Education and How I Got Where I Am

Another week has come and gone without much excitement. I am not sleeping well, which is driving me a little crazy. For example, yesterday I got up early, exercised, spent the morning outside at Luke's baseball game, biked to Menchi's with Luke and his friend, spent more time outside while Luke played and was incredibly tired by the end of the night. We had nice clean sheets and I was looking forward to  a great night's sleep. It didn't happen, I woke up every hour or so and was up for good around 5:30. It was so disappointing. 

There really isn't much else going on. We have money set aside for some house projects. On Monday and Tuesday we requested estimates for a new door, an accent wall, and updating the smaller bathrooms. No one is getting back to us. It is very annoying. The person who came to see the bathrooms did say he would need until the end of the week. But, the others all said to give them a day or two. I hate trying to coordinate projects. I know we aren't alone in this, I see Facebook posts all the time about trying to find someone who will actually show up or follow through for a job. I suspect that there is so much work out there and not enough skilled people to complete the jobs. I have read about a shift from encouraging all students to go to college to encouraging more students to find a trade. It will be interesting to see what my own children decide. I can remember for me, it was a foregone conclusion that I would go to college. All of my siblings are also college graduates. 3 out of 4 have masters (or law) degrees. But, we took different paths to get there. 

My oldest brother joined the Air Force. He got both a bachelor's and master's degree while on active duty. He started as a 17-year old enlisted airman and retired as a Major. He now works for the Government as a civilian after spending 20+ years on active duty. I feel like his path was pretty smart, the Air Force paid for his education and he enjoyed his job.

My other brother also joined the military. He served in the Navy for 4 years and then used the GI Bill to pay for his education. He is very smart and did the nuclear program. After his time in the military, he decided to study engineering and then did a 180 and changed his major to education. He ended up teaching at the same elementary school we attended. 

My sister is also a teacher and took a more traditional route (college after high school, although, if I recall she had a little break). She taught for several years and then earned her master's in education. 

I went to community college first. I wanted to go to BYU, and got accepted, but did not have any scholarship. I had the Florida Academic Scholarship (now called Bright Futures), so I could go to a Florida state college for free. My parents did not think it wise to throw that away. So, I compromised; I went to the community college first, got my Associate's degree, then transferred to BYU. My parents paid for my first 3 semesters. Unfortunately, my dad lost his job before my last year, so I had to take out a loan. I ended up graduating with $5500 in debt, which wasn't bad. I worked summers (at a daycare) and holidays (making Publix party platters) which paid for my books and spending money. 

I wanted to get an MBA and work in business.  Before declaring my major, I went to a business school presentation that said not to major in business if you intended to get an MBA. I didn't know what else to do and changed my major a couple of times. I ended up majoring in Psychology with a minor in business. Then, I still didn't know what to do. After graduation, I moved back home to look for a job. Shortly after my arrival, while having lunch at Chili's with my mom and sister, we saw some people we knew. One of them was Marta, who I knew, but not well. They stopped by our table and asked what I was doing and I told them I was looking for a job. Marta asked what my degree was in and then told me to call her. She was in charge of a department at the Behavioral Health Division of the hospital and quickly hired me to be a case worker. I worked with children who had been separated from their parents by DCF. I checked on them in foster care and tried to help the parents with the reunification process. It was interesting, rewarding work. 

Because of that job, I got to spend time in court and identified the lawyers and judges as the ones with the real power. I decided to take the Law School entrance exam. I ended up doing pretty well (94th percentile). So, my plan for law school was set. The hospital lost the contract I worked on, and I decided to take on a teaching job. I taught a class of educably mentally handicapped (EMH) children. I am not sure what they call EMH now, but it was children with an IQ between 50-75. It was hard to find teachers to take on those classes, so they were stuck hiring people without a teaching degree. I took some test to prove I had a basic level of knowledge and was hired. It was a fun year and I enjoyed teaching. But, I didn't deviate from the plan. 

I applied to law schools and chose Washington and Lee. It came down to W&L or William and Mary. With scholarships, they were as cheap as a Florida state college (I also got into UF) and after BYU, I wanted to try a small school. At the time, W&L was ranked 18th in the country. They gave me a good scholarship and I didn't have to maintain any particular GPA to keep it. They were also touted as the least competitive law school. To me, it sounded perfect, I was not interested in a cut-throat environment or having the pressure of maintaining a high GPA. And, I was excited about going to a small, private school after being one of thousands at BYU (which wasn't a bad thing, I enjoyed BYU, but I wanted to force myself out of my comfort zone for law school).

This is getting really long and is probably very boring. If the kids are interested, I will write the rest in more detail later. But, to summarize: I met Thomas, learned about the JAGC, applied, got accepted and the rest is history. There are a lot of different paths to get where we are going. I wonder where I would be if we hadn't had lunch at Chilis that day? 

For my own kids, assuming they go to college, I will strongly encourage them to go the community college route first. It is an amazing way to save money and ease into college. There were a lot of kids at my school who went away to college for the first semester and ended up at the community college for the second. And, the only thing anyone cares about (if they care at all) is where your final degree is from. Thomas did the same thing and when it came to law schools, he got into the top schools in the country (he chose W&L because they flew him out to tour, gave him a full scholarship and he was curious about life on the East Coast). Community college clearly did not hurt us at all! Of course, we will see where their passions lie.

With respect to law school, I am no longer sure the cost benefit analysis is the same. Tuition at our law school was $20K when we started in 2001. That is the equivalent of $29K today. However, tuition is now over $50K. Salaries have not risen at the same rate as the associated debt. Even with the scholarships, Thomas and I still took out significant, but manageable, student loans. He had a full tuition scholarship and I had 75%. But, we had books and living expenses. We worked over summers, and had interesting, but very part-time jobs during the school year. I should write a blog about our jobs one day. But, if I don't, in short: Thomas got to work in the sports department at VMI. I worked in law admissions, giving tours to prospective students. Our third year, we were in charge of finding juries (from the townsfolk) for mock trials. That one was crazy, we got to be flies on the wall during jury deliberations and that is some scary stuff!

Luke is up now, so I will end this meandering post.