College Alternatives Fair at Decatur High – Monday, March 3rd
Decatur Metro | February 24, 2014
Haegan sends in this announcement…
Wondering what you are going to do after graduation? Daunted or unexcited by the prospect of a four year college? Want to experience something different before going to college? Not sure if it’s worth investing so much money into a college degree?
Get your questions answered at the Decatur High School College Alternatives Fair! The event will be held on Monday, March 3rd from 6 until 8 pm in the Decatur High School Performing Arts Center located at 310 N McDonough Street in downtown Decatur.
Decatur Senior Haegen Altizer has gathered representatives from many different post high school opportunities to share exciting alternatives with students and parents. From gap year programs to career training and apprenticeships there are all sorts of options that you may not even be thinking about. The event is FREE! Come out and see what great programs might be right for you.
Decatur College Alternatives Fair, Monday, March 3, 6-8 pm, Decatur High School Performing Arts Center. Free.
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Kudos to you, Haegen! Impressive! If this isn’t your senior project, it should be and you’ve aced it!
Thanks for the support! This is my senior project and I’m hoping to get a good turnout and provide info for students and parents. The event is open to students of all schools, anyone interested is welcome to attend!
Great idea! I hope someone carries on the legacy next year…
Gap yah!
This is a great idea. Doing something mind-stretching after high school is what’s most important. College is only one option.
join a band
tramp around Europe, or wherever your wanderlust leads
do something entirely improbable, impractical, and idealistic
then, once you have your own sense of the world away from the immediate influence of your family and institutional education . . then, you might be (vaguely) ready to chart your course and the training you need to be most excellent in your professional pursuits. maybe.
dear Lord, please let me be as cool with my children doing this as i was in allowing myself to.
I will never understand this sort of thinking. When I finished high school, the last thing on my mind was tramping around Europe, joining a band, or doing something idealistic. Because real life got in the way. All these self fulfillment and “finding oneself” activities are for those who have the resources (or parents) to support them through this supposed personal discovery time. What a load of crap. Most of us were flat broke and staring at a financial void that only hard work and delayed gratification would solve.
i had to make money too—i was a professional musician, and paid my own way for my adventures. the biggest problem most kids have is they aren’t encouraged (or allowed) to imagine any other path beyond going straight into college, then straight into a career for the next 30-40 years, following which they hope and pray they have the health and financial resources to travel and see the world, and do the things they always wanted to do, but were too impractical to consider . . .
there are many paths to walk in this world, and even though the alternatives fair at DHS isn’t presenting a path as bohemian as mine, i’m glad to see alternatives being presented at all.
I agree with you, up to a point. But there are some people who aren’t interested in a middle class lifestyle as an end goal and don’t mind struggling and finding their own way. In fact, I’ve known a couple of people who walked away from parental support to pursue interests that were not acceptable to their parents, and they made out okay.
Me, I’m glad I didn’t start college till somewhat later (not that I did anything that exciting in the meantime) because I appreciated the learning-for-the-sake-of-learning aspect more when I did start, and I wasn’t there just to jump through the right hoops.
At the last book festival, there was an author who wrote a book, something like “How to Parent Your Adult Child”. What I got out of his spiel was that you don’t have to go to college after high school but you do have to do something meaningful and complete it. All the better if completion comes with some kind of degree, certification, proof of completion, proof of mastery. What looks the worst to employers, and is also bad for self-esteem and maturing of the frontal lobe, is if you drift or stagnate without ever completing anything meaningful. So culinary program completion is good, Harvard degree is good, State U degree is good, sailing around the world is good, volunteering in a mission in a third world country is good, building homes with Habitat for Humanity is good, starting your own business is good, writing your first book is good, even if it doesn’t sell as long as you actually finished it. Sitting at home with Mom and Dad and drifting from one job you hate to another, not so good.
“How to Parent Your Adult Child”
Wait, what?
I totally made up that title but it referred to the fact that my sleep-deprived comment when my son was age 2 weeks “It’s only 18 years….”, was evidently optimistic. There’s college and then there’s the boomerang effect. Can’t report on the phenomenon yet but I felt it prudent to prepare in order to ensure that empty nest syndrome actually takes place.
Just searched the DBF schedule and the real title is better than my made-up characterization: it’s “When Will My Grown-Up Kid Grow Up?” It suggests a certain lack of parental ability to direct matters!
Much better! I wasn’t trying to give you grief — I really thought there was a book with that title (or very close to it), which I found astonishing.
Ha, ha, there is! Look at what came up when I did an Amazon search. Kind of scary:
-Parenting Your Adult Child: How You Can Help Them Achieve Their Full Potential
-How to Really Love Your Adult Child: Building a Healthy Relationship in a Changing World
-Setting Boundaries® with Your Adult Children: Six Steps to Hope and Healing for Struggling
-The Power of Praying® for Your Adult Children
-When Your Adult Child Breaks Your Heart: Coping with Mental Illness, Substance Abuse, and the Problems That Tear…
-When Parents Hurt: Compassionate Strategies When You and Your Grown Child Don’t Get Along
The Power of Praying® for Your Adult Children Book of Prayers
How to Raise Your Adult Children: Real-Life Advice for When Your Kids Don’t Want to Grow Up
Part of the issue is the contemporary parent being as much a friend as a parent, a concept that’s utterly alien to me and probably to most Gen X and older.
+1
Being your child’s friend is essentially enabling their long-term dependence upon you.
And to AHiD’s post with the book titles; I think I just threw up in my mouth a little bit.
This is a great idea to offer alternatives to college. Not everyone is suited for college. I have a son with a special need and I get sick thinking … “How is he going to make it?” “Will he be able to support himself?” There just has to be a different and productive path(s) for him. Thank you so much for organizing this event. We will be there with bells on!
Just saw Haegan’s great essay that was published in the AJC yesterday: “Standard question to students: Where are you going to college? Not a standard answer: I’m not” This guy really needs an A+ on his Senior Project. (Or whatever the @#$%^ IB equivalent is–12 on a scale of 1-8 with 12 indicating that rubrics, GPA conversion, criterion descriptors, boundaries, and other edu-measures are all irrelevant when you’ve done something this neat.)
I don’t think Haegan is going to have any trouble with applying to any college, program, activity, position he wants!