On Myth #3: Going to college is like investing in stocks. If you pick the right stock and make your investment wisely then of course it can be quite valuable. But if you buy the wrong stock or don't give your investments the attention they require you can lose SOOO much money and get nothing of any value in return. Just like college.
I think that potentially the most harmful myth about adulthood is that there's a timetable for how your life should progress... that you should have a career, a house, a car, a family, whatever it is you planned, "on schedule" or when your friends are doing it. Or that you have to have a plan in the first place... Situations and people change. It's okay to take things slow and roll with the punches. Take time to figure out who you are and what you want. A lot of people in their 20s have friends who are settling down, having careers and families. And that's great for them, but it's not great for everyone. If all else fails, remind yourself that it's okay not to have everything together now. You'll get there. Do what's right for you.
One thing I realized was that not all that breaks needs to be fixed. And I don't mean that lamp that fell on the floor you can just chuck out and replace. I mean when you fight with a friend, you don't necessarily have to make up with them if they were a bad friend, and if you screw up and lose a job that makes you feel terrible, you don't have to beg for forgiveness or your job back (within reason, if you can still get a decent reference out of them, that would be nice). Things that are bad for you may stay broken.
A friend of mine once confessed to me that he couldn't remember how to do anything from his maths degree and that meant he was unemployable so I had to explain to him that nobody remembers anything from their degree and that what matters is you were able to do it then so you will be able to do it again one day. The real world is not under exam conditions.
Along with the last myth, once you are also an adult, and you talk to you parents more as an adult, you will find out that they were just as clueless as you, and that will make you feel much better about your life. seriously. Talk to your parents.
I second this. Knowing my mom was making shit up as she went along, as was pretty much every other adult, makes me feel so much better about not having any idea what I'm doing.
+morkroth Simple, realize that you don't have to stop having fun just because you have gotten older. You'll need to get money somehow, find housing, etc, but you don't have to be a boring adult, be a kid at heart. xkcd.com/219/
1:38 Noooooo! Why no mention of trade schools? You're reinforcing the myth that Uni is the only way. Say, that would make an excellent episode (trade school as alternative to college/university), especially if you can get Mike Rowe on it. JS.
+b1merio Oh man, you're right. Will correct this in a future episode and add an annotation ASAP (in on a flight/on my phone), or I'd do it now. Sorry/thanks! - Mike
I concur... the problem is not necessarily that college isnt worth it.. but that college is the only thing of worth.... The myth is that if you dont have a college degree than you are destined to fail.. THAT is the far more prescient and dangerous myth. Everyone knows going back to school can be beneficial, but very very few know that you can do all sorts of things from personal projects to entrepreneurial type experiments to just traveling abroad to making a RU-vid channel to gain the same (if not more) value as college... Great video though! I just found you from the SuperCarlinBro's WallE episode and really enjoy your channel!!
Erudite I'm only in 8th grade at the moment, but I've seen a lot of feeding into this from both teachers/staff and students. School surveys about what we plan to do after high school often have no option for not going back to school (or only have "other"). Teachers often say "when you go to college..." instead of "if you go to college..." in class. I understand that college/trade school can be important for many careers, but some people (like me) plan to go into careers that don't require or change much without a degree; others can't afford college, and it can be just as dangerous to convince someone that they don't need college as it is to tell someone they do.
I like what Nicole said cause they essentially treat college like it's a must. If you don't go you're gonna work at mcdonalds the rest of your life. Which lead to me getting depressed cause I really didn't want to go to college. They really need to talk about trade schools in high school and treat them as options
+mrtalos I think the reasoning is that college itself teaches you how to work hard and shows you have focus, determination, and all that jazz that makes they think makes you a better employee
+Anna P I get the theory. It's just it's not necessarily true in practice. I ended up doing an apprenticeship in a trade, spending 3 years learning upholstery. Unfortunately I had to leave the job and it's earning potential hit rock bottom. I'm not keen on the way some people only see academia as the only thing important in life. don't get me wrong, college / university is a good thing. I just hate some people's snobbery around it. I don't need a degree to know how to use excel in an office.
Any advice on attracting a Matesprit? So far the only thing I've come up with is putting a bunsen burner in between me and another human of interest and casually mention how there is Chemistry between us.
sitting down and eating large quantities of junk food can lose its appeal very quickly... Mike: "For some people." Me: "I REQUEST THE HIGHEST OF FIVES!"
+HydrangeaDragon Fucking seriously?? WHAT. There has to be a catch, though. What's the catch? Is the schooling intense? Is there something going on here???
Catchphrase: "Come back here to learn how to adult, because they don't teach you that at school" I will spam all your videos with this until you come up with a catchphrase, yes I am talking to you, Mike. I can do this for months!
#4 Really speaks to me. I've been stressing and trying to go to college since I graduated HS back in 2011 and I can't tell you how annoying it with my family wanting me to get married and have kids. I just want to work and go to school and get my life on track. Thank you so much for this video and all your other ones. They're really stuff I've needed help in in my life.
Just because I don't have a degree doesn't mean that I'm not wise, wisdom preserves it's owner alive. My friends who went to university have lives I don't envy. My parents gave me common sense and work ethic. I've learned French and Mandarin Chinese to an intermediate level, been to many countries and made many friends. All without being leached on by the business of education.
+desiderataification they didn't say people who don't get a degree are not wise. they said that getting a degree is not a waste of money. and they're right, on average people with a degree make more money. and it's true that a lot of the time you are not even eligible for a job without one. but if you want to take another route that's fine, you do you, and clearly you've done that well.
I was really hoping the myth about candy would be "candy is really bad for you and you should mostly avoid it." But of course that's not a myth, because we live in a cruel, cruel world where all the most delicious foods are basically poison... T^T
A big myth is that you can't be a huge fan of things and be active in fan communities as an adult without being weird or immature or unsuccessful or creepy, etc. FALSE! You can still cosplay and go to cons and read and write fanfiction and enjoy and create fan art and freak out over your favorite books/movies/tv shows/video games/podcasts/whatever. And in fact, you'll probably have more resources to pay for things like going to cons and making costumes and other things that cost money. Fan communities aren't just for kids and teens.
Myth: (or at least I'm still trying to force my brain to believe it's a myth and I'm just being unrealistic) There's no right time scale for following your own blueprint and you're not doing it wrong if you set a time scale and don't match it in practice, stuff happens and you can't control when everything happens (especially if it involves another person). Like I said, still having to constantly remind myself of this because I always had a very rigid plan for my life and so far I've failed to get everything on there done when I wanted it done except for getting a cat. I'm trying to convince myself that's okay and I'll have the things I'm supposed to have that I work for when the time comes and that that is okay. It's really hard though.
Ah, the infamous LifeScript™. For people who don't want to decide or make effort to find out what they really want to do with their lives. Or maybe it _is_ what you want. If you go by the Script, I hope you realize it as a choice and not just "something that people do / are supposed to do / part of life". I hope you do it for the right reasons, and that reason is you. And I hope you also enjoy it.
People try to scare me into living with someone and having kids by saying that I'll be sad and now one will take care of me when I'm old (I reply that that's not a nice reason for having kids, but it still scares me). How do I deal with this?
This is actually so helpful because I'm turning 20 in two days and I was freaking out because I'll be a "real" adult now haha and also because I'm moving out of home soon and 8 hours away from my family :( Thanks guys!!! Keep up the good work!
Some of these subjects seem super obvious to me but honestly many of this channels videos have important info for people who don't know. There are plenty of twenty something that no nothing about getting a mortgage of even how to change a tire.
Hey, my dad kinda had a similar situation except he nearly cut off the tip of his finger (it was only hanging on by a thread of flesh) doing woodwork. He was working alone at the time and nobody was around so he got a bucket of ice and drove to the hospital with his fingertip dangling around. They got his finger fixed up, now he just has an ugly looking bump where it happened.
#6 - I ate a medium Blizzard at Dairy Queen yesterday. As a 33 year old person... it was too much. My 8 year old self will be so upset when I start ordering a small.
Question: if the person already feels like garbage, is it ok to eat all the candy? Also, great Parks & Rec reference you got there. I was happy to see it. Awesome video, guys. Have a great weekend! :)
I feel like I'm an inbetween adult. I mean, I'm almost twenty and I'm living at my parents house working minimum wage at a store in town to save up money before I become a Real Adult. And right now everything sucks because all my old friends are gone and I'm all alone here and my job is hell and I don't know how to progress from here. If you guys were maybe thinking about making a video for the inbetweeners like me, I'd really appreciate it because I honestly have no clue what I'm doing at any given moment.
Regarding college degrees: some degrees are useless. Colleges are all about making $, afterall. The amount of student debt i the US is an economic liability.
But...But...But... I have a college degree and working food service.... and I won't ever find a career.... Evar :( Sometimes I really have to convince myself that this is false.
millenniumdragn, I see where this is going. No, a degree in religion is not useless. I have fellow class mates who have found fulfilling careers with the degree. How do they differ from me? They had better connections and live in a more economically involved cities. This comment was written in sarcasm and a acknowledgement of my own depression.
Brace110 absolutely! All three of those games are great party games. I would also recommend Fiasco if you want to play a tabletop game that's like a Coen brothers movie. Kings of New York was also a LOT of fun!
When the topic is discussing personality in the classroom they always say "person gainins personality with being adult" and that makes me angry because it assumes we as a teenager doesn't have a personality.You cant just belike "BOOM.i am 19 i have a true personality that will never change.done."Thats a very wrong myth?Right?
Horrible assessment of college. Making more means nothing when you're a hundred thousand dollars in debt for the rest of your life with mental health disorders as a bonus prize. Props to the top comment regarding trade schools - college degrees really are a horrible scam. The myth is that you need one, which is something this video perpetuates.
I have a slight disagreement with number 3. there are some college degrees that are worthless. you need to pick your degree and the college carefully or you end up making 40000 with a 100000 in student loan debt. Dave Ramsey always uses the example of getting a masters degree in German Polka History