THCC Episode 136 – The Prepared Graduate

Brad Baldridge
Welcome to Taming the High Cost of College. Today we have a great interview with Kyyah Abdul, the author of The Prepared Graduate.

Presenter
You have kids. They grow up, and before you know it, it's time to plan for college. Where do you start? How much is it going to cost? Will you qualify for financial aid? Should you be looking into scholarships? When will you be able to retire? What about student loans? The list of questions is never-ending. The good news is all the answers are right here. Welcome to the Taming the High Cost of College Podcast. Here is your host, certified financial planner, Brad Baldridge.

Brad Baldridge
Hello and welcome to Taming the High Cost of College. I'm your host Brad Baldridge. Today we have an interview with Kyyah Abdul, she's the author of The Prepared Graduate. In this interview, we're going to talk a lot about social media and how that's impacting students today. We're also going to talk about Kyyah's own journey where she started out as pre-med and ended up being an entrepreneur and an author and ultimately did not end up being the pediatrician that she thought she would be. We also talked about how Kyyah works with students to help them plan out a career and understand it's more than just graduating from college that most employers are looking for. As always, show notes are available at Taming the High Cost of College. And this is Episode 136. Let's go ahead and jump into the interview.

Brad Baldridge
All right, today I'm sitting down with Kyyah Abdul. She is the author of The Prepared Graduate. Welcome, Kyyah.

Kyyah Abdul
Hi, thank you for having me.

Brad Baldridge
Hi. So obviously, you decided to write a book, can you tell us a little bit about, what's in it and what prompted you to get out there and write a book?

Kyyah Abdul
Sure. The book basically is for college juniors and seniors. And it walks them through the summer before senior year, first and second semester, senior year and one year after. And the different things that I talked about in the book are anything from understanding what a 401k is, and how to choose it during job negotiations all the way back to how to put your education into practice sooner by finding a job that's relevant to you, while you're working for you to create making it easier to get a job in your industry after graduating, I was prompted to write the book mainly because I was frustrated with my matriculation into corporate America after graduation. I kind of felt that my advisors and you know, the faculty at my university, I don't wanna say they didn't help me because they did in their own way. But I think because they're so inundated with different so many students, you know, one advisor has like 1000 students, plus a full teaching schedule, they don't really have the time to sit with you in career plan. So I did a lot of career planning and mapping myself throughout college. And just to make it easier for other people, so they don't have to go through the struggles that I had. I put it into a book.

Brad Baldridge
All right, well, great. And you also have a website and brand Career Savage. Can you tell us what that's about?

Kyyah Abdul
Yes, I started Career Savage in 2017. I graduated college, actually in 2016. And then a year after I decided to focus on my brand of Career Savage. And it's basically all about doing... Well, what Career Savage means is all about doing everything humanly possible to ensure success in your career. And I give people tips and tricks on how to navigate corporate America how to navigate the, college application process, graduate school application process. It's truly the ultimate brands for career mapping for Generation Z and millenial.

Brad Baldridge
Right. Okay. Yeah. So that's, obviously we're talking to parents of Generation Z and millennials that are we're typically dealing with college. So I noticed you do some consulting all the way down to the high school level. Do you feel like, I guess what the one of the things that I've talked about in the past is, 20 years ago, the rule of thumb was work hard, get a college degree, get a great job, and life will be fantastic because there's a limited supply of college graduates. And there was, there's a lot of demand for them. So they kind of got to pick their path, so to speak. Around 2007-8, when the, in the downturn I think all of a sudden, we started having more graduates than we needed.

Kyyah Abdul
Yep.

Brad Baldridge
And the world changed from you automatically get a job to, 'Well, yeah, you have a degree and so do they, what else you got?'

Kyyah Abdul
Yep.

Brad Baldridge
So it sounds like that's some of the stuff that you help people understand. So again, can you give me some ideas of the what, that what else would be as you're working with seniors?

Kyyah Abdul
Yeah, sure. This is exactly one of the things I talked about in my book. And I think the purpose of college and the meaning of college has changed throughout the past 15 years and you mentioned in 2008, when we had that horrible recession, where a bunch of people graduated into an economy where there were no jobs, and I think that same thing happened to a lot of people during the COVID-19 pandemic, it was really hard for college graduates to find a job depending on the majors that they had. But I think some of the things that set people apart is internships, having an internship in college to make sure that you have some sort of experience, because the thing about colleges, it's all theoretical knowledge. And until you put that theory into practice, you're not really sure. It's just an idea, you're education is just an idea. But when you go find a job, for example, if you're a dentistry major, and you work in a dentist's office, volunteering, helping the receptionist or doing this little work in passing conversations and seeing patients come through the clinic, and speaking with the dentist, you learn more about that industry. And I think it makes it easier for employers to give jobs to people who have some sort of professional interaction while they were getting their degree. So like I said, volunteering, work, work experience internships, those are all additions that help you better matriculate into the workforce.

Brad Baldridge
Yes, and I think some colleges now are getting on board

Kyyah Abdul
Yeah

Brad Baldridge
Where they find, they want to be much more hands on and have partnerships with the communities and the workforce, and etc, where they're helped students actually get placed and that type of thing and other colleges are just kind of the old school. You know, we teach what we teach, you learn what you learn, and that's what you get.

Kyyah Abdul
There's a very small subset of schools that are actually integrating Korean curriculum. I think I was on Princeton's website the other day, I don't know why. But they have, I mean, their career center is basically an additional college just for understanding careers. And that's great. But not everybody has million dollar endowments, to put into that kind of thing. Some schools just just simply don't have the money.

Brad Baldridge
Right.

Kyyah Abdul
And when you think about public schools, they certainly might not have the money. So it's almost inequitable, to who's getting career prep, versus who's just getting a college degree. And a lot of students really do have to advocate for themselves. And it's important for parents to also advocate for their kids and figure out how to help them integrate career and curriculum as soon as possible.

Brad Baldridge
All right, well, good. So let's do a little thought experiment here. Let's rewind back to when Kyyah was a junior in high school. Because I know you went and studied pre-med.

Kyyah Abdul
I did.

Brad Baldridge
Yeah, tell us your thought process and how you ended up pre-med and obviously now you're writing books about career. So I don't see an MD anywhere. So I'm pretty sure you didn't end up as a doctor. So

Kyyah Abdul
I did not

Brad Baldridge
Tell us about that path a little.

Kyyah Abdul
But I actually did end up with an MPH. So I do have a master's. I have my Master's in Public Health concentrated in Urban Healthcare Disparities from Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science. So I went to med school, I just didn't get a medical degree.

Brad Baldridge
Okay.

Kyyah Abdul
Junior year of high school, nobody could have told me that I would be doing what I'm doing now, but for sure I was going to be a pediatrician. There was no way that I was going to be anything other than a pediatrician. And actually, my sophomore year of college, I volunteered at Yale New Haven Hospital in the pediatric unit for oncology. And I hated it. It was very sad, very depressing. And I felt so bad for the kids that I couldn't get through my volunteer shifts. And that was the day I realized I'd never be a pediatrician. But going back to high school to answer your question. Honestly, I think my parents encouraged me to do pre-med. I'm Nigerian, and it's very, very typical for Nigerian children to do engineering, math, remain in STEM, become doctors, lawyers, engineers. That is what your parents have come to America for you to pursue, and there's no other options for you. But I got through senior year, and the college I realized that I don't know if I want to go to med school. I'm not really even sure about the process. I love science. I really do love biology. I think it's very interesting. And I do work in clinical research, actually, for pharmaceutical companies and help them get drugs approved. So for example, something like Advil or whatever other medicines you can think of, I would be a part of the regulatory affairs team that facilitates with health authorities to get drugs approved. So that's great work, but no one told me that even existed or that was a job that I could pursue when I was a junior or senior in high school. I thought that you study pre-med, you become a doctor, and you will be successful and have enough money to do whatever you want. As I learned later on and doing my own research, I realized that financial freedom and being a doctor aren't always true. Because pediatricians, I know some people who work in tech, Biotech, whether it's regular tech working for Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, Google, whatever, I know some people who work in tech that make more than physicians. So I don't think that that financial freedom is exactly true, especially with the student loans that you acquire. But yeah, in high school, I wanted to be a doctor. And I kind of grew out of that, as I learned more about the opportunities in healthcare.

Brad Baldridge
Right. So when did you make the decision that you're not going to med school and you're going to pursue a master's in a related field?

Kyyah Abdul
Yeah, after school and I get, I talked about this as well in my book. After my senior year, I went to a career fair. And I, at that point, I realized it was too late for me to go to med school because get to med school right after college, I thought I would just be able to apply and quickly get in. But no, there's a whole process. And honestly, applying to med school takes about two years. So you start your sophomore year, if you're serious about going to med school immediately after senior year, no one told me that.

Brad Baldridge
Yep.

Kyyah Abdul
My advisor didn't tell me that. So I was kind of like, 'Oh, I can't even go if I wanted to.' And it's also very expensive. But I went to a career fair and Yale University was actually there. And I thought, 'Okay, well, maybe there's a job in the hospital, I can get to just mow me over until I figure out what my next plan is going to be.' I met someone who was there. And he really liked how I sold myself being a pharm tech and having pharmaceutical experience already. So he referred me to the health center, and they actually got me a job right after graduation working in the health center in the Public Health Education Department, where you educate students on the importance of, you know all those immunizations you have to get before you go to school the varicella meningococcal?

Brad Baldridge
Right.

Kyyah Abdul
Yale, two years prior had a meningococcal B outbreak or something like that. And they were really getting serious about educating students so that they didn't have another epidemic on their campus.

Brad Baldridge
Right.

Kyyah Abdul
So I was, they only hired three people. And at the end of three months, they let go the other two people and only kept me. So I worked really closely with this woman, her name is Ellen Jenkin Cappiello. And she's a nurse educator at Yale New Haven Health. And she talked to me about how good I was about researching epidemics, pandemics, and taking that information and disseminating it out to students, international students, 18-year-olds, parents.

Brad Baldridge
Right.

Kyyah Abdul
And she's like, 'You should go get your MPH.' It's like, 'No, no, I don't even know what that is, like what is really public health?' She's like, 'This is public health. This is what you're doing.' Went home, researched it, two weeks later, I applied to one school got in, and I moved back to LA.

Brad Baldridge
Okay.

Kyyah Abdul
It was very fast.

Brad Baldridge
Alright, so yeah. So you made this decision near the end of... It wasn't like, sophomore year in college, or you said

Kyyah Abdul
I made the decision after I had already got my college degree. And I was working, and I realized, what's my next step?

Brad Baldridge
Right.

Kyyah Abdul
I don't know what it is. I think a lot of people look at your career journey as like this long stairwell. I just look at each step. I'm just like, 'What is the next step?' I'm not looking at the next flight of stairs. I'm looking at the step in front of me. And now that I'm a little bit more cemented in my career, I'm able to have that long view. But yeah, it just kind of happened.

Brad Baldridge
Right. So what degree did you actually graduate with? As far as because pre-med, at a lot of schools, there's no such thing as a pre-med degree. You choose a degree

Kyyah Abdul
Yeah.

Brad Baldridge
with the intention of going on to med school, but you have to have some sort of degree. What was yours in?

Kyyah Abdul
In my undergrad?

Brad Baldridge
Yes.

Kyyah Abdul
It was literally, biology with a concentration in pre-medical science.

Brad Baldridge
Okay, so it was in the, through the biology department.

Kyyah Abdul
It was, yes.

Brad Baldridge
Yeah. I mean, some people will go to medical school, and they'll start in psychology or sociology or other.

Kyyah Abdul
Yeah, no, I started. I have my biology degree. Yeah.

Brad Baldridge
Right. All right. So then as you are consulting and working with families, I think one of the challenges that I, that I, in talking with parents, a big roadblock is my student is undecided.

Kyyah Abdul
Yeah.

Brad Baldridge
And we can't move forward. Because we don't know what kind of major we're looking for, or we don't know what college we're looking for. So we're dead in the water, there's nothing we can do, which I would argue with, but it's still a potential challenge. I think roughly half the world has a path. When they go off to college, they say, 'Well, I'm going to go to college and become a teacher or a lawyer or whatever.'

Kyyah Abdul
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Brad Baldridge
They may be wrong, they may change, but at least they have, they have a direction so that they can put the steps together. But I find a lot of families stop when they say 'Well, I can't decide I could be a lawyer. I could be a doctor. Maybe a firefighter, I've got all these different ideas. Maybe I'm good at music, and I'm good at math. Now, how do I decide?'

Kyyah Abdul
Yeah.

Brad Baldridge
What's your recommendation for students that are early in the process and kind of afraid of picking a path that might be wrong?

Kyyah Abdul
Putting their ideas into practice sooner than later. I live by that advice. And I worked all throughout high school, I actually, my senior year I worked probably 30 hours a week. I worked at a real estate firm as an executive assistant to the CEO and CFO. I was helping with marketing materials, I was helping, doing research on like the the California real estate database website. I did, that helped plan the grand opening, I was assisting the assistant to the entire office, I learned about Escrow, I learned how to be a TC, a transaction coordinator. I was 17 years old. And I realized I hated real estate. It was like, 'You're such a good person, you should be in real estate, you should be in real estate.' I was like, 'I tried to get my real estate license like three times, and it just never happened.' And that's how I realized I wasn't meant to be a real estate agent. But I think the same advice that I've put in my book is applicable anywhere, because you never know what you don't know until you try it. And similar to when I volunteered in college, the hospital and I realized, 'Oh, I can't work with children, because this is too sad for me.' I don't have the personality or the the ability to fake it with a smile. These pediatricians are so happy and they have to be to keep the patient that way. I can't do that. That's how I know I'm not meant to be in that profession. And even in high school, all the jobs that I worked, I worked, I tutored special education children. That's what I realized I couldn't be a teacher, not because I don't love kids, but because I'm not patient.

Brad Baldridge
Right.

Kyyah Abdul
And patience is key in teaching. So let's X that off my list. But I mean, I was just crossing things off my list in in high school left, right and center. And I would volunteer, I would always ask questions, I would talk to people who were older than me and learn more about what they did. I had a friend who is about six years older than me, she went to college for criminal justice. She swore up and down that she was going to be a police officer. And she told me this when I was 17 years old. She was like, 'I thought I was going to be a police officer. Now I'm a receptionist at a real estate firm, working to get my real estate license.' And she's like, 'I wish that I took more time in high school to understand what was out there.' And maybe you could just have a shadow day, you can literally go anywhere and say, 'I want to shadow a doctor and see if this is something I like.' And if it's there, if you like it, feed that interest. So I think what will help people in high school decide what to pursue in college is exploring all the possible options there are while you're in high school, talking to people, talking to your professors, talking to counselors, talking to people who went to your college the year before and graduated and asking them about their experiences. All of those things will help you inform yourself on how to make a decision and you can decide on a major and go to school for business or something general. And then if you don't like it, you can change. I don't advise changing after sophomore year because it gets messy after that. But you can change, or go to community college for two years and spend those two years exploring and then transfer when you're ready.

Brad Baldridge
Right. Okay. And then what about advice for parents that are dealing with the, again, it's obvious you were very self motivated. You get out there, you did what you needed to do.

Kyyah Abdul
Yeah, my mom was not worried.

Brad Baldridge
Right? So, you know, again, if you're a parent of a kid that's not, you know, willing to put themselves out there quite so much. How do you encourage that or

Kyyah Abdul
With my students, my high school students who haven't been motivated, they're, it's been few and far between. Because I mean, most of the time students have sought out my business services and ask their parents to pay for it. So I had students who really somehow found me, or I had, I work with people at the real estate office. And they, I knew that their kids from the long time and their kids like, 'I want to work with Kyyah.' But for some of the people that I've worked with that were really under/unmotivated, I always found that there was an underlying issue, whether it was a lack of confidence, like I had someone who just didn't believe they were smart. So they're like, 'Why should I care?' So I had to spend a lot of time almost being like a motivational life coach than a career coach at that juncture. So I think for parents who are struggling with people who might be unmotivated, it could be something that's underlying. I actually was very unmotivated as a child, like no one thought I was going to college at all. No one in my family, none of my close family friends. I honestly didn't really want to go to college at one point. And it's because when I was in third grade, I was diagnosed with a learning disability where I just, I don't think I had one, I think I just didn't believe in myself honestly. But I was diagnosed with a learning disability and I was reading and writing it like far below the level of my peers. So I just didn't care. Cuz I, people made fun of me and I had trouble reading. So because I had trouble reading I just stopped reading. Because I didn't do well on tests, I just never finished them. But what's the point? Who cares? Like, I don't, I don't really see the point in all of this. But I found that my mom doing everything she could. And maybe I'm just a different kid, but she really tried. I mean, she got me tutors, people to talk to me, my brothers would have actually how I got my first job in high school was one of my brother's really close friends asked me, if I wanted to get corporate experience before I went to college. I had a tribe of people trying to help me get out of this mindset that I was never going to amount to anything. And because of that support from all areas, I kind of just grew out of that lack of motivation. And it wasn't really a lack of motivation. I just didn't believe in myself. So I think that, that a lot of times is what it is. It's not a lack of motivation. It's people not believing themselves or also in this generation. It's a lot of, I see it, saw somebody on TikTok who grew up overnight. So like, if they can do it, why can't I? Or you see so many people having all these things on social media that you want it for yourself, and you're upset that you can't have it for yourself, so you become depressed or unmotivated. I think social media plays a big factor in to today's generation. And honestly, parents just talking to their kids about the reality of social media and how like, what you see is not always what it is. And that with every job profession, no matter what you have in life, it'll have its own set of stressors and lows. But, yeah.

Brad Baldridge
Yeah, it's interesting you mentioned that because talking with your kids and letting them know that to be a YouTube star is a lot of work.

Kyyah Abdul
'My God, I'm exhausted.'

Brad Baldridge
Right?

Kyyah Abdul
'I'm on YouTube, but I'm exhausted.'

Brad Baldridge
Right? Exactly. It is a lot of work, a lot of hard work and a lot of learning.

Kyyah Abdul
And it's not the money. It's not realistic what people think, because, for example, Emma Chamberlain, love her, love her YouTube videos, I guarantee you, if any of the parents who listen to this podcast, talk to their kids and be like, 'Do you know who Emma Chamberlain is?' They do.

Brad Baldridge
Right.

Kyyah Abdul
They know who Emma Chamberlain is. Or even Charlie D'Amelio. I'll take Emma Chamberlain right now. She was on YouTube consistently posting for like six or seven years before she became this mega star on YouTube with like 10 million followers.

Brad Baldridge
Right.

Kyyah Abdul
I mean, six years of filming videos, coming up with ideas, editing your content, making no money.

Brad Baldridge
Yep.

Kyyah Abdul
I've been on YouTube and I just reached 57,000 subscribers. I mean, in a year, which is great, but I have almost 130 videos, I had to edit all my videos or pay someone to edit my videos, come up with the ideas, engage with people in the comments. And I think I've only made probably $1,000 from YouTube.

Brad Baldridge
Right? For sure. I think that

Kyyah Abdul
It's nothing.

Brad Baldridge
That's right? I think for a lot of parents, even understanding that whole world is... And I know for me, I just kind of dismiss it and don't talk about it too much with my kids because I don't understand it very well. But yeah, for sure

Kyyah Abdul
There's money that can be made, sure.

Brad Baldridge
Right.

Kyyah Abdul
But I don't think people realize it's not a lot of people that are able to do that. And TikTok is making it more equitable, more people are able to achieve success on TikTok. And if you're consistent and your content is good, sure, you can reach success. But I know people who have good content, they post every day and they're still not where they want to be. And it's probably going to be like that for at least the next few years until they blow up on there. It catches wind, so

Brad Baldridge
Right.

Kyyah Abdul
And a lot of people do other stuff. What I don't think a lot of young people realize is, there are people who are famous who were still going to school on the backend. Megan Thee Stallion was in college. And then she started rapping and pursuing her passions, but she was still doing other things to make sure that she had a fallback plan.

Brad Baldridge
Right. Yeah, I can see that right social medias for sure is giving a lot of young people that a window into into the world but it's, they're not seeing the whole picture. So I yeah, that is something that parents are dealing with, they definitely need to perhaps even have their kid get involved in someone that is in that realm and understands it.

Kyyah Abdul
I definitely think so reaching out to there are a lot of people who are on YouTube who would welcome the idea of having a conversation with someone and they're even YouTube videos explaining like, how social media helps. But I also think people need to understand that be careful what you ask for. I always say I never want to be famous. I have zero desire. I live in LA, and I see celebrities hiding from people, or I'm standing in line at the store and someone's trying to sneak into the store because someone's following them. I'm like, this is awful. This is absolutely awful. And then on top of that, you see people like Charlie D'Amelio say she suffers from extreme depression and anxiety because people wish her death threats or you're under a magnifying glass every single day. You cannot do anything freely. You've lost your freedom almost.

Brad Baldridge
Right.

Kyyah Abdul
Your free will to do anything, you've lost it. And I don't think people really understand that until they're already on the other side.

Brad Baldridge
Right, for sure. All right, so let's wrap things up here a little bit. So obviously your book The Prepared Graduate, can you tell us a bit more about it and where we can get it and when it's released

Kyyah Abdul
Sure, it comes out at the end of January. I'm really excited about that. You can find it on Amazo, Target, Barnes and Noble. You can even google Mango Publishing and go to their list of authors and find me. It's like one of the third or fourth authors and you can click my page and find my book there. You'll be able to find it on my personal website when it's available, careersavage.com, I will be talking about it on my YouTube channel. If you just look up Career Savage anywhere, whether it's Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, TikTok, you'll find my brand, my website. And that's where you can learn more about my book and me.

Brad Baldridge
Right. And you are still also doing one-on-one consulting with

I am, yeah.

students, as, if they're interested? Okay.

Kyyah Abdul
Yes, you can visit my website and schedule a consultation there. I always advise that people go on my YouTube channel first to save money, because a lot of the information you might ask me is probably already there. And if you have more individualized and specialized questions, and I have a bunch of packages, like a three-month plan, which is really great for my high school students, where I basically mentor them or guide them, career coach them for three full months. I have had a lot of parents gift that to their kids or even just one hour one-on-one, interview prep, preparing for applications that even help with college essays.

Brad Baldridge
Right

Kyyah Abdul
Being that I am a writer. I'm pretty good at writing an essay.

Brad Baldridge
Right

Kyyah Abdul
Or helping with that.

Brad Baldridge
Okay, well, great. It was great talking with you. And hopefully people will come and check out all your good stuff, and we'll talk soon.

Kyyah Abdul
Yeah, thank you so much for having me.

Brad Baldridge
All right, that was a great interview with Kyyah. If you want to learn more about her book or get in contact with her, all her information is available on our show notes tamingthehighcostofcollege/136. As always, we appreciate reviews in wherever it is that you're listening to this podcast, whether it be Spotify, Apple, Google, etc. And if you have any comments, questions or concerns, please feel to reach out. You can reach us through the website, at tamingthehighcostofcollege.com. That's all for this week. We will see you next week.

Presenter
Thank you for listening to the Taming the High Cost of College Podcast. Now, it's time for you to take action. Head to tamingthehighcostofcollege.com for show notes, bonus content, and to leave feedback for Brad. The next step on your college journey starts now.

Brad Baldridge is a registered representative of Cambridge Investment Research and an investment advisor representative of Cambridge Investment Research Advisors, a registered investment advisor. Securities are offered through Cambridge Investment Research Incorporated, a broker dealer and member of FINRA and SIPC. Brad owns two companies: Baldrige Wealth Management and Baldrige College Solutions. The Baldridge companies are not affiliated with Cambridge Investment Research.

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