Guest Column by Chad Dull: Changing perspective

Winona Daily News (September 19, 2021)
Winona Post (September 27, 2021)

I am from a long-ago time known as the 1980s. For those of you who aren't familiar with those analog days, things were just different. We used to rent a VCR to watch a movie that we rented from the local gas station in my little town. I would call the gas station on my rotary phone to see if they had the movie I was looking for on those special evenings. For anyone much younger than me, this may sound like a foreign language, but I assure you these things existed.

And while I have some nostalgia for my youth, if I am honest, things are much better now as I settle in on weekends and stream video on my flat-screen TV, no gas station rental required.

Other things have changed for the better since my younger days, and one of the best changes is how we view higher education. When I was a high school student, our class was broken down into four basic groups at graduation. The first were the few who were going to go into farming with their family. The second were a small but special group who joined the military.

In theory there was only one more group, those who were college bound, but in reality, we were sorted into two more groups. Certain students were directed to universities, while others were pointed toward vocational programs. And rarely, if ever, did a "university" kid learn anything about technical programs, and all too often the students on a technical path were made to feel as if they had made a lesser choice.

I always knew this was wrong, but we did not always get that message. I can tell you exactly when my view started to shift. It was during my first Christmas break home from college, and I was spending time one night with my high school friends. I was struggling through a psychology major and taking out student loans, which was what I believed you were supposed to do.

That night I sat and talked with my friend Shawn, who had gone to a short-term welding program and six months later was welding bridges and making as much as my parents made. He was 19 at the time. Now, not everything is about money, but at age 19, money got my attention. I wondered if he had a head start but maybe I would come out ahead down the road because of the choices I was making.

A couple of years ago we talked at our 30th class reunion. I had worked my way to my current position in academics, and I was proud of what I had done. Shawn had built on his welding certificate, gone on to earn several other professional certifications, and built his own business. I did not ask him how much money he was earning, but I am sure he was doing well. What struck me is that we both were happy -- and that was the point.

I hope things are different these days. There is no such thing as a "tech college student" or a "university student." There are only students. I hope we tell our young people (and others) that there are many ways to make a living and have the life you want. As we change our perspective, we acknowledge that no one educational path is necessarily better than another.

Instead, it's more like a restaurant menu. You find what suits your tastes and your needs. And your tastes and needs may change over time. You may start in one direction and pivot when another track becomes the better choice down the road. All of these choices are valuable, and I am glad we have started to treat them like they are. And of course, the road. All of these choices are valuable, and I am glad we have started to treat them like they are. And of course, I'm biased, but Minnesota State College Southeast is never a bad choice.