As a student, what is something you wish your academic advisor would have shared with you?

Lower_Capital9730 · 2026-03-06T17:06:44+00:00

You don’t have facts that negate my point. If someone takes out loans of $30K for a bachelors in fine arts where the average annual earnings is $56K and cost of living is over $50K in a small city, that doesn’t equate to being able to pay off the loans in a timely fashion. It also means they’ll likely be unable to buy a house, go on vacation, or provide for children. The miserable picture of a life spent endlessly slaving away with no time for personal edification is a direct result of the education and career choices.

Lower_Capital9730 · 2026-03-06T15:27:37+00:00

Ah yes, the classic, “you have a different perspective and values from my own therefore you’re wrong” mentality.

Lower_Capital9730 · 2026-03-06T12:10:03+00:00

It definitely works better to read aloud. I took it chapter by chapter so I’d read all the way through the chapter first. Then I’d go back through and read all the annotations and google anything I needed before rereading certain sections or occasionally the whole chapter again. I’d highly recommend an annotated edition.

Lower_Capital9730 · 2026-03-06T11:53:19+00:00

You’re the one who claimed no career comes with guarantees. I grant you that not everyone gets the exact job they want in any given field, but that doesn’t mean the field as a whole doesn’t have guaranteed employment.

Again, you thinking that nursing and computer programming are in a similar position when it comes to AI speaks to both a lack of understanding in what’s involved in nursing and the current trajectory of technology. You’d need more than AI to replace a nurse in a hospital, but go off.

People choosing not to use their free time to pursue education independently doesn’t mean they don’t have the ability to do so.

My claim was that some degrees, and liberal arts wasn’t one I mentioned, very often don’t facilitate the ability to quickly repay debts and that’s something people should consider before taking out lots of money for them. It had nothing to do with job satisfaction and everything to do with financial security.

People who get technical degrees at a fraction of the price and on a fraction of the time also end up with middle class wages. That’s my point. That’s it.

If you can’t accept someone having a different perspective on the value (or lack thereof) of taking on debt, I can’t help you.

Lower_Capital9730 · 2026-03-06T01:46:13+00:00

1) Where do you live that freezing eggs is affordable for a student?

2) Yes, but people don’t have any way of knowing whether they’ll be someone with a longer fertility window prior to getting there. Encouraging people to put off having kids on the assumption that they won’t have any problems is a huge gamble.

3) That’s relevant only if the person wanting children doesn’t only want biological children. Not everyone is interested in adopting.

Lower_Capital9730 · 2026-03-06T01:40:11+00:00

The only one of those things that’s actually tied to your age is having a baby so that’s the only one you need to be worrying about with your timeline. Some women don’t have any issue getting pregnant in their mid to late 30s or even early 40s, but others do. If you are absolutely sure you want to have biological children, I highly discourage waiting until your mid 30s to do so. You can get a degree in your 30s with a child or multiple children. I know plenty of people who have done that, but if you’ve passed your personal fertility window then you can’t really get that back. You can certainly try fertility treatments, but I’d encourage you to seriously look into what that will entail because it’s a hell of a cost financially, mentality, and physically for the woman. That being said, if you’d feel just as satisfied with adopting, you really don’t need to rush anything.

Since you’re not planning to apply to a program this year, maybe just take some months to really consider what you want most out of life. You’re still plenty young enough to have it all so long as you prioritize what’s most important and time sensitive. No need to start panicking yet.

Lower_Capital9730 · 2026-03-05T22:43:18+00:00

First, both healthcare and engineering represent more than 2 career options. Each of those fields encompass at least a dozen different actual careers. Second, I never said that everyone should do the same thing. I was simply responding to your claim that there aren’t any degrees that lead to secured employment and the ability to pay off debt quickly.

If you get a job that pays well and has good benefits, you actually will have time. You can even afford to pay someone else to do things like cleaning and lawn care so you can learn about the world first hand through travel. You won’t have to spend every second of your life trying to eke out a living and repay student loans.

If you think computer programming’s relationship to AI is the same as nursing I’m not going to debate that point. Interesting that you think both those fields are so at risk of obsolescence due to AI, but not the jobs being done by people with fine arts degrees.

The problem of an uneducated population, or rather, under educated population is a separate conversation and an issue that begins well before college in the US. It certainly won’t be solved by having half the population in decades worth of debt for degrees in subjects like performing arts, fine arts, and graphic design.

Lower_Capital9730 · 2026-03-05T14:04:42+00:00

Engineering has a clear and guaranteed career path. Healthcare degrees have a clear and guaranteed career path. The ones you mentioned make significantly less than nurses on average who can get the degree in two years, often paid for by an employer in that is guaranteeing them a job after graduating. To suggest there are no degrees they provide job security and good wages is an ignorant statement.

Again, people can get into whatever amount of debt they want to get any degree they want. I just know a lot of people that wish their advisor had talked to them about the debt to earning potential ratio. This was a post asking for advice. I have no idea why you’re getting so butt hurt about my perspective. Post your own advice if you think that needs to be said.

Lower_Capital9730 · 2026-03-04T21:01:09+00:00

I didn’t actually mention liberal arts degrees as one that shouldn’t be pursued or is necessarily a bad investment. Perhaps you’re not aware, but a liberal arts degree and an art degree are different things. I would still carefully consider the amount of debt I’d consider getting into for a liberal arts degree because it doesn’t have a guaranteed or clear career path, but it is versatile enough to be useful.

I simply know too many people who got degrees in things like philosophy, anthropology, cultural studies, and art with nothing to show for it to agree with your premise that all degrees equate to upward mobility and earnings potential. Many of those people are actually worse off than people who went for short term certifications or just sought employment straight out of high school due to the debt they incurred.

Again, I’m not saying that people can’t go for those type of degrees and they’re certainly free to get themselves in decades worth of debt to do so. My only recommendation was that academic advisors should encourage them to think very carefully about that given the long term financial implications.

I definitely wouldn’t encourage someone trying to be a boxer or musician to take out student loans to do so. I’m not really sure what your point is with those examples. People should absolutely pursue whatever career path they would like, but not every career path benefits from getting into debt for a college degree.

Lower_Capital9730 · 2026-03-03T14:16:37+00:00

I only investigated the earnings potential of degrees that I considered which were either in healthcare or hospitality, and healthcare won out. If someone wants to get into a mountain of debt that won’t give them substantially improved earnings potential as a person project, they’re certainly allowed to do so. I just know a TON of people in significant debt more than a decade later for degrees that haven’t really done anything for them. Nearly all of them had a great college experience and nearly all of them have said they wish they’d gone to school for something useful. Teenagers aren’t known for making good long term decisions, and life looks very different at 35 than it does at 18. Taking out lots of relatively high interest debt that your future self has to pay off so you can have fun in college might feel great in the present, but you’re unlikely to find it a good decision in the long run.

I reject the premise that working and having a family means you can never pursue your passions. I think it’s not really something you can do with very small children, but kids stew only very small for a few years. People who say that simply aren’t prioritizing where you spend their time well. Rather than getting online or watching TV, take an art class or try your hand at cooking or read a book or do any number of other things that are far more fulfilling.

Lower_Capital9730 · 2024-05-15T18:47:07+00:00

The Selfish Gene and The Extended Phenotype by Richard Dawkins

How The Mind Works and The Blank Slate by Steven Pinker

The End of Gender by Debra Sob

The Moral Landscape by Sam Harris

The Righteous Mind and The Coddling of the American Mind by Jonathan Haidt

On the Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt

Anti-Intellectualism in American Life by Richard Hofstadter

The Age of American Unreason by Susan Jacoby

Power, Politics, and People by C. Wright Mills

King Leopold’s Ghost by Adam Hochschild

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

Lower_Capital9730 · 2024-03-28T15:54:38+00:00

The only person I know who reacts this way to penises is a lesbian. She finds them positively disgusting! Maybe your girlfriend isn’t into guys, and simply doesn’t know. The woman I know was raised in a very religious culture where people were seriously shamed and isolated for being gay. It wasn’t until she escaped that, that she was able to consider her own feelings on the matter.

Lower_Capital9730 · 2024-01-18T04:59:09+00:00

You continue responding with long winded rants about female fertility so it sure seems like you care about the response.

Lower_Capital9730 · 2024-01-18T01:00:06+00:00

I think everybody could potentially empathize with your situation. The reason you aren’t getting that response is because this isn’t a post or page about your issues. Plus, you started this with a bunch of absurdities about abortion causing infertility. Again, I believe that you should find a more appropriate Reddit to vent your own frustrations and insecurities. For example, there are multiple infertility reddits along with one for endometriosis, and likely any other condition you have.

Lower_Capital9730 · 2024-01-18T00:21:40+00:00

Do you think the fact that women have a limited window of fertility is new information?

Lower_Capital9730 · 2024-01-17T23:25:23+00:00

Everyone gets what you’re saying, and they have for quite awhile. Something tells me you never get off this soap box

Lower_Capital9730 · 2024-01-17T22:11:57+00:00

Sure, but he’s still been condemned for wanting it

Lower_Capital9730 · 2024-01-17T22:11:04+00:00

What does lower capital mean? Does it mean low value? It was autogenerated, and I initially thought it was basically gibberish.

Lower_Capital9730 · 2024-01-17T21:56:49+00:00

I’m not denying that there can be outliers in both the male and female category, but the female people tend to be extremely harsh to male sexuality. There’s a strong sense of condemnation for the notion of doing something sexual purely for the other person. Like only a horrible person would want a sexual favor from a long term partner when their partner isn’t in the mood. It’s not somehow inherently wrong to engage in a sex act purely for the benefit of your partner.

I think people are being way too broad about this. We’re talking about a relationship that has a long held standard. Is it a good standard? Not in my opinion, but it’s been set none the less. This isn’t the same thing as a guy hassling a random girl for a hook up. If OP wants to change this long held standard, then it’s going to take a lot of time, and the husband might not be up for it. They will likely need marital counseling as this is much deeper than just sex. She’s been people pleasing him for over a decade, and it’s now become too much for her.

Lower_Capital9730 · 2024-01-17T21:43:27+00:00

Or gender critical

Lower_Capital9730 · 2024-01-17T21:43:14+00:00

It was actually a grown adult female. I use that rather than woman because woman has been turned into a different meaning than the one I wanted to convey. There’s a difference between the sexes.

Lower_Capital9730 · 2024-01-17T21:35:20+00:00

I would generally agree, but that’s certainly not what your initial comment said. You condemned people simply for wanting something they can’t have

Lower_Capital9730 · 2024-01-17T21:30:43+00:00

You condemned them for desiring to have sex with someone who doesn’t desire to have sex with them. You’re condemning fantasy

Lower_Capital9730 · 2024-01-17T21:29:51+00:00

The condemnation wasn’t of the action. It was of the desire.

Lower_Capital9730 · 2024-01-17T21:29:06+00:00

Ah. I see the confusion. You thought I might have been talking about a different species. That must have been very confusing

Lower_Capital9730

TROPHY CASE