This is the midweek edition of Culture Study — the newsletter from Anne Helen Petersen. Paid Subscribers: If you haven’t activated your invitation to Sidechannel, email me for a new one. This afternoon (4/28) I’ll be chatting with Casey Newton about
I'm an almost 34 year old millennial (born 1987) and I'm sick of all of the talk of "behindness," too, because I've come to realize how little of those performance metrics really matter in life. The rat races of high school and college focus so hard on academics, especially STEM courses, and I had so much crippling anxiety and stress over being the best when over a decade later I remember almost none of what I've learned!
The worst part is that the indoctrination is so strong that you couldn't have convinced me of this while I was in the midst of it. I needed to be the best in high school to get into the best university and then be the best there because I needed to stand out to employers to get a good job so that I could pay back my student loans.
I live in a county right now that is going through K-12 school redistricting and parents are freaking out because oh no what if their child ends up at a school with slightly lower average test scores! I want to scream NONE OF IT MATTERS!
What ultimately matters is love, compassion, kindness, empathy. Learning about, befriending, and loving people from all walks of life, especially those who aren't like you. The subjects I wished I had focused on in high school were music, art, creative writing, drama, dance - skills that bring me peace and help bring beauty to others. I wish I had taken classes on cooking and working with children - skills needed to adult but were marketed towards the kids "who aren't the college type". A full schedule of the above would have served me better for life than the heavy dose of STEM that I tortured myself with in high school and my first two years of undergrad before changing majors (I graduated from undergrad with a degree in English and later got a master's in urban planning.)
It's wild how decisions about university majors are made when kids are... just kids, so I absolutely love this approach:
"Like, I straight-up avoid asking graduating seniors where they’re going to college or what they plan to major in. Instead, I ask what they’re looking forward to, or what’s next for them."
This interview made me think of "Post Grad: Five Women and Their First Year Out of College" by Caroline Kitchener, which I read in the fall of my senior year of college. I remember feeling so overwhelmed by the thought of what would come after graduation and the pressure to follow a path that was expected. Reading about some women's real experiences made the upcoming transition feel just a bit less daunting and like I didn't need to have it all figured out yet. I will definitely be checking out Stauffer's book because I'd love to read more about young adulthood (and feel reassured that at 25 I don't need to be striving for a "perfect" life I'm fairly sure I don't want).)
I'm an almost 34 year old millennial (born 1987) and I'm sick of all of the talk of "behindness," too, because I've come to realize how little of those performance metrics really matter in life. The rat races of high school and college focus so hard on academics, especially STEM courses, and I had so much crippling anxiety and stress over being the best when over a decade later I remember almost none of what I've learned!
The worst part is that the indoctrination is so strong that you couldn't have convinced me of this while I was in the midst of it. I needed to be the best in high school to get into the best university and then be the best there because I needed to stand out to employers to get a good job so that I could pay back my student loans.
I live in a county right now that is going through K-12 school redistricting and parents are freaking out because oh no what if their child ends up at a school with slightly lower average test scores! I want to scream NONE OF IT MATTERS!
What ultimately matters is love, compassion, kindness, empathy. Learning about, befriending, and loving people from all walks of life, especially those who aren't like you. The subjects I wished I had focused on in high school were music, art, creative writing, drama, dance - skills that bring me peace and help bring beauty to others. I wish I had taken classes on cooking and working with children - skills needed to adult but were marketed towards the kids "who aren't the college type". A full schedule of the above would have served me better for life than the heavy dose of STEM that I tortured myself with in high school and my first two years of undergrad before changing majors (I graduated from undergrad with a degree in English and later got a master's in urban planning.)
I loved this. Thank you.
It's wild how decisions about university majors are made when kids are... just kids, so I absolutely love this approach:
"Like, I straight-up avoid asking graduating seniors where they’re going to college or what they plan to major in. Instead, I ask what they’re looking forward to, or what’s next for them."
This interview made me think of "Post Grad: Five Women and Their First Year Out of College" by Caroline Kitchener, which I read in the fall of my senior year of college. I remember feeling so overwhelmed by the thought of what would come after graduation and the pressure to follow a path that was expected. Reading about some women's real experiences made the upcoming transition feel just a bit less daunting and like I didn't need to have it all figured out yet. I will definitely be checking out Stauffer's book because I'd love to read more about young adulthood (and feel reassured that at 25 I don't need to be striving for a "perfect" life I'm fairly sure I don't want).)
nice work here