Im currently in hs and I feel bad I’m only now really taking things seriously because of a lot of issues I’ll be graduating a bit later. I think last year I had a 2.5 gpa so barely passing and this year I have a 3.6 gpa, im planning on taking two ap classes next year and taking my SATs.
I have this one uncle who’s the type that doesn’t believe you need an education to be successful in life and he didn’t get his high school diploma, I think he only has a GED and I don’t mean to be judgmental but when I compare the life he lives to the life people who were successful in hs, went to college, and got a degree I feel like there’s a clear obvious difference with which pathway offers more financial security.
I feel like a lot of the cherry picked examples for successful high school drop outs are often people who already come from money to financially secure themselves or the rare 0.05% of people. I hope I can preform the best I can in school because I know the unfortunate reality is that school performance really does open up more opportunities for people.
How Important do you think high school is in determining how successful you are in life?
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Anonymous
(36-45)
12 d
It’s somewhat important. But it’s not the be all end all. I know a lot of people who went to college, got a degree who are still making above minimum wage. I was sort of the same as you. I didn’t take things serious. I graduated when I was 19. Most of my friends graduated when they were 16, maybe 17. So I felt ashamed. Like I was behind in life. Now that I’m almost 46 a number of those people who graduated, went onto college, they’re either dead, barely making money or pregnant w no husband. It doesn’t matter how you start out. What matters is that you’re realizing this, that you’re turning it around. There’s more than one pathway to home. Everyone takes a different route. College isn’t always necessary. A lot of people went to college only to come out hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt but can’t find a job in their profession. Honestly a lot of what they teach you in high school is worthless. I’ve used about 25% of what they taught me. Mainly use basic math, English, maybe some science. That’s about it. Education is good if you actually use it. It doesn’t help to know everything in the world if you don’t put it to use. When they say knowledge is power, it’s only power when you utilize it. College is like a factory. It’s good for mass producing employees to continue to keep running our country. Don’t get me wrong we still need those types of people. But college isn’t for everyone. W today’s technology, it’s much easier to make a living. A lot of entrepreneurs. Even if you don’t know what you want to do out of high school, just find a job. Work. Get some experience. Maybe work a few different jobs for a few years. Eventually you may end up finding just what you like. But in the mean time I’d say educate yourself financially. Seriously. You’re not going to get rich or have a descent amount of money when it comes to retirement from working more hours. You need to learn how to make that money work for you. I think inflation goes up 3-6% a year. So you get a raise of 2% but guess what inflation is still outpacing you. Find a way to put money into things that will beat that inflation each year. The sooner you start the less you have to invest as you get older. You wait too long you’ll have to invest more upfront than you would if you start now.
From what I've seen, there is a correlation between doing well in HS and doing well in life. But it's not a strong correlation so it's not a good predictor.
Your uncle is absolutely right. You need very little formal education to be successful. Doing well in education is not a factor because of the education itself, but because someone who works hard is likely to do better in school than someone who loafs. That same quality applies is all other areas of life.
Education alone only gets you so far. Intelligence alone only gets you so far. Hard work, ambition, organization, planning, taking advantage of opportunities, people skills, willingness to continue learning (whether it's formal or informal), persistence, intelligence, skill, temperament - these all contribute. If you apply those things in life, you are far more likely to do well.
You said your GPA increased from 2.5 to 3.6. Why? Do you think the little extra that you learned is more important? Or do you think applying yourself more seriously is more important?
It depends on what your life plan is! If you need only the HS degree or GED to get to where you want in life then the value of having the degree is high. If you’re “going all the way” (MD, JD, PhD, etc.), then it’s just a stepping stone. Personally, other than being an established social experiment cultivating a spectrum of awkward teens, American “high school” doesn’t make a great deal of sense when compared to the European academic setup (which basically allows people to enter the professional arena at age 18 or continue on to advanced training (equivalent to the MD, JD, etc.).
I definitely prefer Europe’s colleges, I was surprised when a European friend of mine said all you really need to get into a good college are good grades. In the US you need a good gpa - the closer to a 4.0 the better. Recommendation letters, extracurriculars, essays. I get stressed out just thinking about it
If I got my highschool diploma anyone can. You should get it! I wouldn't even want to date a guy that doesn't at least have a high school diploma. A drop out? A quitter? Nope! It shows you have no ambition.
One of the guys that gave you his opinion here went to college for years and us making really good money. Do you think they would have even let him in college without a high school diploma? I don't think so.
@Lokiion Yeah, but you aren't them are you? Do you come from a wealthy family to help you start a business to become a billionre. Sure, there are people that have had some fantastic ideas and became billionaires. And there are even more homeless people. So what? Look, I don't care if you get your high school diploma or not. It's no skin off me.
If what you want from life is more education, then education is important. It’s getting increasingly more difficult to get good paying jobs without a college degree, but that has literally nothing to do with the quality or extent of education. It’s an elitist class barrier, and increasingly leftist as well. It will also change in value as the economy changes. If more women were open to physical labor in their career choices, we could break that barrier. Apprenticeships and trade skools are excellent paths to good paying jobs with none of the nonsense of college, and little to no debt associated with the educational requirements. The skills you learn are real world skills too. Since a lot of colleges and universities rely on state funds, our tipping economy is going to have a severe impact on the availability and quality of “higher education”. As college grads continue to basically price themselves out of work, “job creators” will lean back toward work ethic and willingness to learn. It’s best to be grounded first, then educated, if you want to be able to succeed regardless where the pendulum swings.
Ok... I'm going to be brutally honest. Does the degree matter? Of course it does. Does high school/college matter in shaping your career? Absolutely.
But, there's another aspect that I have seen, you can attribute it to luck or whatever you can think of... the reputation of the institution gets you better opportunities. Maybe that's not the case everywhere, it sure is in my country.
I completed my bachelor's from a college which most consider a "tier-3". It never mattered to me (at least it didn't back then). All that mattered to me was to gain skills. I wanted to be the best of the best. I worked hard, aced in my batch with a 9.4 GPA. When it came to jobs, I realised, companies are not even willing to give a fair chance to all. I won't mention the name of the company, but I'll give you an example of what I'm saying. There was a company that offered 0.4million salary annually (which is awful), so I rejected them. Later I saw their advert, that they're hiring for the same job role but offering 0.65 million (also shit, but better). I tried to apply. I cleared all the requirements that they had in terms of skill/experience/GPA. When I tried to submit the application, it got rejected - "Your College is Ineligible".
And to give you an idea how unfair it is - a friend of mine who's working in a fintech company (won't mention the name) explained to me how much difference that reputation made. She (from my college - tier 3) gets paid 1/3rd of what Tier 1 grads get and 1/2 of what Tier 2 grads get paid. The work is exactly the same but the pay differs a lot.
Maybe skills can get you better pay, but the institute reputation gets you the opportunities. A Harvard, Stanford, MIT graduate will always get preference over an unknown prodigy from some obscure uni.
Not at all important when it comes to hyper success (millionaire level), but high school habits usually correlate to having better habits, which usually correlates to getting into better programs in university and in turn getting higher paying skilled jobs around the $100k-$300k range.
After that, when it comes to running your own business/agency, the sky's the limit and the success rate for that is not at all dependent on education, but rather your traits like: how well you handle failure, how determined you are, business acumen, etc.
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Anonymous
(25-29)
12 d
It helps, but it does not define you in the slightest. I personally know plenty of people who didn't take high school seriously at first who are now fairly successful. And outside of my own experiences with people, there's plenty of successful stories out there, too. Famous people, even.
The way I see it is you can't change the past no matter how hard you try. Rather than spending time thinking about how things could have been if you acted differently in the past, think about what actions you can take right here and now to get you to the future that you want.
Or more simply put, you could reminisce on "what ifs" are you can say "what can I do with my current circumstance to set myself up to be the happiest I can be in the future?"
Having gone successfully to high school does not grant much more than a possible open door to a career, and sadly enough does not even prove intelligence, certainly not moral and ethical values. It only proves the person's ability to study. No offense meant to anyone, but there are far too many graduated idiots.
High school is not the sole determination of success. A lot of kids are not good students or have bad home lives. There are other path to success. I have known successful people that have worked in the building trades or started a business. The commonality of them all is that it takes hard work and commitment.
The better you do in school the more you keep your options open. You can overcome things like dropping out and such, but it just is more you have to overcome.
I wasn't very ambitious in school but still managed to eventually eke out a couple degrees. I just wish I had taken better advantage of my off time back then.
Doing well in high school, or any academia-heavy environment really, just means you’re a good test-taker. It doesn’t really give you good life skills to bring to certain jobs anymore, outside of maybe customer service
Financial success isn’t the only kind of success. I’d honestly rank it pretty low in the best types of success. You can be financially stable without going to college, such as picking up a trade
Pretty important unless you're good just doing unskilled labor or a trade job. Like if you don't have a diploma or a GED, you won't even be considered for employment.
it is important because that is where u decide what you want to be the kind of person, by the way you are not the only who realised that late, i did that last year and i too is finishing this year
