Kollel Guy Seeking Career Advice

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  • #616881
    srugee123
    Member

    Hi I am 25 currently learning kollel & I am ready to move on I would like to pursue a career as a Physical Therapist. I live in Queens and wanted to know what people thought is the best route to pursue this path?

    #1118955
    popa_bar_abba
    Participant

    Definitely would first need a degree in PT.

    #1118956
    Hashemisreading
    Participant

    K Kollel guy should not be seeking career advice.

    #1118957
    srugee123
    Member

    Why are you being mean?

    #1118958
    Hashemisreading
    Participant

    srugee123: your are 100% right. that was pretty mean. I wish you luck in your career. I apologize.

    #1118959
    gavra_at_work
    Participant

    Why are you being mean?

    Perhaps he agrees with Yisroel Besser and Eitan Kobre of the Mishpacha, who have stated it is a tragedy for anyone to leave learning. According to them, the only reason why you are leaving is because you haven’t put in enough Amailus in your learning and haven’t Davened with enough Kavannah.

    #1118960
    theprof1
    Participant

    PT is a great career. It will allow you to learn too. Great choice.

    #1118961
    yid_pashut
    Member

    I would recommend reading “48 days to the work you love” by “Dan Miller. It will really help you clarify the right job fit and practical ways to apply for the job.

    #1118962
    takahmamash
    Participant

    It will really help you clarify the right job fit and practical ways to apply for the job.

    A bit premature, no? He can’t apply for a PT job until he goes to PT school, and he can’t go to PT school until he gets a college degree.

    #1118963
    FrozenThaw
    Member

    most economically savvy option: Take a semester or so worth of courses online from your local community college. Must be courses for general education credits. English 101, math, psychology, biology.

    then go to Touro…

    #1118964

    a person needs to enjoy his future/what he does for parnassa.

    you can pay me $500 an hour to be plumber or electrician etc… i still wouldn’t be successful cause i don’t enjoy doing these things.

    do you have a desire for growth in PT? do you enjoy it?

    #1118965
    popa_bar_abba
    Participant

    you can pay me $500 an hour to be plumber or electrician etc… i still wouldn’t be successful cause i don’t enjoy doing these things.

    I’d take it and spend 200 a week on therapy until I liked it.

    #1118966
    apushatayid
    Participant

    you can give me $300 an hr. I’ll use the rest for Popas therapy.

    #1118967
    Hashemisreading
    Participant

    gavra_at_work: the reason I apologized so profusely for being so mean is because I realized that he must be feeling really bad that he is leaving work, and he knows a kollel guy shouldn’t really be looking in to careers.

    #1118968
    bk613
    Participant

    Start taking classes @ Lander College for Men (day or evening program.) By going to Touro you receive preferential treatment when it comes to getting into their grad programs. Touro’s PT program (as well as all of their health science grad programs) doesn’t require uto complete your bachelors degree b4 applying you only need 90 credits. U only need to take 2 semesters of bio, chemistry, physics, and anatomy and physiology. You also need several other specific courses English/math… You can use yeshiva credits to get u up to 90 credits total. You can get the exact information on their website

    #1118969
    πŸ‘‘RebYidd23
    Participant

    Enjoying a job is one of those rare things that everyone wants but most of the time you only get paid for doing things that are not enjoyable.

    #1118970

    guess i am fortunate & blessed to enjoy my job

    although it includes assisting people in depression & others with marriage & relationship issues etc… now how does a person enjoy this? i enjoy helping people get their life back on track. nobody deserves to live a life of stress & depression. i chose this so i can help remove this from people & help get their lives back on track to normal & that makes me happy.

    #1118971
    takahmamash
    Participant

    . . . I realized that he must be feeling really bad that he is leaving work [sic], and he knows a kollel guy shouldn’t really be looking in to careers.

    (I assume you meant to write that he feels bad because he’s leaving kollel to work.)

    This is one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever read in the CR, and that’s saying a lot.

    #1118972
    homer
    Member

    See Chovos Halevovos

    #1118973
    appdev
    Participant

    I was in yeshiva for high school then in BM for a number of years. I knew I wasn’t gonna be there forever, my heart just wasn’t in it. So I enrolled in Touro and now I B”H have a successful career developing mobile apps.

    I’ve spoken with my friends who come from similar backgrounds and the common denominator that I’ve seen is that when one is in yeshiva/kollel they aren’t aware of the career options available. A close friend of mine is in college now for mechanical engineering and he loves it. When he was in yeshiva (then kollel) he never dreamed of loving calculus and thermodynamics, but now that he’s been exposed to options he chose one that he enjoys.

    So my advice to you would be along the lines of Frozen’s comment above. Enrole in Touro and take some basic level courses to see what you like. Once you’ve found a topic that you enjoy, figure out what are some career options in that field.

    Under no circumstances should you ‘settle’ for a career that you dislike. It is ok to temporarily work at a subpar job, but always know that you are working towards a career that you want. You will be spending 40+ hours a week at your job and it will become miserable very quickly if you don’t like what you are doing. Trust me, it’s not worth it. I left a great job because the work environment was toxic and it was affecting me on my off time.

    @RebYid Anyone can work at a job they love. I think the hardest part is to figure out what you love. Once you know that make a plan to get there and do it. The path may not be easy, but if you want something you have to work hard for it.

    To all the people posting negative or unhelpful remarks:

    This person has a serious life question and you have no place ridiculing him or posting nonsense comments. None of you know his situation and have no right to judge. Many people today have this dilemma and I’m sure there are others reading this thread. Please try to be helpful and understanding.

    #1118974
    Phil
    Participant

    To all those who are the slightest bit critical of the questioner, perhaps you’d like to contact the mods and arrange to generously assist him financially.

    No?

    Then shut up.

    #1118975

    To all the people posting negative or unhelpful remarks:

    To all those who are the slightest bit critical of the questioner

    I only noticed one, and it’s not the first troll comment from that poster.

    #1118976
    WolfishMusings
    Participant

    Hi I am 25 currently learning kollel & I am ready to move on I would like to pursue a career as a Physical Therapist. I live in Queens and wanted to know what people thought is the best route to pursue this path?

    Your best bet would be, of course, to find other frum PTs and ask their advice.

    The Wolf

    #1118977

    There might be some here in the CR.

    #1118978
    flatbusher
    Participant

    It’s a great career choice, but be sure you are scientifically inclined because there is a lot of anatomy and other science to master. It would be especially a plus for you if you speak Yiddish. But of course you do need to find a course of study and really get started soon. I applaud you for having the courage to acknowledge that there is life outside of kollel and it seems you want to be responsible to be able to support yourself and a family. Kol Ha-kavod.

    #1118979
    Avi K
    Participant

    I heard of a yeshiva guy who was trying to decide what profession he should study. His rebbe asked which masechta he most enjoyed learning. He said Eruvin. His rebbe advised him to become an architect.

    #1118980
    B1g B0y
    Participant

    Ben bag bag omer Hafuch ba vehafuch dikulo ba

    Why would anyone who identifies themselves as a kollel guy want to leave learning?

    Let someone else spend the rest of their lives stretching people out while making awkward stilted conversation

    #1118981
    flatbusher
    Participant

    The modern-day kollel system is a phenomenon in Jewish history. In the past, people worked and learned. The system is unsustainable and those currently learning full time won’t have the funds to provide a similar lifestyle for the next generation. So, Big Boy, your comment is not helpful. The original poster is right to pursue a career to help support himself and a family. If not him, then who?

    #1118982

    The system is unsustainable and those currently learning full time won’t have the funds to provide a similar lifestyle for the next generation.

    The system is more than a generation old, and they said the same thing last generation. Also, even if it has to alternate generations, that’s still more than not having it at all.

    #1118983
    B1g B0y
    Participant

    FLATBUSHER

    “In the past people learned and worked”

    That is not what the original poster said he wishes to do. He said he wants to “move on” AKA leave learning

    #1118984
    from Long Island
    Participant

    Frum guys in PT and OT do very, very well. After a year or two of experience, they often open their own clinics, working hours to accomodate frum people.

    Just know that it is a tough program with tons of sciences, labs, and internships. You really have to apply yourself and study. There are no shortcuts.

    But again, If you love what you do, life is so much sweeter.

    #1118985

    You should definitely go into real estate.

    It worked for me, I’m really rich.

    #1118986
    zahavasdad
    Participant

    The system is more than a generation old, and they said the same thing last generation. Also, even if it has to alternate generations, that’s still more than not having it at all.

    Its really only on the second generation for most people and a few 3rd generation, It will collpase financially if something is not done. Relying on government handouts is not a viable solution

    #1118987

    Why would you ask people who spend their days in CR for career advice?

    ( just a thought)

    #1118988

    We’re well into the third generation, and it doesn’t seem to be getting any less prevalent. Aderaba.

    Courses have opened to help kollel men learn skills for a career, and most kollel men are working by their mid thirties.

    If the finances aren’t available, you’ll see people working a little younger, and more programs to give yungerleit marketable skills, but the kollel “system”, which has b”H produced thousands of high caliber b’nei Torah, is not going anywhere in the foreseeable future.

    #1118989
    writersoul
    Participant

    As far as guys learning and then going into the working world later- this isn’t always “just as good” as going out to work younger, or at an age more comparable with the rest of the world.

    My dad works for a large financial institution which has hired (over the 20+ years he’s worked there) many, many frum people in his department. Nearly all of them were hired before their 30th birthdays, and most of those were more than ten years ago. His job is hi-tech, and companies don’t want guys in their thirties in those sorts of jobs. They barely want the seasoned older guys who at least have experience, forget about the ones who are straight out of a quickie program. It’s all about youth in the industry, especially as you can get even younger and even cheaper employees in India. It’s nearly impossible to get a job in that kind of a company now straight out of a degree program above age 24-25, and it shows in the frum population at the company. While I can only give first-hand information about my dad’s company, he says that many of his friends say the same about their fields.

    In addition, every year you work technically translates to more money you are worth. If you have two thirty-five-year-old men working at the same company in the same position, but one’s been doing it for two years and one’s been doing it for eight, the one doing it longer is getting paid more. He’s also going to be promoted first. All of that is money that is sorely needed in this ridiculously expensive frum society, and holding people back from the workforce is depriving them of years that could really help the financial securities of the wives and families for whom they signed a kesuba promising to support.

    People have been saying that the kollel system has been predicted to die and has still survived, but it survives only through brute strength. It is ripping up homes and causing shalom bayis problems and agmas nefesh, both among beleaguered parents and parents-in-law who overextend themselves to support their children beyond their means or among the married children themselves who either are thrust into the world of kollel without fully understanding the sacrifice or are supported on an artificial, unsupportably high standard of living and then can’t sustain it once they are no longer being “helped.”

    I think that kollel is a wonderful idea. I would have no problem if my future husband were to choose that lifestyle, as long as first we had a frank discussion about it and how we would support ourselves, with no expectations from society as far as standards or our parents as far as money (beyond, should it be the case, what they should choose to give). Just like so many things in the frum community, it is once it turned into a “system” (like the shidduch system, the seminary system, etc) that it turned sour.

    (Wow. I’ve been gone from here too long. That felt good. πŸ™‚ )

    #1118990

    Interesting theory, but in practice, at least in my observation, kollel people don’t have any worse shalom bayis that working people.

    #1118991
    writersoul
    Participant

    I’m not saying they do- I’m saying the kollel system intrinsically has the power to introduce a form of marital stress. I’m not saying that when you weigh all forms of stress in a kollel family and in a working family, the kollel family will for certain have more- I’m just saying that, independent of other variables, having either a steady income or a sustainable and realistic idea of how to live are decently good ideas to help shalom bayis. Other random family-by-family things will always be present, but this is just something that I’ve seen in people. (I’ve also seen kollel people who are super happy, but these are usually the kind of people who would have moved to Lakewood in 1960- they want the lifestyle for what it is, not because it’s what everyone else is doing. That is a pretty big part of my argument.)

    #1118992

    You can’t just separate the variables for any meaningful discussion, unless you can completely isolate the factors. Perhaps you could say about a total faker that he’ll have the stressor without the benefits, but it’s not true for the vast majority. You don’t have to be on the level of mesiras nefesh those from fifty years ago had.

    #1118993
    flatbusher
    Participant

    Big Boy, I didn’t get the impression that poster wanted to give up learning altogether. There are plenty of people who work and have chavrusa, chaburuas, reguar shiurim, etc. As for those who think the system is sustainable, well unless they are waiting for their inlaws and parents to kick off and leave a yerusha, where will they get the money to support their kids who want to sit and learn if they themselves are not making a living on their own?

    #1118994

    As for those who think the system is sustainable, well unless they are waiting for their inlaws and parents to kick off and leave a yerusha, where will they get the money to support their kids who want to sit and learn if they themselves are not making a living on their own?

    The same way it’s lasted until now.

    #1118995
    yitzy99
    Member

    “I’m saying the kollel system intrinsically has the power to introduce a form of marital stress…”

    I would imagine that having the wife be the family breadwinner while the husband sits and learns could upset family dynamics in unforeseen ways.

    #1118996

    In theory. All things are not equal, though, and the phenomenon you imagine isn’t any worse for kollel families than others.

    #1118997

    To those who think the kollel system is unsustainable, I ask two questions:

    1) How has it lasted until now and why do think that will change?

    2) If you’re correct, should it change anyone’s life choices?

    #1118998
    appdev
    Participant

    Daas,

    This thread should not be about a general question like that. The poster merely asked a question relating to his personal circumstances.

    Why don’t you make a thread for that question so that people can discuss it over there without derailing this topic.

    #1118999
    writersoul
    Participant

    DY, I’m not sure you’re reading what I say. I’m saying that financial security can help shalom bayis and financial insecurity can hurt it. That’s not rocket science. What people choose to do with that information, and whether or not that is mitigated by other factors, is each family’s business. The fact is that I know many families where, either as supporters or supportees, they are indeed adversely affected. Many, such as some of my cousins, are not.

    If you look at the discussion points in the frum community now, you can see that many of them are related, some more or less directly than others, to the kollel system: shidduchim (girls not finding shidduchim without clear statements of support), entitledness (among many peer-pressure kollel couples), tuition (in a community where, as I said in my last post, people are losing valuable years and percentages of income by entering the workforce later), huge amounts of money expected to be spent by parents on their own kollel children. I’d say that these are the cracks in the facade of the kollel system- a phenomenon which I thought I took pains to separate from the institution of kollel itself, which I think is a wonderful thing. The kollel system is only 15-20 years old, and around now is its moment of reckoning. It is a system where what you do depends on what yenem does to an absurd degree. It is a system where nobody will change anything unless there is a community-wide move- if you can’t afford a fancy chasunah, don’t go shouting from the rooftops for takanos or gvirim to support, make a cheaper chasunah.

    I’ll be thrilled if I marry the kind of man who would want to learn in kollel. I refuse, however, to buy into a system which suppresses individual choice and which is drowning the community under the force of its own demands.

    #1119000

    Sure, I’m reading what you say. I agree that individual choice shouldn’t be suppressed. I also agree that the choice to learn in kollel can have negative long term financial repercussions (although it can also have long term positive spiritual repercussions which don’t change the finances but outweigh it).

    Where I’m disagreeing with you is the implication that a major factor in the decision whether or not to learn in kollel (or in your case to marry someone who wants to) is sholom bayis. Yes, financial stress, whether it be difficulty paying bills, or feeling subject to the supporting parents’ wishes or beholden to them, is an inherently bad thing, and can cause sholom bayis issues, but the positive aspects of kollel life have tremendous benefits for sholom bayis. So, while it’s reasonable to say that someone deciding to learn in kollel is giving up something in financial security, or even in the feeling of self sufficiency, I don’t think a couple should feel they’re in any way giving up anything in sholom bayis for that decision.

    #1119001
    flatbusher
    Participant

    Tell me what positive aspects do you like best, Daas Yachid? The lakewood method where mothers and fathers transports their infants from one baby sitter to another at a very early age so that Tatty doesn’t have to work and Mommy can’t stay home to raise her kids?

    #1119002

    Is that a worse than two working spouses and a non Jewish baby sitter, like some non kollel people I know?

    #1119003
    Joseph
    Participant

    Flatbusher & those with that mentality:

    Are your similarly opposed to two working parents, if that means the mother won’t be home with the children?

    Or is the vitriol only reserved for Kollel?

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