Education

The Earlier You Get Serious -- The Easier It Is

(Draft -- You are looking at an early draft of this topic. It has not yet been proofed, and it will now doubt be massaged many times over for context, grammar, and clarity)

Although it is sugarcoated and a glossed over summary in the About Dave Schultz page, the below is a personal background of my own education to learn how not to do it:

I was a D-F student and a discipline problem from the 2nd grade until High School, when school and I both decided we were finished with each other in the 9th grade. I joined the military shortly after turning 17, and was reading and writing at about the 4th grade level when I had enlisted. Fortunately for Uncle Sam, he had a job for me that didn’t require that I read and write well. While in the military, I made a half-hearted effort to improve on my education by studying for my GED. At the time I was proud of receiving my GED, but later realized that it was no great accomplishment, and by the time my contract was up and I returned home – I might have been reading and writing up at the 6th grade level.

At the time of my discharge, the country was in a terrible recession. Many of the vets couldn’t find jobs back home – and so they reenlisted, became Soldiers of Fortune in Rhodesia, or worked on the Alaskan Pipeline. There were few job available as it was, but a certain Swift Boat commander’s lies when testifying in front of a Senate sub-committee made it even harder for my era’s vets to find civilian work, as many considered our Military experience made us mentally unstable.

There was a freeze on non-minorities in Civil Service – but I was a “Service Connected Disabled” Viet Nam Era Veteran, and that gave me an exemption for a low-level Civil Service job. I took a job as a file clerk in the Veterans Administration – but hated the whole bureaucracy of it, so months later I quit and took a job driving Taxi Cab in Buffalo, NY at night. One day a shotgun blast through the roof of my cab occurred on the shift before mine, and I took that as being a sign to do something different. My next job was repairing vacuum cleaners and collecting delinquent payments for Electrolux.

I was flat broke, and like most vets of the time, milked the VA on the educational benefits due me. That lasted for a semester – and I quit when I realized I was over my head and had myself convinced that I couldn’t do it.

A couple of years later, I went to the Raymond J. Horn School of drafting on my GI Bill, with the plan to become an architectural draftsman. About a year into that – I found out that the supply and demand was against me since architects who had flunked out took those jobs on the cheap. I wound up taking a job drawing a catalog of oil field pump shafts – but then resigned once the catalog was finished.

In 1980, I’d been married for a year and we had a baby on the way – so I became a little concerned on how my $800 a month salary repairing postage machines (plus my wife’s $650 per month as a Nurse’s Aid -- which would end once she had the baby) was going to support a family – so I returned to community college at night. I originally studied towards a degree in Business – and was finally taking my education very serious. I wouldn’t skip classes and did all of the required work, which was a first for me. I received all As with the exception of two Bs from all of the classes I had taken. I’m sure some of the grades I had received were generous – but most were not.

Over the next seven years I earned about 100 credit hours – however, I never received a degree. The reason is that about two years into taking these classes I became a business owner. Since I owned a business, my future success was tied more to the current success of the business – than it was to any degree. From that point on, I took classes that were aimed at turning my worst business liability into an asset. When my biggest liability was the written word – I took English and Business Writing classes. As I became responsible for more employees – I took Supervision and Management classes. When I decided I needed to better understand how accounting and taxation worked – I took accounting classes. When it came time to automate the business – I took computer software design and programming classes. Whatever my biggest challenge at the time would be – I’d try to take a class to help me resolve it as quickly as possible. Elsewhere in this book, I have written on the topic of personal balance sheets, and it will explain my beliefs on how to turn your Liabilities into Assets.

Different plans for different situations:
My particular plan worked for me, but because I initially put myself behind the eight ball with a poor educational foundation – I did it the hard way. Hopefully you have a better foundation to build on than I had.

The best way to go about this is to pay attention to your education right from the beginning. As is the case with many families at the poverty level mine was in, education is never a big deal, and there was never any parental supervision of it. As a child, my homework (not once completed and turned in) was never checked, and my parents never went to any teacher/parent meetings. I’m not making excuses as I knew I was screwing myself and didn’t appear to take any personal responsibility – plus my parents were overwhelmed with the number of kids younger than I, so they had bigger fish to fry. In an ideal world, your parents will have given you direction, and you paid attention to doing the best you could. If you are still in school -- all the better, as you still have a chance to not have stacked the odds against you as I had. However, if you were also a screw-up like I was – it is not too late to turn your life around. I don’t care if you’re 60 – it is still not too late if you have the desire and the courage to see it through.

I would suggest the younger people who are still in school to start thinking about what they want to do right now. Once you find the career choices you feel interest you, research them fully. What do the people actually in that field do on a day-to-day basis – and will you like to spend your day doing that? How much do they earn and can you be happy with earning that? Are there only certain areas in the country where you can have that career -- and are you willing to relocate there? If after gathering those details you have decided that it is still a go with that career – put your education plan together to achieve your goal. Just don’t get caught into the trap of thinking a job is more glamorous or pays more than it actually does.

If on the other hand you missed your first (and best) opportunity for a decent education like I had – then you might consider the 2nd Chance approach I took. Attend a local community college and take the classes that can best help you with your biggest Liability at the moment. More important than the degree, is to become better at your current job and your advancement in it. There is a topic in this book discussing self employment. While your plan might call for owning your business – you should do your best to establish your credentials while you work for others. No matter how much you might hate your job – be the best at it that you can be while you are still working there. It is good conditioning, it is good resume bullets, and you won’t be burning your bridges behind you.

The biggest obstacle in turning your education around is to tell yourself that you can’t do it. If you are going to convince yourself that you can’t – then you won’t. I’m here to tell you that if a D-F high school dropout with a 4th grade level of intelligence can in his mid 20s begin to acquire the education to become a multi-millionaire in his late 30s – then anyone can do the same. It won’t be easy for most, and virtually impossible for quitters – but it is doable if you are dedicated to seeing it all of the way through.