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July 26, 2004
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A: FROM MENTOR LORI KANE IN
MA
I think most mentors will agree that you should study what
is interesting
to you and not worry as much about grades. After all, you
may be doing
this for the rest of your life! Grades are important, but
it may be harder
to find a job in the sciences if you do not have this background
in
college. It's true that you may spend more time on your math
and science
classes than on your humanities classes. However, if these
subjects
interest you, you will enjoy them much more!
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A: FROM MENTOR WANDA RITCHIE
IN MA
Alexis, this is an excellent question. You really have touched
on a core
element of human nature. One aspect of your question considers
how we face
decisions throughout our lives. In virtually every decision
we face, there
is an easier, more comfortable road or a tougher, more challenging
road.
In my experience, I've always learned more and ultimately
been more
satisfied when I decided to follow the tougher road. It's
not easy,
though. It's always tempting to stay in the same place or
study the
subjects we find come to us more naturally.
It might be helpful to think about how studying math and science
may help
you in a broader sense than just your career choice. Math
and science
teach us to think through problems in a clear, logical fashion.
We learn
to apply fundamental principles to an array of situations
- not just to
focus in individual situations. We grow in our abilities to
communicate in
concise ways and to discover interactions between seemingly
unrelated
elements.
A strong foundation in math and science could be very beneficial
to you no
matter what your ultimate career choice. There are many ways
in which math
and science apply to the humanities.
Good luck with your decision!
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A: FROM MEMBER LESLIE WAITE
IN CA
Hi Alexis!
This is such an excellent question, and I agree with you that
a LOT
of people wonder about it, so I will give you my take on it.
First, let me say something that I try to convey to as many
people as
I can when they hit High School: Just because you have to
work at
something doesn't mean you aren't good at it! If you have
ever played
sports, or an instrument, or taken ballet or tap dancing lessons,
it
should be pretty obvious that your first try probably was
pretty bad.
Mia Hamm probably didn't kick a goal her first time with a
soccer
ball, Lance Armstrong could not have biked the Alps his first
time on
a two-wheeler, Yo-Yo Ma couldn't play "Mary had a little
lamb" much
less an entire concert the first time he picked up his bow,
and
Debbie Allen did not pirouette the first time she put on ballet
slippers! These skills take practice and hard work, even if
you are
really gifted at them, and intellectual skills are no different.
If you are like me, most school was pretty easy before High
School.
You sat in class, you listened, you read what the teacher
assigned,
and you got decent, even good grades. I struggled some with
math, but
other than that, it was pretty smooth sailing.
Once I hit High School, English and Humanities stayed this
way. I
could read assigned stories or chapters the night before the
exam and
ace it. Math and Science however, were a different story.
These I had
to work harder at to understand. This is normal. It doesn't
mean you
can't understand it, and it doesn't mean that you aren't meant
to do
it- it just means you have to practice the skills necessary
to do it,
just like you must practice an instrument or train for a sport.
I
guarantee you that no matter how easily Science and Math may
seem to
come to some folks in your school, they are home at night
reading
their Science and Math books, and thinking about the concepts,
and
practicing the questions, and that is where the understanding
comes
from. Also, just like a musician must continue to practice
to keep
their skills up and to then build on them, working to understand
difficult concepts now will make it easier to learn new concepts
in
the future, because your brain has had practice.
So now to your question: why should you pursue Science or
Math when
you can get better grades in English and History?
I think this question overlooks a bigger picture. What you
choose to
study now (and perhaps in college if that is where you are
headed)
sets the basis for what you will be doing professionally for
a long
time afterwards (perhaps your entire life). If you follow
something
now because it is easy, even though you don't really care
about it, I
guarantee you will be bored quickly when you go out into the
world to
use the knowledge you have gained. You will burn out. You
will hate
your job. You will become a mean old lady whose house is avoided
by
small children on their way to school. OK, maybe not that
last one.
Far better to follow something that interests you, but is
hard,
because that is something that will keep you interested for
a long
time.
So my answer to you is another question: what is your passion?
If History fascinates you, if you say to yourself when you
are
reading it "wow, I could do this forever! I could spend
my life
learning more about the past and what it means and what it
was like
to live in this person's time, and what went through their
head when
they made this decision or wrote this paper", then I
think going into
History is what you should do. I personally LOVE history.
I like
documentaries on PBS about famous people of the past, and
I spend a
lot of my (very rare) "fun" reading time on biographies
because I
think understanding the past is fascinating. But I can't see
myself
researching and writing those biographies or documentaries.
I have
the interest, but not the passion.
I believe that you should think about what is more fulfilling
for
you: even though you have to work harder at Science or Math
or
Computer Science, is it rewarding to you when you DO finally
get it?
Does it fascinate you? If so, then I would suggest you go
for one of
these fields.
Another concern you make in your question is also a common
one: by
doing the hard thing, you may get lower grades, and opportunities
will close up. Now, I'm not going to tell you that you can
fail all
your science classes and still get accepted to a grad school.
I AM
going to tell you that if you are committed to it, and you
work hard,
there is always a way, even if you don't get straight A's.
Take me for example. I failed calculus in college and had
to re-take
it. I got C's in some of my biology and chemistry courses
(I might
have even gotten a "D" in one), and my overall college
grade average
was around a B minus. Yet I got into an excellent graduate
program in
Biochemistry, and I now work at one of the top biomedical
research
Universities in the world. How? Because even though I didn't
get
straight A grades, after college I worked as a technician
in a lab
doing research. By actually doing research, and showing my
skills and
passion for science to those around me, I was able to demonstrate
to
graduate schools that my grades didn't reflect my passion,
that when
you gave me a chance to get out there and go at it, I was
good at
science. So even though I got lower grades than some of my
peers who
scurried off to graduate school right away based on their
A averages,
I was still able to pursue my career goals.
It is also worth pointing out that had my goals been to work
as a lab
tech (which you can do right after college with a bachelor's
degree
in science), I was able to do so right away, and no doors
were
closed. In other words, GRADES ARE NOT EVERYTHING!! In fact,
if I had
worked in a lab as an undergraduate, it is entirely possible
that I
wouldn't have needed to work as a technician for admittance
to
graduate school (although at the time, I needed the "school
break").
I can't stress enough how important I believe it is to know
what
interests you and fulfills you, and to follow that interest.
I have
seen so many people in all fields who studied what they did
because
it was easy, or because someone told them they should, or
because
they thought they could get a "good job" with it,
and became
miserable and burned out on their jobs quickly. I also know
many
people who DID follow their passion, and even if things were
challenging, or they didn't get the perfect job that put them
on easy
street, they still love what they do, and they are not starving.
You
spend too much time working as an adult to not enjoy your
job.
Choosing something that fits your personality, values and
goals for
yourself is a really good way to make sure that you spend
your life
doing something that will sustain you, not drain you.
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A: FROM MENTOR DENISE HARBERT
IN IL
I don't think you should look at humanities and SET as two
different choices.
I think you should continue with them both. I had 3 majors
in college - 2
were SET and 1 was humanities. You could do 1 major in each
or have a
humanities major with a heavy dose of SET classes too. The
main reason why
anyone would want to have SET knowledge is for obtaining a
job. There are a
lot of people who can do humanities only, a lot of people
who can do SET only,
but very few people who can do both well. Employers want people
who can do
both. Almost every job I can think of has something to do
with SET, and math
in particular. Even people who work in stores that have cash
registers or
people who buy clothes for national retail stores need to
have a solid,
functional understanding of math to do their jobs well and
be successful. The
more math they know, the more comfortable they will be with
balancing their
books, maintaining their buying and selling records, and negotiating
different
deals.
The only jobs that do not directly relate to SET are jobs
that relate
indirectly to them. If you become a historian, writer, artist,
or even
dancer, then you may not need SET to do your daily work, but
you will need it
to do your personal financial work. EVERYONE needs to negotiate
salary and
benefits packages, get paid, save for the future, invest for
buying a car or
house, invest for retirement, choose appropriate health and
life insurance,
etc. Making these decisions is not easy. Often, I find that
the "deal" that
seems the best on the surface is actually the worst and the
"deal" that seems
the worst at first glance is often the best. Health insurance
is a good
example of this. Over the course of a year, the plans with
the $1000
deductibles are usually cheaper than the plans with the $500
deductible,
regardless of whether you're sick or healthy. It doesn't seem
to make sense,
but it happens that way because most people choose the plan
with the lowest
cost up-front. Only really healthy people are willing to choose
the higher
up-front cost plan, which means the health insurance company
pays a lot less
for those plans, so they can charge a lot less for the monthly
premium. If
the difference in the annual premiums is larger than the difference
in the
annual deductibles (which is usually true), then the plan
with the larger
deductible is cheaper for everyone by the end of the year.
Also, there are a LOT of people in this world who are willing
to LIE, CHEAT,
and STEAL whenever they encounter someone who has "math
fears". Women are
overwhelmingly the targets of this kind of crime. I am always
shocked at the
kind of blatant lies that men have told me when trying to
sell me something
that has a high price, loan, or deferred interest plan. I
always read the
fine print, decipher the math that's encoded in a web of complex
sentence
structures, do my own computations based on what the fine
print says, then
confront the salesmen head on with the lies they told me.
Over the years, I
have literally saved myself tens of thousands of dollars because
I know math
well enough to solve the problems in the fine print. Car dealers
are
notorious for this kind of thing. The big push right now among
car dealers is
getting people to sign leases. Listen to the car commercials
on TV to hear
what I'm talking about! Leases were originally designed solely
for business
people. Business cars can be deducted from the company's taxes
as a business
expense. Cars used for personal use do not have this tax break.
For image
reasons, business cars need to be more expensive (luxury)
cars that are new,
while personal cars need to be reliable and need to last long.
Therefore, the
usage and financing of a business car should be different
than that of a
personal car. Leases are designed for business cars to give
drivers an
expensive car for a short time period in a way that the drivers
do not own the
car when the lease is over (unless they pay a huge balloon
payment at the
end). At the end of a lease, the car gets usually gets turned
in and a new
car and new lease are necessary. Loans are designed for personal
cars to give
drivers a less expensive car for a longer time period in a
way that the
drivers completely own the car when the loan is paid. The
loan payments stop,
but the driver owns the car and doesn't have to turn it in.
Thus, car dealers
make a HUGE profit when they get personal drivers to sign
leases because it
keeps the driver paying a monthly fee for a new car forever.
In a loan, the
personal drivers stop paying a monthly fee as soon as the
loan ends and they
still have a car to drive without a payment. Only people who
can decipher the
fine print math in the lease and loan agreements will understand
this!
There are similar examples of why you should know enough about
medicine to
make better health decisions, engineering to make better purchase
decisions,
etc. SET and math are important not only for jobs and careers,
but for life!
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