The thing I never learned: opportunity cost
Like most kids, I was shunted into going to college “because that’s the thing you do when you graduate high school” without a second thought to whether I wanted to — which I didn’t. (I wanted to be making money.)
Unlike most kids, I hated school with such a burning passion I started working my ass off from the age of 6 to get out of there as soon as possible.
That’s why I graduated high school at age 15 and had earned both a bachelor’s and a master’s scholarship on a full ride, graduating at age 19.
After all, my parents promised me that things would get better, first at “college” and then when I could “become a geneticist.”
Yeah, it didn’t, and that isn’t a job — outside of the pyramid scheme of PhD research, which I also got pushed into for 1 year before getting kicked out.
I’m glad I did get kicked out, because I’ve come to determine that a PhD is something one should only do once financially independent; the “publish or perish” mentality leads to perverse incentives and endless stress.
Author’s Note: This aside about PhD programs is for my international readers who have different university programs than we Americans.
PhD programs in the US…