Pitfalls to a Timely Graduation with Dr. Kelly Dobson

Dr. Kelly Dobson [00:00:06]:
If you're in a serious relationship with somebody and you think this person is potentially your spouse, and you go a year without moving towards your goal, and they don't say anything, they're not that concerned about you.

Dr. Shandra McDonald [00:00:21]:
That's Dr. Kelly Dobson, and we're talking about the pitfalls to a timely graduation. Now, I consider him an expert in this area because it took him 13 years to earn his degree. Now, he's gotten several degrees since his bachelor's, but that first degree was met with several pitfalls, and so we want to help you avoid those. Stay tuned on this episode of Academic Survival. This is the Academic Survival podcast, and I'm your host, Dr. Chandra McDonald. Statistics show that approximately 40% of students drop out of college every year.

Dr. Shandra McDonald [00:01:04]:
In fact, nearly 30% drop out their first year. Well, I am on a mission to improve these stats. Welcome to the Academic Survival Podcast. Today I have with me Dr. Kelly Dobson. And the reason why I invited him to the show is because he has a unique story in that it took him, what, 12 years to get your bachelor's degree?

Dr. Kelly Dobson [00:01:27]:
Thirteen years. But whose county? Right.

Dr. Shandra McDonald [00:01:30]:
Some people do take a longer time to graduate from college, and there's usually reasons. There's usually reasons behind that. And so what we're gonna do today is allow him to share his story because, you know, in some cases, some people struggle to complete in a timely fashion because of external factors, but sometimes you can be the reason why it's taking you a little bit longer to graduate. So today we are going to talk about the pitfalls to a timely graduation. So, Kelly, Dr. Kelly Dobson, welcome to the show.

Dr. Kelly Dobson [00:02:00]:
Thank you for having me. Thank you for reminding me of the best 30 years of my life.

Dr. Shandra McDonald [00:02:07]:
Well, the good news is that the story does end in a few degrees to include your doctorate. So we know. We know that you're capable and you did it, but, you know, you had kind of a rough start. So let's start off by you telling us your. What school you graduated from, our schools you graduated from, and your. And your majors.

Dr. Kelly Dobson [00:02:29]:
Hello, my name is Kelly Dobson. My major as an undergraduate was aerospace engineering. Started at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. I also have a bachelor's degree in engineering. I also have a bachelor's degree in business operations management with a focus on technology. I have a master's in public administration and I have a doctorate in public administration, where my research focus was bias in the delivery of government services.

Dr. Shandra McDonald [00:03:03]:
First, I know that you skipped a grade or two in high school, so you actually entered college at an age that's younger than most students. So how old were you when you started College?

Dr. Kelly Dobson [00:03:13]:
I was 16. I think probably the biggest thing that I issue that I faced was I was really unprepared. Let me provide a very short context.

Dr. Shandra McDonald [00:03:26]:
Okay.

Dr. Kelly Dobson [00:03:27]:
Every problem that I had came down to a lack of preparation. I was the first person in my family to go to college. I was totally unaware of what would be required to complete college. Of my siblings, I had the lowest gpa, but my mom had a little bit money because I'm the youngest. So she was able to, or we thought she was able to send me to college. So if you've never been to college and you're the first one, there's so many things. I mean, there's pitfalls for everybody, but there's extra ones if you're a first timer.

Dr. Shandra McDonald [00:04:00]:
The reason why I wanted you to come to the show today is because you shared with me some of the pitfalls that you had in college, which, you know, prolonged your stay. So I wanted to be able to go through those with you because I think they'd be really helpful for other college freshmen who, you know, work.

Dr. Kelly Dobson [00:04:16]:
Whatever do you mean? I love the beautiful campus. Love Pomona in summer.

Dr. Shandra McDonald [00:04:24]:
Yes, yes, yes.

Dr. Kelly Dobson [00:04:27]:
Feel the heat off the freeway. Everybody loves part about.

Dr. Shandra McDonald [00:04:30]:
Yeah, really? Number one, what was the first pitfall for you when it comes to turning this four year degree into a 13 year one? What was the first pitfall?

Dr. Kelly Dobson [00:04:39]:
You know, I think he was when I discovered girls. When I first started college, I was interested in girls. And then one day something happened to me and I became completely girl crazy. And it was very distracting. I had a girlfriend, she went to ucla. She's very pretty, very charming. I thought that I had won the lottery, you know, and when we met, I had completed my first three years of college and I was moving into my second to last year because I wasn't scheduled to finish in four years.

Dr. Shandra McDonald [00:05:20]:
Okay, so you're on a five year track.

Dr. Kelly Dobson [00:05:21]:
I was on fire.

Dr. Shandra McDonald [00:05:23]:
Okay.

Dr. Kelly Dobson [00:05:24]:
And when we met, I was on a internship at Douglas Aircraft and, you know, doing pretty good in aerospace and I felt pretty good about myself. She had just completed her freshman year at UCLA and we broke up several years later. I was still at almost the exact same place academically and she was in her first year of her master's program. Now in retrospect, you know, it's not, I don't blame her. Right. It's not like I look at and I say, you know, it was your fault that I didn't move forward. But here's the thing. If you're in a serious relationship with somebody and you think this person is potentially your spouse, and you go a year without moving towards your goal, and they don't say anything, they're not that concerned about you, I know it sounds mean to just say it like that, but, you know, whenever she had a problem that was keeping her out of school, I helped her fix it.

Dr. Kelly Dobson [00:06:32]:
But when I had a problem, it was my problem. I understand a number of people think that men are supposed to protect and provide and all these other things, but we were both college students, so I was not in a protect and provide position. So I'm skipping school, working in the aerospace industry instead of just being a student. And a lot of it was to support this notion of. About my role in our relationship. So it became like part of a bigger problem where it was always much more about her than about me, and I was not being treated with that same regard. I think. I think for young men, I think this is a fairly shows up in different versions of itself, but it's the same problem.

Dr. Kelly Dobson [00:07:27]:
I know a young man who was basically raising his younger sibling, and he's like, oh, I'm going to go back to school, you know, one year out of high school. And I say, your youngest sibling isn't going to be out of high school for 12 more years. She started kindergarten. So you're going to put all your plans off by 12 years. And there's always something else. To succeed, you have to master the art of selfishness. You can't put other people's goals ahead of your goal, because if you put other people's goals ahead of your goals, you don't have goals because you'll never get them done. It kind of becomes a situation where you have to prioritize yourself because most of the other people in your life are leaving.

Dr. Kelly Dobson [00:08:09]:
I know it sounds cold, but, you know, I occasionally meet someone like yourself, who still knows everyone they've known since kindergarten. But those people are absolutely the exception.

Dr. Shandra McDonald [00:08:19]:
Well, one of the things that a friend of mine said actually was a mutual friend of ours. One of the things that she shared with me was about playing by the rules and playing by the rules in this particular context. She said that there's so many times where people put themselves first. And. And that's kind of like she said, like, that's the standard rule. And if you're not playing by that rule, where you're constantly putting other people first. But the. But the general rules are put yourself first, then you find yourself Constantly running into work relationships, personal relationships, where you are constantly sacrificing because other people are playing by a different rule.

Dr. Shandra McDonald [00:08:55]:
And the general rule in society, one would say is, you know, put yourself first.

Dr. Kelly Dobson [00:09:00]:
Yes. Enlightened, like the founding father said. Enlightened self interest. But when you're like, right now, I can put my children ahead of me. Right. In a lot of ways, I get it. That's not a problem. But you have to have an understanding that especially when you're young, you.

Dr. Kelly Dobson [00:09:19]:
You don't have the wherewithal to take care of other people. Bill Gates tried to cure malaria, and with all his money, he found out he didn't have enough money.

Dr. Shandra McDonald [00:09:29]:
I remember when I was in college dating a guy, he was living with his father, and I was living with my mother. And so you kind of have a little bit of extra cash when you're living at home. And so you don't feel as broke as you really are. Right. Because you're saving a lot. You're saving a lot of money by living with your parents.

Dr. Kelly Dobson [00:09:49]:
Yeah. Someone else's house. Yeah.

Dr. Shandra McDonald [00:09:50]:
Yeah. And so I remember giving him really nice gifts, and he was giving me really, really nice gifts. And my mom would say, you guys are spending too much money on each other. Like these gifts, y', all. Y' all acting like y' all are a married couple. You were spending way too much money on gifts.

Dr. Kelly Dobson [00:10:11]:
You just gave me a bad flashback. You know what? Finish your story. But I'm just gonna huddle up with myself and cry for a minute because I'm like, oh, my goodness, if I. If I still had that money back. Oh, my goodness.

Dr. Shandra McDonald [00:10:27]:
Yeah. So that's pitfall number one. Putting other people's goals before your own. And in that, a lot of times can show up in the romantic type of relationships that you maybe pursue while you're in college.

Dr. Kelly Dobson [00:10:41]:
And you know what? If you really think. Think that you and that person have what it takes to go the. Go the distance, there are going to be times when you're going to need them. And if you don't feel comfortable, they feel comfortable leaning on you, and you don't feel comfortable leaning on them. You got to ask yourself, why? Why is it okay? It may be because you, when you're honest with yourself, recognize that that person is not to be leaned on.

Dr. Shandra McDonald [00:11:13]:
And we should not intentionally build anything on a foundation that's not strong. Right?

Dr. Kelly Dobson [00:11:18]:
Yeah, I mean, it's. Look, I have a friend who met his now wife of 40 something years. I'm trying to. I think 45 is coming up for them pretty soon. And when I first met him when I was 12 or so, and they were already, they already had a plan for their life. And that's beautiful, but I can't name too many of those kind of couples. So, you know, if you don't take care of yourself, yourself will not be taken care of. You know, it's one thing, you know, if you're, if you're parent or somebody, you know, I, I get it if you have to put things off for a couple years because your, your parents are going through something, and I totally understand that.

Dr. Kelly Dobson [00:12:04]:
But you can't make those kind of decisions over somebody who's not permanent. You know, I mean, and even you gotta draw a line.

Dr. Shandra McDonald [00:12:14]:
We, we are now going to pitfall number two for you.

Dr. Kelly Dobson [00:12:19]:
Money, money, money. You know, when you have completed your first year or two of school, you'll have the opportunity to work in your field. And if you like, coming from the environment that I came from when I was a student engineer, I made more money than anyone in my family.

Dr. Shandra McDonald [00:12:42]:
Oh, wow.

Dr. Kelly Dobson [00:12:42]:
You know, and so it's hard to go back to school when you make the most money in your family with how much education you currently have, but you get more money if you stick it out, you know, and so the tough thing is you got focus.

Dr. Shandra McDonald [00:12:58]:
You cannot be distracted by short term money.

Dr. Kelly Dobson [00:13:02]:
You can't be distracted by short term money. And you know, and that, that short term money will come up in multiple ways because college is a cleverly designed obstacle course and it's designed specifically to distract someone from completing.

Dr. Shandra McDonald [00:13:21]:
It's designed to do that. Or that's just happens to be what happened.

Dr. Kelly Dobson [00:13:26]:
No, it's not an accident because if it was an accident, it would have been fixed long before I started college. How long has college been around? It's been around a while. Nothing is accidental. It's intentional.

Dr. Shandra McDonald [00:13:39]:
Okay?

Dr. Kelly Dobson [00:13:40]:
College was not designed for poor people.

Dr. Shandra McDonald [00:13:43]:
Oh, for poor people.

Dr. Kelly Dobson [00:13:44]:
Okay, Imagine the upheaval in our society if every, if the average poor person could get a college education. We're designed so exceptional poor people can get an education. But if the average person can get through college, that devalues everyone else's college degree and it makes having a college. So suddenly when you go to get a job and you say, look, I've got a college degree, it doesn't mean anything. So part of it is, part of the reason to spend all this time and money to get through college is so you can be special. You can separate yourself from the hoy polloi but as you're trying to get through college, you still are the hoi polloi, right? I mean, think about what it means that I made more money than my mother, my stepfather, my older siblings, my uncles as a student. That means there's a big separation. And so what happens if your financial aid is late? Your financial aid is late, you don't have any money, but you can currently get this job that will pay you more than your parents make.

Dr. Kelly Dobson [00:14:48]:
And it makes it suddenly very appealing not to go to school. And up till now, I mean you think about it when you're a freshman, if you don't get your financial aid, well, imagine at any stage of school you don't get your financial aid on time. That means you don't get your, you don't get your pre registered classes. You don't get your pre registered classes. That means you got to go, you got to go around with your beggar bowl and try to get, and get into the classes. Please, please, please, my lady, please put me on your added student list. You know, I remember walking in because I never, I was at cal Poly for 13 years and I never got my pre registered classes while I was getting financial aid. I didn't start getting pre registered classes until I paid for myself.

Dr. Kelly Dobson [00:15:42]:
And so that meant that I had to go around and all the engineering classes were impacted. So you had like a whole bunch of people standing outside trying to get into a class. And the way the engineering classes were set up is if you missed one class, you couldn't do the rest of the classes in that series. So if I missed me 214, I couldn't take me 215 or 216, which meant, oh, you're supposed to finish that in your sophomore year. So that means, guess what, next year I'll be a sophomore again. So if I miss any one of those three classes, I will retain my sophomore status because I can't take arrow 310 unless I've taken me 214. So all the classes are connected and you can't take one without the other. So you have to stay on track.

Dr. Kelly Dobson [00:16:39]:
Every semester you miss one class. See you next year. And no, they don't have those classes in the summer.

Dr. Shandra McDonald [00:16:47]:
Wow. Wow. So you like by, by being an engineering major? One, I think that is had a lot to do with being able to make more money than everybody else in your family. Because let me tell you, that would not have happened as a criminal justice major. I would not have been able to be a student and.

Dr. Kelly Dobson [00:17:09]:
I would not.

Dr. Shandra McDonald [00:17:10]:
Have been Able to be a student. And.

Dr. Kelly Dobson [00:17:14]:
Unless you manage a job that.

Dr. Shandra McDonald [00:17:15]:
Allowed me to make more money than my mother, like that just wasn't going.

Dr. Kelly Dobson [00:17:17]:
To happen unless Heisenberg down at the courthouse and he taught you how to cook, you were not.

Dr. Shandra McDonald [00:17:25]:
And then the other thing is that this, this nature in which you're, you know, one class builds upon top of the other, which builds up on top of the other. And being forced to take classes sequentially in order to, you know, matriculate like that was not that, that was not going to happen to me as a criminal justice major either.

Dr. Kelly Dobson [00:17:42]:
So.

Dr. Shandra McDonald [00:17:43]:
So we have allowing other people's priorities to supersede yours. We have the distraction of short term money. And then number three, what was your third biggest pitfall?

Dr. Kelly Dobson [00:17:57]:
You know, it's funny you should ask me because I've given this at least 30, maybe 40 seconds of consistent thought. And I think being honest with yourself is very hard to do. And being honest with yourself about what is one of the biggest decisions in your life as far as what your major is. I'm going to be honest and say I really found engineering work boring. I had a job where my whole job was to, based on its location and where it was connected to draw free body diagram of specific parts of, of a plane and what level of force would cause them to fail.

Dr. Shandra McDonald [00:18:56]:
That's pretty important work, huh? That's pretty important work.

Dr. Kelly Dobson [00:18:59]:
Yeah, the first time. But when you're doing this kind of test with every bracket, every little part, it's not so interesting after a little while. Okay. Engineering is at a high level, is very interesting, but the nuts and bolts of it are like the nuts and bolts of almost every job. Pretty boring. I mean, think about it. You've done research. How exciting was it to look through 2,500 articles? What article number do you get to before your eyes glaze over? It ain't 100 for me.

Dr. Kelly Dobson [00:19:40]:
It's usually three. The third one, I'm like, am I going to be doing this all day? But I love technology. I love the theory, I love the design. I look at that I purchased and I'm like, oh, that's so cool. But I don't want to do it all day. You know, I ran a mentoring program for high school kids. I loved it, but I didn't want it to be my job. What I'm saying is, is that it is such a tough thing that we're asking someone who's 18 to know what they're going to want to do when they're 48, 58 if you still want the same thing after 30 years, God bless you.

Dr. Kelly Dobson [00:20:27]:
You know, you have. You have lucked out. I realized halfway through my first year in aerospace engineering that I did not like it, that I wasn't interested, that I only had a surface interest in engineering. Theoretical physics, now that's different. But engineering, my interest was very surface, but I was. It was hard for me to quit because, you know, I do have a massive ego. And, you know, 90% of that massive ego is reserved for being smart. And so when you have a massive ego built around being smart, it's very hard to quit an endeavor like engineering because the assumption is that you left engineering because you can't hack it.

Dr. Kelly Dobson [00:21:20]:
You're not. You know, you don't have the. You know, you don't. You know, you're not smart enough to. To finish this. And I was smart enough to finish, but I really like it. And so I stuck with it because it was. I was meeting other people's expectations, but not my own.

Dr. Kelly Dobson [00:21:40]:
And so I was on a crash course towards not being. Making myself professionally unhappy, because, sure, I made a lot of money in the aerospace industry, but I never liked it. I never thought to myself, this is what I want to be my life's work. And if I had been honest about that in the beginning, I could have moved on a dozen times and done something that I could be more passionate about. You know, I'm way more passionate about public policy than I am about engineering. Oh, wow.

Dr. Shandra McDonald [00:22:18]:
Yeah. The whole being honest with yourself and basically knowing when it's time to pivot, you had a. An overall takeaway from that experience.

Dr. Kelly Dobson [00:22:25]:
One of the things that I try to tell that. And I had this conversation with my daughter because she's pursuing veterinary medicine, and that required her to be very serious about it in high school, very serious about it as an undergrad. And now she's in a school for veterinary medicine. And at each one of those stages, I asked her, is this still your passion? Do you still have the passion for it? Because you're committing a lot of time, a lot of resources, and that's cool, but if it's not what you really want, then it's okay to change your mind. It's okay to no longer have a passion for something, but it's not okay to quit. That was our rule. She was struggling with one of the classes she had to take as an undergrad. I think it was organic chemistry.

Dr. Kelly Dobson [00:23:13]:
And she said, you know, maybe I'm not cut out for this. I said, how many dogs are you? Dog Sitting right now, she's like 6. And I was like, I think you're cut out for this. You love this. This is. This is where your heart is, and it always has been. And I said, so don't let that class run you out of. Away from your dream.

Dr. Kelly Dobson [00:23:35]:
You buckle up, get a tutor and get that grade. That's what you did. But if you woke up, if I had said to you, how many dogs are you dog sitting right now? And you said, none, and you didn't have your two cats and your goldfish and your turtle, then I would have a. Then we'd be having a different conversation, like, okay, well, how is your passion changed? But, you know, let's get you back on track to something that's more in line with what you want out of your life. And so, no, it's. It's perfectly okay to change direction, but you don't want to change direction because it got hard. Hard is, is, you know, life getting hard is not a. A reason to quit, but you have to give yourself permission to walk away from something that's not feeding you anymore.

Dr. Kelly Dobson [00:24:28]:
You do not need to spend, you know, she's 26 now. If she. Chances are she'll work till she's at least 70. You know, do you want to spend 50 years doing something that you don't have a passion for? That's an awful long time. Yep. And so that is. That is. I wasn't able to be honest with myself.

Dr. Kelly Dobson [00:24:53]:
I got so much praise from people when I said. When they asked me, oh, what's your major? And I said, aerospace engineering. People would get so excited. I couldn't just walk away.

Dr. Shandra McDonald [00:25:08]:
And that was. That would feed your ego and give you. Give you just enough. Give us enough drive to stay committed to something that you didn't want to be in.

Dr. Kelly Dobson [00:25:17]:
I can't quit you.

Dr. Shandra McDonald [00:25:18]:
And we'll get the same. I don't get to say aerospace engineering. God forbid that I say, I want public administration, I want policy.

Dr. Kelly Dobson [00:25:31]:
What's that? Well, you know, I mean, you go from dealing with. Like I said, the thing about aerospace. It's not that I wasn't. Didn't find it interesting at all. It's just that I wasn't doing anything that was, you know, I mean, you can write a policy that affects people's lives every day, right? Weighing the parts in a plane. Okay, you came from dying in a fiery plane crash, but most people, the impact is kind of minimal. I mean, you change one really significant rule, and you can change a lot about people's Lives, you know, especially if you can back it up with facts. So, yeah, it's just.

Dr. Kelly Dobson [00:26:14]:
It's two different things. You know, I find that I have much more of a passion for people's lives, you know, for people than things. As much as I've mostly worked with things during my career, I have much more passion for people than for things, you know, when I see young people who don't have opportunity, that inspires me way more than anything in technology ever has. So, so it's a, you know, it's, it's. And I totally get it if, if you look at the technology and it, and, and it, you know, turns your motor on fine, whatever turns up your evinrude, I am comfortable with that. It's just that you have to find that thing and you have to be a little bit honest with yourself and you have to not let other people's expectations. You can't let the, you know, prestige, or if you're a person where all that matters to you is prestige, be honest about that, too. But, Chandra, you know, there's one thing that I would like to say in closing is that I think.

Dr. Kelly Dobson [00:27:19]:
I think that if you are going to spend the kind of time and resources and energy and emotion involved and pursuing a college degree, but I think that you have to prepare yourself, and you need to start preparing at a young age. And I think that this is double for young men, because college is not a lark. It is a business. And it is the difference between your income, if you graduate from college and if you don't. On average is a very significant amount of money. The difference in your quality of life, if you accurately pursue a field that's going to nurture and feed you, is hugely different in how you're going to feel about yourself every day and how whether or not you're going to go home feeling like, feeling broken or feeling like you're almost mad that you had to go home and get some sleep so you can go back to work the next day, versus, you know, going home and feeling like you hate your job and drinking the excess. You know, there's so many aspects of your life that your career is going to determine. It's going to determine where you can live.

Dr. Kelly Dobson [00:28:38]:
It's going to determine who you can even be friends with. And it deserves a level of engagement, and it needs to start at a young enough age where you can kind of understand, do I like working indoors or outdoors? Do I like working with people, or do I like working with things? Do I. How important is prestige to me how important is money to me? You know, do I like to create? Do I like to fix? Do I like to help? You know, you got to have that understanding before you go to a place where you're going to spend now as much as half a million dollars to become certified to start a career that may be a career you don't even want.