Silliman University

My son is thinking of attending Silliman Univ. as a freshman. His religious preference is "None". Are there any forced church things that students are required to do or attend, please?

 

I don't know the answer to the question, but I have had a lot of friends attend the school and none of them have talked about this nor complained about it. My assumption is that it's not pushed on you.

The campus is nice and the area is beautiful.

Personally, I wouldn't waste my time. Higher "education" is among the following, choose one.

• An academic pursuit for rich people who have the luxury of never having to worry about supporting themselves with employment.
• A 4+ year delay on having to make decisions in the hustle to pay the rent of life.

I'm not fan of planning in general. Planning is dreaming. If dreaming was success, we would all be rich. Nothing ever goes to plan. Set a target for stake-holders and never believe your own bullshit.

I feel the worst thing for a kid in the Philippines is to live with parents rent free, especially if the parents are retired. It's a quick way to spoil the kid of ever picking up solid hustling skills. Paying rent is a decently hard problem to start with, so the kids should take that on as a good first challenge. We need people in this planet to solve hard problems. Don't spoil the kids.

Every business start-up is going to begin with someone to design, code, sell and to run the business (founder.) You might have one person take multiple roles. That's it. That's the team on which the future of the world will turn. Tell the kids to use that youthful energy to roll hard on learning to code or learning to design. Maybe both.

The internet is loaded with massive amounts of material for learning this stuff. If you must go to school, there are a handful of very good (and lots of very bad) bootcamps which will get you "hit the ground running" ready for any tech company. (some will allow you to pay with your eventual salary https://lambdaschool.com).

Everything else is bullshit. It's rich kid extra-curricular activities, which the poor kids get fooled into joining.

Done right, a kid could put in a year or less learning this stuff and then be at Philippines call center income level retirement by the time the rest of the Silliman kids have graduated and looking for that first job. Why waste time doing anything else?

 

To become a registered nurse takes training, usually in a University. It is a burden in the US, so if my kid can hack four years and be debt free with the ability to earn 60 to 80 thousand yearly as a RN in the US, I will take the chance he will not be spoiled.

 

Again, I'm going to throw out unsolicited personal preferences. Stop reading at this point if you don't want to hear it.

There are a lot of jobs which can pay 60-80K. Hell, these days, that's what you need just to get by in many places. Full time "would you like fries with that?" minimum wage is 30K in some places now. If nurses are only getting 60-80K, then they must be underpaid and the profession hasn't been keeping well with inflation.

This is one of the few cases in which I would consider attending a university - an applied technical degree.

But you don't necessarily need university training. Each state has different rules and the classroom requirement could be in a certified school program or it could be with an employer. If you have no other way to get this classroom time, then you have to pay a school. Any training in the Philippines may or may not fulfill this requirement. I assume that if a hospital needed you bad enough, then they would pick up the bill for you.

Silliman is cheap, but so are community colleges in the US. Personally, I would rather go the path of a nursing assistant program in a US system (less than a year). This would allow you to get your feet wet in the profession before going whole hog. You would also be more likely to get this "@ss in seat" time required by the state.

A nurse would probably have much different advice, but I prefer fast feedback loops. Why risk committing to something for half a decade (4+ years of school) for something you might not like? Seems to me a better path would be to hit the minimal requirements to do the grunt work in less than a year of "education" and then continue only if you are happy with what you are doing.

There are a lot of students going to Silliman from abroad, but I haven't known anyone from the US attending except for one dude burning off a GI Bill. Most people from abroad are escaping a rough home country or a place with a horrendous education system.

Not trying to bag on the decision. I like the Philippines. I have lived here for a long time. But no !#&* way would I want to A) go to school here or B) try to make money off this economy. Philippines is still among the top exporters of labor. The smart and capable Filipinos are working abroad and sending money home.

 

FYI, the Philippines supplies 25% of the world's registered nurses. An RN has almost a zero chance of being replaced by AI or robotics. If someone with a BSN doesn't like nursing, their degree qualifies them in the US to be the administrator at a nursing home.

Why should one be "happy" doing a job? Isn't that the reason it is called work?

 

The Philippines has a large overseas migrant worker population. Most of these jobs I wouldn't want. Most of the places they are working are places I wouldn't want to work. I don't know what the breakdown for nurses is. I imagine a nursing gig in the US is a great placement, but most of them probably aren't going to the US.

This is overblown and widely misunderstood. Some seem to fear a sort of robot apocalypse as if our future is a binary outcome. Either the robots will dominate totally or humans will still be in control (and better to pick a future which will always firmly be in human control.) Our future in general will be greatly affected by technology and in ways we can't even predict right now. We will then do as we always do, we adapt with the technology.

For example, I would prefer not having to crawl through sewers even if it pays a bit better than alternatives. Hopefully robots can do that.

Again, not bagging on the decision. It's your son's choice. You post questions in a forum and you get answers. I know your question was a bit different, but I wouldn't suggest for anyone to go to school here. I also wouldn't suggest the Philippines as a good place to start out a young adult life. If your son is a US citizen, then I argue that's a far better starting point than the Philippines.

Nursing is a GREAT profession. But given the effort required, there are loads of other great options as well. Nursing seems to be one of those enduring "safe list" professions. If you want to survive the (robot|economic|nuclear|unknown) apocalypse, then collect gold, guns and bullets and become a nurse.

 

Which is basically my point. There was a relatively brief window in the world where a degree meant something as part of a "next logical step" for young people. And that was in the US.

Here, you are in a credential battle with people who have skated through the HRM scam diploma mill.

In the US tech industry, it's "degree or equivalent experience." Labor is so tight there that equivalent experience isn't hard to get. Getting your start is less than a year to learn the ropes, get some starter experience and then you're set.

A degree can still be a good deal. But you generally need to go the direction of getting the best name behind you that you can get. There's a certain bar to reach before it's just a waste of time and money. A degree in the Philippines doesn't reach that bar.

Youth need to start out hungry and learning how to hustle. I still think the US is the best place for that. The Philippines is on island time. What's the hurry? Take it easy! Fiesta is coming!

Also, if you are going to learn, better to learn from the best environments. If you want to become a chef, find a world renowned school and / or restaurant to learn in. Don't just get any school because it's cheap. If you are going to learn health care, then learn in a system which you actually trust to keep you alive. Dumaguete isn't a place I would want to live while being dependent on advanced health care. I imagine learning health care here would be a bit like learning how to maintain an electrical grid here.

 

Thanks Wrye. Well, even though Silliman has a 100% first attempt pass rate for board certification the compulsory attendance and credit of mythology is a deal breaker. I may, if he wants to study nursing at another top-five school, have to look elsewhere for relocating. If not, I will be there alone.

I would not consider staying here in Mexico so he could attend nursing school. The graduate nurses here can't even sit for boards in the US.