Hello! Welcome to episode 74 of I’d Rather Stay In. This week, we’re throwing it back and reflecting on our college experiences and discussing the future of college educations.

Episode transcript

Welcome to I’d rather stick in with your hosts Megan Myers and Stephie Predmore. This week’s topic is college. Stay tuned. Hi Stephie Hi Megan. How’s it going? Um, my husband for dinner made risotto in using the suevey Ah, how does that work like in a packet fuckin flapped? Yeah, he like put all if he hadn’t done it he hadn’t done it before they at work they do it in the oven a lot.

But he had not. You don’t use the suevey to do it I I assume he found it on chefsteps which is we have there the jewel which is like their cvwd or whatever. Maybe he found it on a different spot on the internet, but I’m assuming it was probably chefsteps. Anyway, um, yeah, he just like put everything into the plastic bag, and then popped it in the water bath. And it was perfect. Hmm. And then he finished it off with a little and it was just like a plain like a like a like a regular, like parmesan risotto. And then he finished it off with a little lemon zest and then he sauteed up some of the high curry turnips from the CSA and seared some scallops. And it was one of those evenings where I was very, very happy and my choice of life partner. It’s very fancy. Yes, it was delicious.

I have I don’t have a CV so i’ve i’ve never cooked anything suvi that but I have made risotto in the Instant Pot before. Oh, see. I’ve never done that. It does. It does turn out surprisingly.

Yeah. You know, for something that has to be babysat so much on the stove. There’s a surprising number of hands off ways that you can make it

Yeah, I haven’t done the oven either. I should I always meant to and then I never got around to and then I got an instant pot so but I do still like to make it on the stove sometime.

I do I really like making risotto. I find it like kind of soothing. Yeah, it’s just you kind of get into like a Zen with the with all the stirring. But yeah, I also keep meaning to try the oven method although we are entering the time of year when Alex protests turning the oven on basically at all. Which is super convenient when your wife likes to bake a lot. Yeah. Anyway, cb it works. So if anyone has a Sufi you can make risotto. Or if you’re like ci I don’t know what I’d use my CV for the answer is a shitload of stuff. So

I still have is still seems strange to me, because everything takes so long.

Yes, and no. I mean, yeah, sometimes. Well, actually don’t think there is Oh, took any longer than it would have on the stove. Okay. Um, that was it. Like, like, it really took about the same amount of time. But also, it’s a very, like, hands off thing. So you can just like throw something in, and then it’ll just like rock. And you can go about your life. One time he did corned beef. And that cooked for two days. And we just did our we just lived our life. It was fine.

See, but then you have a stove on for two days. Right? Or? Eric has electric. Yes. Okay, so, okay. seen some of them. I’ve seen that it is on the stove situation.

No. So his is like a little wand and it could look like something else. So just imagine what that other thing looks like. And that kind of is what a CV looks like. And then we just have so sometimes he does in like our big like pasta pot. But we have a couple of like plastic containers, like cambro containers is what they’re called. Like they use at the restaurant. And you just fill that with water and then you put the little thing in and then his is controlled from an app. And so you just pick what temperature it’s going to cook at And then once it’s done, you can like set the timer as well. So it’ll go off when it’s done. But you put whatever you’re cooking in your plastic bag. So sometimes, so like a lot of times in restaurants, it’ll be like using a vacuum sealer. So you could use your vacuum sealer if you have one or, and the thing that a lot of people don’t like, realize is that if you just put it in like a regular like a Ziploc bag, once you submerge it under the water, the water naturally pushes all of that air out. So it like kind of automatically vacuum seals it. So we just use Ziploc bags, and then you just let it rock in there. If you’re going to cook it for like a really long time, he’ll put like plastic over the top so that all of the water doesn’t evaporate. But yeah, and it’s a really gentle the circulation of the water, just like very gently cooks the food. But it’s also a really great way to get things that are hard to get perfect, absolute perfect sweet, almost always cook steak in there. Because we can get a perfect, mid rare and then he just will sear it super quickly on either side when it comes out. So you get the crust we have done. Like we’ll do fried chicken sandwiches, and we’ll cook like chicken thighs, in pickle brine in the SU bead. So then like the flavors that you’ve because pretty much anything that you put in there will that gets like vacuum sealed in there with the food adds to that flavor like takes on that flavor. So we’ll cook the chicken and like pickle juice, pickle brine, whatever. And then we fry it off for the sandwiches. But since the chickens already cooked through, all you have to do is like get the coating crispy. You don’t have to worry about like I’m going to serve someone raw chicken in their sandwich. soft boiled eggs are really perfect to do in there too. Because you can get them like the perfect level of soft boiled that’s a lot harder to do on the stove. There’s many tricks you can do if you’re a little bit of a culinary nerd. And they’re actually not that expensive. They used to be more expensive, but they’re pretty affordable. So there you go. There’s your culinary lesson for the day. Fantastic debt we all really no one asked martyr No. literally no one asked for this. But here you go. I mean, that’s really why they come to the podcast is for random knowledge, right. And then so in wrestling, obviously. So in restaurants. A lot of times what they’ll do for like cooking and steaks, is they will use their immersion circulators their CV IDs to to get them cooked through. So then, when a guest orders the steak, they pull them out of the water bath, and then they finish them to order to you know, so then they’re getting that sear on them cooking them a little bit extra if somebody wants their steak a little bit more done than like a mid rare. But it keeps it gets that perfect. You know what most guests are looking for that mid rare to medium. And without them having to like spend a lot of time doing it on the fly as they’re being ordered. Cool. There we go. I just spent 10 minutes talking about immersion circulations. So I’m sorry if we lost everybody at that point. Megan, how are you?

I’m good. I discovered that there are birds that have nested in one of my hanging plants. Birds, I have a beautiful wraparound front porch was very excited about it. And when we bought this house and there were hooks for hanging plants, and so I bought some hanging plants a couple weeks ago. I realized today that you have to water them. Yeah, it’s funny how plants do need water. Well, I’ve read after I got them It rained for a while so I didn’t really need to water them because I got the rain but I can’t reach them. Because here’s the main problem because I am short. So I asked my husband to like take them down so we could put up these extension hooks and so we could water them and all the things and he goes to do it and he’s like, well there’s eggs in one of them. So no like oh Yeah. Oops. Because we saw a bird going in there. Some day last week, I believe when we were hanging out on the porch. Yeah, but we thought maybe they were just like going to get like, some, you know, leafy stuff or whatever to go make a nest somewhere else. Oh, nope. Nope. Making right there.

So oops, I well, it could be worse. It could be. It could be on your front door. My I remember growing up, because my mom always had like a beautiful seasonal wreath on the front door. And I remember there were a couple of years where birds made nests in the front door race, and then you couldn’t use the front door. Because the stupid fucking birds were there.

I mean, I did leave my Christmas trees up for an extended period of time. Because first of all, they still looked really nice. Yes. And also I’m kind of lazy about certain things. So I had just been leaving them up. And that was a concern. But they were fine. There were no birds in that, but apparently, apparently could have have taken the opportunity to live in my plants instead. I think actually, they might have been the birds that did previously have a nest in the like, under the awning. Oh, sorry for the porch. Look at this other spa, this base home that she left out for us.

So basically, if we drove by your house and all of your plants, your hanging plants are lower, except for one. That’s why

I think he’s still lowered it. But we’ll see. I’m not sure I haven’t got out to check. There’s only two hanging plants. Because when so when we bought the house, there were more hanging plants hanging. Mm hmm. But they only left to have the hooks in the ceiling beams. Sure. I don’t really know why the hooks are also like they’re in the garage, I believe. So the hooks still exist. They’re just not in the porch anymore. So we had to put them back up if we want to put up more plants. So eventually, we will have more, but I have to figure out how to work around to the fact that I’m very short. And my porch is tall.

Yeah. And like, how can you get the hope the watering can and the hose and the dude like an extension hook? Yeah.

Well, yeah. And there’s no hose on this on this on the front side of the house. Oh, yeah, that makes it even trickier. So I can’t just like shoot it up in the air. You know?

Like go? Yes. The plant, right like you did when you’re a kid.

The 100% how I still water things. If I don’t want to pull the hose further into

the walk further. Here we go. thumb over the hose. Right fact. market? Yeah, we’ll get there. Oh, man. Well, best of luck. I expect updates on your bird nest situation. So, today we’re gonna talk about college. Yeah. Which is a thing that we both did. It’s been a while but Yes, we did. Yeah, we we both have varying amounts of time that we have been out of college no longer in school. But we thought we would talk a little bit about it. Because, you know, I know for me, especially. And I believe that you are probably in this grouping generation as well. of the you have to go to college, you have to go to college, right? Like you have to go to you have to go to college, or you’ll never get a decent job. You’ll never you’ll never get anywhere. You’ll never get anywhere. You’ll you will be working at McDonald’s for forever, which I want to be extremely clear. There was absolutely nothing wrong with working at McDonald’s. But at the time, that was sort of used as the oh my gosh, don’t you want to do something besides work? flipping burgers at a fast food restaurant? Yes. You know, it was? Yeah. I 100% remember this argument? Yeah, like I think many millennials and that sort of Gen X, the Xeni all group, I think probably heard from everybody, like, it wasn’t just from parents or grandparents but like, we heard it and former teachers and our guidance counselors and our principals and everybody and the media, and

the Yeah, everything. Yeah, it was definitely, it was definitely a big deal. It was interesting though, because it was such a big deal that you should go to college, everyone should go to college, if you want to do anything you need to go to college. But then at least in the case of my school, I feel like they did not really help you that much when it came to actually getting into college. And like, figure like navigating the whole application system, the scholarships and the grants and all of that, I feel like, they helped people who knew to go to the counselor to talk about it. But if you didn’t, if you didn’t already know what you needed to know. Then you weren’t you’re out of luck. Like because, yeah, I. So my parents, both did not graduate from college. And my brother, did he my brother did go but didn’t graduate. But like, so it wasn’t a big thing in my family were like it, we knew what to do. Right. And that is still a barrier today for a lot of people. Yeah, but just the fact that back then it was just like, oh, if you don’t go to college, like, what are you doing with your life?

You’re gonna be a failure. Yeah, sorry. Yeah, that was the message. And whether those were the exact words that were used or not. That was that was the message. And, you know, I because I have a number of friends that were first generation college students. I have. I think on my dad’s side, my dad might have been the first maybe to get his college degree. or, or, you know, to go to college. But on my mom’s side, all of my mom’s all four of my mom’s grandparents were college graduates. So there’s a long history on my mom’s side of getting your college degree. Even back in the 20s when women literally just like went to get their missus, yeah, they got their Mrs. Right. Um, and so, I mean, education is just like the bit the like, linchpin of her mom’s side of the family. My great grandmother, the only thing she believed in more than education was eating breakfast. I’m so mean, you know, begin

to believe in something. Breakfast is a really good emphasis

a really, really good one. Still, when I don’t eat breakfast, I am like, ma’am, is going to come back and haunt me. So, so I went to a private liberal arts small private liberal arts school. You went to a public university, right? Yeah, I went to a large public state school. Yeah. So we have like, pretty different experiences. Um, what led you to your school?

Again, I will reiterate that I am lazy about certain things. And it’s a couple it’s it’s a few things, actually. But um, there were other schools that I wanted to go to. And they were all private liberal arts schools that we could not afford. Yeah. Especially because they were out of state, they were far away. There, it was just not going to be possible for me to go there at all. And so the school that I ended up going to, first of all had a automatic acceptance algorithm. I don’t know if they still do or not, probably not, because it’s actually not very tenable. But they they had a thing where if your grade point average was high enough, you automatically got in? No. And at the time, the school had a, so I went to the University of Minnesota, University of Minnesota and the University of Wisconsin had a reciprocity program. Where if you went if you’re from Wisconsin, like I was, if you went to school at the University of Minnesota, you only had to pay University of Wisconsin tuition price. Oh, so basically in state tuition, yeah, you paid in state tuition. And it was cheaper, actually. So that was part of it, too. Unfortunately, for people from Minnesota who would go to Wisconsin, then they’d have to pay more Oops. I think they got rid of that policy as well, because it’s not quite that fair. In the end. And also, the University of Minnesota did not really need to get extra people going to it. It’s a pretty large school. So I think my freshman class was like, 5000 people. So she did not need extra people applying to their school

or reference people that is twice the size of your whole entire unit. Yeah,

yeah. And also, that was where my brother went. Yeah. So I kind of just went for like the I almost want to say the path of least resistance. Hey, we’re choosing college. Yeah, it worked. It was fine. They had my major that I wanted at the time, and it’s fine. And so that’s where I went, and you had to find experience. And I had a fine experience. It was a, I really loved Minneapolis, it was a great place to live and go to school. So I really loved it for that. I bounced all around in different departments for a while. Uh huh. Bye, but I did really enjoy my time there. Overall,

I did not go there to meet a husband. But you did meet the husband, I did not go there to meet a husband. And

here we are. It’s It’s funny, because even before we got engaged and stuff, we were together, but I was basically like, telling him when I graduated from college, I’m leaving town. So like, with you or without you, that’s what I’m doing. So he just follows me around country basically now. Um, but I mean, it was, it was totally random. Because we were we were both taking Hebrew class, which is very long story. But that’s how we met. And the rest is history. I guess. It’s also weird because he actually went to tech school right out of high school, and had an associate’s degree in drafting. And then he decided to go back to school, and get a degree, a full degree in computer science. And I took a few years off in between my freshman year and my sophomore year. So this like, it was very strange, because he had a weird timing situation. And I had a weird timing situation, and we still ended up like meeting each other.

Some people would call that fate. Call it what you will. Yeah, well, you, your kids are probably happy that happens, because now they exist. That is very true.

Yeah. I’m sure they’re happy that they exist. But like college, it aside from like, I did enjoy college. But I will talk a little bit more about this in a minute. But the taking the time off thing was like, probably the best decision I could have possibly made for my life. Yeah, well, you know what, let’s

just talk about that now. Because I know that there are a lot of people who take gap years, I have a friend that really hates the term gap year. But that’s just that’s another t shirt for another time. So but that wasn’t really, I think it’s become more popular.

I think it’s definitely more popular now. But it wasn’t a thing, really, when I was going to college, because of the whole, like, you have to go to college. And if you don’t go to college right after high school, then you’ll never go to college. And it’s still like the gloom and doom situation. And so the idea of taking a year to like just kind of figure out, you know, you just went to school for 12 years, right? And so the idea of just taking a year to figure out who the heck you even are was not a thing. And I think it is super important. And I almost think that people should I think it should be promoted more often. And I almost think that people should just do it, instead of going to college. Like it should be a requirement. Like you can’t go to college until you’ve been out of high school for a year. Because you don’t know who you are when you’re 17 or 18.

Yeah, well, and you have no idea. You found something that says that students who have done gap years are more likely to graduate in four years, versus the national average of six years. Because they’re they’ve spent that Time kind of figuring out what they really want to do. And so they can actually go in, feel confident about what their major is, and not spend their time bouncing around changing majors every semester, until they figure out where they really are. Cuz I mean, I went into, I mean, I went in to college as a declared English Lit major. And then in three minutes was like, Oh, fuck no. I mean, literally, in during first year orientation, I was sitting there with all the other English majors, and I looked at the list of required reading that, like, they just listed out all like, basically all of the books you would be required to read over the course of however many years. And I was like, Whoa, want to read this shit. And so like, by the end of freshman orientation, I was like, Yeah, no, I don’t want to be an English Lit major. And so within like three weeks, I had changed to declare as a Spanish major. But like, I think so many students, and it worked out for me, like I Spanish was, it was a great, it was a great major for me. But, you know, there are like, I went into school. I didn’t even know for example, what anthropology was, I came from, like a tiny little high school like that. We had never talked about anthropology. Like, I had no idea that was a thing. And it was something that I ended up taking a lot of classes in and really loved. But I absolutely never would have gone in thinking like, I’m going to be an anthropology major, because I don’t even know what the fuck that was. Yeah, I

think especially. I mean, my school was so big. It’s so they had tons and tons and tons of majors. And there were there were kind of majored in Scandinavian studies, right? There’s no way you would have known that coming out of high school unless you happen to have parents that like are very into academic academia. And I know what colleges offer,

but and we’re also Scandinavian studies professors or so.

But yeah, like anthropology. I mean, it kind of did, because I studied archaeology for a while. I was just kind of into that stuff. But then, like, I don’t even know. I don’t there was just so much stuff. There’s so many topics like political science even realized you could just major in political science, and Kinesiology and nutrition. And you can major in nutrition without trying to become a nurse. Right? There’s, there’s a part of the reason why I really liked college is just because I was able to take such a wide variety of classes. And if I had stayed in college, as long as I’ve wanted just to take classes, I would have never graduated.

Oh, absolutely. I love I mean, I loved the learning. And like, I would absolutely, if I could just like go audit college classes. I do it all the time. Oh, yeah. I would love that.

The other thing about for me for taking time off, aside from so the main reason I had take time off is because I didn’t have any more money to pay for school. I mean, that’s fair. And I think right. A lot of people run up against that. Yeah, so I took two years off. But when I came back, it wasn’t just that I knew what I wanted to do more or less, because I also changed my major later on again. But like I was focused, and I actually did my homework, and I actually cared about doing well. When I took my freshman classes, I was so burnt out from high school, that I did not give a crap about any of it. Right? Because I had been in the gifted program since I was like, seven. And it’s just that like, you must push yourself further thing pressed upon you for your entire life. And that doesn’t work for everyone.

No, it doesn’t. And I’ll say I mean I did not take any time off. I went straight from being a child in gifted programs and AP classes and valedictorian of my high school class. And which sounds like a brag but my high school class was like 150 people it really was not that impressive. And then went straight into a my private liberal arts school which is which is a pretty let’s say, it’s a nerdy school. We are not a we’re not a party school. It’s not a it’s a I won’t. I don’t know if academically rigorous is the right term but like it’s a nerdy school and proceeded to push myself for that four years. And really it wasn’t. It wasn’t coming from my family. It wasn’t coming from my parents, it was all very internal for me. Of I have to graduate Summa Cum Laude, a like all of this shit. By the time I got to the end of that I was so burnt out, I was burnt out, by the time I got to my junior year and spent the next two years basically being like in this shit just be over. We just Can we just be fucking done. Because I was so exhausted. Like, I got to the end, and I was like, there’s no way I could ever go to grad school because why would I want to do more school after all of this? Yeah, I’m so tired.

I think the thing too, is that it part of the whole narrative of you have to go to college to get a good job. Bla bla bla bla bla, how many? How many people do you know are in jobs that directly relate to their major

therapists, doctors, therapists and like other medical doctors, okay, well, people that people that you hire, literally, like that’s it. Like, it’s people. It’s like, Doc, like, I know, therapists and doctors and lawyers. And they’re the ones why even like lawyers, like you can do any number of undergraduate degrees and then still go to law school. Allah l woods, but, um, like, there are so few nursing like medical things, and it’s basically like medical shit, right?

I mean, a bomb, that’s technically I Yeah, I was gonna say, Bob, I know, Bob. But also, I mean, to have a job like his, you don’t need a degree anymore, right? Practically, because so much of it, you just can learn. And it’s not necessarily something you would learn in a classroom. So it’s just so weird to me that we are, it’s good, because I think we’re not pushing it as much. And I know that I’m definitely trying to not push it on my kids. But the fact that people are finally like recognizing, oh, by, we actually don’t need to go to college to get the job that we want. Because you’re probably going to major in something that’s going to be not at all related to the job you end up in,

right and like, and then we have my husband, who has a degree in exercise science, kinesiology. And from us a school with a very, very strong kinesiology program. And he worked in that field for a couple of years, and then completely pivoted, and now he works in a restaurant where very clearly you do not need a degree. I mean, he has colleagues who have gone to culinary school, but that is extremely expensive. And quite frankly, unless you are specifically going to go work in like a Michelin starred restaurant, where there is a little bit more barrier to entry in those jobs. It’s not really necessary, you can learn if you really want to learn, and you’re willing to do the hands on work on the job to learn, you can learn everything you need to know on the job. So I mean, his his degree, that and that’s not to say that his time at college was completely useless. He has, I mean, aside from like, all of the social things, like there’s a lot of stuff that he got from his college experience that he takes with him into a professional experience. But it’s not necessarily the piece of paper. I think there’s a lot about I mean, just the college experience in general is so much about growing up. Yeah. And learning how to human. Yeah. And I think that is really what a lot of people you know, when they think about college, and if they’re nostalgic for it, that is really the experience that you’re looking back on. You’re not being like, Oh, yeah, I love that lecture hall so amazing. That I really loved but well I’m a super classes by Napa like 200 people lecture halls. I do not it’s actually really funny because So, Alex, Alex and I had, you know, very different college experiences, just in many, many different ways. But he was laughing because, like his school he went to so our schools are like a mile down the road from each other. But I went to the little small nerdy school and he went to the state school, and when they have homecoming, it’s like all about the football game. It is all about the tailgating It is all about like, Let’s go, you know, pregame tailgate, let’s go afterwards we’ll get together like, drink, drink, drink. And at my school, yes, there’s a football game, but I can’t tell you anybody that actually goes to it. Because when we do homecoming, it’s like, let’s get back together with all of our professors we really loved and like maybe have some wine and cheese. And that’s weird. Like, dying for my, my best friend from college. And I like going back to homecoming and being so excited to like, see our professors and like, talk to us, like, You’re such a fucking nerd.

First of all, I cannot imagine having a social function with one of my professors. That is just

I mean, that’s also. I mean, that’s, that also was a big difference of going to a very small school was the class sizes. I think the largest class I ever had was my freshman psych, I took like, psych, 101, or whatever, for one of my Gen Ed’s. And I, there were probably 40 students in that class. And I think that was like the biggest class I ever had. Many of my many of my classes, especially like, as I got to, like my junior and senior years, and they were like, my, my major level classes. I think I had one Spanish class that was like, there was like, five of us in the class. And when, when you have like, and that was what the professor that I’d had a few times already. And so like, you really get to know your professor, one of my college professors came to our way and like, you know, I still keep in touch with him, like he would have students over to his house for dinner, like he would have, you know, his it was he was an anthropology professor. He’d have like his anthropology major students over a couple times a year for a dinner at his house like you, there’s a different level of relationship that you establish with a professor. There’s like six of you in a class versus when there’s like, 600 of you. So that’s, I mean, that was definitely that definitely contributed to like some differences of like, Oh, yes, I have XYZ. Professor, I want to see you and Alex is like, I don’t know, maybe there’s one Oh, fucking No. But then also, my school comes a knockin for those alumni donations a whole lot more often than Illinois State.

Yeah, my school randomly started sending me the alumni magazine for my department. And I was like, why? First of all, they had not sent it to me for like 10 years. And then all of a sudden, they started setting it out later, right. We didn’t know where she was, but now we have her address. You don’t need my money school, you already got my buddy, I went to school there. That is how you get my money. That’s how

you get your money. I used to this, this is somewhat tangential. But I, I saw I used to give to my school and not a ton. And it was only when I really had the the extra income. So it’s only been in the, you know, in in recent years. And I used to be involved a little bit more involved with some programs, particularly that impacted the female students and female identifying students on campus. But I have recently divested from that because, well, for a lot of reasons, but you know, sometimes when you go depending on the school, particularly if you go to a private institution, the administration speaks the language of money, and they follow the donors, and they do what the donors want. And if people stop donating then because they are acting like racist dick wads, then sometimes that speaks louder than just saying hey, can we not act like racist dickwad? So I had to make the decision that like, you know, I really enjoyed my time at school and have a lot of great memories, but it’s not. The school is not the same as it was when I was there. And they’re doing some things that I think are extremely problematic, and I’m not okay with. And I’d be like, you know what, I literally wrote them an email. And I was like, until this changes, you don’t even bother contacting me, take me off of all of your email lists, don’t call me, I’ll call you did work to my number of emails decrease significantly. But anyway, you know, so that’s, I think that is also a difference of between that, like public and private is what happens after you leave? How much are they going to come knock in?

Well, so our, our school does not really, you know, hassle us too much. But I did live in Texas for 10 years, or 15 years. And, you know, basically, life is all about UT during the school year. And that was the alumni for UT. Man. We, I have never, I don’t know that there’s any. I mean, sure it maybe there are. But I have definitely not experienced a more fervent group of alumni than the UT alumni effort. I mean, there’s certain things about UT that are really great, but there are tons of things that are extremely problematic. Yeah. And just recently, they’ve basically they’ve been having some problems about whether they should continue on with their kind of racist school song, and they basically, back down to the alumni about it. It’s a little bit more complicated than that. But

But sometimes, sometimes it’s a little bit more complicated than that, but not really that much, but not really basically. Yeah, it’s the A lot of times, it’s the straight white men who got their business degrees, and they have those deep pockets. Yeah. And they I know, at least in the case of my school, often they were from a few specific fraternities. And they want to see all of their programs that they were involved in continuing. So they funnel money into those things. And so those fraternities often don’t get. They often don’t face consequences when they act horribly. Because oh my gosh, we don’t want to anger the alumni, because they might stop giving, et cetera, et cetera.

You Yeah, yeah. That that’s par for the course, there’s a really, really good business school at UT. And there’s a lot of oil money in Texas. So it’s a lot of not also football is like the saying, Yeah, so it’s all tied in together. And it’s really disappointing for all of my friends who went there and have more progressive ideals and goals that they wish that their school could represent.

Right. And it is, it is really disappointing, especially again, like if you had a really positive experience, and you had any particular affinity for your school to then see, that is becoming a place that you wouldn’t want your children to go. Without, like significant changes. That is a disappointing thing. But again, like, I also think that we’re coming into a time, where are we going to push her kids to go to college? I don’t know. I also think the other thing that I think I think a lot of things, I think, I think on this particular topic is I think that we are we are starting to really examine how we frame different jobs. So like I said at the top of the episode, you know, for like our generation, they used flipping burgers at a fast food restaurant as like the lowest thing that you could do and that was what was you were going to do if you only had your high school degree. And I think we’re coming into an age where like, we’re understanding that there is nothing wrong with that being your job that there’s not it’s not like a people here are skilled workers. Every job requires a level of skill. And I think that I think that Gosh, what’s his name? Dan price. Is that his name? Yes. Um, so we love Dan price. We, we love I want to say we stand and price I don’t know if that’s the right use of the word, Stan.

But I think it is but I think I don’t know if the kids are still using that.

It’s hard to say where The old it’s fine. Um, so we he is the CEO of gravity payments. And he’s a pretty awesome dude, we both follow him on LinkedIn. I also follow him on Instagram. I don’t know if you do as well, I also follow him on Instagram and on Twitter. So so you’re like an even bigger fan. Um, oh, so he, I just looked it up. He says he had a post last week that said, there’s no such thing as a, quote, low skilled job, only low paid jobs, I see that as someone who’s worked at as, as a prep cook at an Outback Steakhouse, and as a CEO, both required hard work and skills. And so I think I think we’re coming into, and I hope we’re coming into more of an age where there’s less of a delineation between like, this is these are the Skilled Worker jobs that you can get with your college degree versus like, here are the jobs that maybe do require a little bit more specialty education. But that doesn’t make them that they don’t have any more inherit, like value, then the jobs that don’t necessarily require the same to the same level of education.

Do you know what I mean? I do know what you mean. And I think one thing that has really helped promote this idea is the pandemic. Yeah. Because obviously, doctors and nurses are extremely, extremely important. But also, it showed how important grocery store workers are, it showed how important restaurant workers are to people. And especially now that we’re coming out of it, and the minimum wage has become a sticking point for a lot of people as it should be, because it’s preposterously low, that people, people are seeing, you know, fast food, places that are either short staffed or completely closed, because people have quit because they don’t want to work for peanuts. Right? And they get super angry about it, because they can’t get a cheeseburger. Right. So it’s interesting, because on the one hand, they denigrate the people that work there. But they also very much want the thing that those people feel entitled to give to them. Yes,

right, exactly entitled to that thing, that that service that they’re providing. You know, I think also our generation has been saddled, just speaking sort of generally across the board, our generations have been saddled with so much student loan debt. And because College has become so expensive, like I just looked up what the current cost of my university is, and I wanted to pass out how much what percent, you know, percentage went up by from when I was in school? Yeah. So when, like, well, if I’m remembering correctly, approximately what it was when I was in school, and what I’m seeing here as the 2019 2020, undergraduate tuitions and fees, it’s like a 25% increase.

Yeah.

So he

noticed I so when I’m to school, it was like, I think I just recently had checked what ours were when we were talking about college most recently in our household. And it went up by like, I don’t know, 300%, or like, some insane maybe not 300%. I don’t know how to do math and percentage. I was not a math major. Okay, we did language you guys. Um, but it went up in some insane amount, because it was like maybe $2,000 a year or something when I went to school the first semester, and now it’s definitely not it’s not 10 times that, but it’s at least five times that right now. So like, so that so

the private universities around our area. There, they’re ranging. And this is just with a super quick google search, you guys. I’m just this has not been like fact checked. But super quick. Google search is showing the low end of $35,000 and the high end of $50,000. That’s painful. Uh huh. And my school does not necessarily give great financial aid. I definitely had one of the highest scholarships in my class, and it still was only like 12,000 a year. Which was still only like, it’s, I mean, I didn’t even come close to covering all of it. Um, and so, you know, like, the all that to say, school is fucking expensive. And I think that, you know, our generation, as we’re, as we are seeing that because of student loans, so much student loan debt, and it, our degrees may or may not make a huge difference in getting a job that pays a lot of money out of college. Like, I know, so many people that they have postponed buying houses and getting married and having kids because of all of this, I think that that is dramatically going to change how our kids how we like teach our kids to view college. I think so too.

Because it’s aside from, you know, the cost of college itself, there’s so much extra costs associated with it. I mean, there’s, you have to live somewhere, you have to suddenly feed yourself. So it’s not just tuition, it’s everything else that goes along with it. And then books are like $1,000 a year. So it’s, it’s a lot of things, but I know that at our house whenever it comes up, because my kids 13. And so every once in a while he’s like panics about college. We try to be like, you know, like, you don’t have to go to college, you don’t want to and if you don’t even know what you want to do. Like, why? Why go to college? If you don’t know what you want to do, please don’t wait anyway. Right? Well, and that’s the other thing, too, is that there’s I you know, whether your parents help you or not, then because when I was a kid, a lot of my parents didn’t really they gave me some money for college, but not you know that it definitely didn’t pay for all of college at all. And I, part of the reasoning was that my dad was like, he will appreciate it more. You have to like pay for it yourself. Which, on the one hand, yes, that is very true, because I had to work really hard to be able to go to college. At the time, I did not like that idea. Yeah, doesn’t sound so great to an 18 year old. No, um, but as we are trying to prepare our kids for going to college, and they do have college funds. I’m trying to also prepare them and my husband with the idea that we are not paying for all of college. Yeah. Or if they don’t go to college, we’re not paying for all of whatever it is they choose to do. Like they we will help them but as a lot of financial experts remind you is that you can get a loan for college, even though loans suck, but you can get a loan for college and you can’t get a loan for retirement. Yeah. So I think there’s so many things tied up into deciding whether to go and how to pay for it. And, you know, the kids seen how our lives are going. I think there’s gonna be a lot of interesting shifts over the next few years. Yeah. Especially now that we’ve all done school from home for a whole year. Yeah. And a lot of these colleges, you know, they’re paying their full tuition price to learn from a computer. So

we’ll see what happens. Yeah.

Yeah, I definitely it’ll, it’s gonna be it’s gonna be interesting. And I know, I know, a lot of these, especially the private schools are really having to face the music and figure out what they’re going to do because because, you know, so this the, the folks that were graduating when the recession hit in 2008. Again, they put off having kids for a while, and now, we’re at a point where those kids should have been like looking at going to college, but there’s fewer of them. So fewer of them are going into college. We’re also like reaching a point where college is so expensive, like there’s there’s all of these barriers to entry. And it’s really impacting a lot of private institutions, I know that it has impacted my university in a lot of different ways. And so I think a lot of schools are really going to have to figure out how they can pivot or they’re going to close their doors, which sucks. But I think it is a reality that they’re going to have to face because, I mean, a lot of it, like they can’t continue along the path that they are. And I know a lot of schools are cutting programs that, like major programs that just don’t make them as much money, because it’s like the artsy fartsy kids who get out of school, and they don’t make as much money as the kids that go in and get their business degrees. And so, you know, when you have your artsy fartsy students, and their alumni give you $25 a year and your business students come back and give you $25,000 a year. Makes it look, I don’t know, there’s just a lot to it. There’s a lot more politics involved in higher education. Oh, yeah. You think when you’re just like a high school student applying to college and thinking about like, what dorm life is going to be?

have plenty of friends who have worked in academia, and it’s, it’s not a fun life. It’s about you do it for the joy? It sounds like, huh? Yeah. Well, you know, what? If so, I think there’s gonna be a lot of changes over the next few years, I think. I mean, just in general, I think, I think a lot of stuff is going to be changing. And I look at my kid, and you know, he’s an annoying teenager, but he is, he’s pretty with it. Yeah, a lot of the time, and a lot of a lot of things that are happening. And I know I just I’m, I’m looking forward to seeing like, what, Hey, does sound super old here. But I’m like, I’m looking forward to seeing what the kids do with the world. Right? No, like I am. Like, I’m really optimistic about them.

Well, and like, it’s interesting, because we’ve got your oldest, who’s 13, your youngest to seven. And then we’ve got Eden, who’s one. And so they’re sort of like, Morrow. All closely, like equidistant of restante, Max and the Max out to eat it. And so it’s, it’s gonna be interesting to see, like, how those years between them affect all of their experiences as they graduate and like, leave the nest. Yeah. Over the next sale. I’m like talking about that. And the other room asleep, and I’m like, No, you’re gonna leave man. 18 years. Okay. My God. Yeah, it’s gonna be really interesting to see. So I think I think that, you know, we just spent a lot of time talking about how is college worth it or not? And I’ll be honest, I think that that that answer is going to vary from person to person, like, you could talk to people who have the same degree and went to the same college at the same time, and their answers of whether going to college was worth it for them are going to vary immensely. But I do think that it’ll, it’ll be interesting to see how, what that landscape looks like in the future. And I do think that there’s still a lot of great things that can come from a college experience. Even if it’s not like a full on a four year degree program. Yeah. You know,

one thing that I will one thing that I will highly advocate for as we wrap up here is the college or not college experience of living alone. Oh my god. Yes. Yeah, I think everyone should live alone. Everyone should live alone at least once in their life.

Yes. I really, really, really agree with that, especially women.

Yes, and I know it’s scary, but I think it’s so important. Oh my god. I loved living alone. It was so great. It was loved my little apartment?

Did I yeah, I had this like little 600 square foot apartment, it was just me and the cats. And it was, it was great. Like, I don’t know, it was and I was only on my own for like a couple of years before Alex and I started dating, and then we moved in together. But it was really, it was a really important time for me to learn how to pay off by pay my own bills and learn and learn how to, you know, I found my apartments on my own and apply for them on my own. And, like, I just did all of these things on my own. Did I still make my dad take my car to change my oil? Absolutely. Most of these things have to do with my car, you’ll notice when my headlights would burn out, would I still go down to the AutoZone and flirt with the cashier to get him to actually put the new headlight in the car for me? Absolutely, I did. But in spite of that, they’re still like things that, you know, buying my first vacuum, like, I don’t know shit like that. Like there’s Yes. There’s some really learning how to meal plan, learning how to like, how much food do I need? How do I

cook from as much money can I actually spend to buy the food that I need?

Right, like what’s leftover to go out with my friends? Like? All of these are things that I think are really important skills. So yeah, I totally agree that being on your own is really important. And like you could have a roommate. I will say like, we don’t i think that i think that everybody, I think it’s an important thing to like.

So I think there’s two things I think it’s important to live alone, like a completely alone. And it’s important to also at some point in your life have a roommate, that is not your boyfriend,

that last girlfriend I mean, I did in the dorm, I guess that counts. Yeah, that counts. I hated it. It was the worst. I hated having roommates. It’s a very small space. I will. I will also I will also I mean, I know that I know that like, depending on where people live or what their financial situation is, like, living completely by themselves is sometimes not possible. And so they have a roommate, but often the roommate is sort of like, they literally just cohabitate, there’s not. You know, I think that when I say live on your own, I mostly mean like, live financially independent from someone else. Ah, yeah, I mean, completely alone. Yeah, I mean, I do think that that would be super valuable if you have the financial means to do that. Yeah,

I do. It’s definitely not as easy now than it was when I was in college. Yeah, for sure. It’s definitely it’s definitely I think my rent was like, $400 a month. God bless you. It was a long time ago.

The Dark Ages. So yeah, I mean, if you have the means to finance, if you have the financial means to do so, I do think that that is absolutely I think you absolutely should do that. But if you cannot do that, then I do think that at least like living in it in a way that where you are not financially, where you are financially independent from your parents, or, you know, that roommate where like, maybe you share your, you know, you split rent, and you split utilities, but, you know, you’re still having to budget for your groceries, you’re still having to budget for you know, your clothes, and you’re all going out, like all of that stuff, you’re still having to like, figure, you know, figure out like, Okay, if I want to buy this new couch, what’s that gonna look like? XYZ? I think that that is still I think that that’s really important. So, yes, they’re just smart skills, you know, and then also we think it, there’s some level of like, knowing how to do that stuff is important. Like, even if you’re in a romantic relationship where your partner is in charge of the bills, like, God forbid something terrible happened to them, you see, you do need to know how to do this shit. Um, but then also, I don’t know, there’s like a level of you figure out what’s important to you. Like, just you. Yeah. And then you can kind of carry that with you into a romantic partnership. of like, these are the things that are important to me, not because they were important to my parents, not because They were important to a boyfriend, not because they were important to my sister that I lived with or whatever. They’re important. They’re, they’re my priority things and how can we balance our priority things? How can I advocate for my priority thing or figure out how to compromise it with your priority thing? I don’t know. You know, those are their thoughts. I agree.

I mean, I think it’s, it’s the same thing related to college itself. Like, go figure out how to advocate for yourself and figure out your priorities with whether or not you want to go to college. Like if you want to go be a motorcycle mechanic, like, you don’t need to go to college for that.

tell you that was the shittiest part of just like, leaving the nest was that like, my mom wouldn’t make my decisions for me anymore. I’d like color and I’d be like, I don’t know what to do about this thing. And she would be like, honey, I can’t tell you what to do. You have to make this decision on your own. And I’m like, but I don’t want to be like, that’s too damn bad. You have to do it. And how else are you gonna learn Steffi? She grew up have to do this and I’m like, I don’t I don’t wanna man. Damn her for giving me good adulting skills. damper for loving me enough to let me go and make me be an adult to my own. Damn parents.

What’s bringing us joy?

All right, Megan.

What’s bringing you joy this week.

So I chest recipes for work. And this past month involved a pie. Next month actually is all pies. So I was very excited for the prelude to the pie. And I was fretting about the pie crust because I am notoriously poor at making pie crust. They’re not like the most disgusting pipercross you’ve ever had or anything like that. I just get really frustrated. Because basically, I’ve always insisted on using all butter crust. And butter is a pain in the butt to make pie crust from for various reasons. And I have cried over many pipercross in my kitchen. It’s not hyperbole, I literally have cried about that. So the recipe that I was testing this for just said to use any pie crust recipe, but he did say I like the one on the Crisco can so I was like well, I have some Crisco. I will make the one on the Crisco can. And goddamnit. If that wasn’t the most perfect fucking pie crust I’ve

ever made.

It was really solid pie crust because I had I had some of it. It was a it was a really solid pipercross It was great.

It came together perfectly. It rolled out pretty great. It came nice and flaky. It held up it was cooked on the bottom. I made my first lattice with it. It’s pretty proud of that stupid pie. It’s bringing me joy that I basically like now I’ve accepted. I’ve accepted shortname in pie crust, because it makes beautiful.

This brings me a lot of joy because so I grew up on all Crisco crust. And

I grew up on rolled out because Pillsbury crust. I do not think we ever made our own pie crust.

I just I grew up with a mom that made pie crust and ruined all of the family for storebought pie crust. And it was it was one of those things where she would be like, why did I ever start making homemade pie crust because now I have to and I can’t get away with storebought shit anymore. And I was like, No, you certainly can’t. She always made excellent progress. And so her recipe, her progress was to be slightly different than the like official Crisco recipe but very, very, very close. So that’s what I grew up on with orcas go and then as an adult now I have transitioned and I do half butter, half Crisco. And I say Crisco very specifically because it is the only shortening allowed in my house. None of this storebrand shit Crisco only and because both fats serve different purposes in the pie crust, so I do half and half and the end the It’s enough Crisco that it makes it easy, pretty easy to work with, even though there’s still some butter in it. So I was very excited when you were like I’ve opened my mind to shortly NEMA paragraphs. So, this is the way Come to my site. I love making pie crust I abs. I mean, there are times where it

was so much more. It was much more joyous. Make it that way because I like rolled it out and then I did the little like you fold it into a triangle and then I put in the thing and it was like a work. I was like, What is happening here?

Yeah, my mind is blown. It is absolutely it’s Yeah, I cuz I definitely have friends that are like, why do you love making progress? I’m like, maybe it’s because I have. I’m not an all butter pie crust snob, I don’t know. But when I feed people pie my pies, they’re never like, this is not an all butter cross. They’re like this pies fucking delicious. This crust is amazing. And I’m like, thank you, I will take all of your compliments.

I will say though, a couple of days ago, I was watching Instagram stories. And joy the Baker was making pie crust. And she was using a method that she got from someone else. And I’m really sorry to that person that cannot remember your name. But she was using frozen butter. Oh, she just cut it into chunks like into type tablespoon pieces. And then just kind of worked it all together. While the butter was still frozen. He she didn’t like break it up with a pastry cutter or anything.

I’ve seen where people do that, except they like grate it in. That’s different though.

Like I’ve done it with the grading. And I’ve done that with like for scones and things but the butter was still like enormous pieces. Interesting. It was really fascinating to watch. I don’t know if she made it a highlight. But um, it was it was really cool. And it totally worked out perfectly fine. And so my mind was, again blown.

totally blown about pie crust.

I love it. I love pie crust. I love pie. It’s my favorite. favorite thing to eat. And my favorite thing to make so high is definitely above cake. Oh, like 1,000% lenders like naughty bad competition. This is why we’re friends. It absolutely is. Because also like we both will just like not eat the frosting on the outside of cake. Usually too much frostings too much for I just need a little bit of frosting. Just Just a smidgen. Just a little? Yeah. Just a little bit. Yes.

Anyway, yeah, I do not want a cupcake or the amount of frosting is equal to the amount of cupcake that’s lasting. It’s too much I will let anyway. Feel like some people are probably listening and they’re like we’re throwing down

I know some of the people that are probably like Hi Daddy. I love you. I know you love cake. But we don’t love k we just like pie more. My

problem in general with the whole frosting situation is that a lot of bakeries put all of their emphasis on the frosting Yeah, and or other toppings on top of the frosting and not the cake and the cake has been the cake is terrible. Yes, that is my main issue with frosting. it cracks

me up when I will like make a cake or make cupcakes or something and feed them to people. They’re like this cake isn’t dry at all. And I’m like that’s like the fucking lowest bar. Like I don’t I mean like Thank you. I’m glad I’ve changed your mind about cake. But also like to me that’s like the low like the lowest of the low bars like yeah, anyway. Anyway, it’s only such a culinary asshole in this episode. I

I mean, it’s like you got the one side with the cvwd and then the other side was like we use Crisco whatevs.

You know what? It all has its place like contain multitude, we can contain multitude. I could. I mean, I could be really nerdy and go into the scientific reasons of why the you need both the shortening and the butter and the crust to get that perfect, tender, flaky crust, but I will spare

you maybe maybe we’ll save that for a Thanksgiving tips episode.

Oh, that’s a great idea. I’m somebody write that down. Um, Stephie What’s bringing you joy? I have two things. One, your peony bushes are bringing me joy. I can’t believe I forgot to say my II wish. I really thought that was going to be your joy. Um, so Megan has along the side of their house. Like I don’t even know how many there are. The flowers I tried to count how many bushes how many plummeting bush are. Um,

I mean, I think I counted them when I trimmed them in the fall, but I don’t remember whether

it’s like you can easily it doesn’t. I would say that was pretty easily it doesn’t Yeah. 10 to 12 peony bushes just in a row. There’s

at least Yeah, I mean, because there’s At least 100 flowers on there right now.

Oh my god, it’s beautiful. They’re this like, really lovely like mid pink. They’re not like light pink. They’re not because the ones that I have one of the ones that I have is like fuchsia. And this is just like sort of a mid shade of pink. And I drove by your house today. And they are in full bloom. I mean, at least 100 flowers and I know that you’ve cut a bunch of them to put in the house like they are so beautiful peonies are my favorite flowers, and they aren’t so gorgeous

that I wish I had cut more to begin with because I had only cut a few when they were first blooming, like thinking that they would last a little bit longer and then all of a sudden, like we woke up over the weekend and they were just like

yeah, it was Yeah, cuz I think I like drove by your house like a few days ago and there was like a couple and then it was just like this flood of flowers and it just made me so happy to drive by and see them because it is like absolute goals for me. Um, and then the other thing bringing me joy is both of the dogs went to the groomer today and they both got baths and they smell so much better. Plus for my poor German Shepherd has been blowing his coat because it all sudden just got really warm and so there’s just been fucking for everywhere. And you can also like just tell he feels better because it got all the extra fur off of him. And then Anya also got a bath and she just smells so much nicer. So my not stinky dogs.

That is pretty great. I love not stinky dog. My dog is not super stinky right now. She had a bath last week, because last week it rained a bunch and she decided to roll around in the mud. She came in the house. It wasn’t actively raining either. It was like it was even like a couple days after I feel like it had stopped raining. But the ground was still kind of moist. I guess. She came in and she was so dirty. My dog is part white. So when she could sturdy like you can see all of it. All of that

picture on your Instagram stories. And I mean like it’s one of those where it’s like the mud monster has entered the house.

She was so happy about it, too. There’s like a giant splotch on the on her neck that was like black of dirt. She was thrilled when she got a bath.

It reminded me a little bit of today, Eden played in the sandbox for the first time and she looked a little bit like mystery.

Oh, yeah, sure.

But then she, it’s been dry. But also we’ve been we planted grass. Because a lot of the yard is just like dirt and mulching nonsense. So you have planted grass and we have an L open now for her to run through. And first of all, she has decided that it is really fun to roll around on my hostas. Oh, sure. And then so if you see if you come in my yard and you see some squishy ones, those are the ones she rolls on. Those are her rolling hostas, okay, um, but then in the grass, she just rolls around in the grass for like, for forever. She’s so happy. She’ll like roll around for a little while. And then she’ll get up and sniff it again and roll around again. Get up and sniff it again. She was thrilled she did that today for it seemed like 10 minutes. And then she ran laps around the yard. And then she came in the house to grass stains all over the top of her head. The hazards of being a white short haired dog. I know it’s like the you know the it’s fine. Do I the only reason I can see is because you’re white. So I would totally not notice if she was a brown dog. Right?

Oh my gosh, I love it. I wish anything brought me as much joy as just running around like a doofus in the backyard breaks your dog.

I know. She’s She’s a happy girl. I love that.

Next week’s episode

Well, next week, we are going to talk about the things that we share and the things that we keep private.

You know, I think with social media growing and growing and growing, trying to determine that boundary between our public life and our private life has become a little bit harder. So we’re going to we’re gonna chat about that. In the meantime, leave us a review on Apple podcasts and listen to us on your favorite platform. You can also follow us on social media at irsipodcast or send us an email at idratherstayinpodcast@gmail.com. We’d love to hear from you. Bye

Transcribed by https://otter.ai