4 ms·

Sure then maybe this won’t produce doctors or lawyers, but there are plenty of professions where mere intellect can suffice. Ivy League schools for example are

Sure then maybe this won’t produce doctors or lawyers, but there are plenty of professions where mere intellect can suffice. Ivy League schools for example are really good at producing the kind of people who can pass McKinseys first year deathmarch, but most of us don’t work there and don’t want deathmarches in general.

sandworm101 5y ago
>> then maybe this won’t produce doctors or lawyers Isn't that a decision that the children should be allowed to make for themselves once they are adults? School should give them sufficient resources for them to attack any profession, from soldier to priest, pilot to surgeon. Asking a child to make such choices, allowing them to forgo certain subjects, harms them in the long term. It limits their potential options. A few years ago I read that "social media influencer" was a more desired trade amongst highschool kids than doctor/lawyer/fighter pilot. Such kids should not be allowed to make educational decisions.
- dsr_ 5y ago
  Right now, "social media influencer" is a more realistic immediate job than doctor, lawyer, or fighter pilot. To be a doctor, you need a 4 year college degree, then acceptance into a medical school, then pass the medical school courses and do N years of residency. The average medical school graduate has $200K of debt at that point. To be a lawyer, you need blah blah blah law school, and then it turns out the USA has too many lawyers already... so the average entry-level lawyer makes $48K. Yes, really. To be a social media influencer, you need about $2000 in startup costs and a lot of luck, as well as some degree of actual work. There are roughly a million people with 100,000+ followers on Instagram or YouTube or TikTok. Interestingly, there are about a million lawyers and about a million doctors in the USA. Finally, there are about 15,000 pilots in the US armed forces, but only about 2200 attack or fighter role aircraft. In total: a kid with no particular educational affinity is making a reasonable immediate choice to pursue "social media influencer" over doctor/lawyer/fighter pilot. It's probably a terrible long-term career choice, but so is fighter pilot.
  - busterarm 5y ago
    > To be a doctor, you need a 4 year college degree, then acceptance into a medical school, then pass the medical school courses and do N years of residency. The average medical school graduate has $200K of debt at that point. It's not even that simple anymore. There's also the PGY1 year. There aren't nearly enough residencies to satisfy demand anymore. You might have to change specialties a few times before you land a residency. We're at the point where if you didn't go to medical school in the US, you're SOL. Even if you did, it's a struggle -- hope you went to a great medical school. This at a time when we have higher demand for doctors than ever. Nobody wants to change the residency situation because the economics of it don't work out.
  - lostcolony 5y ago
    I don't disagree, but I think you're overlooking one thing. There are more kids wanting to be social media influencers than there are doctors, lawyers, or fighter pilots. The chances aren't purely based on how much demand there is for a given job, but also on how much supply. For that one million spots competition is fiercer.
    - akiselev 5y ago
      Because they can compete. For doctors and lawyers, entry tickets are a few hundred thousand in loans and years of education. For fighter pilots, it's millions of dollars of training and flight time supported by a military. For social media influencers, it's just a computer and a webcam, which they probably already have for school/work.
      - snerbles 5y ago
        USAF pilots are also subject to a ten-year service commitment after they are rated for their aircraft type, which is usually around two years of training.
  - travisjungroth 5y ago
    > It's probably a terrible long-term career choice, but so is fighter pilot. If you're willing to accept the failure modes of non-fighter military pilot, non-pilot military officer, person with a college degree or person with some college (depending on when things go wrong) it's not a bad track. Lots of hedging. Then you can transition to a career in civilian aviation or management. Compare that to something like enlisted Special Operations. Wash out of SEAL selection and you could be scraping barnacles off the side of a ship. Maybe you wash out of Special Forces selection and you end up in infantry. But then you decide you want to stop blowing stuff up, and the highlight of your resume is 4 years experience blowing stuff, with a minor in sweeping barracks. Failure modes aren't as nice.
- true_religion 5y ago
  If the purpose of schooling is to ensure every child can be a potential doctor or lawyer then it has already failed in the past, and will continue failing far into the future. Realistically, I don’t think all kids schooled in Montessori style “learn what you want when you want to learn” will fail at becoming doctors or lawyers if that’s their passion. It may detract from the number of people who make it through law school just because they heard lawyers make a lot of money. But that’s realism, I was responding to the hypothetical of if this method of learning somehow destroys a human beings capacity to ever become a doctor or lawyer. That’s not very practical to say a schooling method will destroy all sense of delayed gratification. Personally, I think developing those life skills is orthogonal to intellectual education in the first place and are more akin to personal character which parents can build in their children without conjoining it with schoolwork.
citizenpaul 5y ago
>McKinseys first year deathmarch You write that like everyone automatically has any idea what it is.
- Inhibit 5y ago
  It'd be nice if someone expanded on the subject. I assume it's this McKinsey: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/McKinsey_%26_Company https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/McKinsey_%26_Company And infer they treat the new hires harshly?
  - derivagral 5y ago
    I don't work at the top consulting firms (of which McKinsey is one) but the first year or 2 at any major financial or consulting institution is a bit of a meme as to what they go through in hopes of making it. The 80+ hour weeks working on pitch decks, next-morning deadlines, etc, aren't just a Hollywood meme. I've read some of the 600+ slide powerpoint decks that exist in consulting and finance, and I think I got interesting information out of the experience exactly once (Radio ads were a close #2 in advertising ROI against the internet back in mid 2010s, with TV and other mediums far behind.) There's a few blogs around about it; this one seems less hyperbolic than your average news headline but does mention the hours: https://managementconsulted.com/interview-first-year-mckinsey/ https://managementconsulted.com/interview-first-year-mckinse...

sandworm101 5y ago

>> then maybe this won’t produce doctors or lawyers Isn't that a decision that the children should be allowed to make for themselves once they are adults? School should give them sufficient resources for them to attack any profession, from soldier to priest, pilot to surgeon. Asking a child to make such choices, allowing them to forgo certain subjects, harms them in the long term. It limits their potential options. A few years ago I read that "social media influencer" was a more desired trade amongst highschool kids than doctor/lawyer/fighter pilot. Such kids should not be allowed to make educational decisions.

dsr_ 5y ago
Right now, "social media influencer" is a more realistic immediate job than doctor, lawyer, or fighter pilot. To be a doctor, you need a 4 year college degree, then acceptance into a medical school, then pass the medical school courses and do N years of residency. The average medical school graduate has $200K of debt at that point. To be a lawyer, you need blah blah blah law school, and then it turns out the USA has too many lawyers already... so the average entry-level lawyer makes $48K. Yes, really. To be a social media influencer, you need about $2000 in startup costs and a lot of luck, as well as some degree of actual work. There are roughly a million people with 100,000+ followers on Instagram or YouTube or TikTok. Interestingly, there are about a million lawyers and about a million doctors in the USA. Finally, there are about 15,000 pilots in the US armed forces, but only about 2200 attack or fighter role aircraft. In total: a kid with no particular educational affinity is making a reasonable immediate choice to pursue "social media influencer" over doctor/lawyer/fighter pilot. It's probably a terrible long-term career choice, but so is fighter pilot.
- busterarm 5y ago
  > To be a doctor, you need a 4 year college degree, then acceptance into a medical school, then pass the medical school courses and do N years of residency. The average medical school graduate has $200K of debt at that point. It's not even that simple anymore. There's also the PGY1 year. There aren't nearly enough residencies to satisfy demand anymore. You might have to change specialties a few times before you land a residency. We're at the point where if you didn't go to medical school in the US, you're SOL. Even if you did, it's a struggle -- hope you went to a great medical school. This at a time when we have higher demand for doctors than ever. Nobody wants to change the residency situation because the economics of it don't work out.
- lostcolony 5y ago
  I don't disagree, but I think you're overlooking one thing. There are more kids wanting to be social media influencers than there are doctors, lawyers, or fighter pilots. The chances aren't purely based on how much demand there is for a given job, but also on how much supply. For that one million spots competition is fiercer.
  - akiselev 5y ago
    Because they can compete. For doctors and lawyers, entry tickets are a few hundred thousand in loans and years of education. For fighter pilots, it's millions of dollars of training and flight time supported by a military. For social media influencers, it's just a computer and a webcam, which they probably already have for school/work.
    - snerbles 5y ago
      USAF pilots are also subject to a ten-year service commitment after they are rated for their aircraft type, which is usually around two years of training.
- travisjungroth 5y ago
  > It's probably a terrible long-term career choice, but so is fighter pilot. If you're willing to accept the failure modes of non-fighter military pilot, non-pilot military officer, person with a college degree or person with some college (depending on when things go wrong) it's not a bad track. Lots of hedging. Then you can transition to a career in civilian aviation or management. Compare that to something like enlisted Special Operations. Wash out of SEAL selection and you could be scraping barnacles off the side of a ship. Maybe you wash out of Special Forces selection and you end up in infantry. But then you decide you want to stop blowing stuff up, and the highlight of your resume is 4 years experience blowing stuff, with a minor in sweeping barracks. Failure modes aren't as nice.
true_religion 5y ago
If the purpose of schooling is to ensure every child can be a potential doctor or lawyer then it has already failed in the past, and will continue failing far into the future. Realistically, I don’t think all kids schooled in Montessori style “learn what you want when you want to learn” will fail at becoming doctors or lawyers if that’s their passion. It may detract from the number of people who make it through law school just because they heard lawyers make a lot of money. But that’s realism, I was responding to the hypothetical of if this method of learning somehow destroys a human beings capacity to ever become a doctor or lawyer. That’s not very practical to say a schooling method will destroy all sense of delayed gratification. Personally, I think developing those life skills is orthogonal to intellectual education in the first place and are more akin to personal character which parents can build in their children without conjoining it with schoolwork.

citizenpaul 5y ago

>McKinseys first year deathmarch You write that like everyone automatically has any idea what it is.

Inhibit 5y ago
It'd be nice if someone expanded on the subject. I assume it's this McKinsey: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/McKinsey_%26_Company https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/McKinsey_%26_Company And infer they treat the new hires harshly?
- derivagral 5y ago
  I don't work at the top consulting firms (of which McKinsey is one) but the first year or 2 at any major financial or consulting institution is a bit of a meme as to what they go through in hopes of making it. The 80+ hour weeks working on pitch decks, next-morning deadlines, etc, aren't just a Hollywood meme. I've read some of the 600+ slide powerpoint decks that exist in consulting and finance, and I think I got interesting information out of the experience exactly once (Radio ads were a close #2 in advertising ROI against the internet back in mid 2010s, with TV and other mediums far behind.) There's a few blogs around about it; this one seems less hyperbolic than your average news headline but does mention the hours: https://managementconsulted.com/interview-first-year-mckinsey/ https://managementconsulted.com/interview-first-year-mckinse...