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Let's face it, not everyone who goes to college should, or goes for the right reasons. A lot of kids go to college to hide from reality for a few more years, or to party. This doesn't bode well for their future, especially if they're doing it on borrowed money.
My dad's buddy is a master electrician, retired now. He and his wife spend their time between a rural home in Northern MI, a house on Lake Saint Clair, and another home in Florida. Now, each person has their own luck. This guy was born with the golden horseshoe in is a$$, and I think he was pretty aggressive when it came to investing. So it easily could have gone the other way.
Last time I checked, a master electrician working for the IBEW Local 58 is around $50 an hour. So, to make the good money one has to work a bunch of overtime. Or start ones own business.
Wow, what do you consider "good money"? At 40 hours a week (2000 working hours a year) that works out to $100k. Most people wouldn't consider that bad. Now, that's for someone in the IBEW, working for someone else, and of course paying union dues. An independent electrician, running his own business and a couple crews, can do far better.
Wow, what do you consider "good money"? At 40 hours a week (2000 working hours a year) that works out to $100k. Most people wouldn't consider that bad. Now, that's for someone in the IBEW, working for someone else, and of course paying union dues. An independent electrician, running his own business and a couple crews, can do far better.
My best friend is a plumber. My son is a PGY-5 MD neurosurgery resident. A couple of years ago the three of us were target shooting and plinking on our ranch. After putting the guns away sweating pipe came up. So we scrounged some copper pipe, a torch, some solder etc. and my friend proceeded to teach my son how to sweat pipe. Then my friend demonstrated the sweating wet pipe with bread trick. My son tried and couldn't do it (he wasn't heating the pipe enough).
Anyway my son asked with earnest, "how long would it take you to teach me to be a plumber."
Buddy, "3 mos. to be a decent gofer type helper." "6 mos. to do a good number of 'easy' plumbing jobs on your own." "A year to be pretty good." "And another year to be really good."
Buddy paused and then said, "the difference is you could never teach me to be a neurosurgeon."
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A good number of high responsibility, high value professions more or less require college and some much more. CPA, MD, lawyer, engineer, the overwhelming majority of the best IT jobs, military commissioned officers, the overwhelming majority of airline pilots, business types, consultants etc. etc.
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Another factor is relatively few men and very, very few women are physically able to do well in the trades...........most people aren't good enough with their hands for one. So women face more pressure to go to college.
I won't speak to professions I know nothing about, but can speak to the engineering side. You're right in that a degree is required-but at the same time, a degree in engineering doesn't make someone a decent engineer. There are a lot of mediocre engineers out that that happen to carry that piece of paper. I'm pretty sure the same can be said of other professions. Now, in most fields, what you learn in college just scratches the surface of what you need to know. The skills of most instructors are dated, few have relevant work experience, especially in fields that are evolving quickly, and most don't have the latest, state of the art equipment of a private research and development facility. My previous employer mostly sold to universities, as well as national labs. University professors usually run a team of a few kids with no experience in their respective fields and spend much of their time managing those kids and processing grant requests.
The skills of most instructors are dated, few have relevant work experience, especially in fields that are evolving quickly..
Not entirely wrong there - but - engineering school doesn't mainly teach cutting edge science. They teach the fundamentals - which in most fields, have not changed in 100 years. You can be a good engineer without understanding some of these things - but if you DO understand the fundamentals - really understand them - then you are a GREAT engineer.
I know no GREAT engineers who don't routinely use the basic principles every day - while few are benefiting today from some contemporary technology they learned for one semester 20 years ago.
In short - I don't know what a "dated" skill is - presenting information is not going to change. Relevant work experience (for them) would not have changed my college experience. Fields that are evolving quickly - by definition - will have you learning things that are obsolete before you graduate - what's the use of that?
I think its because people realizes how much fun, stress-free and a relaxing life style comes in the trades that everyone is learning to become a truck driver, plumber or electrician. At least that seems to be the narrative that I often hear today.
"About a third (32%) of currently enrolled students pursuing a bachelor's degree report they have considered withdrawing from their program for a semester or more in the past six months. A slightly higher percentage of students pursuing their associate degree, 41%, report they have considered stopping out in the past six months. These are similar to 2020 levels when 33% of bachelor's degree students reported they had considered stopping out and 38% of associate degree students said the same."
That's a good plan. MANY degrees do NOTHING to gain decent employment and just generate debt.
Leave college to the goal oriented people who NEED an education to go into professions requiring advanced knowledge and training not obtainable anywhere else.
Perhaps colleges would go back to places of education, rather than four years of extended childhood and drinking.
Want to go to college? You better have a plan for a career path and IF college is necessary to gain employment in that pursuit.
the school kitchen needs a new thermocouple, otherwise lunch will mot be served. thank goodness there are people out there who can do these repairs. no degree in theoretical emotional studies will provide any service of real value.
The skills of most instructors are dated, few have relevant work experience, especially in fields that are evolving quickly..
Not entirely wrong there - but - engineering school doesn't mainly teach cutting edge science. They teach the fundamentals - which in most fields, have not changed in 100 years. You can be a good engineer without understanding some of these things - but if you DO understand the fundamentals - really understand them - then you are a GREAT engineer.
I know no GREAT engineers who don't routinely use the basic principles every day - while few are benefiting today from some contemporary technology they learned for one semester 20 years ago.
In short - I don't know what a "dated" skill is - presenting information is not going to change. Relevant work experience (for them) would not have changed my college experience. Fields that are evolving quickly - by definition - will have you learning things that are obsolete before you graduate - what's the use of that?
It largely comes down to instruction in the tools to use. CAD vs drafting boards. Mathcad vs calculators. Finite element analysis vs pages of calculations. Computational fluid dynamics vs very simplified SWAGs. Now, the problem with all those tools, like any kind of computer modeling, is that the results are only as good as the inputs. And the inputs are based on a great number of assumptions of a dynamic, real-world problem, to isolate enough variables to make modeling possible. And how to understand the dynamics of a system, to predict what real-world factors will be the major, driving ones, is something nearly impossible to teach. Some people, even in technical fields, don't "get it".
College isn't the problem, its the draining of white collar jobs out of this nation. Sure trades are great until you're broken down at 40
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