Academic Decathlon - 'The Real World'

The Real World
aka: Life After High School

Revised 2 July 2001

What is 'Real Life'?

Life after high school is one of four things:
1) Not going to college to either join the military, or enter into an exciting career in the rapid comestibles industry (because it sounds better than 'fast food'). In both cases, you will earn a fantastic six digit salary (if you include the two digits after the decimal point).
2) Going to college, and dropping out after the first or second year (NOTE: measurement of time may dip down into months or weeks). Upon dropping out, you can either join the military, or enter into an exciting career as a MANAGER in the exciting field of the rapid comestibles industry (after all, you will be a year or two older than your subordinates). For salary ranges for your newly upgraded job marketability, see #1.
3) Going to college, getting a degree, not finding a job in your field, but at least finding a rewarding job somewhere that actually requires you to know something beyond how many kilograms of salt you need to add to the vat of french fries.
4) Going to college, getting a degree, and actually finding a job in your field that you hopefully find quite rewarding after 4 years of college (or five years, or six, or eight, yes, this happens!).
(There is a fifth possibility involving luck, unusual drive/persistence, or extremely rich parents, but I won't delve into those since those are essentially out of anyone's control. Either you have it or you don't.)

At this point, you may be thinking, 'he must be going for the sarcastic opener in order to catch my attention'. Well, yes and no. I am certainly being sarcastic, but equally, each of the examples listed above is a distinct possibility. Unfortunately, those examples are ranked in order of probability (the first being the most probable). Well, perhaps the first example isn't as common among AcaDec students, but the second certainly is. Although I am joking about the fast food part (sort of), it isn't a very rosy picture is it?
Are you scared? Well you should be. It can't happen to you, right? WRONG. I was certainly not the most intelligent person on my AcaDec team, yet I am one of the few who actually graduated from college (Northern Arizona University).
You see, college is vastly different from what you are likely used to. No parents or teachers will be nagging you to do your homework. On top of that add parties, clubs, tons of fun things to do. Freedom is self-destructive. Why else would the United States need a government to regulate it? In college, you have to regulate yourself.
I am not going to lie to you and tell you that I was a model student. I pulled all-nighters because I had procrastinated on term papers, or because I didn't study enough for an exam before the last minute. I got side-tracked by the various wiles of college life (let's just say that I knew my mountain bike well and I've never been in better shape since then). But what separated me from those who failed is that, in the end, I did what had to be done, without having to be told to do so.
I have seen so many intelligent people drop out of college because they couldn't handle the freedom. Not only can you waste a lot of time by failing in college you can throw an awful lot of money away too. So now it's time for the emphatic plea . . .
PLEASE prepare yourself for what lies ahead of you. Do your homework early because you want to, not at the last minute because you have to. I'm not saying that you shouldn't have fun in college. College is a wonderful time to explore new things and have a good time, but don't treat it as just a big social club. If you do, you will be in for quite a shock when you start failing classes.
Remember that to the rest of the world, YOU are 'the other guy' that bad things always happen to.
If you want some advice on preparing for/dealing with college life, or if you want my advice on how to pick the right college, check out my college preparation page or feel free to e-mail me. I'll be glad to help you out in whatever way I can.