I’m 22 years old and found this through your post on Johnathan Haidt’s Substack. My undergrad education has “taught” me about the intricacies of the dosage compensation mechanism in Drosophila Melanogaster and even gotten me into medical school, but I have an intense yearning for the practical knowledge that is at best omitted from undergrad education and at worst purposefully excluded. I am also in a bit of a unique situation since I am engaged, will be getting married pretty soon, and plan on having kids <5 years from now. I look forward to your future posts. On behalf of the Gen Z’ers that still retain some aspects of how normal human beings used to be, thank you.
I am a full-time college professor (19 years and counting), and I have subscribed in hopes that this substack will be a good one to recommend to my students, who no doubt need this knowledge! Please do, though, fix the grammatical error of “graduate college.” A person has no power to graduate a college; only the college has power to graduate the students. A student graduates *from* college, please. :-)
I hope that you include some insights on social skills such as being able to disagree with people without being disagreeable. Plenty of room for practical skills such as taxes and insurance as well. Good luck!
I have a framed flyer on my bathroom wall from a lecture by Bernard Mortissier, the famed French long-distance solo sailor. Mortissier's calligraphy note is his statement to the press on why he had dropped out of the first solo around-the-world race. I had paused to read it at least once a month for 20 years before noticing that the word "dimension" was spelled "dimemension"...
It is great that your experiences have brought you a career path, a newsletter and book deal. Congratulations to you. Without wanting to rain on your parade, I am curious as to why these subjects should be taught in College? Shouldn't parents be imparting many of these life lessons to their children before they reach college age? And what about the large number of people who don't go to college? How did older generations learn these skills? It's true that young adults can benefit from some guidance in gaining conventional wisdom (though they may resist it!) and I hope that the insights in your book and newsletter will be appreciated by, and benefit a great number of people of all ages.
I'm glad you're doing this, but we also need to encourage parents to teach their kids life skills at home. I once taught a life skills/etiquette class and I was surprised at how many teenagers didn't know how to sit at the table and hold a fork. Table manners, much less how to save for retirement, have gone the way of the dinosaur. We also need to be careful not to devalue a liberal arts education by denigrating it as "unpractical." Not everything we learn has to be "practical." There is great benefit to having a broad base of knowledge that includes literature (the great works), philosophy, languages, art, and history. In fact, I think we can trace some of our societal ills to the erosion of a shared body of knowledge. Students are graduating from college having studied every minutiae through the lens of race, gender, sex, and class but can't tell you where Ethiopia is on a map, what's in the Constitution, the impact Judeo-Christian values on Western civilization, or how the attempted application of Marxist philosophy led to the murder of millions. If we want to push for a more practical college curriculum, then the high schools need to quit farting around and teach the basics. Furthermore, as someone who works with college students, we need to encourage young people to think about marriage and children concurrently with career. Not only are marriage and children one of the greatest joys in life, but practically, we know that people who follow the "success sequence" of school, job, marriage, and then children have success across every metric and set their children up for success as well. Not to mention we have an alarmingly low birthrate and low view of marriage throughout the Western world. There is much work to be done....
College is first and foremost a social club. Only specialized knowledge is taught, which is often outdated or laid out in a highly inefficient manner. Academe is a grift, a theft, a bureaucratic nightmare designed to swindle profits from the vulnerable; very rarely is a degree worthwhile, and even then degree inflation is extreme. Most people should not go to college, far fewer should pass, and almost no one should get a Ph.D.
Our “experts” are not experts, our systems are all breaking down and this will continue to get worse as IQ continues to plummet and education is stripped of any subtle remaining virtue it may have. People don’t know how to learn, they come out at 20 intellectually worse off than any previous generation.
We do not have adults, it seems they all died in WWII and every generation after have been children in their wake. Every aspect of our civilization is a mess, there is no stability, no trajectory, no plan. Our culture grooms people to hope they die before the world collapses, so they don’t have to think, to notice or improve. We are a degeneration engine, and we are getting worse.
One hundred percent agree that high school and college do not teach *anything* needed to navigate adult life. At the age of 74, I can look back and see monumental, costly mistakes (which included being broke and technically homeless a couple of times) that could have been avoided with even one course of learning like yours. For what it's worth, there are two books which I encountered later in life which I most wish I'd encountered earlier. First is Robert Wright's book on evolutionary psychology, _The Moral Animal_. Knowing this stuff as a teen would have changed my life. I did have a chance once to put it in the hands of a bright high school girl and she ate it up. The other book is less readable for a high school age person, but is still useful information by the end of college: _Aging Well: Surprising Guideposts to a Happier Life from the Landmark Harvard Study of Adult Development_ by George E. Vaillant. The book covers the history and findings of the two longest and largest studies of adult development in history, following cohorts of young men and women from teens/college through old age and death: "life trajectory" in the term of the studies - we all have one. Although the title sounds like something an older person would be interested in, by then it's far too late to make use of the lessons. Perhaps the lessons can be distilled for young people with too many demands on their time.
I’m 22 years old and found this through your post on Johnathan Haidt’s Substack. My undergrad education has “taught” me about the intricacies of the dosage compensation mechanism in Drosophila Melanogaster and even gotten me into medical school, but I have an intense yearning for the practical knowledge that is at best omitted from undergrad education and at worst purposefully excluded. I am also in a bit of a unique situation since I am engaged, will be getting married pretty soon, and plan on having kids <5 years from now. I look forward to your future posts. On behalf of the Gen Z’ers that still retain some aspects of how normal human beings used to be, thank you.
I am a full-time college professor (19 years and counting), and I have subscribed in hopes that this substack will be a good one to recommend to my students, who no doubt need this knowledge! Please do, though, fix the grammatical error of “graduate college.” A person has no power to graduate a college; only the college has power to graduate the students. A student graduates *from* college, please. :-)
Good catch, thank you! I hope your students will find it helpful.
Gentle reminder: Proofread carefully. "...your..."
I hope that you include some insights on social skills such as being able to disagree with people without being disagreeable. Plenty of room for practical skills such as taxes and insurance as well. Good luck!
Absolutely, that is a major topic I cover!
Interesting concept. It would be good to fix the typo in the graphic at the top of the post, though, which currently says The "Adutling" Professor.
That was just to make sure you were paying attention!
I have a framed flyer on my bathroom wall from a lecture by Bernard Mortissier, the famed French long-distance solo sailor. Mortissier's calligraphy note is his statement to the press on why he had dropped out of the first solo around-the-world race. I had paused to read it at least once a month for 20 years before noticing that the word "dimension" was spelled "dimemension"...
Super excited for this, Raffi :)
This is so great, Raffi! I can’t wait to read and share as you go. All the best!
I’m look forward to what you have to share. I need this in my life right now!
Hey Raffi, I’m so glad you’re doing this; I shared this with my grown nephews. Congrats on launching this, I look forward to reading the book!
It is great that your experiences have brought you a career path, a newsletter and book deal. Congratulations to you. Without wanting to rain on your parade, I am curious as to why these subjects should be taught in College? Shouldn't parents be imparting many of these life lessons to their children before they reach college age? And what about the large number of people who don't go to college? How did older generations learn these skills? It's true that young adults can benefit from some guidance in gaining conventional wisdom (though they may resist it!) and I hope that the insights in your book and newsletter will be appreciated by, and benefit a great number of people of all ages.
I'm glad you're doing this, but we also need to encourage parents to teach their kids life skills at home. I once taught a life skills/etiquette class and I was surprised at how many teenagers didn't know how to sit at the table and hold a fork. Table manners, much less how to save for retirement, have gone the way of the dinosaur. We also need to be careful not to devalue a liberal arts education by denigrating it as "unpractical." Not everything we learn has to be "practical." There is great benefit to having a broad base of knowledge that includes literature (the great works), philosophy, languages, art, and history. In fact, I think we can trace some of our societal ills to the erosion of a shared body of knowledge. Students are graduating from college having studied every minutiae through the lens of race, gender, sex, and class but can't tell you where Ethiopia is on a map, what's in the Constitution, the impact Judeo-Christian values on Western civilization, or how the attempted application of Marxist philosophy led to the murder of millions. If we want to push for a more practical college curriculum, then the high schools need to quit farting around and teach the basics. Furthermore, as someone who works with college students, we need to encourage young people to think about marriage and children concurrently with career. Not only are marriage and children one of the greatest joys in life, but practically, we know that people who follow the "success sequence" of school, job, marriage, and then children have success across every metric and set their children up for success as well. Not to mention we have an alarmingly low birthrate and low view of marriage throughout the Western world. There is much work to be done....
I’m sixty six and looking forward to this.
College is first and foremost a social club. Only specialized knowledge is taught, which is often outdated or laid out in a highly inefficient manner. Academe is a grift, a theft, a bureaucratic nightmare designed to swindle profits from the vulnerable; very rarely is a degree worthwhile, and even then degree inflation is extreme. Most people should not go to college, far fewer should pass, and almost no one should get a Ph.D.
Our “experts” are not experts, our systems are all breaking down and this will continue to get worse as IQ continues to plummet and education is stripped of any subtle remaining virtue it may have. People don’t know how to learn, they come out at 20 intellectually worse off than any previous generation.
We do not have adults, it seems they all died in WWII and every generation after have been children in their wake. Every aspect of our civilization is a mess, there is no stability, no trajectory, no plan. Our culture grooms people to hope they die before the world collapses, so they don’t have to think, to notice or improve. We are a degeneration engine, and we are getting worse.
Some of the people commenting are pessimistic to say the least!
One hundred percent agree that high school and college do not teach *anything* needed to navigate adult life. At the age of 74, I can look back and see monumental, costly mistakes (which included being broke and technically homeless a couple of times) that could have been avoided with even one course of learning like yours. For what it's worth, there are two books which I encountered later in life which I most wish I'd encountered earlier. First is Robert Wright's book on evolutionary psychology, _The Moral Animal_. Knowing this stuff as a teen would have changed my life. I did have a chance once to put it in the hands of a bright high school girl and she ate it up. The other book is less readable for a high school age person, but is still useful information by the end of college: _Aging Well: Surprising Guideposts to a Happier Life from the Landmark Harvard Study of Adult Development_ by George E. Vaillant. The book covers the history and findings of the two longest and largest studies of adult development in history, following cohorts of young men and women from teens/college through old age and death: "life trajectory" in the term of the studies - we all have one. Although the title sounds like something an older person would be interested in, by then it's far too late to make use of the lessons. Perhaps the lessons can be distilled for young people with too many demands on their time.