Entries Tagged 'School' ↓

Today the White House released a transcript of President Obama’s prepared speech to schoolkids on September 8th.  This is a speech that caused a lot of uproar amongst many parents because they felt like Obama was becoming a bit too Big Brother.  I think a lot of the controversy could have been avoided if the transcript were released earlier and the somewhat lame lesson plan by the DOE was scrapped.  Anyway, I read the entire speech and here are some of my thoughts.

First, the main theme of the speech  is that staying in school and working hard is the way to success.  I agree with that 100%.  If my parents did not pursue their advanced degrees here in America then I would not be here at all;  if I did not finish college I also would not be where I am; if my hubby did not get his engineering degree he probably would not be making video games now.  I definitely believe that education is the way to upward mobility here in America, and I am actually glad to see a lot of people I know going back to school this year to improve their skills or learn a new trade.  Although I have forgotten a lot of the details of things I learned in the 16 years of schooling I had, I  think I will be using the basic math and language skills for a lifetime.

Obama also gives a fairly good reason for kids to stay in school.  He says that in school you can discover what you are good at by trying out different classes.   I think that is somewhat true, but not always.  I went to  public schools in America for 9 years before going to a public state college for 4 years  so I can say with confidence that NOT all schools give kids the opportunity to discover what they are good at due to resource constraints or institutional requirements.  Public secondary schools in general are extremely structured and you have to take a core set of classes to graduate.  I have known some kids in highschool who were really talented in things that the schools just did not teach at all.  Obama is right in saying that school is where you can discover if you are good at things like writing or math because every school teaches those subjects.  However,  it is not necessarily a good place to discover if you are a good cook or great artist because not all schools have the bandwidth for those “extra” programs.  Kids still have to discover their talents on their own,  so I think college is really where people can freely experiment with a huge variety of subjects.  However, finishing secondary school is usually a prerequisite for college and not everyone could afford to go to college.

Another fairly hefty message in the speech is that failure is acceptable and the way to success always contains some stumbles along the way.  That is obviously pretty cliche, but it is also true.  Obama suggests that students should overcome failure through hardwork, practice, and seeking for help.  All of those are sound advice for kids.  Of course he had to throw in that you should not give up on yourself, because “when you give up on yourself, you give up on your country”.

Obviously this was a positive message meant to inspire kids to work hard in school and become successful.  However, I felt that it did not really clearly define what success is.  There is one short paragraph where Obama said that kids might think that it is easy to become “rich and successful” without any work because TV shows rappers and basketball stars living it up.  Honestly I think it is kind of sad that he disparages entertainers and sports stars because many of these people work pretty hard at their professions, too.  Also there is another section that talks about how kids need to be able to fight the challenges of this nation with the skills they learn in school and also “build new companies that will create new jobs and boost our economy”.  So is success financial? Is success fame?  Is success being more educated by your parents?    I don’t think that was extremely clear.  To follow the theme of the message, I guess Obama wants kids to figure out what being successful really means.

Anyway, I will stop writing this essay now because it is feeling too much like I am finishing a school assignment.  The bottom line is that I definitely feel like having at least a  college degree gives people an edge in employment and earning potential, but if you are truly good at something that the schools do not teach then you should go for it.  Traditional structured schooling is not right for everyone, and those who are successful share a passionate drive to achieve their dreams, and they all work hard at their goals.   Happy Labor Day everyone!!

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My husband and I are both fortunate to have generous parents who paid for most of our college expenses.  From my experience, it seems that in the Asian community parents are always expected to pay for their children’s higher education. I have even heard of stories of some parents who take money from their homes or retirement  to pay for a son or daughter’s schooling. Now that I am expecting a child, I am wondering if parents are really obligated to pay for their children’s higher education.  After all, parents already spend considerable time and money raising a child into an adult.  Should they be obligated to pay the expenses of their legally adult children  for another four years or more?

My personal take on this is that parents really have no obligation to pay for college after raising their children to age eighteen because they have done enough.  Parents who pay for their kids’ college expenses are bestowing their children a huge gift, but when something comes too easily  it may not be appreciated as much as something earned by hard work. I have met quite a few classmates who had everything paid for and then later dropped out because they did not focus on their studies.  On the other hand,  I know some people who did not have parental help during college who worked extremely hard and ended up doing quite well.  They did so well precisely because they did not have a parental financial cushion, and they knew that they needed to work hard and  be on the top to win more scholarships and internships.

Some parents use the fact that they are paying for college to dictate many aspects of their children’s lives, and I really think that is worse than not paying for college.  I know too many people who hated what they were studying in college but still soldiered on because they felt like they were obligated to please their parents by graduating with a degree in a certain major. Many of these classmates ended up doing something radically different from their college majors after they were out of college and tasted freedom.  These outcomes make the parental sponsored schooling almost pointless.

When parents refuse to pay for their children’s higher education, they are basically letting the young adults become independent right after highschool.  That is not a bad thing at all because there has to be a point where parents let go of their children and let them survive on their own.  I have to admit that I only felt true freedom after I graduated from college and got my first job because I truly no longer depended on my parents. For some people higher education is not necessary for success, and letting a young adult explore the possibilities outside of an institutionalized education system might also be beneficial.

In closing, I think parents should not feel obligated to pay for their children’s higher education unless they are legally ordered to do so by a court. I would probably help my kid with college expenses since I am sure any school will become extremely expensive in 18 years, but I would help in the form of a loan of some sort.  As the cost of higher education rises it is impossible to expect parents to afford everything and the college aged children will have to pitch in by securing scholarships, grants, and work to fund their own education if they want it.

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My life is for the most part pretty boring, but sometimes whacky things happen.  Yesterday was one of those days.

I left work last night and realized that I left my purse at my cube.  So I drove back to retrieve it.  I usually don’t park in the underground garage because it is always full, but at that time many people already left work so I figured I would park there since it is the closest parking lot to my building. It has one of those arm gates that raises up after you swipe a keycard.  Then after the arm gate there is another metal sliding gate.

I have always had a problem with these gates because my arms are very short and oftentimes I have to stretch out pretty far to activate the keycard.  Yesterday this happened again and stretched out just a bit too far and my foot went off the brake for a second.  Unfortunately, the lane to the gate is on a downward incline so gravity took my car straight into the gate arm and made contact with the metal gate and then stopped.  The distance from the keycard station to the gate is less than ten feet so it wasn’t a huge impact, but the car still managed to break off the wooden gate arm and made a dent in the metal gate.

Amazingly enough the car just had a few scratches in the front bumper and was not damaged at all, but the metal gate to the garage stopped opening.  So I called building security and a pretty nice old security guard came out and took my information.  Today the property management called me and said that they have repair people out there and if the damages are not extensive I don’t have to file a claim.  They were actually quite nice about it and thanked me for informing security quickly and giving my information.  They also said they will keep me updated on the repair costs and possible claim.

In case you work in the former Siebel buildings in San Mateo and you were inconvenienced by the south garage gate closing today, I’m really sorry!  I felt pretty dumb after the incident so I went home and Googled garage arm gate accidents, and what do you know, other people have the short arm problem too.  Here is an example.

After watching these videos I actually felt a bit better.  Then I started sorting a bag of mail I got from my parents’ house this weekend, and I found a check for $200.13 from a class action settlement.  Apparently a law student named Kashmiri sued the Regents of California for increasing student fees in the 2002-2003 school year and after five years of legal battles the students won and the Regents paid out a $33.8 million settlement.  It is kind of sad because I completely understand why the Universities of California had to raise fees at that time.  The economy was in the ruts, and the fees were really quite cheap.  I entered Berkeley in 2001 and I think I paid less than $2000 for tuition for each semester, and then the next year they increased the fees dramatically for international students, but the resident tuition did not change all that much.  Here are the webpages from 2001 to 2002 and 2002 to 2003.   The real fee hikes actually started from the 2003 to 2004 school year where the fees went from $2100 to $2900.  Now it costs over $4400 for resident tuition. I actually feel bad for receiving this money because I don’t feel cheated by my Berkeley education. I’ve already earned my all four years of my tuition money back in less than a year after college.  I also found out that the University of California barely raised its fees from the late 80’s until 2002 after I met an alumni that graduated in 1988.  He told me that he paid around $1500 a semester in 1988.  Basically, it is a public school system that tried to keep its fees down for many years but just couldn’t do it any longer and it is understandable.  I am  just going to donate this $200 back to UC Berkeley’s engineering program and I encourage other UC grads who are comfortably employed to do the same because our alma maters probably need the money more than we do now.  I really want the UC system to remain the best public universities in the world for generations to come.

So that’s the entire story of my stupid accident, and the $200 of found money.  Hopefully my car insurance will not be adjusted and the owners of the building will fix the gate.  In the future, I will always park my car in front of those keycard swipers first so there is no chance of sliding down into a gate.

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Last week I read an article on CNN titled “Why you can’t teach money”.  In this article, law professor Lauren Willis argues that financial education is a waste of time and money.  Here are my thoughts on this matter.

Her first argument that financial education doesn’t work because financial product companies “spend billions drowning out well-meaning messages to consumers from nonprofits or government agencies.”  This is certainly true. I am sure people are more likely to know lines from the  MasterCard “Priceless” commercials rather than their own credit card interest rate.  Also, she says that financial products change all the time so it is hard for educators to teach a subject that is constantly in flux.  That is also true, but some basics stay the same.

Next she argues that teaching the basics of finance is a waste of money because sending people to class gives them the illusion that they are educated in the ways of finances and they  don’t change their financial behavior.  I’m not sure if I agree with this because just listening to the basics of budgeting and getting out of debt can be really helpful.  It may be that people who are forced to take classes in personal finance do not change their behavior, but people who want to learn and change can certainly benefit.

Finally, she believes that the government should spend more money on regulating the financial industry rather than trying to educate consumers about the dangers of certain financial products.  I agree that there needs to be regulation on deceptive business practices, but an informed consumer is more able to use the wide variety of financial products to his or her advantage. People do not need to have the knowledge of a professional financial planner to understand some arithmetic  and figure out what is best for them.  Indeed, some financial companies make the math more complicated than it really is, but I think  the basics of budgeting and interest rates be understood by any  human being with average intelligence.

To close the interview the professor stated that parents should continue to teach their children about money and finances because families can educate their children better than the government could.  That may be true, but if the parents have no financial knowledge, then it would be the blind leading the blind.   Financial education has to start somewhere, and blankly stating that it is a waste of time and money does not help the fact that many people are clueless about how to manage their money.  I know a lot of people want to learn how to manage their money better, and those who seek the education voluntarily are more likely to benefit from it.

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I read Laura Rowley’s Yahoo Finance column pretty regularly, and this week she wrote about college debt and how many young adults with large student loans and small wages are basically debt slaves doomed to pay for their education for decades. I have also written a little bit about college finance before. In “Not rich enough, not poor enough” I wrote about how many middle class families do not qualify for financial aid or even scholarships at expensive private colleges and that drew many different responses. Some say that kids should pay for their own college expenses and others say that the financial aid system needs to be reformed. Either way, most people agree that there is a problem with having to take out huge loans to fund college. Here are some things I think parents and college bound teens should consider before signing on to a generation of debt.

1. Consider attending a state public school with in state tuition- I went to the University of California at Berkeley and all four years of tuition plus room and board cost less than one year at any private university. My parents paid for it, but if I could have paid off the entire amount with less than a year of income after I graduated. Recently an article in Forbes ranked UC Berkeley as one of the top colleges for getting rich. The study was done by PayScale.com and the schools were ranked on the median salary of alumni with 10 to 20 years of experience. I think if they gathered data on the amount of student loans some of the private school alumni are still paying, then they will probably find that Berkeley grads keep more of what they earn and pay less to the loansharks. There are plenty of great state college in this country, and I think they are the best bang for the buck.

2. Consider graduating early - If you could shave one semester,term, or even year off your college education then you would save quite a bit of money. It involves a lot of hard work and creative class scheduling, but it is worth it. I took classes that could fulfill multiple graduation requirements and also took classes in the summer session and I finished about a year early. I used the year to work at a couple internships and took one class in my last semester of senior year.

3 . Try  going to a cheap school for the first couple years and then transfer – I know quite a few people that went to community colleges and then transferred to Berkeley or other schools during their junior year. Their final degree is still from the more expensive school and no one can tell that the first two years were spent in a cheaper school.

4. Work before college – I know some people who worked for a year or two before college to save money for college. Many colleges allow you to defer enrollment for a year so you can have the opportunity to do something. 

5. Start saving early in tax advantaged accounts  – Right now I do not have kids yet, but I am putting $100 a month into a 529 education savings plan under my name.  I don’t think parents and children could save too early for a college education.  A 529 allows you to withdraw the savings for education and any gains on the investments are tax free.

Finally, I totally agree with the advice given in the Yahoo Finance article that you shouldn’t borrow a lot more than what you would earn after college.  However,  it is hard to look at the financial impacts of college loans when you are a young idealistic teenager who wants to do the things you love regardless of money.  There needs to be a balance between idealism and practicality, and perhaps more high school counselors should teach students about the effect of massive student loans.

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