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

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

#231

Post by jletienne » Sat, Mar 18, 2023, 7:32 PM UTC

briHass wrote: post #132

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…

Anyone that hasn't done manual labor really has no idea how rough it can be. I worked as an office-furniture-mover in my early 20s (Summers in college), and some days were pretty tough. Granted, that's pretty low on the manual labor skills spectrum, but even for a guy in prime physical shape, it's tiring and has elements of danger. Now that I'm double that age, the manual labor I've done like rewiring my house, insta…

>The worst days dealing with idiot product management and never-ending Jira tickets don't compare to unloading a truck in a hot warehouse or kneeling in a crawlspace for hours re-piping a sewer line.

damn i can only imagine

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

#232

Post by dgb23 » Sat, Mar 18, 2023, 7:32 PM UTC

kello wrote: post #153

Over here in Germany they have well-established apprenticeship programs for many more jobs than in the US. There are apprenticeships for software developers, for bankers, for "Bürokauffrau/Bürokaufmanm" (office clerks/administrators), for media work, for all sorts of medical jobs, and so on. You name it, and there is probably an "Ausbildung" (apprenticeship) for it here. The apprenticeship programs are still somewhat…

Same here in Switzerland. Apprenticeships are called “Erstausbildung” (First education) now. It’s regarded as a stepping stone.

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

#233

Post by dividefuel » Sat, Mar 18, 2023, 7:32 PM UTC

As a millennial, the advice we often received was "just go to college, it'll almost always be worth it." Now, the advice I give to those younger is "go to college but only once you know what you're trying to get out of it." While colleges can let you explore subjects that you're interested in, they don't do much to help you explore careers you might be interested in.

Paying for a degree before you know roughly how you want to use it costs you time and money. I'd say 3 out of 4 people in my peer group graduated college without a clear idea of what to do next, which delayed many of them several years in starting their career.

About half of those 3/4s bumbled through different fields trying to find something that clicked, and some ultimately went back to school for a different, more specific career. The other half let inertia win and started grad school immediately, though many of those ultimately dropped out anyway. Even of those who stuck with grad school, few have landed anything stable even 10 years later.

However, those in the 1 out of 4 with a dedicated end goal (engineer, doctor, professor, etc.) have fared much better.

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

#234

Post by Mixtape » Sat, Mar 18, 2023, 7:32 PM UTC

mkl95 wrote: post #129

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…

Would you be willing to elaborate on what you've seen a bit? I'm on the last semester of my CS degree now and have definitely seen a lot of similar effects as a result of Zoom courses and general isolation during COVID lockdowns. There's generally less willingness to reach out to people than there used to be, and people seem to prefer dividing up tasks and working independently over collaborative work (e.g. each person in a group project having a "role" rather than working jointly on a large segment). There's also a general preference towards working at home without any external interaction whatsoever and a lack of willingness to form study groups. As I start moving into the job application phase of things, I can definitely see how these traits can be seen as off-putting to hiring managers, and I'd like to avoid falling into similar traps. Is there anything else you've noticed that would be worth avoiding?

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

#235

Post by dahart » Sat, Mar 18, 2023, 7:32 PM UTC

jletienne wrote: post #225

dahart wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wa…

it's unclear if the causation here is having a degree. but it is correlated to a very large degree

This has been quite widely studied, actually. Many papers conclude that it’s a mix of causation, there is (unsurprisingly) some amount of actual learning of skills in college, and also (unsurprisingly) some amount of credentialism in the job market.

What does it matter though? Parent was presuming to argue from a students’ perspective. The amount of relative causation might be pretty irrelevant to a student who just wants to know what do to to maximize their chances of having a decent career. From a student’s perspective, lack of causation might even be a stronger reason than otherwise, it potentially means they can enjoy a more lucrative career with less work.

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

#236

Post by harvey9 » Sat, Mar 18, 2023, 7:33 PM UTC

Ekaros wrote: post #148

vasco wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have something to do with it in the sense that many people practice them and they need to practice them growing up in order to be able to do it as a job. You also cannot discount the impact of athletics programs on national defense and the programs that were done by multiple presidents to keep people active and healthy. Sports have this quality among cultural activities that they tend to improve your body and re…

But why connect it to education? Why not make it general program for all ages? Why not encourage community run programs for teams consisting for example company workers, or local neighbourhood teams? The education ends very quickly and it is the older than that people who could really benefit from these activities.

Lots of places do all of those things. It does not need to be just one or the other.

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

#237

Post by seanalltogether » Sat, Mar 18, 2023, 7:34 PM UTC

varunjain99 wrote: post #69

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'd also add 4) A social / networking experience. As an adult, rarely will you interact so often with so many people of your age. 5. A signaling mechanism. I have X credentials so give me job Y. This is far from ideal because the signal can be noisy. But it is a data point. It's similar to how physics PhD's are targeted for quant finance roles - they've signaled they can solve hard problems!

I know so many people who don't keep in contact with high school friends, but still meet up with college friends from time to time. There's just something special about throwing a bunch of people of the same age into this melting pot that they chose to be thrown in to that creates these social networks that last a lifetime. Military friendships also seem to mirror this same effect

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

#238

Post by Balgair » Sat, Mar 18, 2023, 7:35 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…

As an uncle told me many moons ago:

Do more in college. Write a rock opera, spend a week curled up in the union learning about black holes, be good enough to tutor.

Don't just graduate with nothing but a taste for bad jazz and cheap beer.

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

#239

Post by pclmulqdq » Sat, Mar 18, 2023, 7:36 PM UTC

Kon-Peki wrote: post #64

pclmulqdq wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being a high-end plumber doesn't take much college. I joke, but most lawyers actually don't make a ton of money. Like programming, the profession is very bimodal. By the time you get out of law school, unless that law school is a big name like Harvard or you get a good clerkship or associate job, you will be heading for a career that tops out at $200k/year if you don't burn out in the mean time. Plumbing, electrical…

The trades can be excellent careers, but it doesn’t do anyone any good to pretend that they’re an ideal path for most people. You’ll be constantly working with people making poor life decisions that look like a lot of fun, and being encouraged to join in. People with self-control issues or trouble resisting peer pressure are going to have a lot of trouble succeeding. They’ll have very little help.

In college, you will also be constantly surrounded by people making poor life decisions that look fun and being encouraged to join in. That also happens at most law firms, on Wall Street, and at many startups.

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

#240

Post by tester756 » Sat, Mar 18, 2023, 7:37 PM UTC

hgsgm wrote: post #79

varunjain99 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd also add 4) A social / networking experience. As an adult, rarely will you interact so often with so many people of your age. 5. A signaling mechanism. I have X credentials so give me job Y. This is far from ideal because the signal can be noisy. But it is a data point. It's similar to how physics PhD's are targeted for quant finance roles - they've signaled they can solve hard problems!

4) if everyone wasn't locked up in college, they would meet other young adults in their neighborhood and social/hobby clubs and entertainment venues 5) in the modern day that can solved by testing regimes. A self-educated quant could take an online qualifying test, and in-person final exam, to get a job in finance.

In my experience - not really.

I know a lot of people around my age and only 1 person is working in my industry.