Schools: Making the BEST Employees

2008-03-12T17:41:00.000-07:00

Being a high school student myself, quite often I find myself asking questions you probably asked yourself when you were in high school.

"Will I ever need this ?"

Every adult I've asked, from my parents to family friends, scarcely remember the majority of the non-essential things they learned in high school (from Algebra II, Chemistry, ect..) yet they still encourage me to keep learning. Don't get me wrong, I have a great time in school, and I'm generally an A-B Student. What I'm mostly concerned with is the school system's (at least here in Florida) lack of focus in subjects that really do matter - like money.

Isn't the purpose of school to get smarter, and eventually become rich ? That's generally what we're told as to why we should look for a good, high-paying job. If money wasn't important, then we could all be told to run free, and do what makes us happy. But that isn't the case.

After my school started putting emphasis in choosing a career pathway which best suited us, I began doing some "soul searching". After many hours, I could not think of any "job" that I could see myself working in for the majority of my life. In fact, EVERY job I thought of made me cringe at the thought of being a slave to it, and not being able to spend the time I would like with my family.

My real dream in life is to be happy with my family - and with this dream, naturally comes excessive money. You can't travel around the world for as long as you'd like with a fairly big family (Yes, I plan on having a BIG family) without money.. Specially for extended periods at a time. And from what I've seen, that's impossible to achieve with even the highest paying "job". Oddly enough, all I hear my parents and their friends talking about is how to quit their jobs.

My final conclusion was fairly clear. I can't have a job. The best possible scenario I could come up with (from what I've seen countless times) was the following. Keep in mind, it's a "Best Case" Scenario, which means it's really unlikely.

To Make a Million Dollars (From age 18 on)

Make 100k a year in my job (sure..)
Save 30% of my annual earnings
Work for 33 years
Finally, Purchase a nice home for my family (at age 51)
Pay Off Debts
Plan for retirement !?

I don't know about you, but I don't want to wait till I'm 51 years old to consider myself "successful".

So what does school represent to me now ? If I can't have a job, then what good will a college degree do me ? (No, this isn't an excuse to leave school; I'm having way too much fun in it now). From my point of view, a job will only deviate me from achieving what I really want to do. So why start out on the wrong path ? I will finish school, and I do want to go to college - but not for the reasons everyone else is.

To sum it all up, if there was at least SOME emphasis of finances, businesses, investments, and any other money-management courses in school, not as many people would be struggling to get ahead in life. Let alone get in debt as early as they are. Add a few math or science coursed to a kids schedule, and he might forget them in a few years (or months). But switch them up for a money management class, and you may have saved him/her, as well as his/her family many years of financial trouble.

I know how I'm going to get ahead. There are countless ways of making money away from the traditional "job" route, from opening a business, stocks, real estate, websites, or even blogging. But how can people get educated about these methods, if schools tend to shun them ?

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Schools: Making the BEST Employees