Homeroom With Sal - Is College Right for Me? (Part 2)

All right, well, I think we are back. So we had a little bit of technical difficulties as sometimes might happen on the internet. But Ernest, you were going through your explanation, and you were talking about how at Morehouse you were able to work with these tech companies, and you discovered the magic of software engineering, which I experienced very similarly when I first learned that you could code and make almost anything in the world.

I have one question similar to where Delicia's narrative went, which was when you applied to Morehouse, how much were finances an issue? What did financial aid look like? Or, you know, what did the debt situation look like? And what made you confident that it was worth the investment?

We might have lost Ernest, so let me move to Madison. Madison, I'll ask you the same question I asked Alicia and Ernest, which is how did you think about it when you were leaving high school? College right for you? If so, what college, what major? How did money factor into it?

Yeah, so I'll give you a little bit of personal information about myself. I'm actually a first-generation American. So my parents were adamant about me kind of fulfilling that dream for them, going to college. I knew that was definitely the only choice I had. But I can tell you, thinking about my 16-year-old self, it was terrifying to essentially perceive the job market as something I was going to do for the rest of my life. Of course, that myth was dispelled during my college years; you know, it's not necessarily one thing I have to do for the rest of my life. But being 16, that's what I thought about.

I'm like, wow, I really have to pick something, and I have to just stick with it for the rest of my life. That thought haunted me for a while. Before high school, my parents certainly wanted me to be a doctor, 100%. They were convinced I was going to be a doctor. They're like, yep, you're going to work at the same hospital your father does, and you're going to do this. And I'm like, okay, you know your parents, you kind of just go with it.

But as I progressed, even in middle school, I just knew I loved art. As much as, you know, house and a bunch of other doctor shows interested me, I loved working with people. I liked art more, and that was something I needed to realize in high school. I'm just like, okay, like, you know, 16-year-old me logic was, if I was going to do something for the rest of my life, I needed to like it. So I started researching what I could do in art, and I think that just opened up my mind to the possibilities of where I could go and what I could do.

Design is such a broad subject and a broad major; I can go into several different things, which, you know, I'll definitely go into being more multifaceted a little bit later. But in terms of picking college, I was looking around, and there were some local ones. I'm originally from New Jersey, so I was looking at Rutgers, Montclair, Seton Hall, all these state schools.

I didn't, like Ernest, didn't really know much about HBCUs at all. But I had a friend whose older brother did attend Howard, and he just came back, and there was something just different about him. I don't know what it was. I just like, oh, he seems a lot more confident. He seems, you know, I don't know. It's like an aura almost. And I was like, okay, let me just ask.

I think asking those questions and seeking that guidance and help from him really helped me in order to make my college decision. I was fortunate enough to take a weekend trip down to DC and just step on campus and really feel the environment. I do suggest for, you know, my students out there, try to, if you can, if you have the means to and the ability to, to go to the universities that you are interested in and feel, you know, ask questions. Stop a student. You know, students like to talk. Ask them, hey, what do you like about your university? What would you like to see improved? What's your favorite part?

On Howard's campus, I was able to just talk to so many people, and I'm like, wow, these people are so cool. I wish there was more technicality and rhyme and reason to my story, but it was really just because I loved that campus. That art department was great. A lot of people on that campus had the same interests as me. And yeah, that's pretty much my story on how I got here.

Yeah, there's at least two big takeaways I took from yours. It is true, oftentimes you're 16 or 17 years old and you think what major you choose or where you go to college is going to, you know, the die is cast for the rest of your life. But I think one of the narratives, and we heard it with Delicia, is that she thought she was going to do one thing, she did another thing, and then now she's ended up in a completely different thing. As long as you're doing things that are helping you grow your general skills and your thinking, you might have a lot of options available.

Another thing that you talked about, which is you asked a lot of questions. You have that family friend who went to Howard, you asked them a lot of questions, you went to the campus, you asked a lot of questions. So what I'm hearing is just the power of asking a lot of people a lot of questions.

You know, going into it, I have a ton of questions. This is unusual how many questions we're getting off of social media, so y’all are very popular, more popular than I tend to be when I'm just doing this by myself. But let me jump into some of them. I have this question for Ernest. Greatest American, Daniel asks—interesting username—what is it like being a software engineer? What do you do daily? What's your day-to-day like?

Ernest, can you hear me now? Are we good?

Yes, yes, we can.

Great, great, great! I love to answer that question. Being a software engineer in the tech industry, period, but especially at Google, is one of the best jobs I think you can do in the world. There's no other company that you can come to, get to work whenever you want. I would say that, you know, be surrounded by volleyball courts, basketball courts, swimming pools, video games on every corner, gourmet food in every café. And the best part about the food is it's all free!

Google has a theory that if they give their employees every benefit possible and make sure that their employees are the most relaxed and comfortable in the workplace, then productivity will go up. And I guess it's been working, because Google has been making millions, if not billions, in impact in dollars.

A typical day for an engineer looks as follows: you come to the office when you need, when you're ready. Personally, I would go get some breakfast, some nice bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich, maybe depending on how I feel, check my email, make sure I'm caught up with everything my manager needs. Then I'm probably working on one of maybe three or four projects, so I start hacking away at some of them. I write some code. By that time, after like 30 minutes to an hour, it's already lunchtime, so I go get some lunch, and lunch is amazing.

Google has food for every different background you can think of, food from all parts of the world. So if you want sushi one day, you can get sushi; fried chicken, burger, burrito—whatever you want. In the afternoons is normally where you have a lot of meetings. So you're meeting with your team, making sure everyone is getting their code done that needs to be done, and honestly, my day— I probably get into the office at like 10, and then I'll leave around 4. As long as I'm getting all my work done, it doesn't truly matter what times of the day you're working. It's more if you're getting your product done when you said you're going to get it done.

Bottom line is, best job in the world, I personally think.

Well, I think you're doing a great job recruiting for Google. I'm sure, and I think by any objective measure, Google is a very solid employer to work for. You know, I'll add that question about the day-to-day. I think that is intriguing for all of y'all.

I'll add there's another question from YouTube. Jay McCall asks, how did you guys know these were the jobs you wanted and loved doing?

Maybe I'll go to you first, Alicia, on this one. If you want to say anything about your day-to-day—that's always interesting—what you're doing on a day-to-day basis. But also, how did you zero in on this one? And where is it on that spectrum? How much do you love it?

I'll just add a little tidbit about my day-to-day. I will say I'm not at Google, but it is great, like Google, because I also get to choose my own flexibility and schedule as well, so that's very awesome.

And then just as far as—sorry, what was the other question again?

Just on my day-to-day, no, and how did you—well, one, what's your day-to-day, which it sounds like you also get some flexibility in yours—but also, how did you gravitate towards this? You alluded to a little bit, you're in psychology. Were you interested in psychology, which is objectively a very interesting field, as is cybersecurity, but then how did you make the leap? Was there an opening? And you're like, hey, that's kind of cool, let me just see what that is, and you’re like, I kind of enjoy this. How did you fall into this and realize you like it?

It was actually by way of nonprofit. For several years, I actually served as a college advisor with an organization called College Advising Corps, if you've heard of it. We've actually worked with College Board before. I was serving and supporting high school students, like who were like me, first generation, whose family had never gone to college. I was supporting them with the whole college process, from college applications to essays, to registering for their SATs or ACTs, giving them scholarship lists, making sure they applied for scholarships, getting ready for graduation.

If they weren't ready or did not want to go to college, then I was supporting them through signing up for the military or finding other careers and opportunities that weren't related to college that would still provide them with an opportunity to make a change and create generational wealth for their family. So from there, I realized, okay, I'm on the beginning side of education, where I'm supporting them and I'm getting them to the door to graduate from high school and to get into college.

I'm seeing them walk through in their first year of college and do all those great things, but now I want to support them beyond that step. How can I get on the other side, which is higher education, and support them through the actual college journey? So that's when I actually did some research. I started searching. I stumbled upon a science and technology institute. To be honest with you, I thought I was like, does this really exist? Is this one of those scam jobs online? Because you can never be too careful.

It's kind of ironic that I—it’s a cybersecurity college. So even then, I was a bit skeptical, but I looked into it, did some research, and then I realized that they were part of the best cybersecurity leader in the industry in the whole country, and I said, okay, I'm going to give it a chance. So although I didn't have experience in higher education at that time—I had never worked as a student advisor in a higher education setting or for a college—I applied anyway. I stepped out on faith. I bet it on myself and I said, okay, I'm going to take this step, I'm going to bet on myself, and I'm going to apply. And that's just what I did. I was afraid, I was scared, I was nervous. But I got a call back, and several interviews later, I landed the job.

We're knocking on two years in December, and I haven't looked back since. I'm so thankful for the opportunity, and I've learned so much about cybersecurity. It is so interesting, and I'm just excited to teach and inspire those out there who are watching this to want to defend against our cyber world, because cybersecurity is going to be and is a huge and critical piece of our infrastructure in this country.

It's something that we're going to need more people, regardless of what major or career path you come from. Regardless of your background, you don't have to fit a mold. There's no prototype of what you need to look like or be or like or do to join cybersecurity. We want people from all walks of life, whether you're into art and you're really good at it or you're really good at software engineering. We need all of you from all walks of life to enter the world of cybersecurity to bring your diverse perspectives and to help us save the world.

Yeah, I love it. Very few jobs we could incredibly talk about saving the world. And I was very entertained by the notion that you thought the cybersecurity college might itself be some type of a phishing attack. But also, I think, you know, I hear it in your voice the joy of—and this is, I think, education generally—but being an adviser, because you get a multiplier effect on your job. You're helping other people discover their journeys, and then they will then help save the planet, hopefully.

Madison, what about on your side? And I'll give a slightly different flavor to the question, which is it's one thing for you early on to say, hey, I like art more than I like healthcare. But there's another thing where the education and what you do in school might be pretty different than what you end up doing for a job. I've seen people who go to school for one thing, but then when they get the job, they're like, oh, this is what I have to do on a day-to-day basis.

What was the transition from school, which it sounded like you really enjoyed art school or the design aspects of it, to work? Was it as you were expecting? Was it better than expected? Was it worse than expected? How did you navigate that?

I think this is a very, very personal question to me. It was nothing like my undergrad experience, I can say. My internship experiences in undergrad reflected me being interested in so many different things. My freshman year, I stayed as a campus mentor on Howard's campus, just giving tours, talking to people, answering the same questions that I asked as a senior. As a freshman, I got some answers, so I was able to relay that.

My sophomore year, I was an accounting intern at AT&T's government military headquarters in Virginia, which is totally outside of design—and I can go on about that for days. But my junior year, I was able to intern with New York Fashion Week, which was something I had never done before. I ended up in New York for a weekend, really just running around and experiencing that.

My senior year is when I actually landed my dream internship with AT&T in El Segundo, California, essentially working in their entertainment sector, which is right on the verge of their merger with Time Warner. It was the craziest experience ever, and after college, I actually received an offer from AT&T, but it wasn't necessarily what I wanted to do, more on the side of not in the location where I wanted it—in Texas. I didn't really know anyone, so I made the very unpopular decision of declining that offer, which at the time I regretted.

You know, all my friends were going to these major places, and I was still kind of home. So I was like, what's going on? That's when I decided to start small with AI, building up, you know, some clients I had in college as well as some local businesses and really just honing in on my craft a bit more while working kind of a—oh, there's a term they use in LA; when actors are waiting for their big break, but they're kind of just in transit. I had an in-transit job and didn't really like it, but I knew design was what I wanted to do, so I kept working.

I actually ended up interning last year with Pentagram. For those who are familiar with the design world, it's actually the largest independently owned design firm in the world. I worked under Eddie Opara and busted my butt for about a year learning, learning more, and growing and understanding. You know, some nights Ernest could attest, I stayed up until like two o'clock in the morning learning things and trying to get better.

A couple of months ago, I accepted this job with CNN, which is my dream job. So my path is definitely a winding road and not a straight path whatsoever.

So to answer your question, no, it was nothing like what I expected at all or what I imagined.

You know, there's this theme that I'm getting from all of you, and this is true of my journey as well, that you know, there's a lot of things that maybe your college and your major might have helped you with. But at the end of the day, a lot of it is, in each of your journeys, you are asking questions, you're constantly learning, doing more and more things.

There's a bunch of questions I'm getting around grades and test scores. For example, Calvin TR says, do grades determine if you're going to be successful? Alejandra Garcia, can your scores on the SAT or ACT determine which careers may be good for you?

Let's see, there's another question lower. I think someone was asking. I think they've been discouraged for going into certain fields maybe because they don't feel like they have the grades or the test scores. What advice do you have for students who are—because obviously when you're in high school and in a lot of college, your grades and your test scores seem to matter a lot.

How do y'all think about that, and what have you seen in your own lives or people around you? Maybe I'll randomly select Ernest; you go first.

Yeah, I came from a family where education was the foundation of everything. Like we couldn't do—my sister and I did theater growing up, we were in karate, we did different sports. We couldn't do extracurriculars if we weren't tight on our grades, and our parents actually praised us all the time when we got honors, honorable or high honors.

Sending that foundation early in our lives really put us on a great academic path all the way up into college, right? We were always striving to be in honor classes, AP classes, and then in college, honors program and Dean's List and all that. So I will always say it is important to have a strong educational basis because that actually helps you also have the right discipline with everything else that you do in life.

Just because you're working at a job at Google as a software engineer and you're not getting A’s and B’s and C's does not mean that you're not also—you're still going to be graded on how well you're performing at your job as well. So everything is always associated with one another. That being said, companies like Google don't actually require you to have a certain GPA to come work or even apply.

I actually encourage all students, no matter what GPA they have or what situation they're in, to always apply to all these companies. Because we need to always have people from a bunch of different backgrounds with a different thought processes, right? But I still strongly recommend that you focus in on your grades. Get those good grades because good grades can lead to a lot of different things.

You were about to bring up earlier; we're about to talk a little bit about affording college. College is expensive, like we talked about, right? But the thing is, especially with great academics, it helps get you scholarships so you can actually afford college. The other thing also with tech industry jobs, if you guys don’t know, I mentioned earlier I interned at Google. An internship is when you actually go—leave, you don't leave school, but like during the summer when you're normally on summer break, you're actually going to work at these different companies.

These internships are actually paid. Google's internship alone in a summer, you probably can make somewhere between $12,000 to $15,000. That's a lot of money that you can take and put right back into your education. So that's why I'm very big on students making sure that they're staying strong in their academics.

Not so that they can get a 3.5 to get an internship at Google, but so they have that discipline, they have those foundations in order to be successful to be able to get a job or internship at Google. So then you can then maybe in turn make college more affordable. So basically, the bottom line of all this is it's all interdependent. Make sure that you're doing good in school because it promises you it's going to work out for you in the end.

Yeah, Delicia, what are your thoughts on grades?

I'm going to go in a little different direction, but I will say that I agree that grades are important. However, what I want you all to understand and hear me clearly: your SAT scores, any test scores do not define you. Your GPA does not define you. Because we all know that everyone's different. There are many situations that may cause you to have a low GPA. There are situations that may cause you not to get the best score on the SAT or ACT. You may not be a great test-taker. I wasn't the best test-taker.

But what I did do was try my best, and that's what I'm going to encourage you all to do: always ask yourself this question: Am I trying my best, number one? Number two: Am I making sure that this makes me happy? And then number three: Am I betting on myself? So those are the three things that I want you to ask yourself each time because at the end of the day, especially in the world of cybersecurity, we're not looking at your grades. We're not looking at your SAT or ACT scores. What we're looking at is how passionate are you?

How passionate are you about wanting to save the world in the cybersecurity space, or save the world as a software engineer, or save the world by creating beautiful art for the world to see? The other thing that we're looking at as well is: Are you dedicated? Are you committed to being the best person and the best version of yourself that you can be every single day? Because again, it's really important to not let any titles, anybody or anything define you, because that's not what's important in life.

What's important in life is, is it making you happy? Is it something you're passionate about? Is there a pathway that may not be necessarily traditional or linear that will get you to where you need to go? So that's kind of how I approach and think about grading, because I don't want students to get bogged down and worry that, oh, if I have a 2.5, then I'm not good enough. Or if I have a 3.0, I'm not good enough, and I need to have a 4.0. You don't have to be perfect. We're not looking for perfect; we're looking for unique. We're looking for you.

Yeah, I appreciate that, and I love that framework that you introduce. What about you, Madison? What role have grades played with your own experiences? And how do you what advice do you have for folks to put that in perspective?

Yeah, so I'm going to just riff off Delicia for a second. I agree with, you know, both Ernest and Delicia. Grades are important. They are a direct reflection most times of your drive and work ethic. But as Delicia mentioned, there are unconventional ways to get into that university or that school of your dreams. While you maybe don’t have the grades or some other requirements, back at Howard, I actually worked in admissions as my work study. I found out about a lot of processes that many people don't know about, such as something called an appeals process.

I encourage everyone to call their admissions department. And, you know, let’s say you do receive a no from a university. First and foremost, a no is only two letters. So I know it may stink in the time being, but again, it's only two letters. There are possibilities and ways to get that acceptance, if you would call their admissions department and just say, “Hey, do you guys have an appeals process?” In that appeals process, you essentially go before a group of people, and I want to say plead your case, because that sounds weird, but you explain to them, you know, hey, I had—I was testing low in this subject because of this. You know, my ACT score is low because of this situation—or really just explaining to them, hey, I would love to be at this university. I would be an asset to this university. I want to be here.

A lot of times, those universities will hear you, and hopefully, a lot of the times, those denials turn into acceptances. So I just wanted to add that in there.

Yeah, that’s super helpful. You know, my takeaway hearing y’all—and this jells with what I think too—is as all of y’all said, grades are valuable. They're a valuable indicator. They can correlate with your work ethic and your critical thinking skills and all of that. And if you get good grades and if you get good test scores, it will open up doors for you. People will give you the benefit of the doubt.

But with that said, if you don't get them, one, I've seen the trend matters more than the absolute. So if you have some weaker grades, but they improve over time, that's a great thing. In fact, some way shows something even more special about your character that you can overcome some of that adversity.

And that even if your grades aren't where you want or your standardized test scores, as you just mentioned Madison, and Delicia mentioned this a lot as well—that there are other ways to show what you're capable of. And frankly, the further you get from college, the further that people are going to index on other things other than those grades.

And I'd say the other way around, we also all know students who have straight A's but if they didn't or perfect standardized test scores, but if they didn't do the things that all of you have done—when you're always asking a lot of questions, always be pushing yourself, as Alicia mentioned: Am I taking a bet on myself? Am I stepping out of my comfort zone? Am I willing to take some risks? Am I willing to go talk to people and risk getting rejected?

A lot of folks I've seen, a lot of very capable people afraid to apply for an opportunity for fear of rejection. And you know the only way to guarantee that you're going to get rejected is when you don't apply for something. You see that over and over again.

One other question, and there’s a ton that are coming up on social media right now. If you're a young person and you have this trade-off between there's something your parents or society is telling you you should do, because it's perceived as a pragmatic profession that you can make a good income versus something that you're like, “But my heart is there.” How do you navigate that?

Because at the end of the day, you do have to pay the bills and you do have to find a job, but at the same time, you don't want to be miserable doing it. Similarly, if people are like, well, there's my dream school, but it's, you know, even after financial aid, it's going to cost me tens of thousands of dollars a year versus there's another school that's pretty good, but it's, you know, it’s going to be less. How do you recommend people navigate these types of tensions, these types of trade-offs?

I'll start with you, Ernest.

Yeah, for sure. It's kind of funny because my path has been pretty linear. Like, I love computer science in high school, did it in college, and I'm a software engineer now. My trade-off or what I realized that I’m very passionate about is actually doing work just like this, talking to high school, middle school students, and college students and making sure that they have all the keys necessary to get to the school that they want to with then also get to feel that they want to bias towards the tech industry, of course.

I think the cool part about the tech industry is that there is a lot of leniency, I would say, for you to work on passion projects, hobbies that you also want to do. Like, I would not have been able to run, create Codehouse. And just so like we haven’t talked too much about Codehouse, but it’s our nonprofit that has now raised $3 million in just the last two years. I would not have been able to dedicate time like that if I wasn't working at a place like Google, where I had a lot of love and support from not only my coworkers, but my manager and the organization overall to make sure I'm opening that door and providing these opportunities for other students, right?

And so the cool thing about the tech industry—now only the jobs a little bit lenient, but the tech industry covers every field imaginable, right? I literally have friends that, you know, of course work at the major tech firms, but other people that work in sports, right, at the Hawks or the Falcons and, you know, down here in Atlanta, to the Golden State Warriors. So if you're into sports but you want to make a lot of money right out of college, you can go into tech and maybe be one of their engineers on the team.

So there is a way for you to try to balance it out. And like my parents installed on me at a very, very young age that I can do a lot—I can do anything I put my mind to. So if I'm passionate about something and I want to merge it with something that could hopefully make me money or make college more affordable, then there's a way to try make it all work out.

But that is why you need to lean on a community. Reach out to people who are in your spaces or in the space that you desire to be in for advice and mentorship so that you can learn from their failures and their successes so you could try to make a path for yourself. One of the first things I always have college students do is make a five-year plan. This is a plan that doesn’t have to be set in stone. You know, it’s not like this is what we're going to for the rest of your life, but it’s good to have.

And there’s this theme with everything I say, making a foundation for yourself so you have a general guidance of what you want to do. I made my five-year plan after talking to a ton of engineers at Google, Microsoft, Twitter, all these other companies, people who got their Ph.D.s in computer science and now even people in the nonprofit space, because I'm trying to still figure out what exactly I want to do.

If it wasn't for my community around me supporting me and helping provide guidance to me, I think I would be walking aimlessly. So don’t be shy to ask people questions. And now that you all are listening to us, hopefully, some of you guys have LinkedIn. I better see some LinkedIn requests for me and the other two panelists as well.

Thanks for that. What about you, Madison?

I have tons and tons of advice. I would say for college students currently, I would say that don’t be afraid to be multifaceted. There’s a world and a way to merge all of the things that you love into one, whether it be, you know, simultaneously, one at a time. There’s opportunity and space to do so.

And I would also say it’s okay to not know what you’re doing. Totally, totally okay. I think in this age of social media and almost the instant gratification culture, there’s almost a pressure to know all the time. Like, hey, yeah, I know how to do that, or yeah, I know what’s going on, or yeah, I’m going to do this and do that. But oftentimes, we don’t know.

So I would say, as I said previously, asking questions and grabbing advice. Not saying there’s going to be an you know, Almighty knowing person that is going to pave your way to success, but there’s going to be individuals who add bricks to that road, and that’s going to help you essentially get to where you need to be.

Yeah, and Delicia?

Yeah, similar to what Madison was saying, you know, none of us are one-dimensional. So don't be afraid to lean into other things that you're passionate about and use that as your stepping stone. So you want to think of whatever your current job or career is that you end into for the beginning as a stepping stone. Utilize that time that you have to build on those passion projects. Start training after work. Start building out different projects, whether it's an art project or whether it's a coding project, and you're learning how to code, or if you're trying to learn cybersecurity, check out CyberStart America and possibly earn scholarships for college just by playing a fun cybersecurity game.

Whatever it is, just utilize the resources that you have to get you to where you want to go, because again, you don't have to stay. You are not forever. So whether it’s a job at Starbucks or at Target, or once you graduate from college and you get your first real job out of college, use that as a stepping stone. Don't look at it as, “Oh man, I have to stay here forever.” You don't; just use it again as that stepping stone, as we already kind of stated—those building blocks.

And as Ernest said, use it as a foundation to leapfrog into the career that you want to be in, and to create a path for yourself where you see success and happiness.

Yeah, and maybe one last question. This has been super, I could talk to you all for hours. We’re getting a couple of questions about people who I think are a little bit unsure about college itself. Going back to our original title: Is college right for me? Banana Boat says, “I feel like college really isn't for me. What career paths can I go into and pursue without having to do college?”

We have Rosana saying, “My big problem is not knowing enough about college, how to navigate all of this stuff.” You know, what would you say to these students who seem to be a little bit on the fence? Well, do they have to go to college? Are there reasonable paths if college isn't right for them? But also, how would you have them think about that? And maybe college is right for them.

Take it in any order. Let’s start with you, Madison.

Yeah, so I can say first and foremost, no, college isn't for everyone, and that's okay. It really is okay. There’s especially now with, you know, us working from home and things being so readily available within our home spaces. There’s training programs. You know, there’s a lot offered through Google, as well as LinkedIn, and, you know, ways you can learn tangible skills and get the, I guess, the almost the validation that college does provide in different means.

I do LinkedIn learning all the time, and I learn new things, get certificates, and they're able to build up my resume in that way. So just because college is something that’s so, I guess ingrained within our society's psyche, you don’t necessarily have to do college if you don't believe it's for you. Because at the end of the day, if you go into something that isn’t for you, you’re going to end up just not wanting to do it, and that is, you know, time, money spent, and things of that sort, where you could have been focusing on things where you do like.

But I will say, college does provide a lot of perspective, not only in education, but I learned a lot about people and personalities and ways to work with people and gain skills in that area, which then helped me in my post-college career. I learned a lot about, you know, going to school out of state. I learned about different cultures and things that also aided in my education and aided me writing papers, aiding me learning new history to figure some things out.

So I would say, no, college isn't for everyone, but I do see benefits in going.

Yeah, thanks for that. What about you, Delicia? What would you say to these folks who might be a little bit on the fence?

Yeah, college isn't an end-all be-all. And you can also look at it from a sense of there are other unique ways where you'll still get the knowledge. People may call it college; some people may call it trade school. But there are different pathways, alternatives that you can take. Like Madison stated, there are training programs where you'll still learn the skills, but it's not like a traditional college.

You have the community college route, or your local tech schools where you're able to learn a trade, whether it's to become an HVAC or AC technician, a mechanic—we always need someone to work on our cars—construction. We always need something built: houses, schools, hospitals, all the way to tech. And I’m sure Ernest is going to talk to this as well, but tech and cybersecurity is huge.

There are a ton of people who look like you, who look like me, who are from various walks of life—who are 16-year-olds, who are 60-year-olds—whether you're new to discovering and figuring out what you want to do, or you're someone who wants to transition. You’re like, I want to change my career. I want to change my job. I want something different; I want something new.

There's always an opportunity through certifications, and those are everywhere; they're endless online, whether it's through Google, through a SANS Institute, whether it's through a Coursera, Udemy, whomever. There are opportunities for you to gain skills and educate yourself without going that traditional route of an on-campus or traditional college.

And there are also other colleges out there, like my college, where you have that flexibility to be yourself, and it's not in that traditional structure. You pretty much build your schedule; you’re able to work on your own time, and you have that opportunity to not only gain hands-on skills without the fluff, but once you graduate, you're actually able to step into a career that is fulfilling, fun, and again you get to save the world. So why wouldn't you want to take a chance on that?

Absolutely. And Ernest, your advice?

Yeah, so this question is a good one. I'm going to take my Google hat off because I know I've been a great recruiter for Google today. This question comes up a lot, especially since most tech companies actually took off the requirement for a college level degree in order to apply for entry-level positions.

Right now, you don't need to go to college to get a job at Google. I'm going to put a big asterisk there, though, because if you can go to college, or if you're on the fence, please just try. If you're able to, if you can afford it, go to the place that's most affordable, because getting some kind of formal education does open doors for you.

I'll put it this way: I went to—I’m a computer scientist, you know, I'm a software engineer. I love to think about numbers. When I got to Google, Google reviewed two million resumes from around the world for applications—two million. So of that, just think of how many people are college-educated versus non-college-educated, different kind of requirements—there's a lot of competition in the world.

I don't say that to scare you, because if I was able to get to Google, trust me, everyone listening to this call can also land a job at Google. Right? I say that to say that whether organizations realize it or not, there is some bias towards people getting some sort of formal education. So there are so many different ways to get formal education.

Delicia mentioned certificates, training programs, community college. If you guys don't know, community college is a great opportunity where you can, for most places, go to a school local in your community and get an associate's degree for little to no money at all.

There’s a lot of scholarships to get to community college, and then a lot of those colleges have programs to then transition to state schools in the same state that you're in. Like for Madison and I, we had Middlesex County College. A lot of our classmates went there and then transitioned over to Rutgers University. That’s a great way to still get formal education at less of a cost, rather than paying for Rutgers for four years.

That, on top of doing things like work-study, where you actually can get paid during the school year to do a job. Having some role at the university or college that you attend on top of maybe even being an RA, RAs normally get free housing for their institution. Doing research, if you come into the tech industry, there are a lot of schools that do research. I was doing research at Morehouse, and I was getting checks every month just to do research on computer science.

So there's different ways to make college affordable. So I always strive to tell students: if you can afford it, if you can make it happen, please go to college, because it’s going to help set you up for the rest of the things in your life. So that's my bias on it right now.

Yeah, no, well, thanks all of y’all for giving very honest and I think authentic answers, which everyone really wants. You know, I'll give my last few cents on that last question.

I agree with everything all of y’all said. There are other pathways, and there’s increasingly—you know, in the past, the other pathways people might have said trade school and whatever, and even those can be higher compensating than people recognize.

I once spoke at the National Electrician Association, and you could get an apprenticeship after doing some intro courses, and then once you're done with the apprenticeship, you could be making six figures. So there could be very good careers in the trades. But as many of you alluded to, many of the jobs that we associate with college degrees, like becoming a software engineer or working in cybersecurity, there now might be alternative pathways.

Google and others have certification mechanisms where that type of thing can happen. But with that said, and I think Ernest, you alluded to, I think everyone alluded to this, that it’s still where society is right now—college tends to be the most likely pathway. And you know, I just reflected, people who had a little bit of time to reflect on their 20s, and pretty much anyone who went to college and finished does not regret it.

They don’t say, I wish I didn’t go. I do know folks who might have started and didn’t finish, and then there might be some regrets. I think maybe the narrative might be, you know, it isn’t college or bust. It is really dig deep and—this is, you know, I'm trying to take some dots with what all of you said—what you care about, what you love, and what's sustainable. You can’t do anything even for four years if you don’t at least reasonably enjoy it, but—and then what's sustainable financially, time-wise if you need to work while you're in college?

But then try to put your head down and get that done; it probably will open doors for you. But for whatever reason, if it doesn’t work out financially, if that doesn’t work out in any other way, I always say there’s no right decision; it’s all about making the decision right.

As we talked about, the straight-A student who might not get opportunities because they might become complacent or not want to take risks, there could be people with PhDs who don’t reach their potential because they don’t take risks. There could be people who didn’t go to college, but they’re always working; they’re always putting themselves out of their comfort zone. They’re talking, asking a lot of questions, they’re being entrepreneurial, and they can do just great.

So no simple answers to all of this, but this was a fun beginning to the conversation. Thank you all for joining us, and I hope we can do something like this again.

Yes, thank you. Would love to!

Sounds good! Thanks, everyone.