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How many jobs really require college?

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Re: How many jobs really require college?

#81

Post by woodruffw »

overgard wrote: post #55
NotSammyHagar wrote: post #45

This person has a bunch of essays but he comes across as an sad person who doesn't believe in civil rights for women. In an eassy on his website [1], he says "Men have natural abilities and disposition towards leadership. To deny this, to mandate equality of results, to push women into masculine roles, to domesticate and feminize men, only results in misery for both men and women. Universal suffrage elections are vir…

This is like the definition of an ad-hominem attack. Your argument is basically "he believes some unpopular things so all his ideas should be discredited." I dont know this guy and I doubt I think the way he thinks, but the essay is the essay -- it should stand or fall on its own merits.

You're right that it's an ad hominem, as it rightly should be - the character and state of mind of author should be considered when judging their work.

We might have an obligation to read charitably, but we shouldn't be obsequious towards ideas (or people) that are ontologically broken or fly in the face of basic humanism. This author falls firmly into that category, and a quick survey of their work will confirm that for you.

Re: How many jobs really require college?

#82

Post by zigzigzag »

wsxcde wrote: post #70
ThomPete wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You ironically couldn't be more wrong and you are looking at this the wrong way. A cleaning lady is going to be able to keep her job longer than a radiologist as the radiologist requires mostly the ability to understand visual patterns where as a cleaning lady requires general purpose AI. It's way harder to lift the rug, get in between the books etc. Furthermore you get it wrong. Specialization requires knowledge yes…

You're being biased by presentism. In an age where robots are cheap and ubiquitous, we won't still hire cleaning ladies (interesting assumption they're still ladies) just because they'll be able to clean under the rug. Instead, home furniture will change so that it becomes easier to clean for robots.

That hasn't happened yet though. Stock brokers, on the other hand, once the quintessential white collar job, have been completely replaced by automated trading algorithms.

Re: How many jobs really require college?

#83

Post by matwood »

pen2l wrote: post #7

I think the author of this post is making the same mistake that a lot of other people (particularly smart folks) make whenever they are thinking about the ills of modern education system and what can be done to improve it. Like Peter Thiel and others, I don't think they understand how and why students are failing in classrooms today. Take for example the author's suggestions on how school systems can be improved: Cre…

What you're really pointing out is that people are different. Some need more structure than others. For whatever reason, I'm a pretty motivated person. Remote work is great for me because any time I can save is more time I have to do the list of things I want to get done that day.

My wife OTOH, requires structure. She's smart and works hard, but if she was left to work at home she would procrastinate until the 11th hour. She needed a brick and mortar college, and in that structure managed to get her 4 year degree is 2.5 years.

One thing not discussed is that quality online degree programs can significantly lower the cost bar for students. I was lucky enough to have a decent school near my parents, so I lived at home for my entire undergrad degree. We simply did not have the money to do anything different, and I refused to take out loans unless absolutely necessary (I worked instead). It would have been amazing if there had been self paced online degrees offered by big name colleges at the time I was in undergrad.

Re: How many jobs really require college?

#84

Post by overgard »

rhizome wrote: post #67
overgard wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is like the definition of an ad-hominem attack. Your argument is basically "he believes some unpopular things so all his ideas should be discredited." I dont know this guy and I doubt I think the way he thinks, but the essay is the essay -- it should stand or fall on its own merits.

"Unpopular?" That's the word you choose to describe this? "Men have natural abilities and disposition towards leadership. To deny this, to mandate equality of results, to push women into masculine roles, to domesticate and feminize men, only results in misery for both men and women. Universal suffrage elections are virtually always a bad idea." Ad hominem doesn't render an argument invalid, it just speaks to the cred…

Just because I dont feel the need to vent my outrage doesnt mean I approve. "Unpopular" seems totally accurate.

If you're talking merits/credibility, I feel like his opinions on the other things just aren't relevant here. Is the standard that every time someone shares an opinion their entire history is judged?

Re: How many jobs really require college?

#85

Post by nebabyte »

branchless wrote: post #57
randomdata wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More importantly, you'll probably not have the financial resources to walk away from the job.

I may be putting words in your mouth but I think you are saying that non-graduates who are not soaked in debt have more choices, and if so I'd agree. Employers want in order of preference: * h1-b - work late or life as you know it ends * big mortgage with family - work late or I ruin your family's life * big university debt - work late or I ruin your life Debt is a tool of control.

I, or my high-paying competitor who wants you working for him :)

Re: How many jobs really require college?

#86

Post by analog31 »

In my view, something that has to be considered is the feedback of a worker's education level on the nature of their job. If you stop requiring a college degree for a particular occupation, the nature of that occupation may change, and it may open up a space for new occupations to form.

Remember, anybody can stop requiring a degree for any job, today, so long as the degree isn't required by law. We could stop requiring an engineering degree for Solid Works operators. (Just to choose an example)

In fact, about half of our mechanical CAD operators have degrees. I notice a big difference between those groups when getting CAD work done. If the operator has a degree, it's much more likely that they can take a vague idea of mine, and come back with a nice design that even handles a bunch of issues that I overlooked.

If not, then I pretty much have to give them a complete specification (taking longer than just doing it in CAD myself) or sit next to them at the CAD terminal and direct them. If a design step requires math, I do the math. If a decision is needed, I make it. K-12 teaching would become a different profession if the college degree requirement were dropped, as was proposed in my state.

Re: How many jobs really require college?

#87

Post by branchless »

nebabyte wrote: post #85
branchless wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I may be putting words in your mouth but I think you are saying that non-graduates who are not soaked in debt have more choices, and if so I'd agree. Employers want in order of preference: * h1-b - work late or life as you know it ends * big mortgage with family - work late or I ruin your family's life * big university debt - work late or I ruin your life Debt is a tool of control.

I, or my high-paying competitor who wants you working for him :)

For the majority of IT workers this isn't the case. At the top-end of the market it works.

But my point was the average case for employers. They don't want people with choices.

Re: How many jobs really require college?

#88

Post by ThomPete »

analog31 wrote: post #69
ThomPete wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cleaning lady, construction worker, janitor, plumber, electrician, building inspector I could go on.

Ah, but those jobs are being eaten away by automation, even if it's happening slowly. Cleaning ladies are being displaced by disposable products that don't need to be cleaned. Plumbers and electricians are being displaced by labor saving technologies. A new house contains no copper tubing or sweat fittings -- they use flexible hose and swaged connections. Wiring is no longer done with hard conduit. Framing is done wi…

Sure but before that ex. radiologist will have been replaced.

Re: How many jobs really require college?

#89

Post by matwood »

srssays wrote: post #61
pen2l wrote: post #7

I think the author of this post is making the same mistake that a lot of other people (particularly smart folks) make whenever they are thinking about the ills of modern education system and what can be done to improve it. Like Peter Thiel and others, I don't think they understand how and why students are failing in classrooms today. Take for example the author's suggestions on how school systems can be improved: Cre…

You're ignoring the quality of the teacher. If you learn remotely, you can learn from good (or at least adequate) teachers, at a pace that is right for you. I wish that resources such as Khan Academy existed when I was at school. I don't know about you, but many of my high school teachers barely understood the material they were teaching.

> I wish that resources such as Khan Academy existed when I was at school.

I say this so often. And it's not that my teachers were dumb, but in a class full of people they may not have time to help those who are struggling on a topic or need a prior topic review.

I've always thought an interesting experiment would be to tell students to go watch the Khan videos before the class lecture. That way the teacher can focus on helping everyone get the deeper understanding in person rather than going over the basics. This seems like it would work particularly well with math.

Re: How many jobs really require college?

#90

Post by [deleted] »

tptacek wrote: post #75

The premise of this post is that the author has performed an analysis of the educational requirements for jobs and can extrapolate from it. But this author thinks that only a grade school education and not more than 6 months of training is required to be a cook --- a profession people go to post-secondary school for --- and that some college study is required to be a programmer. How seriously should I take their conc…

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