So, a bit like the "General and Vocational College" we have here in Québec, Canada. Three-year technical programs for students who wish to pursue a skilled trade at a modest price. The price per semester is a mere $132 and you even have access to scholarships & financial aid. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CEGEP
Trade school, not 4-year college, is a better bet to solve the US income gap
181–190 of 297 posts
Re: Trade school, not 4-year college, is a better bet to solve the US income gap
#182I think there may be value in society providing some kind of fusion of these two things at universities. University has become a sort of coming of age ritual for young people, when they can manage to go. Craftsmanship and trades skills are certainly solid ways to support yourself, especially when paired with a decent, democratic union, but I cant help but feel that theres something about a college experience that is hugely beneficial to people. Even just the interpersonal relations you experience at university are deeply influential.
Maybe we could have universities run more traditionally trade school type programs as well as liberal arts, stem, art, and music curriculums? That way the philosophy students have the opportunity to take a class in engine repair and the students in the electrician's school can likewise take a class in Computer Aided Design or Astronomy Lab.
Re: Trade school, not 4-year college, is a better bet to solve the US income gap
#183I wish I'd taken my step-dad up on his offer and done an chippy apprenticeship when I was 17. Instead I flailed around, did some c programming, some web development, never went to uni. I even managed to get myself that first job as a software dev, slowly trading upwards, but it always worked against me that I was a high school drop out and had no degree. Later in life, I looked upon the lack of degree as an asset, I…
Do you think this is sort of the "grass is always greener" situation though? I find myself regretting not doing something a little more hands-on as a career, so I built some hobbies around it.
[edit: Also.. after witnessing the dysfunction of a home builder i worked with last year over basic Project Management work, I can see room for a lot of improvement if a programmer were embedded in their office. Maybe an idea for others identifying with your same situation.)
Re: Trade school, not 4-year college, is a better bet to solve the US income gap
#184Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you are asking me I was a graphic designer, mostly print work initially. It's a hybrid trade/skill set that gave me a good business grounding. I grew up in a generation where a lot of my peers in the UK were apprentices at Rolls Royce, Jaguar etc. I have no visibility into apprenticeships and how they are organized today...
It was just a snippy remark hinting at the many people in this thread saying how great trade skills are, yet very few of them actually do a job like that. I mean, commenters here mention 'the social stigma' and how unfair it is - but being a plumber is just a, well, shit job. Construction work isn't fun, when it's your job, and you're not the boss. There's a reason all those middle and lower middle class parents tell…
Half the issue is that all these people have done exactly that: we now have a glut of college educated young people, with supply outstripping demand, while the opposite is the case in the trades. The salaries each can command reflects this.
The tradesmen telling their children to go to uni do so based on their experience in a generation where there were far more tradesmen, with poorer salaries, and poorer worker protections. What we actually need in the workforce is _balance_.
A really good example of where this has gone wrong is over here in the UK: now, 50% of young people are expected to go to university and complete a degree. This means that you now need a degree just to be above-average, and most end up underemployed with student debts - it's simply the case that half of jobs do not require a degree, and this is going to shrink. Likewise, we've outsourced lots of our skilled trades to foreign labour coming from the EU. With the sudden change in how we work with the EU, the UK is going to see hard times with a distinct lack of skilled labour, with many being overeducated and in the wrong sectors.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/05/brexit...
Re: Trade school, not 4-year college, is a better bet to solve the US income gap
#185Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: Degree requirements are the last bastion of socially acceptable racism.
Pretty sure you would not want your doctor to be w/o a proper degree. This "racism" as you call it is perfectly applicable to some professions.
Pretty sure the topic was employers asking for degrees for jobs that don't actually requiring them. That does tend to exclude those professions - doctor, lawyer, and so on.
It is a little different requiring a degree to be a secretary when a year course would get someone proficient, for example. Heck, you can be a lawyer in four states without going to college so long as you can pass the tests. I'm pretty sure that sort of system would work for lots of professions where we want folks to be educated, but they don't necessarily need the training of say a nurse or doctor.
Re: Trade school, not 4-year college, is a better bet to solve the US income gap
#186I would simplify it and say that learning trade skills is a better investment for most people than attending a 4-year college. Trade skills can be learned at a young age, right from home, where there is room and time to explore and enjoy the learning process. Why we wait until after high school to teach kids in-demand skills boggles my mind. All the pressure in the world arrives after high school. It's time to start…
Your comment reminded me of an essay Paul Graham wrote. (See the link below.) He argues that modern society has taken kids, isolated them from participating in greater society, and made school a "job" to them. The consequence is that teenagers feel out of step with society because they don't participate in it, the way that they did when apprenticeships were common. This observation supports the premise of the essay.
It's a thought-provoking read.
Re: Trade school, not 4-year college, is a better bet to solve the US income gap
#187I believe that nowadays - at least in developed countries - you can have a stable income way above average as a tradesman. The shortage of reliable people in these areas is unbelieavable. As an anecdote I knew a self-employed poolboy that before crisis was earning more than most managers. According my experience (I used to help my father during work peaks) I think that we arrived here because ALL talent is nowadays d…
Sure, but manager works sitting in front of a computer making couple of phone calls per day sipping coffee. Poolboy scrubs dried shit off the pool tiles in hot sun. People go to college because they dream of getting paid for sitting on their asses. Manual labour is for proles!
Actually, I think a lot of managers are stuck making fast food and working retail and can very easily mean doing a lot of physical work. This is particularly true if you decided to go into business management instead of business administration. Lots of those jobs are retail.
Re: Trade school, not 4-year college, is a better bet to solve the US income gap
#188Earlier quoted context omitted.
One thing that has really opened my mind on this is Amazon Home Services. Basically, if you're incorporated, insured, and can provide a few references proving you do decent work, Amazon will shovel business your way. And you can limit the services you provide. For example, one of the services you can buy on Amazon Home Services is "Door knob replacement." This is a VERY low level skill that requires only the most bas…
What's amazing to me is that there are people who don't feel like they're capable of changing their own doorknob. (I get it; there are some people who would rather just pay, but surely some of these people just don't feel like they could manage this task. That's wild.)
One obvious market is elderly folks who aren't getting around well anymore.
Re: Trade school, not 4-year college, is a better bet to solve the US income gap
#189I wish I'd taken my step-dad up on his offer and done an chippy apprenticeship when I was 17. Instead I flailed around, did some c programming, some web development, never went to uni. I even managed to get myself that first job as a software dev, slowly trading upwards, but it always worked against me that I was a high school drop out and had no degree. Later in life, I looked upon the lack of degree as an asset, I…
when we barely avoid armageddon artisans will be the only jobs in town.
Just wait for all the robotic artisans!
For real, creativity isn't going to stay a human property, and we'll have to understand what humanity's place really is - maybe not "working" at all.
Re: Trade school, not 4-year college, is a better bet to solve the US income gap
#190I would simplify it and say that learning trade skills is a better investment for most people than attending a 4-year college. Trade skills can be learned at a young age, right from home, where there is room and time to explore and enjoy the learning process. Why we wait until after high school to teach kids in-demand skills boggles my mind. All the pressure in the world arrives after high school. It's time to start…
I don’t know why it has to be one of the other, university generally isn’t vocational training. I know lots of people who went to university and then did a trades program, I don’t think any of them really regret getting their degree. Of course this was Canada and nobody had racked up 60-80k in debt.