Charlie Sheen is "still winning".
Experts have already estimated that this college application season will be the toughest on record with selective schools expected to admit record-low numbers of students for the third year in a row. Amidst such a competitive atmosphere, C2 Education’s students have managed to buck such trends, earning admission at the nation’s top schools in record-breaking numbers. Because of this success, we are often inundated with parents seeking the advice necessary to overcome such long odds in the hopes that their children will be among the lucky few admitted to the nation’s most prestigious institutions. Each year, we host a series of college admissions seminars (click here) in which we encourage parents to seek colleges and universities which will offer the best fit for their children, and each year we are disappointed to find that such advice falls on deaf ears. Instead of seeking the school that is right for their children, parents too often clamor for “the secret” for acceptance to the nation’s elite schools, convinced that these schools will offer the ideal chances for success. (For more information about choosing the right school for your child, we recommend the book Colleges that Change Lives by Loren Pope [click here].)
It is only natural that parents would hope for their children to become successful, but what exactly does “success” mean in our world? One school of thought maintains that success involves many aspects of life, from finding a fulfilling career to following one’s passions. At C2 Education, we encourage students to spend time discovering and pursuing their passions because we believe that a passionate student will find greater success throughout their education experiences.
Yet this idea of success is too often overshadowed by the more common perception that success can be best measured by the size of one’s paycheck. For proof we need look no further than our economy. In the wake of the economic recession and the Wall Street bailouts, the financial sector has managed to remain as healthy as ever, even as other economic sectors languish. As a recent article in Time Magazine notes, this phenomenon is not simply due to the sheer size of our too-big-to-fail banks but to the fact that the financial sector monopolizes talent to an amazing degree. In fact, Wall Street hires more math, engineering and science graduates than the semiconductor industry, the pharmaceutical industry, or the telecommunications business.
Why are so many brilliant minds drawn to the financial sector rather than the fields they have trained for? It’s simple: a mathematician can make far more money by analyzing the stock market than he can working in a laboratory developing new technology products. At ever-increasing rates, graduates from the top math and science colleges are flocking to the financial sector, seeking oodles of money over the accolades of innovative research: For example, the proportion of MIT graduates who went to Wall Street rose from 18% in 2003 to 25% in 2006.
Each year, C2 Education serves hundreds of gifted math and science students eager to attend institutions like MIT, schools which will allow them to foster their passions for scientific research, innovation, and discovery. Rarely do such students express an interest in finance – these are the students who proudly proclaim that they will discover cures for terrible diseases or solutions to our most dire problems. Yet somewhere between entering college as idealistic budding scientists and graduating from college as fully accredited mathematicians and engineers, many of these students exchange their dreams for corner offices on Wall Street.
This problem seems to be symptomatic of the winner-take-all attitude prevalent in our society. From sporting events to popular culture, Americans seem to view the world in black and white: You are either the winner or just another loser. Amidst his crazy rants, Charlie Sheen managed to sum up American culture quite succinctly: “Winning, duh.”
Even President Obama recognized the American obsession with winning in his 2011 State of the Union Address, coining the phrase “winning the future.” But while the average American equates winning with personal victory, President Obama’s speech encouraged us to work together to win as a society. And, as he noted, “The first step in winning the future is encouraging American innovation.” For our country to grow and progress, our budding mathematicians and scientists must strive for something greater than a giant Wall Street bonus. They must cling to their dreams of innovation and discovery in order to better not only their lives but the lives of those around them. Most of all, they must learn to view success in terms of creation rather than dollars, because if our country’s most talented innovators continue to languish among the suits on Wall Street we will all be losers.
If you have a child who is interested in math or science, we urge you to encourage your child’s passions. Push your child to explore his intellectual capacity, take challenging classes, and participate in unique learning opportunities such as the math and science summer programs we discussed last week (click here) . Whatever you do, don’t stand by and watch your child give up on his dreams.
