardesttransition in college is having
the freedom to set your ownschedule and thinking that that
means you don't have to have aschedule, and so that then also
causes pains.
When you switch from school tocollege or school and college to
working, because you went fromall this do whatever whenever
(18:33):
and nobody has control over myschedule to then your job is
what has control over yourschedule and that's what sets
your parameters.
If you picture it as your workthroughout college and then just
switch to the job, it'll be amuch easier transition and
you'll probably get bettergrades just because you'll have
set times.
You're like oh, I'm supposed towork from, say you don't like 9
(18:53):
am, say you don't want to wakeup early, so you work from
instead of 9 to 5, you work from11 to 7.
And so you work from instead ofnine to five, you work from 11
to seven.
And so now you're just gettingthat work done in that timeframe
but say you're done at four andyou're like oh, I have three
more hours.
Instead of pushing that projectout that you know is coming up,
do three hours of work on it,do two hours of work on it and
(19:14):
start building those habitsthat'll translate over into the
work life Phenomenally habitsthat'll translate over into the
work life phenomenally.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
I yeah, if I'm understanding your perspective
and question right I almostwouldn't worry about your work
or your school life balance asmuch as in college versus when
you get out I mean.
So a couple points on this.
Is you develop again thenetwork, great relationships,
but just with your peers you'rebasically living with?
If you're lucky enough todevelop friendships, living with
(19:48):
some of your best friends,which, even if they're maybe in
a different dorm just acrosscampus, is closer to your
friends, and that number ofpeople you'll be for a long time
.
So when you get into the realworld I would say it's almost
harder to have maybe a sociallife that's that easy to develop
(20:11):
because you just have friends,people always doing stuff, and
I'm not saying parties.
Obviously there's parties,probably every night, but you
can find people with similarinterests that you don't have to
coordinate, like hey, are youfree this day?
Hey, are you busy that day?
Hey, how's your work schedule?
Cause you'll see each otherwalking to the gym, walking to
the lunchroom, and you'll sayyou want to go on a hike
(20:32):
tomorrow.
Yeah, this is my time.
So I wouldn't be too worriedabout that balance.
I think it's a lot easier tobalance than you may think.
It's almost harder, I would say, once you graduate.
And then, just to go offJustin's point as well, I would
use college as an experiment,because if we look at Justin's
(20:53):
life now, it's like he doesn'thave to work exactly nine to
five and he can do that thatwell.
So it's like, use college as anexperiment of can I get
everything I need done, notmaybe working the conventional
schedule, because if you'resomeone who thinks they want to
work for themselves or own theirown business, that might be a
good time to test that out.
And if you go through and you'relike, wow, this year I got
(21:14):
nothing done and I tried to dothat, then you might be like
someone who is like, okay, maybeI is, even though I'd like to
do that, maybe I do need acompany or a nine-to-five giving
me that box, because otherwiseI won't get that stuff done.
So I would just I would onlyadd that because, um, I think
(21:35):
justin's right in terms ofmajority.
I don don't even know, 90% ofpeople coming out aren't going
to be doing those nine to fives,but just looking at him it's
like if you tested that out,yeah, so that might be a good
experiment because you can getaway with in terms of your
grades.
Might not be as good if youdidn't do as well, but you're
(21:57):
not getting fired from a job, soit might be a good time to test
it.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
That's true too.
To figure out what scheduleworks best for you, yeah.
Speaker 3 (22:07):
On this topic of the experimentation and trying to
find that balance.
If you find yourself in anexperiment that doesn't work and
the balance is not fallingapart, whether it be you're
about to lose a job, you havepart-time or your grades are
tanking, what sacrifices wouldyou make?
Would you make like maybe youdon't hang out with your friends
(22:28):
as much and you call out ofwork or you skip your classes?
Speaker 1 (22:32):
in my experience, so I guess I'd back up.
If it's a matter of you'regoing to lose your job in
college, lose the job, learn howto learn how to deal with that,
because you're probably goingto lose a job in the working
life, in the working world.
So don't look at it as amassive downfall.
(22:52):
Look at it as your opportunityto actually feel and experience
what losing a job feels like andthen how to recover from that.
You're not there to work,you're there to learn, and so
just take that as anotherlearning experience.
If it's a matter of your gradesare tanking, in my experience
grades are tanking as a resultof not doing the work.
If you're not doing the work,you're not going to pass the
(23:13):
classes.
If you are doing all the worklegitimately and you're putting
the time in, and it's just notworking.
Every college that I know of hassome sort of tutoring program
and pays students to be tutorsthat you don't have to pay for.
So you can just go to thelibrary, go to the tutoring
center, go to any of that sortof stuff and seek out the
tutoring and also buildrelationships with your
(23:34):
professors.
Every professor is going tohave office hours.
It's typically required by thecollege.
If you have a question on atopic and you're just not able
to fully understand it, go, sendan email to your professor,
meet with them during theiroffice hours, sit down with them
for an extra 30 minutes an hourand just talk it through,
because they're trying to teach.
You know 20, 30 people in aroom, the same topic and if your
(23:57):
brain just isn't connecting onit in that way, I'm sure they
have a different way toexperience it and a different
way to explain it.
Most colleges, especially inthis environment, are switching
towards professors that have hadwork experience, which means
they've probably been in middleto upper level management, which
means they've had to explainthis to several different brain
(24:18):
types and several differentpersonalities, and so they're
just using whatever is eithermost natural or most best
received in their experience inthe classroom.
But if that's not working foryou, having a relationship with
them, seeing a tutor will allowyou to spend that extra time but
also get a differentperspective on it.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
Yeah, I think this is a tricky question because so
taking it from a health stance.
So I think Justin's completelyright.
If you're looking at jobsversus school, your schooling is
more important.
That's why you're there.
I'm going to back up even astep further of before you
hopefully even get toquestioning if you have to quit
your job.
Like we're humans, like we knowhow much time is wasted, like,
(25:00):
are we scrolling on social mediaa lot, are we doing this
Because technically it shouldget done.
You know, I went to school.
I only worked part-time, so Ididn't work full-time, and by
part-time I probably mean like15 hours, not even 20.
So I didn't do a ton of workduring school.
But I went to school, did thatjob, worked out, still had
relationships with friends.
You know it's.
(25:21):
You got to look in the areas.
First of, am I spending time onmy phone too much?
And let's differentiate betweenI'm going out with friends
until 2 am, which is ruining mynext day, or am I getting rid of
just hanging out with myfriends during the day?
So you know you can get rid ofone of those and not the other,
and I think that's an importantdifferentiation, differentiation
(25:42):
.
And then, oh, the other thingthat you brought up too, which
was a good point, is are you notgetting the work done?
Because you're, you know.
I would then look at this of areyou interested in the subject?
Are you just procrastinatingand not doing well in your
degree because you actuallydon't like it and you're just
there because, oh, I'm supposedto be a doctor or oh, I'm
(26:04):
supposed to be an engineer?
But you know, we tend toprocrastinate things we don't
actually want to do.
And if it's not that, likeJustin said, completely agree,
just go get some tutoring.
It's free Work with it.
Like, if you actually like thesubject and you're just not
doing well, you'll do fine,you'll pass, just get some extra
help.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
That's a good perspective too.
I didn't even think about thecomponent of the amount of
pressure that's on you to be inthe right field that you may
just be telling yourself, well,I can get through it, versus it
may be a.
That may be a sign of no, youactually just don't like this
and you're trying to muscle yourway through it and maybe, maybe
, a career change is the rightthing for you.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
Yeah, because I feel, especially myself, you're so
scared to get into at the time,even now, but you're so scared
to get into the wrong degree, orthe one you weren't supposed to
, or one people don't want youto do.
And I changed my major, I thinkfour, four times, and still you
know well, the average workingprofessional will change careers
(27:04):
seven times in their career.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
So you know a career change means you know you were
working in the marketingdepartment, so you're a
marketing manager and theyrealize that you know you'd be
really good in HR.
So then you move to HR.
That's a career change, becauseyou went from one profession to
another and that on averageseven career changes, which
typically comes with seven jobchanges as well.
(27:29):
And so it's interesting that,like when you look at the
statistics, it's likely that youchoosing the right profession
isn't necessarily going to bethe profession you're going to
stay in.
So being concerned and I alwaystell people too, you know, part
of the reason why you shouldwork in college is so you can
(27:49):
find out the jobs that you don'twant to do.
Your internships aren'tnecessarily about finding the
dream job for you.
You do want to pick somethingthat you think is ideal for you,
but finding out that it's notideal for you, in my opinion, is
a better use of an internshipand more beneficial, but also
(28:10):
just more insightful.
If you get into an internshipand you find out that you
absolutely hate it and you donot want to be there and you
want to change either careers oryou just know that that portion
of your career is not the wayyou want to narrow in and focus
on that to me, is more valuablethan going into a career and
finding out that, yeah, I coulddo this, because a lot of times
(28:32):
you're not going to find whatyou love.
You're going to find somethingyou like.
You'll become complacent,you'll stay there and then, six
years into your career, you hateit and now you need to make a
shift, which isn't a problem.
But if you go and you find a,you do an internship, you find
out that you absolutely hatethat.
You now know for the rest ofyour life that you should not
target that business type.
(28:53):
You should not target thatstuff.
And there's so there's a lot ofknowledge in bad experiences,
and so shying away from badexperiences in college I also is
thinks a pitfall.
That is just normal for you totry to avoid bad things, but bad
things teach us so much.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
The only thing I want to add to that before moving on
too, is to go off of your.
How do I balance everything?
Question is everything Justinjust said.
Take the same exact approachesbut do with your.
Do it with your classes too.
If jobs become too much and youcan't try out jobs, take a
class you didn't think you wouldtake.
Or, you know, just see what youlike about this class or not
(29:30):
that class, because I meandifferent classes.
You know they're going to teachyou different stuff, different
interests.
You might go for engineeringand be like holy cow I'm in love
with french literature, youknow.
I mean like.
I know that I'm saying anextreme example because it can
happen.
And then you just don't be,don't be afraid.
Like Justin said, don't bescared to switch.
(29:51):
Even if you've been in thatmajor for a year, you have all
your friends of like.
Cause I know this was a bigthing Like marketer made
marketing, majors got made funof at Sienna.
Cause it's not a real major,but you just gotta.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
If that's what you love and that's what you want to
do, you know, don't be afraidto do that well, yeah, and in
this digital world, a lot ofthose marketing managers I know
a handful of them that graduatedwith us, that make well into
the six figures, work forthemselves and have complete
work life balance, travel theworld and they make great money.
So who's who's laughing now?
Speaker 2 (30:23):
yeah, thanks for listening to our podcast.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
We hope this helps you on your balance freedom
journey.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
Please share your thoughts in the comments section
below.
Until next time stay balanced.
Welcome to the Balanced Blueprints podcast,
where we discuss the optimaltechniques for finances and
health and then break it down tocreate an individualized and
balanced plan.
I'm your host, justin Gaines,here with my co-host, john
Prober, so in this episode we'regoing to do something a little
different.
I have Aiden here with me.
He's a high school student,he's shadowing me for the day,
and so we're going to get alittle bit of the financial
(00:22):
perspective as well as someother perspectives from a high
school student on what they'rethinking about when they go and
look at colleges or look attheir next career step.
And obviously John and I havebeen through that.
We've had two very differentpaths as far as approaching that
.
We had two very differentcollege experiences too.
For degree selection.
I went to one college, stayedthere.
(00:46):
John transferred into siena.
So he went to, went to onecollege right and then
transferred to siena, so you hadtwo colleges or yeah and did
abroad and did the yeah and youdid abroad and I did not do
abroad.
So two very differentexperiences.
And then, um, I know that we'vetalked about it at great
lengths in our personal livesabout how we wish we knew a
bunch of stuff that we didn'tknow going into it and probably
(01:08):
would have made differentdecisions and just approach
things differently.
So this will be interesting tosee, how you know, flash forward
10 years from when we weremaking this decision, see if 10
years changes the thoughtprocess and the questions, and
then hopefully be able to answerthem and have good, good
podcast out of it as well.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
So I'm excited I don't know what the questions
are so this will be.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
This will be interesting.
We'll probably get some uh outof left field questions, but,
aiden, kick it off.
What's your uh?
What's your first question forus?
Speaker 3 (01:37):
I think, jumping into it, one I've been thinking
about do you think navigatingthe college scene has changed in
the last 20 to 40 years and ifso, if any significant change,
what would you do about it?
Speaker 1 (01:51):
So has college changed in the last or
navigating the decision changedin the last 20 to 40 years?
I would say yes only becauseyou know economies are different
, job placements different, allthose things are different.
So I do think you know going tocollege early 2000s, 90s, 1990s
(02:15):
.
You know going to college then.
If you went to college, itreally didn't matter what you
got a degree in, you wereguaranteed a higher income
immediately.
It automatically put you into ahigher income earning bracket.
It made it so you had theability to make that higher
income.
Flash forward to today, and Iwould say that, like when we
graduated college, john and Igraduated in 2019.
(02:38):
When we graduated college, Ithink there was a high
probability that college wouldresult in a higher income, but
it wasn't necessarily guaranteedand I think even now it's even
more so a case of there arecertain degrees that if you get
them and you specialize in thatarea and you stay in that
industry, you'll have a higherincome, but if you get other
(02:59):
degrees, it's not going to haveany impact on your income or
your job placement.
I think there's a lot of moneyto be made right now in the
trades.
I think, if you for thoseindividuals that have an
interest in that space and wantto work with their hands and
want to have that as theircareer.
I think they'd be crazy to goto college.
You can make way more than acollege grad right out of
(03:22):
college if you go an apprenticeand become a plumber, an
electrician, a carpenter.
Those trades for the longesttime were demonized when john
and I were in high school.
You know it was the.
It was the quote-unquote dumbkids who did that, and now those
quote-unquote dumb kids aremaking great money and laughing
all the way to the bank.
So I think you know it's.
(03:43):
It shouldn't have beenstigmatized.
It was stigmatized and now it'scausing a massive labor
shortage.
But, john, I am curious whatyour take is on this as well.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Yeah, agree with everything you say.
I think what it really doesnowadays is highlight the
importance of you should reallyknow what you want to do before
you go.
And that's because of thatshift in terms of I think, like
you said right, when wegraduated, was probably the turn
of bachelor's degrees notreally holding the weight that
(04:15):
they used to hold, and thatmakes it tough because the price
of them have probably only goneup.
I was going to say they staythe same, but gone up of them
have probably only gone up.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
I was going to say they stay the same, but gone up.
No, no, well, and the price?
The other thing too, is you gotto look at price from a price
to average income earning aswell and the price to average
income has grown.
It's outpaced the growth.
As average income has gone up.
The cost of college has gone upat a much faster rate.
So if they were the same, thenyou'd be in a similar situation.
(04:45):
But the fact that your averageincome, just in general in the
general labor market, theaverage income compared to the
average income previously, thepace at which those have grown
have been very different andcollege has just gotten more and
more expensive in that ratiocomparison, which is why you
need you know, you need to know,you need to know that you're
(05:06):
making the right decision whichis a tough thing to put on a
high school kid.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Oh, it's extreme.
So I, just to speak frompersonal experience and what I
went through, I explored andtried to figure out throughout
college and I would recommendnot doing that because it's a
very expensive way to exploreand there's a lot of ways that
you could actually broaden yourmind a lot better.
So at least I was lucky enoughto travel a little through
(05:32):
school, but I felt the effect ofmy college degree because I may
have not gotten the best onefor what I wanted to do, because
the school didn't offer maybethe right one, because I went to
school without knowing that Iwanted to do that.
I have felt the effect of it tothis day of I need more
schooling to, I guess, make upfor the lack of schooling I had
(05:56):
in, you know, certain fields.
So I strongly recommend I'lljust close, you know that
question of that of really knowwhat you want to do and if that
means a gap year, if that meansworking a job until you know,
because you're just socking awaymoney and college will be even
easier to pay for.
That's what I strongly recommend.
And if you even have any adultsthese days, as I know some that
(06:18):
do that still say, oh, to getahead.
You need to get a master'sdegree or a college degree or
school is the most importantthing.
They're very dated for all ofthe reasons Justin said.
They're still thinking about itin their time period, which
they're right.
They're right for their timeperiod, but it's changed.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
What else do you have for us?
Speaker 2 (06:41):
Number two.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
Or follow up questions to that, if you have
follow up questions, becausethat could also be the case.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Not for this one, but you did kind of segue into my
next question when you weretalking.
How would you suggest balancingfinancial independence versus
spending all your focus on theactual college and the grade
grades?
Speaker 1 (06:59):
Good, question that's a good one on the actual
college and the good grades.
Good question.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
That's a good one.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
How do you balance financial independence and
focusing on the education andgetting good grades?
Explain what I did and thenlet's take it from there.
I always tell people one whenyou're looking at colleges,
looking at colleges and I guessthis analogy in the current
market doesn't necessarily apply, but I always used to say,
looking at colleges, looking atcolleges and this I guess this
(07:23):
analogy in the current marketdoesn't necessarily apply, but I
always used to say looking atcolleges is like shopping for a
car.
Nobody pays the sticker price.
The reason I said that fallapart because most people are
paying above the sticker priceright now in our little, in our
briefly outside of COVID world.
But I'm sure that's going tocome back down where you know.
The sticker price is negotiableto a sense.
(07:44):
Most colleges offer scholarshipsin-house.
You have scholarships you canget from other organizations
depending on what you'reinvolved in.
But I think, in order tomaintain your financial
independence, you have to knowwhat the college is going to
cost you, what you're going toschool for and, as a result,
since you know what you're goingto school for, you're going to
know the average income for thatprofession when you graduate
(08:06):
college.
I'm a huge proponent that yourcost of going to college each
year should not exceed theannual pay after taxes of the
profession you want to go into,pay after taxes of the
profession you want to go into.
So if you have a professionthat the average pay after
college is $60,000, you knowyou're going to be in the what's
(08:29):
that put you in the 22% taxbracket.
Marginally adjusted, you'reprobably bringing home $48,000
to $49,000 a year, which meansyou should not be paying more
than $48,000, $49,000 a year forthat degree.
Because if you go outside ofthat ratio of dollar for dollar
postgraduate income, you're notgoing to be able to afford the
(08:50):
loans and paying that stuff off.
And so doing that allows you tokind of narrow down the scope
of what degrees are worth goingto college for and which ones
aren't.
But I also you brought up, youknow getting good grades, and I
also feel that the reason whyyou go to college is to purchase
a network, and what I mean bythat is very similar to when you
(09:13):
join a country club.
You pay membership dues inorder to have access to those
people.
I think you're doing the samething when you go to college.
I think you should look at thealumni network of the college
you're going to.
I think you should look at youknow the size of the college and
take into account all thesefactors, because you don't know
who else is going to apply andwho else is going to go there,
or who the current students are.
You also don't know whatthey're going to turn out to be,
(09:34):
but what you can look at istheir network base from alumni.
Where are their alumni gettingjobs at?
Where do they currently work?
Most people, if they see thesame college on the resume, it's
going to help you open the door.
It's going to help you get theinterview.
Not necessarily is it going tohelp you get the job, but it's
going to help you open the doorto get the interview.
(09:56):
And then you have to sellyourself in the interview.
But if you go to a college andyou're not getting that access,
and then you have to sellyourself in the interview, but
if you go to a college andyou're not getting that access,
then your grades might play alarger role.
But I'm a huge proponent thatgrades don't measure
intelligence, they measureobedience, and so if you're
really good at following rules,you can get a 4.0.
If you don't like followingrules, you're probably not going
(10:18):
to get a 4.0 because you're notgoing to do the things the way
you need to do them in order toace every single class.
I did not graduate with a 4.0.
I didn't even graduate with a3.5.
I didn't even graduate with a3.0.
But my income earning now andeven my first year out of
college, was in the top 10,probably in the top 5% of my
(10:40):
college graduate cohort.
And that's because when I wasat college I was working, so I
was building my resume and I wasfocused on networking
opportunities and getting infront of the right people so
that I had strong ties into thealumni base, so then I could
leverage those relationshipsinto job opportunities, into
(11:01):
other things.
The education and getting goodgrades is important, but I don't
think it's the primary reasonand the primary focus you should
have, simply because thereality is, when you get into
the labor markets and get intothe real world, you may have to
pass tests in order to getlicenses, but then when I have
questions about insurance stuffor I'm working on a case and I
(11:23):
don't remember something, I turnto Google and I know the right
question to ask.
And that's the important partis knowing the right question to
ask, because we have a world ofanswers at our phone with
Google.
So if you just if you know theright question to ask, you can
find the right answer.
Knowing the right answer isn'tthe issue.
Knowing the right question toask, you can find the right
answer.
Knowing the right answer isn'tthe issue.
Knowing the right question toask is the issue.
And so if you have a firmunderstanding of the knowledge,
(11:46):
which means you have, you know,a C plus to a B minus in the
class which is a 2.7,.
I think you have enoughinformation to be able to ask
the right questions.
Asking the right questions isgoing to open more doors than
having all the right answers inyour head, in my personal
opinion.
John, you may feel otherwise,but let's, let's get your take
(12:07):
that's what's tough is.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
I don't feel otherwise, but in the more
science fields you have to dootherwise.
So I I agree with you, butthey're probably looking you
phrased it in a great way.
They're looking for moreobedience because they put, in
my opinion, too much weight onthe grades, the regurgitation,
(12:31):
the memorization.
It's needed to a degree.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
I think part of the reason in the medical field too
because that's the other thingis that you're talking medical
health sciences, I'm talking,you know, business stuff very
different components, becauseyou know, in the business world
you can just go off on your ownand start your own business and
prove yourself that way, or workfor somebody and work your way
up the chain.
The health world, though, youhave to have some sort of way to
weed out and rank people.
(12:57):
And so in those fieldsabsolutely you know, if you're
going to law school, you knowyou're going to get a medical
degree grades are going to behighly important because they
have to rank you in some way.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
But here's, I guess.
So here's the thing is you haveto play their game to a certain
degree, and I'm very bad atplaying their game, so that's
why I may have not done the bestas others, because I think some
of the best practitioners inthe health world these days are
the free thinkers.
But I think almost all of themdid play the game to get to
where they had to be and thendid the free thinking.
(13:29):
So I still wrestle with that,but I would say I agree with you
.
That's probably more important.
Slightly depends on the degree.
And then the only other thing Iwould recommend is on-campus
jobs.
I loved that.
They work so well with yourschedule.
So I tutored, I did some thingslike that, so that was a great
way to bring in money and thenjust work during the summers.
(13:49):
That really helped me.
I mean, I paid my college offpretty quick and that's mainly
because the second we were outduring the summer I worked and
then I didn't.
You worked off campus, I know,which is also very feasible but
I was on campus, covered myhouse.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
That's true too, and then and then, yeah, most of my
stuff was off campus for sure,which makes it more difficult.
You got to have a cartransportation to get there.
Yeah, oh, it definitely isanother thing to juggle, but you
did bring up a good topic thatwe used to talk about all the
time, which is we can tellpeople the college isn't worth
the money because we went there.
Yeah, somebody our same age,working in the same field, can't
(14:26):
say that if they didn't gothere and it's the whole.
You can't, you know you can't.
Just you can't discouragesomething that you don't know.
And because we've been tocollege, we know, and so we have
the ability to say that itwasn't worth it.
And so it's just ironic becausesomebody who didn't get a
college degree you know, any oneof our friends that didn't get
college degrees could say theexact same thing that we're
(14:47):
saying, and they would bediscounted because they didn't
play the game.
But because we can, becausewe've played the game, we can
now say you know, it's a game.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
I don't know what's better, but it's just the irony
of it.
It's just the irony of it.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
It's that club or that cult or that world that you
have to be a part of in orderto discredit it.
It's very true, very true.
Speaker 3 (15:13):
I think there are great points there.
I will say I do tend to side alittle bit more.
I will say I do tend to side alittle bit more.
I do side a little bit more onJohn's side, where the opening
yourself up, alumni and gettingthat network started is great
and I do think for a businessone that would be almost 100% of
(15:34):
the priority and for a medicalfield, I definitely see how it
would be skewed a lot towardsthe other side of playing the
game.
I think I would, with minebeing engineering, electrical
engineering.
I think it would be a healthymix of both.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
You need a good network too, You're going to
need the grades for that.
Any engineering degree.
You're going to need the grades.
Speaker 3 (15:55):
But also coming out of college.
You're going to need thenetwork, especially with what
I'm going to do.
Right For sure, and thankfullyI have already started.
I have a couple of friends whohave good connections with the
CIA and Lockheed, which is whatI'm interested in.
Perfect, but I think the gradesare equally, if not more,
(16:16):
important in that circumstance.
Right For sure.
The next question, which doesgo a little bit under the
balancing aspect Normally youwould have a work and social
life balance in an adult life,but with college specifically, I
think that adds a school part.
Placing yourself in the shoesof a college student, how would
(16:39):
you achieve this balance andwhat would you do?
Speaker 1 (16:42):
So you should view your class work as your job, and
so when you go from college toworking, the only thing that
should shift out is if you're afull-time student, that should
be your job.
And so, yes, we're saying, goand get other jobs outside of
that, and so that just means youknow, adding that into your job
(17:07):
requirements.
But your primary focus shouldbe the schooling, and the
schooling, when you graduate,will just be replaced with the
job.
So if you're spending 40 hoursa week on school work, when you
go and work and you have anoutside job, so you're spending
50, 60 hours a week.
Most careers that you get intoyou're going to be expected to
do 50, 60 hours a week when youstart out, and so you're just
(17:28):
going to swap out yourschoolwork and the jobs that you
were working for your actualjob and, if you can, early on in
your schooling career, if youcan set yourself up that way and
not operate like most collegekids where they just do it on a
whim and do it whenever theywant to.
(17:48):
But you set, OK, I'm going totake, you know, you might like
morning classes, you might take9 am classes or you might like
evening classes, but pick atminimum an eight hour window
that you're going to do work,and that eight hour window is
when you do your classes and youdo your homework and you do
your group projects and all ofyour work is done in that eight
hour window.
And then occasionally you'llhave to meet with a group
outside of those hours or youmight have to work more than
(18:08):
those hours, and that's verysimilar to how it is in the work
life.
But I think the hardesttransition in college is having
the freedom to set your ownschedule and thinking that that
means you don't have to have aschedule, and so that then also
causes pains.
When you switch from school tocollege or school and college to
working, because you went fromall this do whatever whenever
(18:33):
and nobody has control over myschedule to then your job is
what has control over yourschedule and that's what sets
your parameters.
If you picture it as your workthroughout college and then just
switch to the job, it'll be amuch easier transition and
you'll probably get bettergrades just because you'll have
set times.
You're like oh, I'm supposed towork from, say you don't like 9
(18:53):
am, say you don't want to wakeup early, so you work from
instead of 9 to 5, you work from11 to 7.
And so you work from instead ofnine to five, you work from 11
to seven.
And so now you're just gettingthat work done in that timeframe
but say you're done at four andyou're like oh, I have three
more hours.
Instead of pushing that projectout that you know is coming up,
do three hours of work on it,do two hours of work on it and
(19:14):
start building those habitsthat'll translate over into the
work life Phenomenally habitsthat'll translate over into the
work life phenomenally.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
I yeah, if I'm understanding your perspective
and question right I almostwouldn't worry about your work
or your school life balance asmuch as in college versus when
you get out I mean.
So a couple points on this.
Is you develop again thenetwork, great relationships,
but just with your peers you'rebasically living with?
If you're lucky enough todevelop friendships, living with
(19:48):
some of your best friends,which, even if they're maybe in
a different dorm just acrosscampus, is closer to your
friends, and that number ofpeople you'll be for a long time
.
So when you get into the realworld I would say it's almost
harder to have maybe a sociallife that's that easy to develop
(20:11):
because you just have friends,people always doing stuff, and
I'm not saying parties.
Obviously there's parties,probably every night, but you
can find people with similarinterests that you don't have to
coordinate, like hey, are youfree this day?
Hey, are you busy that day?
Hey, how's your work schedule?
Cause you'll see each otherwalking to the gym, walking to
the lunchroom, and you'll sayyou want to go on a hike
(20:32):
tomorrow.
Yeah, this is my time.
So I wouldn't be too worriedabout that balance.
I think it's a lot easier tobalance than you may think.
It's almost harder, I would say, once you graduate.
And then, just to go offJustin's point as well, I would
use college as an experiment,because if we look at Justin's
(20:53):
life now, it's like he doesn'thave to work exactly nine to
five and he can do that thatwell.
So it's like, use college as anexperiment of can I get
everything I need done, notmaybe working the conventional
schedule, because if you'resomeone who thinks they want to
work for themselves or own theirown business, that might be a
good time to test that out.
And if you go through and you'relike, wow, this year I got
(21:14):
nothing done and I tried to dothat, then you might be like
someone who is like, okay, maybeI is, even though I'd like to
do that, maybe I do need acompany or a nine-to-five giving
me that box, because otherwiseI won't get that stuff done.
So I would just I would onlyadd that because, um, I think
(21:35):
justin's right in terms ofmajority.
I don don't even know, 90% ofpeople coming out aren't going
to be doing those nine to fives,but just looking at him it's
like if you tested that out,yeah, so that might be a good
experiment because you can getaway with in terms of your
grades.
Might not be as good if youdidn't do as well, but you're
(21:57):
not getting fired from a job, soit might be a good time to test
it.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
That's true too.
To figure out what scheduleworks best for you, yeah.
Speaker 3 (22:07):
On this topic of the experimentation and trying to
find that balance.
If you find yourself in anexperiment that doesn't work and
the balance is not fallingapart, whether it be you're
about to lose a job, you havepart-time or your grades are
tanking, what sacrifices wouldyou make?
Would you make like maybe youdon't hang out with your friends
(22:28):
as much and you call out ofwork or you skip your classes?
Speaker 1 (22:32):
in my experience, so I guess I'd back up.
If it's a matter of you'regoing to lose your job in
college, lose the job, learn howto learn how to deal with that,
because you're probably goingto lose a job in the working
life, in the working world.
So don't look at it as amassive downfall.
(22:52):
Look at it as your opportunityto actually feel and experience
what losing a job feels like andthen how to recover from that.
You're not there to work,you're there to learn, and so
just take that as anotherlearning experience.
If it's a matter of your gradesare tanking, in my experience
grades are tanking as a resultof not doing the work.
If you're not doing the work,you're not going to pass the
(23:13):
classes.
If you are doing all the worklegitimately and you're putting
the time in, and it's just notworking.
Every college that I know of hassome sort of tutoring program
and pays students to be tutorsthat you don't have to pay for.
So you can just go to thelibrary, go to the tutoring
center, go to any of that sortof stuff and seek out the
tutoring and also buildrelationships with your
(23:34):
professors.
Every professor is going tohave office hours.
It's typically required by thecollege.
If you have a question on atopic and you're just not able
to fully understand it, go, sendan email to your professor,
meet with them during theiroffice hours, sit down with them
for an extra 30 minutes an hourand just talk it through,
because they're trying to teach.
You know 20, 30 people in aroom, the same topic and if your
(23:57):
brain just isn't connecting onit in that way, I'm sure they
have a different way toexperience it and a different
way to explain it.
Most colleges, especially inthis environment, are switching
towards professors that have hadwork experience, which means
they've probably been in middleto upper level management, which
means they've had to explainthis to several different brain
(24:18):
types and several differentpersonalities, and so they're
just using whatever is eithermost natural or most best
received in their experience inthe classroom.
But if that's not working foryou, having a relationship with
them, seeing a tutor will allowyou to spend that extra time but
also get a differentperspective on it.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
Yeah, I think this is a tricky question because so
taking it from a health stance.
So I think Justin's completelyright.
If you're looking at jobsversus school, your schooling is
more important.
That's why you're there.
I'm going to back up even astep further of before you
hopefully even get toquestioning if you have to quit
your job.
Like we're humans, like we knowhow much time is wasted, like,
(25:00):
are we scrolling on social mediaa lot, are we doing this
Because technically it shouldget done.
You know, I went to school.
I only worked part-time, so Ididn't work full-time, and by
part-time I probably mean like15 hours, not even 20.
So I didn't do a ton of workduring school.
But I went to school, did thatjob, worked out, still had
relationships with friends.
You know it's.
(25:21):
You got to look in the areas.
First of, am I spending time onmy phone too much?
And let's differentiate betweenI'm going out with friends
until 2 am, which is ruining mynext day, or am I getting rid of
just hanging out with myfriends during the day?
So you know you can get rid ofone of those and not the other,
and I think that's an importantdifferentiation, differentiation
(25:42):
.
And then, oh, the other thingthat you brought up too, which
was a good point, is are you notgetting the work done?
Because you're, you know.
I would then look at this of areyou interested in the subject?
Are you just procrastinatingand not doing well in your
degree because you actuallydon't like it and you're just
there because, oh, I'm supposedto be a doctor or oh, I'm
(26:04):
supposed to be an engineer?
But you know, we tend toprocrastinate things we don't
actually want to do.
And if it's not that, likeJustin said, completely agree,
just go get some tutoring.
It's free Work with it.
Like, if you actually like thesubject and you're just not
doing well, you'll do fine,you'll pass, just get some extra
help.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
That's a good perspective too.
I didn't even think about thecomponent of the amount of
pressure that's on you to be inthe right field that you may
just be telling yourself, well,I can get through it, versus it
may be a.
That may be a sign of no, youactually just don't like this
and you're trying to muscle yourway through it and maybe, maybe
, a career change is the rightthing for you.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
Yeah, because I feel, especially myself, you're so
scared to get into at the time,even now, but you're so scared
to get into the wrong degree, orthe one you weren't supposed to
, or one people don't want youto do.
And I changed my major, I thinkfour, four times, and still you
know well, the average workingprofessional will change careers
(27:04):
seven times in their career.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
So you know a career change means you know you were
working in the marketingdepartment, so you're a
marketing manager and theyrealize that you know you'd be
really good in HR.
So then you move to HR.
That's a career change, becauseyou went from one profession to
another and that on averageseven career changes, which
typically comes with seven jobchanges as well.
(27:29):
And so it's interesting that,like when you look at the
statistics, it's likely that youchoosing the right profession
isn't necessarily going to bethe profession you're going to
stay in.
So being concerned and I alwaystell people too, you know, part
of the reason why you shouldwork in college is so you can
(27:49):
find out the jobs that you don'twant to do.
Your internships aren'tnecessarily about finding the
dream job for you.
You do want to pick somethingthat you think is ideal for you,
but finding out that it's notideal for you, in my opinion, is
a better use of an internshipand more beneficial, but also
(28:10):
just more insightful.
If you get into an internshipand you find out that you
absolutely hate it and you donot want to be there and you
want to change either careers oryou just know that that portion
of your career is not the wayyou want to narrow in and focus
on that to me, is more valuablethan going into a career and
finding out that, yeah, I coulddo this, because a lot of times
(28:32):
you're not going to find whatyou love.
You're going to find somethingyou like.
You'll become complacent,you'll stay there and then, six
years into your career, you hateit and now you need to make a
shift, which isn't a problem.
But if you go and you find a,you do an internship, you find
out that you absolutely hatethat.
You now know for the rest ofyour life that you should not
target that business type.
(28:53):
You should not target thatstuff.
And there's so there's a lot ofknowledge in bad experiences,
and so shying away from badexperiences in college I also is
thinks a pitfall.
That is just normal for you totry to avoid bad things, but bad
things teach us so much.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
The only thing I want to add to that before moving on
too, is to go off of your.
How do I balance everything?
Question is everything Justinjust said.
Take the same exact approachesbut do with your.
Do it with your classes too.
If jobs become too much and youcan't try out jobs, take a
class you didn't think you wouldtake.
Or, you know, just see what youlike about this class or not
(29:30):
that class, because I meandifferent classes.
You know they're going to teachyou different stuff, different
interests.
You might go for engineeringand be like holy cow I'm in love
with french literature, youknow.
I mean like.
I know that I'm saying anextreme example because it can
happen.
And then you just don't be,don't be afraid.
Like Justin said, don't bescared to switch.
(29:51):
Even if you've been in thatmajor for a year, you have all
your friends of like.
Cause I know this was a bigthing Like marketer made
marketing, majors got made funof at Sienna.
Cause it's not a real major,but you just gotta.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
If that's what you love and that's what you want to
do, you know, don't be afraidto do that well, yeah, and in
this digital world, a lot ofthose marketing managers I know
a handful of them that graduatedwith us, that make well into
the six figures, work forthemselves and have complete
work life balance, travel theworld and they make great money.
So who's who's laughing now?
Speaker 2 (30:23):
yeah, thanks for listening to our podcast.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
We hope this helps you on your balance freedom
journey.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
Please share your thoughts in the comments section
below.
Until next time stay balanced.
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