In tears about my daughter

[Anonymous]

I could understand if you are A donut hole family and need to go in debt to send her to college, then you want to make sure it is worth it, but it ‘s not even the case here, let her choose what she wants to do

[Anonymous]

I feel like you post some version of this every 2 months. Please come up with a more interested post.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you’re not a troll, did you ask your kid what they plan to do with a degree in English? Maybe you can brainstorm together. Otherwise, your kid has called your bluff, and both of you must live with the consequences.

FWIW, my DH and I have BA degrees from an Ivy. We are doing fine.

OP here. She told me she wants to “go into publishing” and “get an MFA in creative writing” down the line. While we are full-pay, we CANNOT afford to bankroll her after graduation. I keep telling her that publishing and MFA programs are for rich kids, but she won’t listen!

So your kid who hasn’t finished the first semester of her first year in college shared this elaborate plan for her major and her life just 12 hours ago. Somehow she wasn’t smart enough to keep her mouth shut. And you “keep telling her” about the issues with going into publishing. Was this before or after you were moved to tears in the last 12 hours?

+1 not only a troll but a bad one at that.

The tell-tale sign of a troll is that OP is responding to many of the posts. Most people who are in despair are so distressed that they vent, but can’t possibly respond to people’s opinions. OP is in this to kick things up. Poke around at people. Get people fired up! A real parent in this predicament is worried and suffering (even if it’s irrational)

Exactly this. Stop feeding the troll.

[Anonymous]

I know several humanities majors (Classics, Comparative Literature, History, etc) majors from Brown and Yale who ended up in consulting and make 6 figures right out of college. Finance, tech, and premed are difficult paths to begin with and even more so, if you lack passion for them yet have overwhelming pressure to continue. Princeton is known for grade deflation especially in STEM relative to other Ivies, so that makes it even more stressful. Often kids who start in consulting either continue in finance or consulting long-term or move on to something else after a few years in the business and a padded savings account, so you could let her know that that's an option. A couple of DD's friends at a Midwestern state school majored in linguistics and a modern language and work at Google or elsewhere in the tech industry like being a product manager.

[Anonymous]

Many high paid consultants were English majors . If you are not a troll you are just dumb.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you’re not a troll, did you ask your kid what they plan to do with a degree in English? Maybe you can brainstorm together. Otherwise, your kid has called your bluff, and both of you must live with the consequences.

FWIW, my DH and I have BA degrees from an Ivy. We are doing fine.

OP here. She told me she wants to “go into publishing” and “get an MFA in creative writing” down the line. While we are full-pay, we CANNOT afford to bankroll her after graduation. I keep telling her that publishing and MFA programs are for rich kids, but she won’t listen!

So your kid who hasn’t finished the first semester of her first year in college shared this elaborate plan for her major and her life just 12 hours ago. Somehow she wasn’t smart enough to keep her mouth shut. And you “keep telling her” about the issues with going into publishing. Was this before or after you were moved to tears in the last 12 hours?

+1 not only a troll but a bad one at that.

The tell-tale sign of a troll is that OP is responding to many of the posts. Most people who are in despair are so distressed that they vent, but can’t possibly respond to people’s opinions. OP is in this to kick things up. Poke around at people. Get people fired up! A real parent in this predicament is worried and suffering (even if it’s irrational)

Exactly this. Stop feeding the troll.

Ditto all this. The person's supposed crazy stance doesn't match how they're responding to advice and criticism.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My daughter is a freshman at an Ivy. We told her that we would only pay for three majors:

1. Econ/Stats/Applied Math with intentions of going into business (finance and consulting firms love her school)
2. CS with intentions of going into tech
3. Any major as long as she completes the 11 required courses to get into med school

My daughter told me last night over the phone that she plans on majoring in English (??!!!!) with no plans to complete the required pre-med classes. We told her that we wouldn’t pay for her college tuition going forward because English is NOT an employable major. She then told me that she’s okay with going to a cheap community college because apparently to her, “doing what she loves is more important than going to an Ivy.”

Help! What do we do? We NEED her to stay at an Ivy, and we are full-pay; it’s a sacrifice, but it’s worth it. But we also NEED her to major in something employable. We are in despair. Please help.

PS: I know someone is going to suggest law school. DH is a lawyer and has told DD that he’d rather see her unemployed before becoming a lawyer (besides, I think my daughter’s temperament would be ill-suited to law).

OP I'm assuming your daughter is at Univ of Pa due to the emphasis on finance.

My niece graduated from NYU with an English major. My Dad, a CPA never thought she would get a job. She has been steadily employed
in the tech industry and gets recruited by tech firms all the time due to her English major. She worked in NYC, San Francisco and is now in Chicago.

My sister graduated from Univ of Pa, Wharton Business School with an Economics major. She could not get a job. She ended up selling bikes
at a bike store in center city Philly after which she joined the US Marines as an officer. In her officer program with the US Marines she ran
across a class mate who also graduated from Univ of Pa, Wharton Business School who could not get a job. He joined the US Marines officer program also.

People are generally more successful in life if they like what they are doing and like going into work.

[Anonymous]

I know a Harvard English major who is a managing director at a top investment firm. Sends her six kids to private schools and has multiple homes. She’s doing ok.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you’re not a troll, did you ask your kid what they plan to do with a degree in English? Maybe you can brainstorm together. Otherwise, your kid has called your bluff, and both of you must live with the consequences.

FWIW, my DH and I have BA degrees from an Ivy. We are doing fine.

OP here. She told me she wants to “go into publishing” and “get an MFA in creative writing” down the line. While we are full-pay, we CANNOT afford to bankroll her after graduation. I keep telling her that publishing and MFA programs are for rich kids, but she won’t listen!

Let her get a job and support herself after graduation. She can pay for the MFA herself or through loans.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If she’s actually at an Ivy, she can get a job after any major, but it may not be high paid immediately.

You drew a line in the sand, your DD called you on it. If you need her to stay at an Ivy, why did you set such strict guidelines? Either let her live her life or cut her off, but quit trying to engineer her life. She’s going to hate you.

+1 You’re not her puppeteer

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh boy! Maybe you are a troll but I know parents like this so maybe you are for real. This is a crazy attitude to have. Your love and acceptance comes with strings.

I told DD 20 that she should consider employability when picking a major but ultimately it was up to her. She doesn’t need my permission or approval about her major or anything else. She is an adult and I respect her autonomy. She has to live with her choices not me. So it’s not fair for me to make them for her. Few people know if they will like the career they major in until they get out there anyway. Many people work in a different field entirely.

I respect your daughter for standing up to you!

+1,000

OP believes in the attitudes she's espousing, there just is no daughter at Princeton. In her mind there are nincompoop parents who have kids taking slots at Ivys only to let them major in stupid things like English, with no goal except maybe an MFA. Since none of these parents are starting threads, she's play acting one and demonstrating how they should behave. Of course the next layer is these naive humanities parents she imagines are just as fictitious as this daughter she cooked up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How sad you don't understand critical thinking and writing skills are in greater demand than ever, OP.

+ 1.

My dad is an English professor at a very good university.

I know an English major with an excellent job in CS because language is language.

I have great sympathy for your daughter and I wish her well.

+1 the head of my company's data analytics team has an English degree. He applied that in his job to write a book about data analysis techniques. In addition to the regular application of it in communicating complicated things to people who don't know anything about data.

A college friend (CA public) English major got her first job working for a videogame company, writing game storylines. She's ended up with a long career in the gaming industry in a variety of roles.

And, one of my HS classmates has an Ivy English degree. She published a book while a student and then went to LA to be a TV writer. She's now the showrunner for a network sitcom.

English majors can do lots of things.

[Anonymous]

How did you lack the foresight to see this coming?

[Anonymous]

OP why do you keep posting variations on this? I think you need some serious mental help.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What will set her up for life is agency, not a certain degree or amount of money. Go read The Price of Privilege: How Parental Pressure and Material Advantage Are Creating a Generation of Disconnected and Unhappy Kids by Madeline Levine.

OP here. That’s bullshit. Am employable major with a fantastic alumni network (yes, PP was correct she’s at Princeton, which has a phenomenal alumni network) is WAY more likely to set her up for success than “agency.”

I also speak from personal experience. DH went to WM and graduated as a History major with a lot of on-campus involvement. Because of his major, he wasn’t able to find a job after graduation. He bartender for a while and eventually went to law school — the only real option for humanities majors.

So I’m speaking from personal experience.

No, you are projecting your husband's experience 20-ish years ago onto your daughter. Once you are at a certain educational level, that level is more important than your major. Your daughter is already at that level. Maybe she would be well serviced to spend the next 3.5 years developing her talents as she is discovering them, rather than following your plans or trying to make up for your husband's disappointing career.

Either way, if you are full pay at Princeton, you ARE rich people and so your daughter's expectation that she can go get a MFA in creative writing is not off base.

We are not rich (HHI ~ $450k/year). Full pay at Princeton is a huge hit to our wallets, but DH and I did it because we know that the Princeton name brand will pay off in tech or finance. We aren’t paying her to go into freaking “publishing” FFS.