A Culture Against Dropouts, Deviants and Troubled Young Adults

A Culture Against Dropouts, Deviants and Troubled Young Adults
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I've had some tough times recently, especially in the past week. But every time, I just look ahead and see what I can make, what I can build, what I want to achieve. It is _very_ difficult to get anything done if you don't have a clear vision of your future. It's _very_ important to avoid discouraging teenagers and young adults from going on their own path.

It depends. Sometimes there is, when you sit among 500 mostly disinterested peers in a lecture hall and lecturer is taunting you that he is there to make half of you fail.

And sometimes you stay in the lab late into the night because you know, that your advisor needs these results to extend his grant money. And all your lab-mates are like "But you are just a master's student, you shouldn't care about this publish-grant-cycle BS untill second year of your PHD!"

and you can have many in-betweens.

Alternative idea: it's important to discourage teenagers and young adults from going their own path, to make sure that only those who are really prepared and committed will actually do it. Like the old Jewish tradition of telling anyone who wanted to convert "no, go away" three times before eventually letting them start the process.

On the one hand, I really feel for the person and appreciate her sharing. Problems like these rarely consider the practicality of the situation and shouldn't be taken lightly.

On the other, I know there are kids out there who never got to go to a good school, always had problems at home and never got to feel the joy of learning. They can't write this kind of story and even if they did no one would read it. They can't travel somewhere, don't have anything to be cut off from nor will ever meet someone who saves them. They can't stop doing things that hurt them and if they become depressed they might very well end up being homeless.

Or the high-performing poor kids who might have to work or in other ways face academic death from a thousand papercuts. Many times because families with better resources uses all their power to make overexertion a desirable thing so other kids can't compete.

Or just the normal kids who already knew from the beginning what was important and the limits to being productive. Maybe they went to a good state school and now regardless of merit have to live with being last in line after people from private schools time and time again.

I guess my point is that when we contemplate a fix to these problems I hope we also don't overlook the people in different situations with similar problems.