Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Stigma of Choosing Trade School over College

theatlantic.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 247 posts

Re: The Stigma of Choosing Trade School over College

#21

Post by ldoughty »

DoofusOfDeath wrote: post #4
empath75 wrote: post #3

I don't know why more tech companies don't do apprenticeships straight out of highschool. You can pay a high school student with some programming experience a fraction of the salary of a college graduate and it probably doesn't take that much longer to get them productive and they won't be saddled with student loan debt.

Perhaps one reason is that job-hopping is very common in the tech industry. I wouldn't expect many apprentices to hang around long enough for there to be a payoff to the employer.

True this. I don't want to teach a high school graduate (or college grad) what interfaces and abstract classes are.. or basic good design of code. My job depends on making progress, not training.

That said, my org supports up to 4 concurrent interns (typically we have 2-3 at any given point), and they could work for 4 months to 2+ years if they want, 15-40 hours/week -- adjustable for summers, etc... But they need to be at a stage where code review is going over application of theory, not telling them about when to use functions.

We lose a lot of interns after 3-5 months, but if they came in knowing the basics, we usually get something out of it (though the cost-benefit is usually negative). We want to support internships, though, so we keep doing them.

Re: The Stigma of Choosing Trade School over College

#22

Post by NullPrefix »

macinjosh wrote: post #11
empath75 wrote: post #3

I don't know why more tech companies don't do apprenticeships straight out of highschool. You can pay a high school student with some programming experience a fraction of the salary of a college graduate and it probably doesn't take that much longer to get them productive and they won't be saddled with student loan debt.

My best guess is that is due to HR and mangement wanting to cover their ass when making hiring decisions. If a candidate is hired and they don't do well they can appeal to the authority of the degree the candidate had to make their decision seem rational. I went straight from high school to a very entry level web development job. I didn't have any chance at getting a job at a larger company but small web shops provid…

HRs graduated from social and humanity sciences don't want to devalue their degree by hiring a non degree person.

Re: The Stigma of Choosing Trade School over College

#23

Post by squozzer »

I'm a regular college grad, but always liked working on my own car (and didn't always trust professional mechanics.)

That lead me to consider becoming an auto mechanic at one time but after hearing some stories - and looking at the pay scales - I jumped back on my desk and rode off into the sunset.

The stories -

1) Constant complaints by mgmt about productivity. 2) Grueling work schedules 3) Pressure to upsell additional work 4) Customers blaming you for new problems

Sounds a lot like working in tech for 25% of the pay, doesn't it?

Re: The Stigma of Choosing Trade School over College

#24

Post by cpursley »

ihm wrote: post #18

One thing that is always missing from these articles is the idea that it’s actually good for individuals (and for our society) to get an expansive view of human knowledge rather than a narrow training to turn you into a worker on a production line (or at a computer). Of course right now that’s a path that’s not accessible to many people, and people may have other financial reasons for going to trade schools, but I th…

I'm not convinced it's good for society to have adults entering it with $100,000 in student debt for a domain that any motivated individual can learn via-self study (books, MOOCS, wikipedia). Especially those that don't lead to lucrative career prospects...

Re: The Stigma of Choosing Trade School over College

#25

Post by Consultant32452 »

fullshark wrote: post #19
empath75 wrote: post #3

I don't know why more tech companies don't do apprenticeships straight out of highschool. You can pay a high school student with some programming experience a fraction of the salary of a college graduate and it probably doesn't take that much longer to get them productive and they won't be saddled with student loan debt.

Poor return on investment given risks involved, you're better off offloading that cost of education/training to the individual and then just hiring them when they signal they are worthy of employment.

At least part of this is because we devalued the high school diploma. We were concerned that many people weren't getting that high school diploma which made it difficult for them to get jobs. Now we lowered the standards and shoved everyone through to the point that 20% of high school graduates are functionally illiterate. Now a high school diploma is no longer a useful signal to potential employers.

Re: The Stigma of Choosing Trade School over College

#26

Post by organsnyder »

ihm wrote: post #18

One thing that is always missing from these articles is the idea that it’s actually good for individuals (and for our society) to get an expansive view of human knowledge rather than a narrow training to turn you into a worker on a production line (or at a computer). Of course right now that’s a path that’s not accessible to many people, and people may have other financial reasons for going to trade schools, but I th…

Unfortunately, many universities are also missing this point (or feel that the market forces them to miss it). My alma mater, though in the process of renaming itself from a "college" to a "university", recently gutted many humanities departments (music, theater, history). Their official line was that those departments didn't have enough majors to justify their staffing levels; but (IMHO) they've failed to acknowledge the enrichment—even in recruiting!—offered by those departments to the entire college community. I sang in choir with people that were majoring in business, engineering, CS, etc., as well as music majors. Those people were clearly enriched by the (now gutted) music department, even if they didn't appear on lists of official music majors. This is a school that proudly proclaims itself to have a liberal arts philosophy, BTW.

Re: The Stigma of Choosing Trade School over College

#27

Post by simonsarris »

ihm wrote: post #18

One thing that is always missing from these articles is the idea that it’s actually good for individuals (and for our society) to get an expansive view of human knowledge rather than a narrow training to turn you into a worker on a production line (or at a computer). Of course right now that’s a path that’s not accessible to many people, and people may have other financial reasons for going to trade schools, but I th…

People going into college don't even get an expansive view of how debt works, and that's what they end college with the most of.

I don't think that view is missing, I think people do not value college like they claim they do if that premise (getting an expansive view of human knowledge) is the goal. Of course that's a great goal, but its also something that should have been happening all the way to adulthood (16-18 years of age), not something that happens in between the keggers and the classes you don't skip.

If you could make that the median college experience, or college graduation contingent upon it, that would be nice. We cannot even make high school graduation in the USA contingent on being able to read.

Re: The Stigma of Choosing Trade School over College

#28

Post by bluedino »

ldoughty wrote: post #21
DoofusOfDeath wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps one reason is that job-hopping is very common in the tech industry. I wouldn't expect many apprentices to hang around long enough for there to be a payoff to the employer.

True this. I don't want to teach a high school graduate (or college grad) what interfaces and abstract classes are.. or basic good design of code. My job depends on making progress, not training. That said, my org supports up to 4 concurrent interns (typically we have 2-3 at any given point), and they could work for 4 months to 2+ years if they want, 15-40 hours/week -- adjustable for summers, etc... But they need to…

I've always found it challenging to give programming projets to someone who is only here for a few hours and days a week.

Where with clerical tasks you can just have them get back to that pile of paper tomrorrow

Re: The Stigma of Choosing Trade School over College

#29

Post by adamnemecek »

thanatropism wrote: post #20
sandworm101 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Between the rise of youtube, the porn industry, "peak" TV and the constant stream of CGI-based movies, there is plenty of work in video production. A degree doesn't really matter, but knowing how to use the tools does. Whether you get hands on the tools at a university or a college isn't an issue.

Then, more automation and even better UI will tend to reduce the labor-intensity of satisfying that demand. Translation: fewer people will be needed.

More content will be produced. A lot more.

Re: The Stigma of Choosing Trade School over College

#30

Post by ForHackernews »

naasking wrote: post #8
bluedino wrote: post #2

Is 'video production' really a trade school? I think more of the blue-collar trades. Also, aren't video/music production classes like that usually the realm of for-profit schools like Full Sail and the job prospects dubious?

Any schooling specifically intended to be vocational is a trade school.

cf. engineering. ;)
Post reply on HN