i write to you from the icy nordic burg of winnipeg, manitoba, canada.

what worked for you guys? what am i doing?

(name withheld)

Two other questions were asked, but they weren't really advice kinds of questions.

Here's my response -

I remember back to the heady days of university life as a young lad. Back then my life essentially revolved around two equal but important areas: music and alcohol. Not only did I not care about what I was going to do with what I learned in college, I scoffed at that notion. I studied what I wanted, had a good time writing a music column for the school paper, and enjoyed all that New York City could offer a young lad in his prime. I encourage you to take advantage of a similar lifestyle. Of course, I had to go back to school eventually to learn a real skill so I could actually support myself and make more than $25,000 a year, but you have your whole life ahead of you for work. BTW - your suspicions about university being a cash grab are more accurate than you will ever know. And just wait until you have to start paying back those student loans. Here in the States they are making it more and more difficult to shed yourself of these pesky liabilities without paying them back. Even bankruptcy doesn't work anymore.

Now, if you read the above and you say to yourself, "Yeah, that is all great, but I was actually hoping for some advice other than have a good time," I will further expand my answer. This will likely be the only good advice I ever give in my life, but you can take it or leave it. I would tell any young person unsure about what to study in college to study two things that I have found immensely interesting and useful in life. One is philosophy. Yeah, it's boring sometimes, Kant couldn't write his way out of a corner, but it teaches you how to think, how to logic, and how to write. Once you know how to think, you can learn anything; if you can communicate, you are more marketable than about 95% of the population about there. The other is economics. I didn't study this until graduate school because I didn't even know what it was as an undergraduate. But once you know that economics is simply the study of how a society makes decisions and allocates resources, well, now we are talking interesting things. Want to change the world? You better learn econ because it relates to poverty, income distribution, and how people make decisions. Want to make a lot of money? Econ is about money, 'nuf said. You can make it what you want. And I don't know about Canada, but economics is the state religion here in the States. You start speaking like an economist, people think you are reading the tea leaves and are an intelligent person, even if you are not (I mean, look who runs the Federal Reserve for Christ sake). So keep all this in mind, chew on it, think about it, and remember to just keep learning and college will be a rewarding experience.

Thank you very much for writing.

Thad's frighteningly on the money. Economics and Philosophy will get you farther than any other two things that you could study.

Here's what not to study:

- Computers

- Film

- Social work

- Fashion

- Chaucer

- Marxist economics

- Phrenology

I discourage these fields of study not because I don't like them. I just don't think you'll get anything in the real world by taking a bunch of classes on these subjects.

Except fashion. Fashion is for soul-less human waste and is utterly devoid of any meaning. If you or any other person who ever reads this website takes heed of only one thing, let it be this - Stay Away From Fashion.