So today I was chatting with one of the teenagers in my class about her plans after high school. And... I didn’t know how to properly respond to her situation, at all. (1/?)
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So this young lady is an extremely hard worker, A student, in like 4 AP classes. Here’s the kicker: she wants to study astrophysics at Cornell. Her parents have told her she must be an anesthesiologist. They’ve planned all of her course progression for this for her.
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So what is the appropriate thing for me to say? I know what I *want* to say: your parents want you to be successful and happy. Have a well thought out plan and back up plan to accomplish you goals, know what they entail, and how you’ll financially support yourself. You can do it.
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I get her parents’ perspective, though. Some days I’m super glad I never had kids. I can’t imagine trying to balance your kids’ happiness with trying to ensure they do better than you did, and don’t make the same dumb mistakes. Those mistakes may shape us, though.
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What’s the right thing to say to a young person who will be an adult in a couple years? She’s clearly unhappy with the strict plan that’s been so carefully made for her financial success. But academic science is a hard career with many sacrifices. Her parents clearly won’t budge.
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Replying to @hacks4pancakes
Support them and help them realize what they'll be up against (particularly, financially, when parents are wielding that as a weapon of abuse, which this is) to accomplish their goals.
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Replying to @RichFelker @hacks4pancakes
Also anesthesiology is full of creeps (to put it nicely). https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/bioe.12441 …
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Replying to @RichFelker @hacks4pancakes
On a more practical front, if you're advising a student in this situation, you might encourage them to work out how many courses could plausibly be on-track for either degree, to maximize academic progress they can make before parents catch on.
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Replying to @RichFelker @hacks4pancakes
Yes this is deceptive but we live in a country where higher education is structured financially to give parents unjust control over whether adult children have access to the fields of study they want and even more basic things like expression of their gender or orientation.
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Having to take out loans or work a full-time job to cover 2 years of college is a lot less of a burden than having to cover 4 years.
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