Interview Quotes
Don’t let social drama be a distraction
“I think that in high school it’s best to just keep to yourself and not get caught up in other people’s drama, because if you get caught up in that, it will get in the way of your schoolwork. If you’re really involved in someone else’s life and what’s going on with that person, then you have no time to do your homework or study. If focusing on gossip is all you want to do in high school, that’s not going to get you anywhere.”
Avoid taking out too many college loans
“I have a friend who went to UNH to become a coach and now has over $150,000 worth of loans. Studying to be a coach isn’t necessarily a bad thing and he’s very good at what he does, but if you think about $150,000, that’s a house in today’s market. So he’ll be paying off the equivalent of one house, and if he wants to buy an actual house or make another big purchase, that’s going to be very hard for him to do. Taking out a lot of loans can have serious consequences.”
Be open to new possibilities in college
“College opens your eyes to new possibilities and new interests. Go to college with the idea that you might not know exactly what you want to do. You don’t have to be stuck with what you said you were going to do when you first got there. For me, I ended up changing my major three or for times even after I decided I wanted to move towards a business degree. Keep your mind open, experience new things, and be prepared to change your plans if that’s what you need to do.”
Come up with a plan in college to pay off your student loans
“While you’re still in school, sit down and really think about what do you want to do when you get out. You’re going to have to do something, and there are plenty of online tools that will help you determine what the salary range is going to be for what you want to do. Then, start to really parse out and compare what you expect to make and what the growth potential is for the field that you’re looking to land in after college. By comparing those figures, you can begin to estimate how much debt you can afford to take on.”
— in Think about what you plan to do after school before taking on student loans
Great gap year experience with the American Field Service
“I think taking a year off was the right thing for me. I decided to take a different path after graduating. A lot of my friends were going right from high school to college. But I decided to do a year with the American Field Service and go to Ecuador and take a year off. I was kind of worried because some people say that you should finish school and go right through college. They think it will be really hard if you take time off and that you’re not going to want to go back. But it was a really good experience for me, and I think I needed that time off to really be ready to go to college.”
Don’t go into business for the money
“If you go into business for yourself for the money, that’s not a good reason. You’ve got to do it because it’s something you’re passionate about. It’s especially true at the beginning because it requires so many hours to get the business off the ground. I don’t begrudge any minute I spent, but I worked at least 80 hours a week for years. But I loved it. I look back and realize those were great times, and it’s because I truly did not care at all about the money. I wanted to build a business. So if your heart is in the right place, that’s step one.”
Internships open doors to jobs and opportunities
“I was in a 20-hour-a week internship program here at Skowhegan Savings Bank when I was in college. I had to keep a blog of my day-to-day activities, and then present my internship program to my college class. And that really opened the door for me. During my internship, my manager at the time basically asked me if I was interested in a position there and if I would consider working there when I got out of college. I liked what I was doing and it was really interesting to me so I said, ‘Absolutely.’ I thought it would work out really nicely for me and maybe turn into a career.”
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Making mistakes on your resume
“There are three areas I can think of in terms of advice on resumes. Number one, be careful of typos. It may sound obvious, but we see them all the time. The other area would be using a correctly spelled word in the wrong place. Finally, the other errors we see a lot are just classical blunders. Misperceptions can make the difference between whether your resume is followed up on or put in the ‘do not call’ pile.”
— in Mistakes he has seen reviewing resumes and cover letters
The first in his family to go to college
“I was the first person in my family to graduate from high school on time. My mom graduated late and my dad dropped out. I was the first person to go to college, so if I graduated from college I could be like, ‘Look. I did this.’ It looks good not only for me but for my younger brothers and sisters who don’t know what they want to do. If I get my degree and I’m doing good in life, hopefully I can inspire them to be like, ‘I want to be like Adam. I want to do that too.’ “
Featured: Be aware of how you present yourself to employers
“With Facebook and other social media, we encourage students to think twice about anything that could be accessed about them off the internet by employers, and whether or not that is something they would like employers to see. We have heard stories from employers who have typed a name into a search and found things the applicant really would not want them to see.”
Life changes quickly after high school
“Two or three years out of high school, you’ll be a completely different person. You’re going to grow up and have to start paying bills and paying rent; your priorities will completely change. What your peer group thinks of what you’re doing and stuff like that doesn’t matter anymore. Your friends change, people have babies, people get into relationships; people get married. It’s hard to wrap your head around how quickly everything changes in your twenties.”
Be smart about how you pursue your dream
“I definitely think that a student loan is always going to be classified as a good debt, but I think there gets to be a point at which you have to recognize that while there an emotional and personal benefit to this, you also have to consider the actual economic benefit to this, and if the economic benefit doesn’t at least level out against the debt you’re going to be taking on, then you need to explore other options for funding that.”
Featured: Stay focused on the big picture
“You have to understand that every little choice that you make can affect the big picture. Some small choices shift you completely off course, and then there are other choices that you feel like are going to ruin your life that really aren’t. If you get arrested, for example, you think it’s the end of the world, but it’s not necessarily going to derail your whole life unless you have to be in jail for a long time. It’s something you can learn from and move beyond. For me, it’s a matter of discipline: you make a mistake, you learn from it, and then you’ve got to remember what the big picture goal is.”
— in Advice: Think in terms of the “big picture” and seek guidance from others
Many things to adjust to in the transition from middle to high school
“One thing that can be difficult for many 9th graders to adjust to is having more freedom. In high school, you don’t necessarily need to have a hall pass from every teacher to walk around, and it can be really nice to be able to be out and about and wander a bit. Sometimes kids take too much advantage of that freedom and get into trouble that way. There are really so many new things to adjust to when you get into high school. Suddenly you’re not seeing the same teachers every single day; you’re getting to know different people, and different people have different expectations.”
Paying off student loans
“I’m not sure how much I borrowed in total, but now for student loan repayments I pay $300 a month. I got three years of room and board taken care of for me and went to one of the lower-end priced schools, and I’m still paying $300 a month to pay back my student loans. I’m grateful that I have a college education because without it I wouldn’t be in the job I have now, but I think it’s better to go to one of the state schools or local community colleges.”
— in Cost of college
Featured: Not free to be herself in high school
“I thought I loved high school. I would have told anyone that I was incredibly happy and that every day of high school was the greatest day of my life. I didn’t realize until I went to college that I hated high school. This surprised me, realizing that I had been really unhappy. I had been unhappy because I had created this persona for myself and had become so locked in to being the way people saw me instead of being who I was.”
Preparing for a job interview
“When you’re going to apply for a job, it’s always important to know the company you’re applying to. Go to their website, know what their mission statement is, know what they’re doing, and always have questions for them about what the job is. Not questions about money or anything like that, but about the company itself. It’s just as much about if you fit the company as it is about getting the job for the pay. You want it to be a good fit because if you’re not happy in your job you’re going to be miserable.”
— in Job advice
Transferring colleges was a challenge
“Transferring schools isn’t impossible, but by no means is it easy. A teacher in high school once told me that 80% of kids don’t go through four years at one college, but I didn’t think I’d be one of those kids; I thought I’d be four years in and out at UMO. Then, at the end of my junior year, I realized I had the option of moving back to Southern Maine and going to USM, rather than staying in Orono. So I moved back home. I was also in the process of starting up my own restaurant, and I didn’t want to miss that opportunity. The transferal process itself was pretty simple: I applied to USM, got accepted, spoke to an adviser about transferring my credits, and then it was just a matter of getting all the details worked out. It was on my end that things faltered.”
The worst advice I’ve ever received
“The worst advice I ever received was in high school. I was a junior in high school and I got called down to the guidance office one day. I got down there and my father was sitting there; he had been called in by the guidance counselor. The counselor said, ‘Mr. Gousse, don’t bother spending any money sending Marc away to college because he’ll never amount to anything.’ And I was like, Wow! That kind of took me aback.”
Joining the army after college was the right choice
“I thought about enlisting in the National Guard right out of high school, but I held off and went to college and that was the right choice for me. All of the guys who enlisted right out of high school had attitudes and they thought that just because they had graduated from high school that they were grown. But I waited, lived on my own, and had to pay for everything on my own. Then, when I joined the army, I was better suited for it than someone right out of high school.”
Our Picks
Editor’s Pick: Not having as much money as her classmates
“My family was blue-collar in a white-collar town. My parents worked really hard and did their best, but they had four kids and neither of them had advanced degrees. They did what they could. Even though we were always taken care of and I never wanted for food or clothing or shelter, most of the kids at my very small high school – there were about 60 people in my class – had so much more than I did, and I felt that difference everyday.”
Editor’s Pick: Losing her father and leaving school
“My dad died in 2008 and I dropped out of high school my junior year for about three or four months. I just went to work full-time to keep my thoughts away from school and my dad’s death. I didn’t want to go to school because I didn’t want to be faced with the questions about why I hadn’t been in school. It was embarrassing to me. I let my teachers down, I let my mom down; I let a lot of people down. Finally during my senior year I realized that this is not a game; this is real life and I have to support myself. What could I do without an education?”