Earlier quoted context omitted.
A good ZIP code is a great start. https://talkpoverty.org/2015/12/17/american-dream-zip-codes-...
What made those zip codes good?
White flight.
A College Degree Is No Guarantee of a Good Life
221–230 of 497 posts
Re: A College Degree Is No Guarantee of a Good Life
#222and No college degree is a guarantee for a Bad life. nothing hurts us more than the lack of (higher) education. kids, stay in school.
There are plenty of people without a college degree that have a good life. This disproves that it's a guarantee for a bad life.
Re: A College Degree Is No Guarantee of a Good Life
#223I barely skimmed the article, but I don't find this surprising for a few reasons (some of which have been mentioned elsewhere in the comments): - "University degree" is a heterogeneous thing. While there is such thing as non-economic value, the strictly economic value of a college education tends to cluster around a small subset of degrees. - Many countries have enacted policies to increase proportion of people who g…
Would you mind elaborating on your experiences in France and England? I'm curious about the situation there. I was under the impression that there are many effective non-college options in those countries (England's pretty robust apprenticeship system comes to mind), and that university is generally both hard to get into and relatively cheap to complete. I also haven't lived in either France or England, so I speak fr…
Almost half of school-leavers go to university in the UK. If you look at a normal school in a middle-class area it’s going to be about 90%.
Seems like that can’t be ‘hard to get into’.
Re: A College Degree Is No Guarantee of a Good Life
#224The article spends a little time, in the middle on the headline assertion "College does not guarantee Happiness" But spends more time on an anecdote about the author's son to demonstrate that "Happiness is possible without College", which is a different matter entirely. And one would hope the latter is true, since 2/3 of the US population does not attend college.
I agree. This article is very light on content and I'm kinda surprised something this banal and content-less even made it to an actual publication. Also, the guy's son graduated high school two years ago, he's 20-21 years old, practically everyone is happy at that age, let's hear about his life satisfaction at 40. That's ignoring the fact that two years is hardly enough time to evaluate the long term outcome of a maj…
This is par for the course for this particular publication
Re: A College Degree Is No Guarantee of a Good Life
#225Nothing is a guarantee of a good life. A good life requires so many different elements, but mostly comes down to one thing: what you put into it, esp. in regards to improving the lives and welfare of others around you. Do this, and you will find that your own life gets better and better. Be kind, do work to help others, care about people and their lives (and not just your own) and you'll find that life will turn out…
A good ZIP code is a great start. https://talkpoverty.org/2015/12/17/american-dream-zip-codes-...
Correlation does not imply causation.
Re: A College Degree Is No Guarantee of a Good Life
#226Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think we should bring back the guild system. Start a job as an apprentice, mentor with a journeyman, progress your way up, mentor apprentices while learning from others higher up, gain sufficient knowledge to build your masterpiece, graduate as a master in your field, mentor journeymen. Move on.
8th Light is a software company that's been explicitly practicing apprenticeship for like 12 years https://8thlight.com/blog/ryan-verner/2019/01/15/evolution-o...
As someone who came into the industry through the vocational track this is interesting.
But it is confusing are 8th Light acting as a source of training for other companies or just internal use.
How many years is it 4 / 5 what certification do you get at the end?
Why are you using "trade" terminology normally those doing "advanced apprenticeship" where associate professions and calling us "apprentices" would have got you a hard look.
when I did mine in the UK I was a Junior member of the IMECHE on the path way to full chartered (PE) membership
It does seem a bit light how long is the apprenticeship
If FANG companies where serious about training / diversity this is what they should be doing take bright high school kids at 18/19 and sign them up for a proper 4/5 year apprenticeship.
Re: A College Degree Is No Guarantee of a Good Life
#227Earlier quoted context omitted.
How do you get enough experience for employers in said field to take a chance on you? It's all about getting over that initial hurdle of 100% unexperienced.
Usually by being willing to work for peanuts for a really low budget place.
And that do all fields have budget places where you can work in for peanuts? Are all fields of the "just figure it out on the job" variety? Software is a weird bubble, but are all industries able to do that?
Re: A College Degree Is No Guarantee of a Good Life
#228Re: A College Degree Is No Guarantee of a Good Life
#229Life is a long haul ride, requires a lot of things to get through it well. College education is obviously one part of it. It would help people to realize any thing one does has an expiry date to it. This is why you need to have a system to remain consistent at some broad goals. Things like good eating, exercise, personal finance, relationships, reading and learning have to be done consistently, and have to be done th…
> Life is a long haul ride, requires a lot of things to get through it well. College education is obviously one part of it. I would disagree. College education is absolutely not required to get through life. And it should be required even less than it is. There are some professions for which degrees are super useful. But most people doing degrees are going into professions that just require any degree and could easil…
I have a good friend of mine from high school who right after graduating became a welder. He has a very high quality of live, better than many of my friends who are doctors who are in debt and just now starting to pay off loans.
Re: A College Degree Is No Guarantee of a Good Life
#230Earlier quoted context omitted.
Very few people I know actually have careers directly related to their undergrad majors. I majored in Creative Writing and interdisciplinary (politics, philosophy, and economics) studies. Currently working as an applied AI researcher and about to go back to get my phd in AI as well. There are many paths to take. Often being different helps you stand out. Having a humanities and social science background is just as im…
"Currently working as an applied AI researcher and about to go back to get my phd in AI as well" : You're probably in the top 2% of intelligence, that's a huge advantage over most everyone else. People who are closer to the average may need to take more conventional paths to succeed.
While flattering that's not true in my case. It's fair to point out that my story is not conventional but I disagree that we assume that its intelligence or some other individualistic features that primarily determine success.
I went to a vocational school high school in a underprivileged community where college was not reality for most students( project manager -> data scientist -> applied AI. It took about ten years of self study, work, and some luck to get to where I am today. And I am nowhere near done learning and growing (hence going back for a phd at 32).
For many their paths will be non-linear especially if they come from underprivileged backgrounds. I had a colleague who went back to do his undergrad at 29 after work 10 years as line chef and found success in his mid thirties.
It's problematic that we conflate price for value and that the purpose of college is career training. Ideally college would be free or heavily subsidized like it is in many other countries.
A strong liberal arts training is valuable in producing a more educated populace. For me, coming from a small community, my biggest fear was being stuck working at my terrible high school. The main value of college for me was imagination. Being able to imagine myself not confined by my circumstance was far more impactful in my life than many of the marketable skills that I picked along the way.