Quote Originally Posted by Mike n NC
OR...Got a hobby or past time you really enjoy? Figure out a way to make money at it. My son, a high school dropout, is now approaching my level of income doing what he loves. He tours with various bands as their insturment tech, even gets to play once in a while. Headed out for a far east tour swing in a couple of weeks.
GREAT advice, Mike. That's a good way to work out what you might be happy doing for work or a career - in fact, many career counselors will outright tell you that this is a good thing.

Quote Originally Posted by Mike n NC
Now let me further qualify my comment about the libart degree. It does, and very well I might add, teach you how to learn and puts a polish on the HS education. However, I don't consider it a be all to end all but rather a starting point to higher education. A chance to learn what you want to learn if you will. With the bulk of "today's" HS seniors now having an 8th grade education, that's in the US I don't know about Canada, they have a definite place in the system.
I've heard it said that the US's K-12 education system is a joke but that college is where the US catches up with the rest of the world. I am not saying this is true everywhere, but I've heard plenty of foreign students say that American colleges are much harder than their counterparts overseas. Again, not a blanket statement, but I've heard it said plenty of times both anecdotally and in studies.

But I don't agree that a Liberal Arts BA is only a stepping stone to higher education - it's also considered an indication among businesses that the person with the degree "can be taught," and that they were able to start a long-term project and finish it. Example: I have a BA degree in history, yet I'm currently a computer programmer. A job that I intended to be temporary while I explored other options turned into a career when I discovered that I had an aptitude for IT. A college education of almost any kind can open doors that weren't previously open.

That's not to say that a person with a degree is any more or less qualified for a job than a person without a degree. I know plenty of folks in my field who have no degree but are just as skilled and just as compensated as I. All I'm saying is that a degree is, more or less, a certification that many places will look for, and you can't go wrong with a sheepskin under your belt.