School vs Work

It is no secret how student debt is in the trillions now. Yikes! We all cringe when we hear that, and yet, everyone is still racking up debt thinking that school will pay off in the end. Hm. I am not so sure this is the case. I know too many college grads on a personal level that are working at jobs that don't pay them enough to pay back their loans in a decent amount of time. One of my friends worked for free for two years before landing an attorney position. Luckily for her, she could live at home with full support from her parents and had full scholarships for school. But what about everyone else in her position? Could they afford to work for free and did they even receive full scholarships? Most students would say no.

Another one of my friends racked up $150,000 of debt after graduating from a private university to a slump salary of $50,000. Again, yikes! Needless to say, there was definitely a much smarter way of going about her schooling to not have racked up that much debt, but the point is -- how ridiculous is this?! School tuition just keeps rising while salaries are not. 

This is why I have decided that taking one class at a time is going to be much more realistic and beneficial for me. While college degrees no longer guarantee success, I am not going to invest 100% of my time and rack up ridiculous debt for a chance at success. I will, give part of my time though to a chance at success. In the mean time, I have a good job at In-N-Out that many people turn their noses down at. But you know what? I'm getting too tired to care about people's discriminations against job types. I know what I have, and it has potential for me to move up even if I don't necessarily love the job. It's a great job that has room for advancement. Managers are compensated well, and also have the opportunity for other jobs in the corporate office in Irvine. There are other miscellaneous jobs that come with management experience that are options as well if relocating to Irvine is not an option.

I'm going to keep moving up at In-N-Out. Even though some days are shitty, I also have some really oppositely fun days. The job is stressful work indeed as the physical demands are high and the pace at work is consistently speedy. Everything is about prioritizing your time, and one bad decision is the difference between staying ahead or being behind. I admire the higher levels at work and some of my managers because their experience at In-N-Out is fun to watch and their timing skills are impressive. Their tolerance levels for bullshit are abnormally high. 

So I've been giving this some thought and discussed this with Ron the other day. I thought it would be a great idea to slowly work on my degree via one class at a time so it'll get finished one day. More importantly, so that I don't rack up debt. I know it isn't worth it. By the time Ron is ready to retire, I should be done with my degree, and perhaps, I'll move into the corporate office and step away from the stores. That would mean relocating to Irvine, but it's a very realistic option. It's nice to have options. 

A few things that inspired me today to write this out:

http://www.askmen.com/money/career_400/493_jobs-without-college.html

http://www.ted.com/talks/sheryl_sandberg_why_we_have_too_few_women_leaders