The Worst Advice Parents Can Give First-Year Students

 

When I was a teenager, nearly fifty years ago, my parents dropped me off for my freshman year of college. It was a momentous day, filled with excitement and a little bit of fear. That day marked the beginning of my long journey through higher education, a path that would take me from being a wide-eyed undergraduate to a graduate student, a professor, an administrator, and eventually a parent to three college students.

Over the years, I’ve watched students stumble and struggle, but I’ve also had the privilege of witnessing them bloom into remarkable scholars. It’s an incredible thing to see young men and women take their education and turn it into something extraordinary—something you could never have predicted. And now, as another new batch of freshmen prepare to step onto college campuses, parents across the country are packing up cars and saying their goodbyes. As those goodbyes are exchanged, many will pull their kids aside to offer a few last words of advice.

Here’s the thing, though: Most of that advice will be wrong.

It’s not that parents mean to steer their kids in the wrong direction. They want what’s best for their children. They hope to see them succeed, to lead fulfilling, happy lives. But often, the advice they give is rooted in something I like to call "parental conservatism." This is the tendency for parents to focus on what seems like the safest path—usually one that leads to what they believe is guaranteed success.

But in the context of today’s world, this approach might actually hold students back from getting the most out of their college experience.

Let me explain.

Parents often focus too much on the short-term picture, like what the first job will be right after graduation or how much the starting salary might be. But here’s the thing: students today are likely to be working until they’re about 70, and they might live past 90. We’re talking about careers that stretch into the year 2075 or beyond.

Think about that. The advice parents give now is often based on today’s trends, but the world is constantly changing. If you think you know what careers will still be hot and rewarding decades from now, you’d need a crystal ball. Remember the scene from The Graduate? It’s a classic film from 1967, where a young man is told that the future lies in plastics. At the time, that seemed like sensible advice. But in hindsight, maybe someone should have told him about computers or even sneakers!

The same thing has been happening recently with coding. For the past decade, parents have been nudging their kids to learn how to code because it seemed like a solid, well-paying career choice. But now, artificial intelligence is advancing at such a pace that it’s starting to take over tasks that once required human coders. What once seemed like a surefire path to success is already beginning to change.

Here’s the takeaway: trying to plan a child’s career based on what’s hot right now is like aiming at a moving target.

The better approach is to encourage students to think long-term and to equip themselves with skills that will never go out of style. Parents should want their kids to grow into curious, ethical individuals who ask deep questions, wrestle with big ideas, and have the flexibility to adapt and reinvent themselves as the world evolves.

We all know those people—the ones who seem to keep changing, growing, and doing new things. Take Benjamin Franklin, for example. He started as a printer’s apprentice but became so much more. He was a journalist, author, scientist, inventor, politician, and diplomat. Franklin didn’t set out to make a fortune, and he didn’t patent his inventions because he believed that if people could improve on his work, it would benefit everyone. He was driven by curiosity, and his endless desire to improve the world brought him material success as a byproduct, not the main goal.

When you send your child off to college, encourage them to be like Franklin. Don’t push them to choose a narrow career path. Instead, let them explore, ask big questions, and learn how to think critically. Let them study things that might seem impractical at first glance—like philosophy, art history, or even Russian literature. These subjects can help them become deep thinkers who are prepared to take on challenges they can’t even imagine yet.

The truth is, most universities today are not set up to teach these broad, all-encompassing skills. Many have shifted their focus to specialized majors and career-oriented training. Grade inflation has made it harder for students to stand out, and there’s so much pressure to participate in extracurricular activities that sometimes academics take a back seat.

And let’s face it—college is expensive. Many students and parents look at it as an investment, hoping to see a return in the form of a good-paying job after graduation. But while that’s important, it’s not the whole picture.

Students should resist being pushed into fields like business or computer science just because they seem like safe bets. Who knows what insights and ideas they might discover if they take a class on the great American plays or ancient philosophy? The real beauty of college is in the unexpected, the serendipity of discovering something new and letting that change the way you see the world.

This is the time for students to take risks—both intellectually and personally. It’s okay if they make mistakes. In fact, it’s a necessary part of growing up. As one psychiatrist once told me, “Growing up is about taking risks, having near misses, making mistakes, and learning from them. Children cannot mature unless they confront and work through serious challenges.”

The years in college are the best time to stretch themselves, to test their limits, and to figure out what really excites them. They have plenty of time to settle into a career later. Right now, they need to explore, take chances, and embrace the uncertainty.

So, as you drop your child off at college, remind them that their career will come in time. Encourage them to dive into new experiences, stretch their minds, and discover what will give their life meaning over the next 70 years. That’s the real preparation for a fulfilling life.

By Ezekiel J. Emanuel