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I'm not gonna lie to you, I fucking hate the Ivy Leagues.

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And it's honestly not because of those Ivy League schools themselves.

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It's honestly because of the way that people view them that is completely disconnected

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from reality.

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Welcome everyone to the Pop Out.

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I'm your host Albert Shen.

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This is not a hip hop podcast.

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I just really hate Drake.

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Very much appreciate Kendrick Lamar for what he did in dismantling the fraud that is Drake.

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No, this podcast is going to actually be about education in all its various forms and many

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parts, moving parts and systems.

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You know, I gotta be honest with you, I have been doing a lot of work in both the public

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and private sector.

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I'm currently a tenured faculty at Pasadena City College and have worked at four year

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colleges in the years past, but also in the private sector.

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And there's something that I learned in my time juggling both these different spheres,

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which is that one, there's just a lot of bad information being given out to students.

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And you know, the bad information being given out is from well-meaning people.

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It's from parents, it's from counselors at schools, it's from the private sector who

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has an incentive to try to convince you that they have the secret formula to get your kid

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into a good college or to improve their the opportunities that they have in life.

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You know, there's messaging that comes from politicians, there's messaging that comes

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from all over the place.

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And I think personally that I think most people are well-intentioned, they have a good heart,

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they want the best for people.

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There might be some snakes in the grass, some people that are being sneaky and using, you

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know, opportunities to profit themselves.

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But I think for the most part, people think that they know what they're talking about

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and they do try to give the best advice they could without actually having the experience

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of helping, you know, hundreds and thousands of students get through high school, onto

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college and then also transition from out of college.

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This is not something that most people I think have access to, in part because, you know,

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life is life.

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You don't have access to, you know, all of life's experiences, you just have your own

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lane.

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And so I wanted this to be a space where people like myself, and I'm hoping in the future,

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other educators, other students, parents, we could all come together and have an honest

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conversation about the educational system and to start dismantling a lot of the, you

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know, false claims that exist out there about what a college is for, you know, how to get

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into college, what you should be doing in high school, but also like that transition

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into the workforce and, you know, what it is that you should be doing and preparing

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in order to get yourself ready for these transitions in your life as you move from, you know, the

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school system into the workforce and then beyond.

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Right.

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So, in this podcast, I'm going to be pretty blunt and I imagine I'm not going to make

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some people very happy.

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It'll impact at least the private sector.

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I imagine it's going to impact some of their pocketbooks if people actually hear what it

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is I'm going to say, you know, and so I expect to have a lot of, you know, negative feedback

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and that's fine.

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That's why I called this the pop out because I just wanted to pop out and pop off of the

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mouth.

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I luckily have the privilege of being tenured.

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So you're not going to take anything away from me.

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You could scream as loud as you want, but I'm going to do my best to speak at least truth

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as I understand it or what I think has the best reason for us to believe to be true.

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And in that process, I hope to accomplish at least a couple of things.

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One, I want to make sure everybody has the right information and this is, you know, this

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is regardless of your background, regardless of whatever advantages that you have or disadvantages

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that you have.

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I think there are opportunities out there for everybody.

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It might look different depending on your life circumstances and you might have to kind

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of adjust to your own, you know, personal situation.

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But I wanted to let you know in this information of being able to access all, you know, information

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for free and easily, you know, readily, conveniently, that this would be one place you can go and

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hopefully trust to give you some good guidance on where to find good information.

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And I hope that people will chime in and also share resources for people so that we could

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all kind of collect it in one place and be a one stop shop for everybody.

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But I wanted to be available, the same information to be available to everybody.

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There's not to be something that you had to pay for.

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There's something that's not something that you should have to know the right people to

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get, you know, everybody should be making rational informed decisions.

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That is my honest belief.

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And I believe from that we'll get real, real meritocracy where the people who, you know,

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they do make the best of the opportunities they're given are rewarded for their effort

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and for the kind of things that they produce.

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So that's one hope.

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The second hope, honestly, is for us to actually help ourselves with regards to our own mental

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health when it comes to education, when it comes to schools, when it comes to grades,

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when it comes to college admissions.

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I cannot tell you the number of times, especially in the private sector, but even while I was

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teaching at, you know, UC Santa Barbara or at Villanova or, you know, currently at Pasadena

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City College, I cannot tell you the number of times that students have undergone severe

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stress, anxiety, depression as a result of education, as a result of sometimes the educational

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system and the way that we evaluate students, the way that, you know, communities kind of

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feed into the ideas of what makes a successful person with regards to the kind of education

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you need or the kind of college you need to go to or graduate from.

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So in serving to speak truth, I am hoping to also kind of allow students and parents

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and educators to start being a little bit more mindful of what it is that we're doing

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to fellow people as we put pressure on them in order to get them to accomplish what we

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might consider the best life for them, which honestly might not be what's best for them,

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right?

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Education serves a purpose.

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I truly believe that.

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And I think it's something that we all need to have to some degree if we're going to live

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in a society peacefully with, you know, rational, good decision making, right?

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Like we're going to need people who have certain, a certain set of skills in evaluating the

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information that we're bombarded with on a daily basis.

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But the flip side of that is that sometimes comes at a cost to our emotional, psychological,

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spiritual well-being, which at the end of the day hurts the whole purpose of getting

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an education.

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It actually goes antithetical to why we want people to be educated.

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So I am hoping to at least create this kind of culture shift in the way that we view,

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for example, college rankings, for the way that we have these discourses around terms

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that honestly should not be in the public discourse, right?

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I'm thinking specifically nowadays, things like DEI, affirmative action.

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I'm trying to think what else, right?

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Is it trigger warnings?

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I mean, I am a philosopher by training and I go absolutely nuts when people get too hung

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up on their reactions to these terms because they think they know what these terms mean

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and it is absolutely not what they think it means.

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You know, from private conversations to discourses with students, I mean, people seem to just

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have the wrong idea of all these things.

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I think that if people actually knew what these things meant, they would stop reacting

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so strongly, right?

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Even if I use the word, for instance, privilege, right?

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I don't want people to get emotionally all worked up over it because the word has a specific

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meaning that I'm trying to convey and it's not what you probably associate it with.

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It's not a political term.

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It is not meant to kind of, you know, evoke outrage.

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It's not meant to kind of mobilize people necessarily to do anything.

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It's just kind of a word used to express an idea to, you know, explain the realities of

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the world that we live in.

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So my hope, and you'll see this in all the episodes to come, is to kind of slowly start

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breaking some of these ideas down, breaking down truths about what colleges are looking

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for, what the educational system actually does, at least in the United States.

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And I hope at the end of the day that it could serve as a good resource for those who actually

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need it.

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I did not have that resource.

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I grew up to parents who did not necessarily go to college.

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I mean, you could call it college by name, but I doubt it was actually like a college,

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at least in the, you know, in the Western country sense of college.

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And they were, you know, again, they were immigrants.

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We grew up in a very poor home.

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We did not have the resources to hire somebody to give us any information.

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So I had to learn a lot of things on my own.

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And I saw at an early age what kind of, you know, information I had received that later

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on upon reflection realized, wow, that was terrible advice.

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That was not actually true at all.

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Right?

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You know, I hope that this is not a situation that others have to go through, especially

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at a day and age in which we can all access correct, truthful information.

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You just need somebody to vet that information, I think, in part because we can't expect students

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to do it.

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We can't actually expect parents to do it because parents probably are thinking about

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what they understood and knew from their own experiences, not necessarily what happens

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to the thousands of other students and thousands of other administrators, what they're thinking,

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right?

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Like there's no way for them to know.

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So the more voices we have, the better it'll be for us to collect that information into

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one place and to get closer to what is actually true so that if we're going to have a discussion

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about it, at least we could have a real honest one instead of one where we're talking past

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each other because none of us really are talking about the same thing.

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Okay?

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So I hope that you enjoy the podcast to come.

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I'm really excited for it.

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I'm not going to lie.

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I will be cursing.

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I will not be filtering myself.

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And there will be times when I will get really, really pissed off and angry, in part because

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of my own experiences facing the same ridiculous claims again and again and again and again

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and again.

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So expect me to just speak like we are in a conversation.

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And I hope that you would give me the same in return, right?

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Good or bad.

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I'm open to all of it.

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I look forward to our engagement in the coming weeks, months, and hopefully I could get you

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to be on board with at least changing some things up for the betterment of not just yourself

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but for all of us.

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I look forward to hearing from all of you.

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I'm out.