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Seeking Education

Whoa!

It is time in our household to help our only offspring to undock from what has been home for the past seventeen years and help seek out a new home aka a higher learning institution.  This undocking is not just physical, it is emotional, it is about leaving familiar and diving into multiple unknowns.

A time of escalating stress it turns out.  Not having any personal background in the business of education as it is run in America we the parents are coming in as underdogs.  Admittedly there is a world of information available beyond a few strokes of a keyboard that was not the case a quarter century ago, when we went and got our engineering degrees.

Exactly.  That too can be a curse.  TMI.  Inputs and chatter across virtual boards and physical.  On the track and field, or in speech meets, parents with multiple offsprings and one in college are shelling out their tricks and tips voluntarily.  Now mind you this is not true of all school districts - hopefully - but one we live in is beyond hyper.  90% drive a Tesla (or let the Tesla drive them or a combination thereof).

I had my older one go to a career coach starting from eighth grade itself.  You did not?  What were you thinking?  You are f**d.  What they spent could have fed 10 Indians for 10 years instead.

Kids absolutely must get their resume well rounded but also have a killer skill like appear in the National Bee of some sort, or almost invent the cure for cancer et al.  If not you and your sprung are in for a world of angst.  How about at least a couple of apps that help people get their food prep done remotely or chat with dead relatives?  And on and on.

Well I am happy to say we are having none of it.  I am barely getting familiar with SAT (which is not a weekend day), or its other cousin the PSAT and many other APs (nothing to do with a state in India), or CSF (not a special force).

We will do some research based on the expressed interest from the said offspring and help with the appropriate funding to apply to colleges that offer a reasonably decent program in that specific area.

College visits - some but not going overboard or abroad, in a Honda that runs on gasoline.  After all thinking back to our old college days I was still discovering the college, three years in.  And I walked everywhere.   Went into a school that admitted me.  Cost was a big factor.  Next to nothing was ideal.  As to the career trajectory guidance, today my work has nothing to do with the four years I spent understanding the molecular structure of iron.  But I do ok.  I am living amidst all the Teslarati.

Now I am looking down the barrel of a spend ticket for a four year program that in today's money can alternately feed a 100 Indians for 10 years.  So you do the math.  This so called higher ed better be truly phenomenal!


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