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More students are turning away from college and toward apprenticeships

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

#191

Post by sitkack »

pacaro wrote: post #119
xyzelement wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re second point, I mean something else. 200 years ago I had to go to university because why? That's where the books and smart people were concentrated. So I would pay a lot of money and physically relocate myself to access those books and people. Now? I can study online, I can read, I can converse with super bright people of my chosing without the friction and limits of doing that in a college environment.

There's a two edged sword here, both for the university student and the independent learner Learning in a structured environment provides access to the orthodox in the field of study. This can be very valuable to limit unnecessary exploration of blind avenues (there is of course such a thing as necessary exploration of blind avenues) For those who progress through the academy, the risk is that they become narrow thin…

I think pre-U education should focus on didactics and metacognition, philosophy, logic and the scientific method. To really focus on the thinking behind the thinking, to never do it by accident.

University should not be separate from earlier forms of education, things that are university like should also filter back into to high school and middle school.

As a borderline-crank myself, I think we need more folks with crank tendencies and more folks with a solid scientific approach. We have the most minds right now, amazing capabilities but at the same time, a narrowing Chesterton's Window (I know, Overton Window, :)

We should push kids harder in the ways that matter and less in the ways that is too soon. Grinding arithmetic and non-contextualized history is a multilayered waste of time. I am very pro both of those subjects, just the way we teach them an the timing is way off.

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

#192

Post by azinman2 »

kneebonian wrote: post #121
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…

> 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 li…

Few will spend a huge amount of time self educating, and even fewer can read the books and understand what to extract from it without guidance. That’s the whole point of having a subject matter expert design and teach a curriculum. If you don’t value that, then in your world we should abolish high schools and earlier as well. If you look at societies where people don’t go to school versus where people do, the results are quite different for society. The evidence speaks for itself.

> 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.

There can be multiple benefits simultaneously at different levels.

If whatever college you’re attending is only creating a social signal and not meaningfully educating, then that school lose its accreditation.

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

#193

Post by dimal »

alsaaro wrote: post #88

As someone who has worked two of the most intensive blue collar jobs, people should be wary of romanticizing blue collar work. Blue collar workers are expected to really work at their jobs. White collar workers can chill if there is no work to be done, or be sent home early with pay, or take a relaxation day and just browse the internet and listen to podcasts. They have perks, you see white collar workers leaving wor…

This comment seems out of place because most of the article was describing apprenticeships for white collar jobs, and listed a bunch of white collar industries removing their college requirements.

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

#194

Post by Ar-Curunir »

hgsgm wrote: post #82
jimkleiber wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm surprised you didn't include anything about meeting people for work, romance, friendship, or other social benefit, as for many, that can be a huge part of college.

That's only because almost everyone desirable goes there. If people stopped going, they could meet elsewhere.

Have you seen the vast majority of the USA? It’s suburbia and parking lots. You try meeting people there.

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

#195

Post by m463 »

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…

I don't think going to college can be easily summed up (and dismissed) with a numbered list of items. Sort of like saying marriage is just to have kids, get a tax benefit, and save on rent.

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

#196

Post by MrLeap »

InvaderFizz wrote: post #105
truetraveller wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you do WGU? How long did getting a degree take start to finish? Did you have pre-credits?

I did go to WGU. It took me way too long. Over 4 years because I put almost zero effort in and did most everything at the end of the 6 month term. I wasn't much motivated to do the courses as I was battling depression, dealing with a wife and child with health issues, and was the sole breadwinner. I would estimate that I put in less than 500 hours total towards my degree. I had like 15 pre-credits.

You're a champion. Well done getting your degree while yoked that hard.

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

#197

Post by sitkack »

hamburglar wrote: post #182
pacaro wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a two edged sword here, both for the university student and the independent learner Learning in a structured environment provides access to the orthodox in the field of study. This can be very valuable to limit unnecessary exploration of blind avenues (there is of course such a thing as necessary exploration of blind avenues) For those who progress through the academy, the risk is that they become narrow thin…

The self-taught path can also lead to another kind of deficiency, which is someone who knows all the concepts but doesn’t know how to talk about them efficiently. This ends up being the type of person who spends 5 minutes describing a component of their design where items are stored based on a key and can be looked up by that key so another process can stash and retrieve those things rather than recompute them but th…

Now we have LLMs which can name concepts by description!

Your colleague can dump their thoughts into such a system and quickly get back the shibboleths and the foundational papers. Now is the best time to be a self-taught genius.

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

#198

Post by danielvaughn »

zabzonk wrote: post #5
danielvaughn wrote: post #2

As someone who racked up nearly $80K in debt going to art school, I think they're making the right choice (mostly). In some cases it really makes sense to go to college, but it's a terrible model for many skills.

Not to be rude or unsypathetic, but did you think that spending $80K was going to turn you into an artist?

I was a very good artist, and when I was 18 I genuinely believed that college would turn me into a professional artist. I'm not saying this to brag, but I did have a level of talent that I could have turned into a career. So it wasn't a crazy idea at the time.

What I found, however, was that the education I received wasn't what I wanted or needed. In my senior year we were still being taught things that I had known since I was a teenager. But by the time I realized how much of a mistake it was, I felt it wouldn't have made sense to quit, because having a degree with 80K in debt is better than having no degree with 60K in debt.

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

#199

Post by stillbourne »

I've been saying this for almost 15 years now. Industries like Software Development need to abandon college and return to the guild system. Start as an apprentice, move to journeyman, become a master, and eventually an artisan. All the time training your juniors. I'm not saying there is no place for college but it needs to relegated to the jobs that need it, doctors, lawyers, etc.

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

#200

Post by azinman2 »

anonuser123456 wrote: post #117
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…

>It also grows the intellectual souls, exposing people to far more depth of thought. I am skeptical of this claim. In my experience, it just enshrines a different set of beliefs into students rather than new paradigms of critical thinking.

Then I don’t think where you went to school did a very good job of educating, or I’d suggest you didn’t pick up on what was being put down. For it to not provide critical thinking and/or depth of knowledge in a subject is a failed mission.
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