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

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

#201

Post by rr808 » Sat, Mar 18, 2023, 7:05 PM UTC

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…

Its going to be fascinating how the preference for WFH affects the job market. I'd imagine on-location jobs to get paid more as supply dries up and everyone wants to work from home. Teachers/nurses/chefs were underpaid before, little wonder there is a shortage now, I expect they need much higher wages.

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

#202

Post by danielvaughn » Sat, Mar 18, 2023, 7:06 PM UTC

zabzonk wrote: post #29

micromacrofoot wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

college isn’t quite equivalent to trade school, it wasn’t really about getting a degree in a career field until it became so outrageously expensive that you needed to constantly consider how you’d pay it back

my point was that "art", while certainly a viable career should you have talent, cannot be taught. a bit like programming, or anything else, when i come to think of it...

If it can't be taught, then the same must be true of many other professions. You need to have a drive for it, sure. And in some sense, quality is more subjective than in other fields. But just because it's more subjective doesn't mean it's entirely subjective - there's a baseline level of knowledge that you really need to know, and that can be taught.

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

#203

Post by azinman2 » Sat, Mar 18, 2023, 7:06 PM UTC

thomastjeffery wrote: post #99

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…

College/University does not have a monopoly on intellectualism or networking. There is no guarantee that attending a college or university will help you develop more than you would outside that setting. There is, however, a guaranteed cost; and that cost can be debilitating.

You’re right. It’s not a guarantee. But it’s a situation where it’s served to you on a platter. If you’re not capable of receiving it on a platter, it’s doubtful you’ll get it on your own.

Not everyone is capable of getting it in either scenario - as such as I said I’m glad more vocational opportunities are becoming in vogue again. Let’s just hope these vocations last another 20-30 years.

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

#204

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Mar 18, 2023, 7:07 PM UTC

Izkata wrote: post #140

thomastjeffery wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 lear…

> What a university can provide is direction: an explicit decision about the order concepts are learned, and the perspective each concept is approached from. Also just touching on "these things exist", converting unknown unknowns into known unknowns. That's the single biggest thing I got from my degree (having already been programming for years before), that nowadays I'm occasionally reminded of in a relevant context…

[deleted]

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

#205

Post by rr808 » Sat, Mar 18, 2023, 7:07 PM UTC

I know a bunch of kids in high school so are killing themselves trying to get into the top seletive colleges. Its nuts - the worst thing is if you get in those schools are now filled with the same people who spent their childhood jumping through college admission hoops. Where do smart normal kids go now? My employer used to hire from Ivy League schools exclusively but thanks to zoom we can cast a much wider net.

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

#206

Post by ryeguy_24 » Sat, Mar 18, 2023, 7:08 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…

Everyone says that it teaches you how to think but I’ve never heard of a good reason why. I remember difficult classes but I don’t remember any special sauce that made me think differently than I did in high school. I’m not saying that I don’t believe that it teaches you this, I just have never heard more reasoning than the surface statement. Does anyone have any examples or theories of this?

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

#207

Post by dahart » Sat, Mar 18, 2023, 7:08 PM UTC

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…

This pessimistic view doesn’t seem that well supported by the data. In the US, we’re pushing nearly 40% of bachelor’s degree attainment, which is far broader a population than you suggest. There’s also the problem that degree holders earn an average of 2x more than non-degree holders. I was very surprised by this! The St. Louis Fed published this statistic in an article arguing that the wealth advantage of college was waning, but it kinda backfired on me when I looked at their absolute numbers. The fact that many many many good jobs require a degree and that earnings are statistically higher for people with degrees, I speculate, is driving college rates far more than all three reasons you proposed, combined… from a students’ perspective.

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

#208

Post by azinman2 » Sat, Mar 18, 2023, 7:08 PM UTC

mfer wrote: post #127

azinman2 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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?

Yes because what it would be replaced with is even worse and likely instantly falls apart under a modicum of critical thinking.

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

#209

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0 » Sat, Mar 18, 2023, 7:08 PM UTC

xyzelement wrote: post #54

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…

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…

I agree.

I had my best critical thinking class in community college. If I was innately smart, I probably would not have needed it as badly, but that one class gave me a lot of foundation and some credence to 'education' being useful. In other words, I am not smart, but I am educated. Overall, I think society benefits from that.

But that was 2 year community college after which I transferred ( and later got an MBA ).

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

#210

Post by 21eleven » Sat, Mar 18, 2023, 7:09 PM UTC

Once upon a time if you wanted to study you went to the library. All the smart people were hanging out around libraries and Universities started to appear. Universities had classes and libraries.

Now we have the internet. How does this affect the value of a University education?