College help? Need ideas!

[Ray]

Have you considered Penn State?

When my son was looking, he really didn't know what he wanted to do, and came to the (surprisingly) mature decision that "it's in-state, and when I decide what I want to do, they're bound to have it."

Granted, PSU ain't the cheapest in-state school, but it is a damned good one.

[Call_Me_Bob]

Originally Posted by vjo

The only thing that I really know is that after all you have said it seems to me that you are a VERY well rounded, ambicious and intellegent young man. You will be a success at anything you do!! There is no reason that you have to decide on a major immediately. Choose one, or two and if you decide differently, change, it is not a crime to do so! Very few people know at your age what they want to be doing when they are 40 years old.Remember that any education is NEVER useless even if all that you learn is that you dont want to go that route. Have fun and dont take life too seriously, the time will come when you may have to but that time is not now! You have a lot of interests now but who knows, 5 years from now there may be a lot of other that take their place.
This is all coming from a 70 year old grandma that probably doesnt know what she is talking about in this day and age so take from this what you can use and forget the rest...lol Jean

I posted this on a few different forums, just to get more advice. This post is best out of all of them though! Thanks for the encouragement, I really needed it after having a lot of people on a different forum tell me I'm crazy and destined to fail. S thanks!

Originally Posted by Ray

Have you considered Penn State?

When my son was looking, he really didn't know what he wanted to do, and came to the (surprisingly) mature decision that "it's in-state, and when I decide what I want to do, they're bound to have it."

Granted, PSU ain't the cheapest in-state school, but it is a damned good one.

I have considered PSU, its a great school. But its cold there! Well that's not really important and I won't decide by that :P The only problem would be that PSU is a VERY VERY good volleyball school. Sounds great right? Well I'm not gonna lie to myself, I probably wouldn't be good enough to play for them. Not because of the technical skill, but I am only 6'3/4" in the volleyball world, that's short. Its hard to get looked at from a good DI school without being at least 6'4". So I'm focusing on DII, because I think if i work hard I will be able to play at a DII school. Who knows, if I work really hard I may be able to play at one of the lesser DI schools, but I'm just being honest when I say I probably won't be able to play at PSU. I have played for 7 years so far, but I simply am not tall even to play with people that huge.

[Leafmite]

You might want to consider intramurals. They can be a great way to meet people and have fun. I played on a intramural team in college. Penn State probably has intramural volleyball teams.

[Franco24]

I know where you're coming from - as I myself went through this stage of serious life choices about a year or two ago. My passions have always been fish keeping and growing orchids - and when it came down to declaring a major I had no idea what to do. After much thought and debate - I'm currently a Biology major at the Richard Stockton of NJ with a double minor in hort/botany and marine biology. And i absolutely love it here! (it just so happens i may be going out for volleyball as well - its another enjoyment of mine, but im finding i dont have much time for it after work, school, orchids, and seahorses) I plan to work in conservation along with teaching at a highschool/college level.

On another note - I've been networking a lot and have alright got my foot halfway in the door of a career. Orchid are an addiction and at one point my collection was up and over 300. At that point I decided to venture into dividing and selling orchids. I've contacted the USDA and had them come out and inspect my collection and am now a certified nursery in the state of NJ to grow and sell orchids within the 50 US stated and PR. I stated bringing in plants from wholesalers growing them up and selling them - its proven to be quite profitable and I'm hoping to have the funds for a large greenhouse by the fall of 2013 ... I'm not far from it.

At the age of 19 I've became a certified grower, nursery, and retailer of orchids along with a line of internships lined up through my college working with plants and marine bio (I also breed seahorses - but that's a whole nother story) ... I've been acknowledged by many big names in the orchid world and have made some life-long friends from this hobby. I have lunch/dinner plans with Chris Rehmann (immediate past president of the AOS) along with Andy, Harry, and Jennifer Phillips of Andy's Orchids this April at the SEPOS show for example.

Anyways after all that rambling - sorry if I lost anyone - I guess what I'm trying to say is that you have to go with your heart. Pursue your true dreams and don't let anyone stop or tell you otherwise. To lead a happy and successful life one must enjoy what they do for a career - otherwise it is simply that - not a career. If you love what you do for work - it will feel like you've never worked a day in your life.

Cheers!
Franco Franchina

[Franco24]

And I wouldn't have been able to be where I am, and possess all my knowledge about the orchid world, if it wasn't for everyone here at the Orchid Board! You guys are the greatest.

And I too - thank you!

[Call_Me_Bob]

Originally Posted by Leafmite

You might want to consider intramurals. They can be a great way to meet people and have fun. I played on a intramural team in college. Penn State probably has intramural volleyball teams.

While intramurals can be great, I really want to play competitively. For he most part intramurals are at a low level of play. And while i may not be tall enough to easily play at PSU, I am good enough to play at a high level, which is what I want to pursue.

Originally Posted by Franco24

I know where you're coming from - as I myself went through this stage of serious life choices about a year or two ago. My passions have always been fish keeping and growing orchids - and when it came down to declaring a major I had no idea what to do. After much thought and debate - I'm currently a Biology major at the Richard Stockton of NJ with a double minor in hort/botany and marine biology. I plan to work in conservation along with teaching at a highschool/college level.

On another note - I've been networking a lot and have alright got my foot halfway in the door of a career. Orchid are an addiction and at one point my collection was up and over 300. At that point I decided to venture into dividing and selling orchids. I've contacted the USDA and had them come out and inspect my collection and am now a certified nursery in the state of NJ to grow and sell orchids within the 50 US stated and PR. I stated bringing in plants from wholesalers growing them up and selling them - its proven to be quite profitable and I'm hoping to have the funds for a large greenhouse by the fall of 2013 ... I'm not far from it.

At the age of 19 I've became a certified grower, nursery, and retailer of orchids along with a line of internships lined up through my college working with plants and marine bio (I also breed seahorses - but that's a whole nother story) ...

Anyways after all that rambling - sorry if I lost anyone - I guess what I'm trying to say is that you have to go with your heart. Pursue your true dreams and don't let anyone stop or tell you otherwise. To lead a happy and successful life one must enjoy what they do for a career - otherwise it is simply that - not a career. If you love what you do for work - it will feel like you've never worked a day in your life.

Cheers!
Franco Franchina

Interested, one of my other hobbies is fishkeeping and planted aquaria! thats another obsession in itself! haha!

Thats really good to know that you were able to do that though! I would really like to breed orchids, but if i were to try and follow your path, I would be able to buy wholesale and sell and also breed my own and once those are selling size sell both!

So you majored in bio and minored in hort/marine bio? for the bio major, how much of it was like the human body and cell-biology? Because those are two things I really dislike!

[Franco24]

-Added a little more to my previous long post -

I'm just now getting into my mid-upper level biology (I barely survived cell-biology -- I passed the class with a C- ) ... But this is why I love RSC - I get to choose where I want to take my upper level bio classes. I can opt out of anatomy and stuff like that to take plant physiology, botany, marine botany, and other similar course that all account the same as human anatomy would. I am therefor able to mould my biology degree into what I really need it to be and focus in on what I would use it for while earning it.

[Call_Me_Bob]

Originally Posted by Franco24

-Added a little more to my previous long post -

I'm just now getting into my mid-upper level biology (I barely survived cell-biology -- I passed the class with a C- ) ... But this is why I love RSC - I get to choose where I want to take my upper level bio classes. I can opt out of anatomy and stuff like that to take plant physiology, botany, marine botany, and other similar course that all account the same as human anatomy would. I am therefor able to mould my biology degree into what I really need it to be and focus in on what I would use it for while earning it.

That's cool! I'm afraid I will get into something like Bio and then be stuck dying through cell biology and bio chemistry. Biology is by far my least favorite of the science classes I have taken...and I;m taking physics now, I don't like physics but its leaps and bounds better than bio. I really hated bio....It looks like I will have to take some bio courses though, but I don;t know about majoring in it.

[gardengirl13]

Here's some advice from someone who was told I just needed a college degree, it doesn't matter what it is in. Of course this was the '90's when a lot of kids didn't go to college and any old degree was worth slightly more then it is now.

if you want to teach college level you'll need a terminal degree, meaning a PhD or a masters in something there is no PhD available in. The state colleges here (NY) require this. For some strange reason they think this will help them get students over the private schools. They'd rather have those letters behind your name then have someone who may be passionate and wonderful in their field. Some private schools will be the same, as a way of weeding out candidates I guess. So unless you want to go far with your education teaching at the college level may be a challenge. My husband who will soon has a second masters still would have a VERY hard time finding a teaching job even though he has two years teaching experience. He's not interested in it right now though so it doesn't matter, but with the jobs he's looking to get teaching will be a slight part of in, just not in the classroom.

Make sure you also have those other letters behind your name if you're interested in plants, things like memberships to NHS, AOS etc...

Coming from an arts background one thing I had to do to graduate is take small business management. I know others here have said this too, taking these courses will help you learn the skills for managing your own business, whatever that may be.

If you're interested and do weddings then maybe you can do an all in one type of thing. Have a greenhouse do the orchids and other plants, have people do arranging for weddings etc... and you can also shoot weddings. You can be the florist and photographer. We have places around here where people have bought old farms fixed them up and do weddings out of them. They put in greenhouses, some nice enough to do the ceremony in them, and do the weddings, flowers and photography all in one spot. On the off season you can do orchid breeding, and maybe something like an online store too. Depending on how you want to work with plants you can also do some landscape design too. But I wouldn't do all this in one obviously! Many of the state schools in NY have botany, landscape design, hort., etc... and have classes you can take in all kinds of things like flower arranging etc...

With your in's in photography and other things you should be able to build clients fairly quickly. You could even have your own greenhouse and do the photography at weddings on the side somehow through the company you already work for.

The only thing limiting you is your imagination!

[orchidsarefun]

why don't you become an AOS judge in the meantime ? I don't know if they have an age or HED minimum requirements, but doing this now will certainly help you in many ways.