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Have Your Cake & Eat It Too? : College & Beyond

from Carol

Choosing the right college is like baking a cake. There are many ingredients that go into the mix to create the desired chemistry and tasty outcome. Colleges can offer: academic challenges, rich cultural experiences, spaces to develop new aspects of personality, a network of mentors, career opportunities, a place to continue developing as an athlete. The amount that each of these flavorful ingredients weigh in on a final decision varies in as many ways as there are people.

In a recent talk I was giving to a group of parents who were embarking on the college process with their first-born, I asked, “How many of you, today, would make the same college choice you did when you were 18? Only 1 person raised his hand. Hmmm. This suggests that things we think are important at 18 may not hold true when we are 25 or 35 or 45.

On that same note, what we, as parents, think is important for our child may not be the only answer. We need to remember that we cannot visit the future of our children and that we are most likely making decisions based on our past experiences.

As an example, ATA CP graduate Blake Davis shares some interesting wisdom and reflection on his decisions at 18 and his decisions today.

Dear Carol,

This e-mail has been a long time coming. I am currently sitting at my desk with a little bit of down time and thought I would give you an update on where I am, what I am doing, and what I want to do.

I am currently in Houston working for Quantum Resources Management team. We are a management team that works for both a private equity fund and public upstream Master Limited Partnership. QR Energy, the Master Limited Partnership, is a pseudo-subsidiary of QRF (the private equity fund) and by only having one management team this allows us to cut down on General and Administrative costs. For the most part, I have been heavily immersed in liquidity, distributable cash flow, and Capital Expenditure analysis which have led to refined lists of possible mergers/acquisitions. This entire summer has been an amazing opportunity that I am blessed to have been a part of, and I can honestly say that I would not have received this opportunity had it not been for ATA, seeing as —– played a direct role in helping me get my foot in the door.

As for what I want to do, where I want to end up, and my long term goals, I would say that I am shooting for a job in banking after I graduate, whether that is sales and trading or investment banking. With that being said, I am in for a very long and arduous up-hill battle due to the fact that I am coming from a non-target college. For any of ATA’s current students who have a slight idea of the industry that they want to be in after college, I would highly suggest they do a thorough analysis on undergraduate placements in that specific industry. In case you would like to show a current student this e-mail, let me put that last sentence in bold. Do the leg work and look at colleges that have a high placement rate for the industry that you would like to work in. Now I know most teenagers have no idea what they want to do after college, I know I didn’t when I was looking at schools, but if that is the case then my piece of advice would be to search for a school that offers the greatest amount of exit opportunities. That way if you are unsure of what you want to do, at least you will have a lot to choose from.

As far as school, it is going well. My focus has begun to transition away from academics and more to job placement, but I have been able to maintain my grades with fairly little stress. My Major GPA is a 3.8 and my cumulative is a 3.5. As long as I keep my head together this last year, it looks like I will graduate Cum Laude which is kind of cool. As for tennis, I am looking forward to my senior year. My doubles partner and I will be heading into the season ranked number 5 in the nation and will have a legitimate chance at winning a national championship. I am looking forward to this year both athletically and academically and it will be interesting to see what I make of it. If you (or any others that read this) have any questions, feel free to give me a ring, I’d be more than happy to give my two cents on the tennis/college journey.

Sincerely,

Blake Davis

ATA CP Class of 2009

Micro Managing Children

This article from Psychology Today explains the dangers that come from parents micro-managing their child’s education (and other aspects of life) without the substance of confidence to back it up. Of course we all want the best for our children – to provide the very best opportunities – but the most pampered and force-fed child is not always the most prepared. The one that has learned how to play the game, or better yet, learned how to manipulate mom and dad to manipulate the game often find out later they were playing the wrong game.

Perhaps proper preparation means that we allow them to fall down and then have the courage to get back up. Perhaps it is important to let them face the fear and confront someone and even apologize for doing wrong.

Let’s grow our children with integrity, confidence and knowledge of truth. Give them support to succeed but don’t mow down every sticker bush, and weed out every inch of the path along the way.

Encourage them to pick up a tool and work their own garden. Let them fail. Let them succeed. They know the difference when it is their own. And this will give them the confidence to manage their own important moments as well as enjoy playing the game.