I see him graduating in the canon story, even though we have no definitive statement of this happening so far. But I can also see just so many other ways it could have worked out.

For me, Dean graduating seems low on probability, high on possibility. The structure is in place that neither boy would have had to attend if John/they didn't choose. When they were younger, John could have taken them wherever, and reported whatever, if he was ever asked.

If they were in public schools, which canon says Sam and Dean were at least at some point in high school, Compulsory education age in Kansas is to 17 or 18 with exemptions granted. This surprised me because 20 years ago one of my friends got pregnant at 16, quit school, and took her GED. I had always thought the age you could leave school in Kansas was 16 and maybe it was back then. Also at that time, during senior year at my high school, the kids who weren't on the college track usually left after lunch for the "work-study program" which meant they could go to their jobs.

I guess I see Dean going on and off to public school, and then being smart enough to pass a GED at 16 or 17 and makeup whatever reason would get him the state exemption. I think that would have satisfied John at that point in his career and sets up why going to college was such a big fight between John and Sam.

Even in his fantasy he couldn't imagine himself in a white collar profession.

This also made me lean toward Dean not necessarily graduating. He is working as a mechanic, but they never said he had a high school diploma, did they? The only graduation picture was with Sam. I agree that Dean is smart, but not academic. I think if Dean had had positive reinforcement with grades in science or math, that would have been reflected in his wish world. Dean, like many, is brilliant in a way that isn't tested in the school system.

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He strikes me as able to test his way to a C average, and probably got a lot of comments like "not living up to full potential" written up in his permanent record.

I can easily see this. I can also see him as charming his way into being given a break on a bad test or a lost paper. Hell, that's probably where he honed his skills.

Dean, like many, is brilliant in a way that isn't tested in the school system.

also

It broke my heart in WINASNB that despite their "normal" childhoods, Sam was still a lawgeek, and Dean was a highschool graduate working at a garage. Even in his fantasy he couldn't imagine himself in a white collar profession.

This is true, and this is why I didn't necessarily find it heartbreaking that he was a high-school graduate working in a garage. My mom's youngest brother got his bachelor's degree from Tufts, and did the white-collar thing for a while before returning to the thing he loved to do - carpentry. It's what he learned from his father, and it brought him joy the way that a job doing editorial work for National Geographic didn't. (It also brought him shitloads more money and a much more flexible schedule, but that's another story.)

I'm honestly not sure if we were supposed to see Dean's career path in WIAWSNB as a full-on failure or not. Maybe I'm not remembering something that was said outright, but it struck me that the big failure was that he had a strained relationship with Sam. Other than that, I think Dean seemed fairly happy with the life he had. Nice house, nice girlfriend (in a job that requires a secondary education), etc. I get the idea that even if he did go on to get a bachelor's degree and hunting wasn't a factor, he'd be happiest up to his elbows in engine grease and auto parts.

We've seen that Dean is clever when it comes to devices and machinery. He built an EMF detector out of a walkman, and he was able to rebuild the Impala from scrap. If he had kept up with academics, I could see him going into some sort of engineering.

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Yeah, I think Dean *enjoys* working on cars. Plus, the wishverse was trying to lull him into a sense of security, an abandonment of his old life and giving in to the illusion. So maybe some of the other career paths he could have pursued and been excellent at (fireman, EMT, cop) would have felt too much like his old life. He had to be a complete civilian for it to work.

(Man, now I really want to read a fireman!AU.)

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It broke my heart in WINASNB that despite their "normal" childhoods, Sam was still a lawgeek, and Dean was a highschool graduate working at a garage. Even in his fantasy he couldn't imagine himself in a white collar profession.

I don't see anything particularly heartbreaking about it, aside from how Sam (and Mary) seemed to include that with the drinking as signs Dean was Throwing Away His Life. Blue collar work is honest productive labor, and it can pay as well or better than a lot of white collar jobs up through middle management.

Or what Anne said.

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What Anne said, definitely. I think Dean would love working on cars, and that's got to be a good feeling -- getting something running ("Listen to her purr"), polishign it up, making it shine.

I think Dean is just wired into "usefulness" -- I can see him, raised the way he was, being a fireman or an EMT or a mechanic or even a cook. But anything that's not immediate, and really practical, wouldn't give him the same sense of purpose or satisfaction, I think.

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But anything that's not immediate, and really practical, wouldn't give him the same sense of purpose or satisfaction, I think.

I think a desk job would be his idea of a living hell.

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Fireman/EMT is my dream job for Dean, actually. In the 'verse they grew up in, if we posit that John never went hunting, that he accepted the accidental version of Mary's death, stayed in Lawrence, possibly remarried, and the kids went on to have an ordinary life, Dean would have seen fire as the enemy to be fought, from which to save people. In the alternate 'verse where Mary didn't die, he'd still be a killer EMT, I think.

I have a blue collar kink, myself. I identify much more with Dean than I do Sam, despite the fact that I came from a blue-collar family and had pretty much Sam's experience in trying to break with family tradition and go on to college. An arts college, at that. People who know how to make things and repair things with their hands are my heroes.

But in light of Nutty's series of essays on the division within the family between white-collar-aspiring Sam and solidly blue-collar John and Dean, what troubles me is a possible caste prejudice within the family, which is what upset me about WINASNB. And the fact that Dean apparently couldn't even fantasize about being a college grad--the idea never occurred to him that he *could* be. That bothered me some.

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killer EMT

Er, unfortunate choice of phrase.

StE was in accelerated classes all through school, and he had good enough grades to get into most colleges. He dropped out of the college track his junior year of high school, after months of the three of us wrangling about it, to take trades classes at the local Tech college. Being in a classroom bored him, and he was the ultimate hands-on, intuitive tweak-it-make-it-go person. So, I know intelligent and smart isn't restricted to academia.

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Fireman/EMT is my dream job for Dean, actually. In the 'verse they grew up in, if we posit that John never went hunting, that he accepted the accidental version of Mary's death, stayed in Lawrence, possibly remarried, and the kids went on to have an ordinary life, Dean would have seen fire as the enemy to be fought, from which to save people.

I love, love, love this notion.

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To me, there is some prejudice between Sam and Dean, no matter what universe they are in, though I am not sure if I would call it caste or intellectual. (I think if Sam really had become a fat tax attorney living in the suburbs, it definitely would have been caste, but I'm not sure Sam got far enough removed from his roots for it to have been caste by the pilot.) It was much stronger when Sam first came back into the hunting life (his disdain for Dean's home made EMF reader; the way he felt he needed to tell Dean that "Christo" was the right term), but it never went away completely (Drunk!Sam calling Dean stupid in Playthings).

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