Berkeley Adds an 'Adulting' Class

[Suzanimal]

(NEWSER) – "Adulting" classes have been springing up over the years, instructing millennials how to cook, manage their time, and pay their taxes. Now, the University of California Berkeley has an offering, too. Students Belle Lau and Jenny Zhou launched the adulting class, exploring "the many dimensions of how to successfully adult," through the student-run DeCal Program this spring. "We realized the things we don't learn in school are topics like taxes and just how to take care of yourself," Lau, a 20-year-old junior, tells the San Francisco Chronicle. "We're the middlemen trying to get professionals to talk about these topics to students." The response was so overwhelming, with 100 people applying to fill the class' 30 seats, that two sessions will be offered this fall.

Students have already heard from Lau’s mother, an accountant. A Lyft recruiter also spoke on resume building, while an economics professor advised saving half of all earnings. Other topics include stress relief and maintaining a healthy lifestyle. “We don't really know that much, so we're all learning together,” says Lau. Georgia Tech offered a similar course in 2016, notes Andrew Zaleski, who wrote last fall at CityLab about his own experience with adulting classes at the online Adulting Collective, including one focused on hangover avoidance (you can get into GA Tech but you don't know how to avoid a hangover?). In reporting last year that adulting classes were "expanding across the country," CBS News noted millennials may be behind on certain skills as many have never lived apart from their parents.

https://www.newser.com/story/279486/...-adulting.html

[Schifference]

Those were life skills. All of us in my family new how to cook, do laundry, sew, clean the house, repair things... We all new math. When it came time to balance a checkbook it was pretty darn simple. Each checkbook came with a ledger. We could even purchase carbon copy checks. How hard is it to put a beginning balance in the box at the top and list each check written and deduct it from the balance?

[specsaregood]

Those were life skills. All of us in my family new how to cook, do laundry, sew, clean the house, repair things... We all new math. When it came time to balance a checkbook it was pretty darn simple. Each checkbook came with a ledger. We could even purchase carbon copy checks. How hard is it to put a beginning balance in the box at the top and list each check written and deduct it from the balance?

I was just telling DW how my mom had each of her sons get their own checking account in 2nd grade and we had to write checks for anything we wanted to buy and made us balance our check books. Ditto to all the other stuff, I think I did more laundry and cooking than my mom by the time I entered my teen years. Helped my dad build our house. My kid is learning the same and discussing getting him a checking account too.

[Anti Globalist]

I feel many students at Berkeley will be failing that class.

[Occam's Banana]

"We realized the things we don't learn in school are topics like taxes and just how to take care of yourself," Lau, a 20-year-old junior, tells the San Francisco Chronicle.

Well, I guess your parents are the government is just too busy with other things.

Apparently, this is what happens when the nanny state isn't enough of a helicopter parent ...

[CCTelander]

When I was growing up the very idea that anyone would ever need anything like an "Adulting Class" would have been mercilessly ridiculed. Much of this stuff would have been learned from our parents, usually by making us actually do it in the form of chores or occasionally as punishment. Anything we didn't learn that way we learned on our own since we were raised to be intelligent, resourceful and responsible enough to do so. We had those qualities because our parents DID NOT shelter and protect us from any possible negative outcome in the real world, but made certain that we actually experienced significant risks, losses and disappointments at whatever level they deemed us capable of dealing with at each stage of our upbringing.

This (the need for "Adulting Classes") is what you get from insanely overprotective parenting and a society that constantly sells it as a virtue.

[Anti Federalist]

Hmmm, I don't know about this.

Responsibility, being on time, taking care of yourself, paying bills and taxes on time, planning ahead.

Those are all traits of white supremacy...sounds pretty racist to me.

I'm alerting BerkLee right now.

[Danke]

Thanks @Suzanimal I'm going to incorporate these classes in my homes.

[euphemia]

You would think this would be part of the admissions interview. No sense in wasting taxpayer dollars offering what should be considered prerequisite skills with federally-guaranteed student loan money.

[Krugminator2]

I think a class like this is very useful and should be part of every high school. I am not sure the sneering. Truthfully, I think a class like this might be the most beneficial thing a lot of people would get out of school. John Wooden focused on the basics. And having a good foundation in life seems like a good idea.

Baby boomers were horrifically bad at all of those things. Baby boomers are almost universally awful at all things related to money whether it is how to invest, reduce their tax bill, debt, or just saving money. How many Baby Boomer parents cook? Are Baby Boomers good at managing time? A huge percentage are drugged out on anti-depressants because they are overwhelmed. Given that Baby Boomers are so awful, it seems true their parents much have been awful. Stopping the cycle of being a moron seems useful.

[Danke]

I think a class like this is very useful and should be part of every high school. I am not sure the sneering. Truthfully, I think a class like this might be the most beneficial thing a lot of people would get out of school. John Wooden focused on the basics. And having a good foundation in life seems like a good idea.

Baby boomers were horrifically bad at all of those things. Baby boomers are almost universally awful at all things related to money whether it is how to invest, reduce their tax bill, debt, or just saving money. How many Baby Boomer parents cook? Are Baby Boomers good at managing time? A huge percentage are drugged out on anti-depressants because they are overwhelmed. Given that Baby Boomers are so awful, it seems true their parents much have been awful. Stopping the cycle of being a moron seems useful.

WTH?

When were you born? And how does your birth date make you so much smarter than anyone else?

[Stratovarious]

...

Baby boomers were horrifically bad at all of those things. Baby boomers are almost universally awful at all things related to money whether it is how to invest, reduce their tax bill, debt, or just saving money. How many Baby Boomer parents cook? Are Baby Boomers good at managing time? A huge percentage are drugged out on anti-depressants because they are overwhelmed. Given that Baby Boomers are so awful, it seems true their parents much have been awful. Stopping the cycle of being a moron seems useful.

Where and how on earth did you come up such complete nonsense ?

[eleganz]

Why is that class needed? Every essential skill that you don't know can be learned on youtube.

[heavenlyboy34]

Why is that class needed? Every essential skill that you don't know can be learned on youtube.

As a general rule in my experience, colleges make up stupid classes to justify inflated tuition or inflate it some more. Berkley is a brand-name uni, so that's prolly the case here.