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Question: “How was it possible that a family could be supported comfortably on a single income in, for example, the 1950s, yet today people struggle with two incomes?”OK. having actually lived in the 1950s and disagreeing with many of the posted answers I will have to answer this, giving real and verifiable examples. In particular, I must respond to an extremely inaccurate and misleading answer posted by Quora writer Heather Johnson.To put things in perspective, I grew up in southeastern and south central Wisconsin. My father was an engineer, i.e., he had a modest middle class income. My mother, although she had worked before marriage, was a housewife and parent without outside income. The family consisted of my parents and six children, all of whom went to college. Everything about our lives was normal mid-western, middle class.Johnson writes: “[A]ppliances were bought on 5yr hire purchase plans. Once you paid it off you kept it for 20 yrs”. NO. Just no!My parents paid cash for every appliance purchase, as did most people in the middle class. Credit cards, other than American Express and Diner’s Club, both for business use, did not exist. Consumer credit did not exist, other than time payments from Sears if you bought their Kenmore brand and small loans at bad terms from Household Finance stores which catered to the improvident. Sensible people never borrowed money. Other than gas cards, there were no non-business credit cards in the 1950s and ‘60s. No one had ever heard the term “Master Card” or the phrase “Minimum Monthly Payment”.Appliances, although well made and, unlike today, designed so that they could be serviced, seldom lasted for “20 years”. A heavily used automatic washing machine or dryer might last 5 to 7 years. A kitchen range might be kept for 10 years, after which maintenance issues involving heating elements, clocks, timers, and switches made replacement likely. Automatic dishwashers and garbage disposers and garage door openers all had limited life spans. Tube type televisions in the 1950s ran hot, needed frequent service, and lasted no more than 5 years before needing to be replaced.Johnson writes: “Houses were small…a kitchen resembling a walk-in closet.”NO. This is the house my family lived in in the 1950s.It had a very large kitchen, a separate formal dining room, a living room with masonry fireplace, 3 large bedrooms all with closets, a closed in porch, solid oak floors throughout, a full basement, a cedar shingle roof, and a separate garage, all on a large wooded lot on a quiet street. The quality throughout was far higher than that which one can buy today. There were two Bell System dial telephones, one in a telephone alcove in the dining room and one in my parent’s bedroom.It was a typical middle class home.In 1962 my father had this built.It had a large kitchen, with a dish washer (!), formal dining room, living room, two masonry fireplaces, family room, office, laundry room, four large bedrooms, 2 and ½ baths, hardwood floors, full finished basement (with a bar and a pool table), two car attached garage, patio, breezeway, all on a two acre wooded lot with a view. Again there were two dial telephones, one of which was in my parent’s bedroom. This was a very typical home for a middle class salaried employee. In the 1950s American middle class families did not live in tiny shacks.Johnson claims that Americans in the 1950s: “[B]ought one car and maintained it for decades.” NO! Cars did not last for “decades”.In the 1950s a car was considered old at 60,000 miles when it was traded in on a new model. It was unheard of to own a car whose odometer had turned over from 99,999 to 0. The odometers did not even have a 100,000 mile dial. Most people traded in their cars every 3 to at most 5 years. Many car guys had arrangements with their car dealer wherein they would trade in their car every 2 years for a new version of the same make and model for a fixed amount of money. These are some of the cars my father owned in the 1950s. Note the upward mobility shown by the car models over the years.And from 1958 on, like many middle class American families, we had two cars, one for my father and the other shared by my mother and the children. They always paid cash for their cars, regarding auto loans as wasteful.This was my mother’s car.Johnson writes: “You had a modest closet consisting of one Sunday best outfit, 2 work outfits and 2 casual outfits.NO! My father wore suits to work and casual slacks and golf shirts on the golf course. I never saw him in a t-shirt or a pair of jeans. My mother dressed nicely, owned a few outfits by Dior and Balenciaga and Chanel and had a seldom worn mink stole. Although she knew how to dress well, this was not unusual or extravagant for the wife of a salaried engineer. In the 1950s and ’60s one dressed up to go shopping downtown or out to dinner or take an airline flight.Johnson claimed: “You ate out infrequently”.Not exactly. Fast food joints did not exist. Nor did family casual restaurants, aside from Italian pizzerias or the Friday fish fry at the neighborhood bar. Families seldom went out to dinner with the children. But my father frequently took my mother out on Friday nights to a nice supper club with dancing afterwards.My family in the 1950s lived this way while my parents, after having struggled through the depression and war years, paid off a mortgage, paid for parochial school for the children, sent six children to college, had no debt, and invested enough money in the stock market to be well off in retirement. Unlike what Johnson implies, the American middle class in the 1950s did not live in some sort of austere deprived poverty.OK, how was that possible? The economic system of the post-war period was different.Unlike today where all of the gains in productivity in the economy are directed to the 1%, from 1945 to 1980 productivity gains were shared and enjoyed by all segments of the working classes.Employment was secure. If you were employed and did your job well you did not have to worry that you would lose your job to a KKR or Bain Capital leveraged buyout scheme or some balance sheet manipulator’s desire to create paper “share holder value” or enhance his own stock options. The term “down sizing” had not been thought of. Looting of pension funds, a standard tactic of leveraged buyouts today, would have been a criminal offense in the 1950s and 1960s..The forty hour week was the norm. Workers were not expected to either work when they were not being paid or take work home. Blue collar workers got overtime for anything beyond 8 hours per day or 40 hours per week. And that overtime was enough to allow my wife’s machinist father to pay off the mortgage of a new house in five years.Medical costs were reasonable. Hospitals were run by religious orders or owned by municipalities, not predatory corporations. The cost of having a baby, including days recovering in a pleasant sun lit room, was ~$250.Companies paid good wages and salaries and all good companies included medical insurance and defined benefit pensions.Employment included paid vacation time.Unions insured safe working conditions and good wages for working men. In the 1950s more than 30% of the jobs were unionized. (Today that figure is 11%, and most of those are public employees, i.e., cops and teachers.) Those union wages set a floor that kept up the wages of non-union workers and white collar employees.Union Pensions allowed comfortable retirements. I will describe for example the work and retirement history of a friend with whom we discussed work in the 1960s yesterday: Went to work in the late 1960s immediately after high school for an automobile manufacturer. Worked as a sweeper, i.e., a janitor. Retired after 30 years, and not yet 50 years old, on generous full pension. Pension includes excellent medial coverage from Kaiser-Permanente. Has been retired for 20 years. Owns, for personal use, a home in Florida and a condominium in Colorado, and farm land in Wisconsin. Travels.The public schools were good and staffed with good teachers. The courses included typing and secretarial skills and mechanical trades as well as academics. Thus, students graduated prepared either for college or for a trade.The cost of higher education was reasonable and a college education was easily affordable, especially at one of the excellent land grant universities, by anyone in the middle class or skilled blue collar class who qualified.Savings and Loan Associations and the post-war GI Bill offered affordable home mortgages while not lending either to speculators or those who were trying to live beyond their means, thus adding to both the growth and stability of home ownership. For a fixed rate 20 year mortgage the interest rate was ~4.5% in the 1950s and ~5.5% in the 1960s.Public transportation was better and far more extensive than today, offering an alternative to private cars.Work was closer to home seriously reducing commuting time and expenses for those who chose to drive to work.Americans who were adults in the 1950s had lived through the Great Depression. That taught those who were intelligent the value of savings and the danger of debt. Thus, they avoided consumer loans, paid cash for appliances and cars, put a large down payment on their homes, paid off mortgages quickly, lived within their means, and saved and/or invested.Finally, one must not forget that in the 1950s, because much of Europe had not yet recovered from the devastation of the war, American industry was given an extremely profitable decade and the American dollar was substantially overvalued making imports of goods to the United States, or travel by Americans to Europe, extremely inexpensive.The 1950s and 1960s were different. The American middle class in those decades did not live simple austere pleasureless lives. Nor did they lack nice things. But the difference was caused: 1) by a “Depression Mentality” which taught those who experienced the depression to avoid the debt trap, and 2) by structural differences in government regulations, differences in the tax system and who it was designed to serve, differences in business ethics, and differences in the economy. The different type of government in the 1950s and ’60s and different economy in that era allowed middle class families in the 1950s and 1960s to live nicely on one earner’s salary.As Quora writer Denis O’Sullivan said in the comments (see below): “ The old tradition of the poor getting poorer returned in the 1980′s. It was a good run from 1940 to about 1980 for both blue and white collar employees.”Note re wages and prices in the 1950s: In 1957 the Federal Minimum Wage was $1.00 per hour. Adjusted simply for inflation that would be $9.20 today. The Georgia State Minimum Wage today is $5.15…half of what adjusted for inflation the Federal Minimum Wage was in 1957. The median income for an engineer with 10 years experience in 1957 was $10,000. Beginning pharmacists earned $125 per week or $6,500 per year. In 1955 the median income of a physician in general practice was $15,000. In 1957 a classroom teacher in a city of 50,000 earned $4,500 per year. The hourly wage for an automobile assembly line worker worker was $2.27 per hour, for a tool and die worker $2.95 per hour or $118 for a 40 hour week. The price for the 1950 Ford Deluxe V8 shown in the above photos was ~ $1,100. The 1953 Nash Ambassador sold for $3,100, the 1958 Oldsmobile $4,200. The two story colonial house shown in the photos sold for $17,500 in 1957. It was originally built in 1937. The 1962 house with attached garage was built for $34,000. In 1950 an Admiral black and white console television with radio and phonograph cost $500. In 1954 a top-of-the-line Admiral Dual-Temp two door refrigerator-freezer cost ~$500.Note re union wages in the 1950s: In unionized plants workers were paid time and one-half for hours worked over 40 hours per week and double time for working on holidays. Overtime was available based on seniority. My wife’s father was a skilled machinist at an automobile plant. Having started his employment there as a young man before enlisting in WWII, he was one of the 6 most senior employees in a factory of thousands of workers. He, thus, could bid for and get well paid overtime work whenever he wanted. One year he worked every day of the week including Saturdays and Sundays and Holidays for at least 8 hours per day, taking off only for one day, Christmas. By doing so he paid off the mortgage on a new home in five years. The UAW Pension allowed one to retire after 30 years regardless of age at full pension. That pension included full medical coverage including eyeglasses and dental care.Note re charge plates: The embossed aluminum charge pates issued by some department stores,gasoline station charge plates, Diners’ Club cards, and American Express cards used in the 1950s and ’60s were not credit cards as we use the terms today. These cards had to be paid off in full monthly. Diners’ Club and American Express cards, which were printed on paper with typed in names and addresses, were for business, not personal, use and were only available to the trustworthy and wealthy.Note that the above card from 1955 is described as a CREDIT IDENTIFICATION CARD. It was a card that informed the merchant that the holder’s income and reputation for paying his bills had been verified. Merchants and restaurants who accepted charge card placed the sticker(s) for the card(s) they accepted on the entry door. But you could not trust that. Restaurant owners would terminate their contract with the credit card issuer without removing those stickers.Department store plates could only be used at one store or one association of stores. They were often limited to a relatively small amount, often $50 or less. These were in use into the 1970s. Gas station cards, of course, could only be used at named gas stations. Sears did offer a “Revolving Credit Account” to holders of its charge cards. But these, again, could only be used for purchases at Sears stores. The Sears Roebuck and Co. card eventually became the Discover Card. The first actual Credit Card was the Master Card. (known as Interbank from 1966–1969 and Master Charge from 1969–1979). The first Interbank Cards were issued in 1958 to a restricted group. Charge Cards were not widely distributed until well into the 1970s. And even in the ’70s one had to check with restaurant servers before ordering to determine if your card or any card was valid at that restaurant. Many businesses refused to accept charge card purchases below a set amount.As late as the 1970s women desiring a Department Store Charge Plate had to get it in their husband’s name and the application needed his approval and signature, regardless of the wife’s employment or income. My wife encountered this when she applied for an account at Charles A. Stevens, a woman’s fine clothing store in the Chicago Loop, and was told she needed my approval and signature although she had a better job and higher salary than I did!Note re Changes in Relative Costs: In the 1960s my best friend’s father was a factory worker at the big dirty, but unionized, Fairbanks-Morse plant. My blue collar family friend could afford to take flying lessons and, before he was allowed to drive a car, had a private pilot’s license and enough flying hours by the time we were in high school to have both an instrument rating and a dual engine rating.As teenagers we were allowed and could afford to rent and fly aircraft, usually a Cessna, over Southern Wisconsin and Northern Illinois, sometimes taking our dates out for night flights. We were high school students, and we paid for those flights with our own earnings from part time or summer jobs. Today flying lessons and airplane rentals are only available to the rich.Life was very different in the 1950s and 1960s.

Top higher education institutions around the world are offering cybersecurity degrees and research programs for information security professionals looking to further their careers.Choosing a university is an important decision for anyone. The rate of change and innovation within the information security/cybersecurity field only serves to make the decision process that much more difficult for students who wish to pursue higher education in security.The good news is that more universities and colleges are offering infosec degree programs than ever before, and many are participating in ground-breaking research ó meaning students have the opportunity to participate in hands-on security research and learning opportunities at many of today's top institutions.What's more, the global shortage of information security talent means that pursuing a degree or research program within the field can be a highly rewarding career move.5 Best universities offering a Cyber Security Degree in Australia:University of Southern Queensland (USQ)Ranked at number 1 position in Queensland for graduate employability and boasts of student-centric teaching and learning methods (based on Good Universities Guide 2018). It is located in Queensland one of the most student-friendly places in Australia. It also gives students the opportunity to engage with industry experts and employers thereby making them job-ready. There are ample career outcomes for students ranging from system administrators to designers to network analysts to programmers. The list is endless.Macquarie UniversityIt is ranked among the top 1% in the world and the top 10 among Australian universities. The university has an international repute with over 10 of its subjects among the top 100 (based on the 2018 QS World University Rankings by Subject). Apart from this, it has reached 5-star QS ratings for its teaching and learning outcomes. It is located in Sydney and has bright post-study work prospects as there are abundant companies in and around the campus. Career outcomes can in the form of a Business analyst, Cloud researcher, Communication systems analyst, Database administrator, End-user support and training, IT or management consultant, Software Programmer and so on.Monash UniversityAccording to the survey conducted recently in Times Higher Education University Rankings, Monash was rated 83rd in the world. Monash has been awarded 5 stars by “The Good University Guide” for – staff qualifications, student retention, research focus, awards, and grants. It has a strong community of international students. It is located in Melbourne, one of the most congenial regions in Australia. There are several career options available for cybersecurity graduates. Right from a security analyst, cryptographer, business analyst, security system developer, programmer, IT security engineer, consultant and so on. As a graduate in this degree students could qualify for professional recognition with the Australian Computer Society (ACS).Charles Darwin University (CDU)Charles Darwin University is in the top 2% of universities worldwide. CDU offers great learning prospects and makes students workplace ready post-graduation. According to The Good Universities Guide 2018, CDU has been acclaimed for its exceptional graduate employability with a record 82% of its graduates into full-time employment. It has 11 campuses in Casuarina, Alice Springs, Palmerston, Katherine and Nhulunbuy campuses, alongside centers in Northern Territory, Melbourne, and Sydney. It offers a professionally recognized and accredited course by Australia Computer Society (ACS) at the level of professional practice in Cyber SecurityGriffith UniversityGriffith ranks in the top 3 percent of universities in the world. It ranks 32nd in the QS World University Rankings 2018 apart from the 5-star rating for its general educational experience, based on the Good Universities Guide. Griffith has 6 campuses that are based out of cities in Brisbane, Queensland, Gold Coast, and Logan. There are on-campus recruitment services which help students with part-time and full-time employment by connecting them to recruiters, by helping them market their skills, transition them towards full-time jobs, and help them find work while they are pursuing their course and so on. Post the course students can work as a development operations specialist, network security engineer, security network consultant, security manager or security applications specialist and so on.Cyber Security graduates have a reasonable chance of PR in Australia as an ICT Security Specialist. This occupation is within the Medium and Long Term Strategic Skills List (MLTSSL). Also in certain cases, the 457 visa is applicable.What does a Cybersecurity degree entail?Those with cybersecurity degrees can also work to analyze and decrypt things to stop cyber-terrorism. Cybersecurity experts also work to build out digital systems for modern companies to store data.Now that we've taken a look at what a cybersecurity degree entails, if you're still interested, here are the 11 best schools for cybersecurity degrees as of 2019.Georgia Institute Of TechnologyEmphasis: Practical skillsSpecializations: Information Security, Energy Systems, Public PolicyGeorgia Tech's program is specifically focused on the practical application of cybersecurity. The program works closely with the college of engineering to integrate applicable coursework and thanks to its three main specialization paths. You have good options depending upon which career path you see yourself taking.While studying at the school, you'll also have a chance to do research work for the U.S. government, military, and even private industry thanks to the school's immense connections in the field.Purdue UniversityEmphasis: IT Professional TrainingSpecializations: Information Security, Cyber ForensicsPurdue University is an internationally acclaimed educational powerhouse, and its cybersecurity program is geared towards industry professionals. For their cybersecurity specialties, you'll need a B.S. in a computer science major, which is understandable as you'll need a baseline to build on.Their programs are geared to give you on-the-job experience and help you become an information security specialist.As for research, Purdue's Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security Lab (CERIAS) is one of the world's top research labs in the field. It incorporates tons of interdisciplinary tactics and gives students a high degree of hands-on experience in the field.University Of Maryland-College ParkDegree: B.S. in Computer ScienceEmphasis: Cybersecurity OverviewSpecializations: CybersecurityUMD's cybersecurity education offers extensive interdisciplinary opportunities while studying. The university works directly with many government agencies and security firms, with strong ties to Lockheed Martin, Cisco, and Northrop Grumman.The University Of Illinois At Urbana-ChampaignEmphasis: Research, Career DevelopmentSpecializations: Electrical and Computer Engineering, Research, LawUIUC offers extensive scholarship opportunities for the Cybersecurity educational tract. The University has an Information Trust Institute (ITI) that works on researching power grid development, health information, systems & networks, as well as data science. This institute is one of the core assets the university has in the cybersecurity educational paths.Rochester Institute Of TechnologyEmphasis: Research, Expert DevelopmentSpecializations: Information Sciences, CryptographyRIT's cybersecurity degrees focus on turning students into independent experts in their fields. Students have the opportunity to engage in advanced research in the field.The university is well known for its well-funded research projects, which means that regardless of what career path you want to take in the field, you'll likely have a chance to explore that industry through research before you graduate.University Of PittsburghEmphasis: Cyber Crime Prevention, Rounded Professional DevelopmentSpecializations: Information Security, Database Management, Cyber LawThe University of Pittsburgh is on a shortlist of universities that have 5 'Committee on National System Security' certifications. This means that all of the degrees here are thorough to a high degree.UoP also has an Institute for Cyber Law, Policy, and Security that works closely with the School of Computing. The school also has extensive research labs.University Of California-DavisEmphasis: Research, Cyber Attack PreventionSpecializations: Information Assurance, Architecture, ApplicationsUC Davis has an industry reputation as being a great tech university, and its cybersecurity focus allows you to customize your learning path.The university holds a CAE-R designation for excellence in cybersecurity research – notably conducted at their Computer Security LabVirginia TechEmphasis: Software Development, Rounded educationSpecializations: Cyber Operations, Information AssuranceVirginia Tech is ranked as one of the Top 100 universities in the world, and its college of Engineering is award-winning.One notable aspect of this school is the geographic location for students interested in cyberlaw and cybercrime. It's near employers in the Washington D.C. area, along with defense contractors and federal agencies.Not only is the school's education top-notch, but it may get you a job placement with cybersecurity employers due to its location.University Of Washington-SeattleEmphasis: Broad Security and Privacy UnderstandingSpecializations: Information Assurance, CybersecurityUW Seattle has a unique degree in informatics, which is the science of processing and storing data. Their research efforts focus on the broader picture of data security tackling issues like the Internet of Things, roboticsGeorge Mason UniversityEmphasis: IT Professional TrainingSpecializations: Cybersecurity, Information Security, Digital ForensicsGeorge Mason University, like Virginia Tech, is located very close to the D.C. metro along with cybersecurity firms. You'll get the opportunity at this university to learn digital forensics and cyber analysis. There's even the opportunity to get a concentration in digital forensics as your degree.

Below is a passage from a popular book published several years ago. It speaks to what many perceive as the sickness that surrounds the whole process of students applying for admission to highly selective colleges and universities.***********************************************************************Why’d you go back east? I said.I got a scholarship to Dartmouth. My uncle went there.Were you an only child?She shook her head. Twin brother. He died when we were fifteen. Motorcycle.Man.I had good grades. Good test scores. I was going to be a vet, go to Colorado State, come back home and set up a large animal practice. All my life that was what I was going to do. We had a college counselor, Mr. Sykes. He had a very good placement record, but he controlled who went where so tightly all the kids called him Sucks. One day in English class my junior year there was a tap on the glass of the door and he came in and handed me a folded note. It said My office 12: 45. During the lunch hour. I remember we were talking about The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. Do you know it?I loved that poem until they taught it to me in high school.Did you know there is a Hidden Meaning?Really?Yup. Sex, art and scholarship are all class weapons.Hunh. Funny thing to teach aspiring scholars.We weren’t aspiring scholars. We were supposed to go to work for StorageTek or UPS. Or Coors.The note. Sykes, I said.Oh. My heart galloped. Every year Dartmouth gave one scholarship to a kid from Delta High. It was endowed by the man who built the fiberboard plant, an alum. I guess he felt bad for all the formaldehyde smoke which reeked in the winter when there was an inversion. Every fall one kid got a note from Sykes to see him at lunch hour. He controlled it, chose the kid. I don’t think that was even legal but that’s the way it was. His little fiefdom. Kept all the families, the whole town, kissing his ass all year. For the rest of the class nobody could concentrate, they were all watching me. And my head was rushing with the possibilities, images of a future I had no pictures for. They tumbled together: ivy covered bricks, handsome upperclassmen in argyle sweaters, taking them off to row crew.You know I didn’t have a clue. My days consisted of throwing hay before daylight and running cross countryafter school, and then back home for more chores, mostly giving oats and medicine to horses, and mucking stalls, and homework. I was beet red, I could tell. The more I tried to concentrate on the poem the more I felt the eyes on me and when I glanced up and snuck a look, they were. I could already feel the envy. Like a wind. By the end of the day I wasn’t sure if any of this was a curse or a blessing. Anyway, I went to see Sykes. I couldn’t eat anything in the cafeteria so I just went to the Girls’ Room and sat on the toilet and tried to breathe. He said, Cima I think you have a good chance for the Ritter Scholarship. He was completely bald. I thought his head was the shape of an egg. I remember seeing tiny beads of sweat on the mottled pink dome of it as if it were he on the hot seat. He was from Illinois, outside of Chicago, I remember. He said, You will write the personal essay in your application about ranch life and losing Bo. I was shocked. Almost as if I had hallucinated that last request. Well, it wasn’t a request.Come again, I said. His hands were resting on the desk and he actually made a carefultriangle out of his thumbs and forefingers and pursed his lips and looked into it as if it were some Masonic window into my destiny. He said, You will write about being a ranch girl and losing your brother who was your soulmate. I stared at him. I had heard that he controlled the whole application process. But nobody had ever said anything like that to me before. I mean put their big fat foot, clomp clomp, into my most interior landscape. Bo to me was like a secret garden. A place only I could go. A source of both grief and great strength. He was smiling at me. He had the smallest mouth and only one side came up. I remember.The turmoil. Life had just opened up really wide and bright then suddenly the horror: that to go there I would be asked to forfeit my soul. Something like that. Terrifying. I know I was flushing to the roots and I couldn’t seem to articulate anything. He kept smiling at me. He said, You don’t have to thank anyone now, it’s certainly momentous. Deus ex machina. That’s what he said! As if he were God! My word. He thought I was overcome with gratitude and I was actually so furious. I felt violated. I was so mad I could’ve taken his egg head and crushed it. I just mumbled and ducked out.Did you write about Bo?Yes. I wrote about how my college counselor had demanded that I write about my dead twin. I wrote a long essay, twice as long as asked for, about a certain kind of tact that was part of ranch culture and why I thought it had developed and why it was important and how the fact that a ranch girl writing about her missing twin might appeal to the admissions people at the highest caliber Eastern college was another example of the disconnect between us. Eastern establishment and Western land based people. We didn’t want anybody’s sympathy.I was so angry. Never been so mad I don’t think. I sent the application off without letting Sykes review it, which was strictly against protocol. Nobody had ever done it. He tried to scuttle the application, he was such a vengeful little fuck, but it was too late. I guess they were so impressed with my ranch girl grit or something. I got in, of course. Early decision, full ride.The college pressured the high school and forced Sykes to retire. You know the part that still troubles me about all that is that I knew I would. Get accepted. I mean I flipped the emotional payoff they were looking for, didn’t I? I mean I was truly furious, but I also knew somewhere inside that it would make my candidacy even stronger. I have prayed about it often. I mean apologizing to Bo for using him to get into college.I shook the dirt off some Swiss chard and lay it in the basket.You didn’t use Bo. You wrote exactly what you were feeling.Yeah, but I’ve often thought that the move with the most integrity would’ve been to blow off Dartmouth for having that kind of expectation, those values, and go to Northern State. I mean it’s an ag school. Was.You were what? Seventeen? You wanted to flex your muscles. You were an ass kicker like your dad. Nobody on earth is more righteous than a seventeen year old.And it wasn’t the college, it was Mr. Sucks. You know what I mean. He was right, after all. About the subject that would snare them. I don’t know. I think of him sometimes, a middle aged, single man, humiliated out of the one job he was great at. What he did with the rest of his life, how it was for him when the flu hit. Lonely, alone, terrified. Funny the things that keep you up at night after all that has happened.Peter Heller, The Dog Stars (pp. 244-245).***********************************************************************If you are not familiar with The Dog Stars, it is a highly lauded novel. I would recommend it for those who have a particular interest in a certain kind of fiction.But before I go on, I want to do a thought experiment. If you had to guess what the plot of book The Dog Stars is what would you say? There are a few hints in the passage above, but I think many would be surprised that the book is what The New Yorker calls postapocalit.Virtually the entire book, aside from this passage, describes events that place in a dramatic present, 9 years after a pandemic flu has wiped off 99% of the people on the planet. The Hemingwayesque descriptions of how the few survivors fight their way through desperate strangers is far better than most apocalyptic fiction. The characters must fight for their lives, must forage for food, must overcome the loss of virtually all that we today take for granted. The focus is on the literal handful of characters who have survived and what they do each day to make it through another day. It is spare, raw, and moving. (It is not as great as Cormac McCarthy’s The Road but it is pretty darn good).What is so odd, however, is that nestled in the novel, out of nowhere, there is this passage about how Cima wrote her college essays and how it helped to get her into Dartmouth. The passage sticks out-- not like a sore thumb --but rather as an uncanny and ghostly haunting by the current obsession we as a culture have about kids getting in to the Ivies or other elite schools. There is nothing else like this passage in the rest of the book. Both the author and the editors, however, somehow thought this story about admission said something about Cima and her character. In addition, however, the actions on part of Cyma and her counselor underscore just how important, in the world we live in now, the whole process of getting into schools has become and also just how ‘sick’ it is. Ethics and moral values on the part of Sykes, Cima and the schools too are tainted, diseased. The sickness that takes over the planet and kills almost everyone may be the planet’s way of responding to this moral sickness.The passage serves as a sign that the whole application process is now somehow linked in a strange way with the future apocalypse depicted in this novel (and hundred of others novels, stories and TV shows). Is this an example of hyperbole on my part? Let’s see.This past Monday (August, 31, 2015), The Chronicle of Higher Education, the premiere publication for what goes on at colleges, published a series of articles about students and stress: What is the headline?An Epidemic of AnguishThe stories underscore how miserable and sickly students attending college are these days. Statistics showing the vast increase in those seeking counseling become the proof that there is a sickness spreading through students and that something needs to be done; otherwise, the epidemic might spread and then …and then the end might just come.Other writers, mostly pundits or educators, use words that also invoke apocalyptic scenarios to describe what goes on at some of the best secondary schools and colleges in the world. These books are not fiction but they do call t mind the dark metaphors and scenarios of books like World War Z. Frank Bruni, in his book Where You Go Is Not Who You Will Becalls the process students go through to get into top colleges “madness”. William Deresiewicz, calls those students who attend places like Yale “Excellent Sheep” His thesis, to put it simply, is that in effect the students are Zombies who drag themselves through classes in which all that matters is a grade in order to get jobs in consulting and finance: “They’ve learned to ‘be a student,’ not to use their minds”. William Deresiewicz, Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life.In effect, he says that these students are just like the Zombies we see all over the popular media. They have no brains to think; instead, they are merely bodies going through the motions of living but inside these bodies there is no soul, no emotion, nothing that would support a live worth living. . These are the zombies that populate the ivy leagues. Other books about the college process that have come out recently depict the college or the high school experience by employing war tropes and metaphors. People have to battle to get in; they have to fight for a spot. Then have to beat others and conquer tests, classes and the competition. They have to win. It is all out war out there for students and there are casualties everywhere. Kids are falling apart emotionally and are not prepared to work after they graduate. They have lost their childhood and they have lost their will. Parents have stepped in and taken their souls. For these writers, the whole education system at highly selective schools is falling apart and we need to change things before it is too late.I wish I was exaggerating about the doomsday rhetoric. Sadly I am not. It seems that not a week goes by now without an article or book that declares the dire state of students who attend selective schools (and other schools too but the books are geared to scare those who have the means to care about the whole selective admission game). There are virtually no smiles, no one laughs, and it is eerily silent. The only voices we hear fro are those who have suffered or those who have beaten the odds. They are the heroes or casualties. I guess I have somehow missed this. Maybe I am just blind.Almost every day I either venture out into the trenches that are college campuses or I talk individually with students in different schools all around the world. I really don’t see many zombies or bodies on the ground. I don’t feel a sense of deadness. I feel far more life and energy than I do in most other places I visit.I talk with bright and motivated students--some are stressed about finding a job or getting into graduate school, but they are not falling apart and are not miserable. They don' appear sick or don't have an affect like a typical Zombie. In fact, their energy and life force is life renewing for me. They give me hope about the future. Or at least most of them are not. They are spending time with friends, they are going out at night and having fun and they are working hard to do well. They are active citizens on campus and are smart enough to develop soft skills and critical thinking skills too. This week alone I have talked with dozens of students and have spent time with many who are talking with each other about everything under the sun--like Facebook or politics or food or class tensions or great novels and poems. I think the apocalypse that is getting lots of press these days is far more fiction than it is an accurate portrayal of what is going on at most college campuses.Am I saying there are not suffering students, some who in fact feel compelled to take desperate measures? No. I do know some of these students too, but these are more the outliers than the norm. The good news is that the ones I know who are suffering are getting help But apocalyptic scenarios grab our attention and that makes things seem worse than they really are for most students. Yes, there is more stress in finding a great job these days—welcome to the global economy. I do think more student seek help because schools have been much more proactive in encouraging students to seek help. The recruiting efforts, as it were, have worked. The good news, if it can be put this way, is that the ones I know who are suffering are getting help. Students are not struggling with depression or anxiety alone. They do not see these illnesses as weaknesses --they way they were perceived by many a generation ago. The fact that more students are seeking help may say that they have been educated in ways those in the past were not.There is another book that I want to highlight—Metaphors We Live By by George Lakoff and mark Johnson. They recognized, a generation ago, the metaphors we use determine how we think. Here is how the book is described on Amazon.Metaphor, the authors explain, is a fundamental mechanism of mind, one that allows us to use what we know about our physical and social experience to provide understanding of countless other subjects. Because such metaphors structure our most basic understandings of our experience, they are "metaphors we live by"—metaphors that can shape our perceptions and actions without our ever noticing them. In this updated edition of Lakoff and Johnson's influential book, the authors supply an afterword surveying how their theory of metaphor has developed within the cognitive sciences to become central to the contemporary understanding of how we think and how we express our thoughts in language.The metaphors we use are, to some degree, the boundaries of our thought. We use metaphors all the time and it is also true that metaphors use us too. They expand or limit the way we see the world. In our current climate, in education and in much popular culture, sickness, disease, madness, war and the apocalypse are metaphors of choice. In choosing these metaphors, we see the world not as it “really “is but through a glass darkly, very darkly. I would argue that we need to think critically about using these metaphors to describe the lives of students. They are not sheep or zombies and the stress they feel is not an epidemic. These metaphors persuade us to see education and students in an unhealthy way (literally and metaphorically). They may also get the students themselves to see the world they are as sick—they can persuade people that things are wrong and by doing so make them worse. What my own senses show me when I walk on campuses and when I talk to students is that most are walking or running or singing or painting or studying or volunteering and learning or all of the above. They are full of life.I do not want to end this particular entry as though it were a fairy tale in which everyone gets what they want-- happily ever after is misleading. But “the end is near” doomsday scenarios are too. If you do not believe me, I encourage people to go visit some campuses right now. The students are back, the weather is good, and there are football games and concerts and lots of great classes and lectures. There are students working and playing in virtually every way and there are lots of smiles, real ones. Listen to the laugher. Talk to the students. There are lots of people doing just what they should in college: learning and living and looking forward to contributing to a world that holds out promise and hope.