I think the real calculus should be do something that interests you, but also consider ROI and if education cost is worth it.
Most of the people I know with the worst financial outcomes overpaid to study stuff they didn’t care much about (and isn’t marketable or often even valuable) because they thought it was what they were supposed to do.
Eh, I'd go beyond that and say invest in yourself first and foremost, but I've been VERY SCREWED after trying to make decent financial choices.
1.) I was into computers and programming in the 90s but I was too young for the dot-com boom, so by the time I could work we were in the bust. So computers weren't a 'safe' ROI.
2.) So I went into languages and wanted to be a diplomat: I studied rare languages to be more valuable (Arabic and Chinese), went to the Middle East, and planned. Except that it turns out that basically required either law school or a bunch of unpaid internships I couldn't take since this was post 2008 and everything was hell/the competition was insane, so I dropped that plan and continued library work.
3.) I recovered from losing that dream and went to grad school for Library and Information Sciences. I did a focus on assessment/metrics/KPIs + tech (so databases, HCI, and UX research) with an intent on pursing an academic librarian career and building academic tech tools on the side. My first job out of grad school was at an Ivy. I got what ended up being MS my last semester of grad school and had to quit to see to my health.
4.) I finally managed to find decent employment and get health care (MS drugs cost 300k/yr)... in 2019. Then COVID. Luckily I'm still employed, but it did throw out ALL of my career planning post MS-diagnosis.
At this point, I've just given up on planning. It's worthless. The minute you or someone you love gets sick, or you get a divorce, or a disaster hits your house (which you won't get help for), you're going to lose it all anyway. I'm just picking up as many skills as possible and hoping one basket doesn't break.
I think to some extent there are always unknowns and there's a risk you'll choose wrong, but it's worth trying to choose correctly. In hindsight from your example it was a mistake not to do computers, your ROI calculation turned out to be short-sighted because of proximity to 99. Same thing might have happened to me had I been there at the time, it's hard to make the right choice in that kind of environment.
That's ignoring the cost of the research and planning, though. Even if that cost is only time + brain power that could be used on something else, in opting to engage in occupational planning, that time isn't being spent on something else.
> Same thing might have happened to me had I been there at the time, it's hard to make the right choice in that kind of environment.
I'd say for most people (but not most people at HN because the tech community is pretty unique in terms of labor relations), occupational planning is more akin the tech career planning in 99 where there are numerous big unknowns hitting people constantly (COVID, 08, etc.). Our informational environment is TERRIBLE to build a decent ROI model. Doing so would take the average person so much time to research and build that I think right now it's better to spend the time either:
a.) Planning outside of the current systems and their incentives. For example, I'm supplementing my conventional retirement savings by handing out a LOT of free money locally. Even if the stock market crashes in my 60s and I lose everything (which, based on my lifetime, will probably happen bc it always does...), hopefully there will be at least a few people/families/organizations around that view me kindly and will help (if 2000 people give me a dollar a month, I can make rent). This is also likely to be true even if society completely collapses, provided I'm alive.
b.) Focus on building better heuristics for reacting to sudden change and pivoting. Our culture and society doesn't care about being stable and will always change to chase the latest profit/dopamine hit, so instead of making plans that require and assume stability is possible and that the past is predictive, it's better to accept the future is NOT predictable and spend one's energy on building a great skill set to be flexible. Bending instead of breaking.
I did! I couldn't force myself to go through with it, honestly, plus I needed a little more experience with the languages which I couldn't afford; I couldn't travel or hire tutors; I was trying to live on 800/mo with no external support. I was sleeping on a mattress I dragged home off the street. I had no office clothes, no non-library work experience, nobody in my family who had a college degree to help me with the cultural expectations. I didn't even have a way to move to DC and back then you pretty much had to do that. I almost did a Master's just for the funding to move/live in DC but I researched that and was like 'that would be financially stupid'. So I didn't even though WITH MY SKILL SET it would have worked, because I read too much generic advice and had nobody to guide me.
That CIA signing bonus was REALLY tempting, though, I'm not going to lie.
Yup. I even planned out my debt at the age of 17. When I selected a college in 2005, I would have graduated with 8k in debt. Quite reasonable.
The crash my junior year and the resulting divorce of two of my parents means over half my undergrad debt was from my senior year. I had to choose between doubling my debt and dropping out with a year left.
And I also effed myself by working my way through school to try to keep costs down/take out less debt. It meant I had no money when I graduated so I couldn't even afford things like interview clothes for basic office jobs and I had to take the first thing I could get. In retrospect, working on tech projects in my spare time would have been a better FINANCIAL option than working a job for 7.25/hr, especially since this was '06-'10 and I was interested in things like NLP.
I just don't care anymore. I tried to be responsible, it didn't work, and now I just don't care.
I had a very similar path to you. I felt like I had been responsible and made it all the way through college. Then I had $75k in debt and I was going into $8/hour interviews with 40-60 other applicants.
One time I stopped at kinkos to print out some portfolio designs for an interview, and the cost was 6 dollars. I had to leave because I only had 3 dollars.
Things are much, much better now that I transitioned into tech. I kinda did it for money but I'm lucky because I do genuinely love it - I wish I had started it sooner in life.
I'm curious - where did you end up? If you're on here, I assume you're in a STEM field of some sort?
I'm actually in political communications; I leaned heavily into the rise of identity politics. (I'm a gay disabled female. Not great in early 00s tech, especially as a teenaged girl, but VERY good in certain spaces). I do tech stuff for non-techies, and it works pretty well, especially as there's more crossover between politics and tech. (I had to explain rms to a bunch of policy wonks the other day, that was weird).
I just missed talking about tech and was sick of getting blank looks when I rambled about how Page Rank is a mistake.
Oh, and regarding HN, I've been here on and off lurking since it was founded in 2005, I just thought I was too stupid to contribute. Now I'm old, jaded, and realize we're all stupid.
Yep, exactly. I graduated in 2008. The market crashed, I had a useless degree, and by then knew that a very significant portion of my money went to administrative positions at my college.
It definitely left me, and likely most other people, wondering why on earth we shot ourselves in the foot with the monetary equivalent of a mortgage at the dawn of our professional lives.
