More students are turning away from college and toward apprenticeships • Hacker News Board

Re: More students are turning away from college and toward apprenticeships

#121

Post by kneebonian » Sat, Mar 18, 2023, 5:51 PM UTC

azinman2 wrote: post #40

pclmulqdq wrote: post #26

College seems to have ~3 uses from students' perspectives: 1. A trade school for technical professionals who actually need specialist education (scientists, engineers, lawyers, doctors, etc.) 2. A finishing school for the elite 3. A blood sports arena for the brilliant to complete for professorships (almost all of whom will lose and be saddled with 6 figures of debt and 7 figures of opportunity cost) A lot of people…

It also grows the intellectual souls, exposing people to far more depth of thought. It also builds professional networks. If a person is smart enough to receive it, more education is almost always good. Of course money is a factor, and schools have gotten insanely expensive. I’m glad to hear that more people are finding alternative routes - it shouldn’t be that everyone needs college because quite frankly many career…

> It also grows the intellectual souls, exposing people to far more depth of thought.

"See, the sad thing about a guy like you is, in 50 years you're gonna start doin' some thinkin' on your own and you're going to come up with the fact that there are two certainties in life: one, don't do that, and two, you dropped 150 grand on a fuckin' education you could have got for a dollar fifty in late charges at the public library!" - Good will Hunting

> It also builds professional networks.

Wait so is college about making money or about growing the soul, because you just said it was about growing the soul but now it's about hobnobbing with people's whose only qualification was the ability to pay money to go to college sounds shallow.

> If a person is smart enough to receive it, more education is almost always good.

If colleges were still about educating I might agree with you but we are a long way from colleges being about educating people. At this points it's simply a social signal.

Re: More students are turning away from college and toward apprenticeships

#122

Post by etothepii » Sat, Mar 18, 2023, 5:51 PM UTC

analog31 wrote: post #43

First of all, I'm optimistic about this. Apprenticeships could even trickle up. Here's what I mean. The article talks about an apprenticeship in the insurance industry where you're taking college classes while working a day job. This could expand into other areas, such as junior engineers / designers / programmers. It might not replace college, but turn college into something that blends with job training in a more e…

Insurance is the only profession I know of where there are many senior leaders in their forties without a degree.

Re: More students are turning away from college and toward apprenticeships

#123

Post by gloryjulio » Sat, Mar 18, 2023, 5:51 PM UTC

tempsy wrote: post #70

gloryjulio wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, basically lots of low tier unis are not worth wasting ur money on. Ironically, I learnt the most important skills(learn how to learn effectively, prioritization etc) only after I started to work in a company where I was getting coached. I would have been far more efficient if go back to school now.

i wouldn’t say that. i just think if you go to a lower ranked school your path to career success more so relies on getting a technical degree but yes you shouldn’t be studying liberal arts at a no name school.

You just proved my point. Since most of the ppl do need to work for money and success or their quality of life suffers.They would need something like unis, trade school, online schools or whatever to bring them to their goal. By this standard lots of low tier unis are not worth the time

Re: More students are turning away from college and toward apprenticeships

#124

Post by thomastjeffery » Sat, Mar 18, 2023, 5:52 PM UTC

zoogeny wrote: post #65

azinman2 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also grows the intellectual souls, exposing people to far more depth of thought. It also builds professional networks. If a person is smart enough to receive it, more education is almost always good. Of course money is a factor, and schools have gotten insanely expensive. I’m glad to hear that more people are finding alternative routes - it shouldn’t be that everyone needs college because quite frankly many career…

Your post makes me consider what other avenues to achieve the growth of intellectual souls and exposure to depth of thought could exist other than paid-for highly-structured institutions. I think people wax poetically about their own experiences without really considering the experiences of others. We've had free public libraries for centuries now. We've had a pretty open Internet for decades. There is literally noth…

What a university can provide is direction: an explicit decision about the order concepts are learned, and the perspective each concept is approached from.

That can be really useful, especially when professors have enough free time to spend with individual students.

It can also be really detrimental: every person has a unique education history that determines what order and perspectives are most optimal to their learning.

The problem I see is that university is structure. The entire design is intended to be predetermined and inflexible. Edge cases are handled by bringing a student "back on track", assuming that track to be the best learning approach for every student.

Most of the substance of "liberal arts" is exactly what a person needs to learn to progress out of this system. The irony of a successful university experience is that the more successful it is at teaching you, the sooner you can walk away and continue learning on your own.

Re: More students are turning away from college and toward apprenticeships

#125

Post by t344344 » Sat, Mar 18, 2023, 5:52 PM UTC

kredd wrote: post #95

t344344 wrote: post #46

My friend got expelled in 5th semester after spending over $70k on education. His ex went nuclear after he dumped her, and somehow that was relevant to his education. Obviously no refunds or appeal! If you are at uni, treat is as a career. You do not shit where you eat! Big part of marketing is "socializing", but that comes with a huge risks to your future and investments. Apprenticeships do not care about your sex l…

For every data point like this, there’s also data like mine - I met incredible people during my university years. Especially the first two years when we all lived on campus, we were basically a family. Even though we’re in different coasts of the continent, we still meet up 5-6 times a year, travel, some of us even married to each other. Socializing and making new friends in your late teens and 20s is an important pa…

My friend is not a data point. It destroyed his life and he still has to pay his student loans. There is no chance to get any money from person that did that to him.

> Downplaying common space’s (e.g. college, work

I am not downplaying anything. At all those places male has to behave certain way. You do not drink at company xmass party, that is a common sense!

You can have all of that without any risks. Become bartender at evenings, surf instructor or go apprentice route. College is not the only place!

> For every data point like this

Like 20% of women have problem [1] during their college years. That also means 20% of male students are on opposite side of this. I will not go into how data are measured and reported, but there is a huge chance to get stuck in this net as a male student!

[1] https://www.campussafetymagazine.com/safety/sexual-assault-s...

Re: More students are turning away from college and toward apprenticeships

#126

Post by lvl102 » Sat, Mar 18, 2023, 5:53 PM UTC

hotpotamus wrote: post #23

lvl102 wrote: post #17

Being a plumber, for example, is far more lucrative for most people. Military, police, then lawyer route is also very lucrative.

One of those is not like the other in that it requires extensive college. It also happens to be the one that pays more than the others.

If you start out early enough, you can be retired from law enforcement with pension earlier than you think (typically 20 years) which is actually a perfect time for you to go get a law degree.

Re: More students are turning away from college and toward apprenticeships

#127

Post by mfer » Sat, Mar 18, 2023, 5:54 PM UTC

azinman2 wrote: post #66

mfer wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But I wouldn’t dismiss its value in being taught how to think. Few universities teach how to think. Most teach what to think. Critical thinking, reasoning through ideas and concepts, and research are often lacking. > I wish there was a bigger focus in physics, math, and philosophy for those who didn’t know what to do I don't buy that. You can't by a psychiatrist. You can't be a medical doctor or nutritionist. There…

MDs require more school on top of college; their major is often unrelated except they have to take pre-med classes. Often times people will go back to a community college or some other schooling option for those classes if they decide they want to go down that route. So you absolutely can be any of those majors and change your position later. Far better than say a communications major, which with psychology are the t…

> society is much better off when more of the public is educated.

To what extent of educated? What do you mean by educated? A lot of what the general public gets isn't deep thought. It's being told what to think. A lot of the what to think is ideas based on assumptions and beliefs. Are people better off for learning them?

For those who want to think deeply, are modern colleges a place that allow for that? I know PhDs who no longer teach because there is a lack of intellectualism and too much indoctrination.

A dedicated professor telling me what to think (their ideas) rather than teaching me how to think and navigate the space well... for general things... may not be so useful to society.

Re: More students are turning away from college and toward apprenticeships

#128

Post by waboremo » Sat, Mar 18, 2023, 5:54 PM UTC

azinman2 wrote: post #66

mfer wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But I wouldn’t dismiss its value in being taught how to think. Few universities teach how to think. Most teach what to think. Critical thinking, reasoning through ideas and concepts, and research are often lacking. > I wish there was a bigger focus in physics, math, and philosophy for those who didn’t know what to do I don't buy that. You can't by a psychiatrist. You can't be a medical doctor or nutritionist. There…

MDs require more school on top of college; their major is often unrelated except they have to take pre-med classes. Often times people will go back to a community college or some other schooling option for those classes if they decide they want to go down that route. So you absolutely can be any of those majors and change your position later. Far better than say a communications major, which with psychology are the t…

Those that can self-educate effectively are also ones that would thrive in a proper high education system. Unfortunately, we're turning them away for various reasons (financial, lack of flexibility, etc) and filling rooms full of people who are there just because they were told to be there. It's quite horrendous, people in their 3+ years and they're still just going through the motions for the paper.

If you're not there to network and find a job, you're the odd one out. This idea of treating these institutions as places for continual higher learning is just not the norm.

It's an interesting predicament, more education for everyone is better, yet our designation of colleges/universities as the "last" required tier has stunted many people in many ways.

Re: More students are turning away from college and toward apprenticeships

#129

Post by mkl95 » Sat, Mar 18, 2023, 5:57 PM UTC

Lately I have worked with many junior / mid level guys who studied CS in college. Meaning they graduated at some point in the last 3 to 5 years. All of them struggle with basic communication and tasks that involve working with other humans. It's like they spent all those years in some cave with no exposure whatsoever to the real world.

I get that the goal of a CS degree is not to prepare you for the software industry, but it's the main goal of most CS students. I can see why college degrees are not as attractive as they used to.

Re: More students are turning away from college and toward apprenticeships

#130

Post by mantas » Sat, Mar 18, 2023, 5:59 PM UTC

azinman2 wrote: post #75

xyzelement wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are referring to something on one hand very valuable, on the other hand it's very easy to graduate college without learning that, and I think colleges themselves in recent decades are pivoting away from. A hundred+ years ago when "almost nobody" went to college, college was a place for those hungry and willing to sacrifice for intellectual growth. Nowadays college is a baseline consumer good that "almost…

Re: critical analysis. I agree with you that inconvenient truths now get muzzled because they don’t fit an acceptable meta-narrative. This is very problematic for society and when taken to the maximum, can lead to thinks like Cambodia’s attempt at restarting society by killing all those who didn’t fit the model they were looking for. > If that's what you are hungry for, college is perhaps even your least likely bet.…

Cultures shall be analyzed as a whole, advantages, weakness and not skip infamous parts. Cherry picking is a direct way to indoctrination.