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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I have been thinking about that thread recently. I have a degree from an Ivy and two graduate degrees from top schools and I make about $130,000 a year as a professor. I am vastly overqualified for my job at a third Tier institution although it works well with my family responsibilities.

My parents were extremely working class and the number one skill that I feel like I did not acquire as a child was the ability to advocate for myself. My parents are very timid and they have never stood up to an employer or asked for anything. The overwhelming sense I had as a child was that life was something that happened to you and I remember being terribly surprised when I figured it out in graduate school, that other people had a vision for where they wanted to end up and that they were working to implement that vision. But to some degree it was already too late for me when I realize that other people had been doing that since they were 16.

A good school can only take you so far if you have no sense of agency or the ability to create their own life, and unfortunately most of us from poor and working class environments do not have that skill[/quote]

Squandered Ivy here, yes I definitely was extremely deferential to authority.  I was terrified of talking to my professors at my Ivy, even though many were very nice, partly because I didn't want them to figure out I didn't belong there (which may or may not have been true!).  My GOAL and my parent's goal in life was to go to great college away from my small town -- I had NO inkling of what happened after that, and by the time I figured out what I thought was a decent path, the die was cast for my underwhelming career.

At least as a professor you have a pretty stable career and autonomy; do you get to live in a LCOL college town with good schools, that would be a great benefit![/quote]

This is so odd to me. Most of the working class kids at my Ivy were STEM majors who went to med school or into tech. They are killing it now. Why didn’t you do that? [/quote]

Doubt truly working class kids went into med school btw. The debt required would be a huge roadblock.  Borrowing more money than my parents net worth and 10x their annual income???  How does that seem wise…[/quote]

Working class Asian-American kids do it all the time. [/quote]

And many other working class immigrants or fits generation kids.  Mainly bc they know how to save money. The UMC kids in med school end up with a ton of debt bc their living expenses are so much higher [/quote]

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