Ben Stein How Not to Ruin Your Life

Finance is an endlessly fascinating topic. It involves history, intuition, logic, mathematics, and hope. But for most of us, our finances come from work and not from investments.

In turn, how we do at work is vitally affected by the kind of education we get -- and most especially what we get out of our education. And what we get out of our education is very largely dependent on what we put into our education.

The Son Also Rises

This comes to mind because classes are starting soon in many colleges. (How did it get to be so early? When I was a lad, we started in late September.)

My one and only son, the light of my life, is starting at Presbyterian College, a liberal arts school in South Carolina. My wife and I want him to have the best possible experience there.

So, what follows is some advice for our son and for all college students, and maybe for all students of any age, about how to maximize the value of time spent in higher education.

Teachers Are People, Too

First, make friends with your teachers. They're human beings, not machines, and they want to have friends. They want to be liked and admired. They have exactly the same wishes about human relations that the rest of us have.

To make friends with your teachers, try the following:

• Read your assignments and be ready to discuss them.

I can tell you, based on my years of teaching at glorious American University, stupendously beautiful University of California, Santa Cruz, and spiritual and good-hearted Pepperdine, that not a lot of your fellow students will have read the assigned work.

If you're among the ones who have read it, and can raise your hand to discuss it, you'll place yourself at the top of the teacher's mind right away. He or she will be conscious of you, will appreciate you, and will remember you.

• Be polite but firm in class.

If you and your teacher disagree on something, you shouldn't be afraid to challenge him or her. Never do so rudely or cruelly (although you'll be tempted), but teachers want you to challenge them if it's based on facts and data and sound reasoning. They consider it a job well done when their students do that.

• If there's something you need to have clarified or an additional point you want to make, stay after class to talk to your teacher and walk around the campus with him or her.

Teachers are there to teach. If you show that you're there to learn, they'll admire you and thank you. Not as many students are in school to learn as there should be. If you're one of them, you're way ahead of the game.

Time Is of the Essence

Next, do your papers neatly, according to the assignment, and on time. Don't cheat yourself by not handing in your work or by doing it late.

College is largely about learning to budget your time and effort. If you give yourself plenty of time and don't wait until the last minute, you can get it all done, and done easily. College isn't boot camp -- your teachers want to make the work possible for you, not impossible. You can do it all if you give yourself enough time.

Also, spell-check everything you do and read it over to make sure there are no mistakes. When I was a teacher, nothing infuriated me more than a paper with a lot of misspelled words. Don't misspell anything and you'll be ahead of the curve.

Finally, make sure you write at least to the length suggested. Don't write too briefly or way too long. Do what your teacher asks you to do.

Be Well-Rounded

Take courses that will be of genuine use to your mind. It's vital that every young person know U.S. history, European history, and geography. It's just as vital that you know Shakespeare, the English and American poets, and the classics of Greek and Roman literature.

These are the common currency of educated humans all over the western world. You mark yourself as civilized or uncivilized depending on how much you know of Wordsworth and Keats and Gibbon as much as by what you wear.

Science and I have long been uneasy bedfellows, but some knowledge of biology, botany, and physics is basic. Mathematics is the queen of science. You should take as much of it as you can.

You probably won't call upon these subjects in your daily life when you enter the workforce, but they're vitally important in teaching you how to think. And learning how to think is, above all, the main challenge you face in school. It's true that you have to know certain basic facts, but you should also know how to approach a problem, break it down, solve it, and write about it. That's why it's important to take English composition, and take it seriously.

Affability and Neatness Count

Make friends, and preferably join a fraternity or sorority. It's lonely spending your hours by yourself in the library. You need to have a group you can hang with and joke with and eat with. This group will support you, cheer you, divert you, and energize you. Having friends in college is not a trivial matter -- it's life and death in terms of getting through successfully.

Also, don't allow yourself to look like a slob. Always be well dressed, cleanly showered, clean shaven, and look as if you mean business. Teachers don't like sloppy students. They like students who look neat.

I know you'll be sorely tempted to look like a hippie; I used to look like one, and it was fun. But if you wear sloppy clothes, be clean inside them and have your thoughts especially well-ordered to offset your appearance. You'll need to work twice as hard so your teachers know you're smarter on the inside than on the outside.

Some Final Tips

Don't smoke or drink to excess.

Play a sport. This keeps you in good physical condition, gives you a readymade set of friends, and allows you to express your tensions and anxiety on the field. Even if you're not perfect at the sport, just play it to get some air into your lungs.

If you're not happy with your roommate, switch. Having a good roommate makes all the difference in the world. Don't let yourself be sidetracked by having a disturbing person sharing your world. Go to the housing office and make an official switch, or just do it informally. But do it, and keep switching until you find a roommate you get along with.

Try to have a significant other. At your age, this is a huge part of life -- as it is at every age. Treat her or him with respect and dignity, and you'll soon find that you have a reason to get up every morning.

Above all, develop habits of work. You'll spend most of your life working, I hope. College is where you learn to allocate your time, get your assignments done, and develop a good rapport with your fellow workers (students) and your bosses (teachers), and make them all your friends.

If you can learn to work, think, and make friends, you're way ahead of the pack.

Good luck.

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It turns out that in my last column, "How Speculators Exploit Market Fears," I undercounted the mortgage market. It's somewhat larger than I thought, but this does not in any way change my analysis. I apologize for the miscount.