It really depends man. I joined the plumbers union and don’t regret it at all I hated school. Getting a degree these days you really gotta be careful what you pick and knowing someone getting a good job goes a long way. Also it’s expensive, some kids are very lucky and there parents get to pay college for them and don’t have to worry about being in debt paying loans for the next 10+ years. But trades isn’t for everybody, and neither is school so it depends on the person.
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
#242It depends on the job/career the person is going for.
Some jobs; doctors, lawyers, psychologists… would need a book based education that can’t be taught in an apprenticeship or by just hand-on training.
Other jobs like carpenter and plumbers and mechanics, people could probably learn most stuff by just hands on experience, going out and doing things and figuring out how to do it better, but would need an apprenticeship to learn how to deal with meeting building and safety codes based on where they live.
I’m I network engineer for a global company, and I credit all of my knowledge to simple hands on experience and google. I learned a lot about networks just from my time in the military, used that to get civilian jobs that were more complicated and I had more to learn, and when ever I hit a point I couldn’t get past, I’d ask someone or ask google, OR just keep smacking my head into that wall until I figured it out. My B.S. degree in computer science is more of just that… bs, then the hands on experience I gained over the past 20+ years.
Re: More students are turning away from college and toward apprenticeships
#243Earlier quoted context omitted.
> We've had free public libraries for centuries now. Not even a century and a half, really. The first Carnegie library was opened in 1883, for example.
I mean, pedantry aside this is such an easy question that even Google can find a result. [1] According to that link: The Darby Free Library in Darby, Pennsylvania, is “America’s oldest public library, in continuous service since 1743.” But really, without going too off topic, why would you even bother to try to correct a statement that is used for effect? Are you trying to suggest that 150 years vs "centuries" is a r…
I contend that "We have had free public libraries" is not a statement about the mere existence of a public library somewhere, but rather and especially in the context of this discussion a claim about how widely available resources for self-education are. And that's firmly the latter half of the 19th century, following efforts of people like Buckingham, Edwards, and Carnegie. And these are still not even close to universally accessible - there can be plenty stopping "a 20 year old human who lives in Western society" from accessing them.
So, no, not pedantry - just asking that you genuinely consider the experiences of others before waxing poetic about some irrelevant historicism. Perhaps unguided education is today not as accessible for everyone as it was for you, for many reasons.
(p.s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darby_Free_Library says it was a subscription library until 1898. Maybe also Google, which seems to be what you meant by "the open internet", is not that great a resource either?)
Re: More students are turning away from college and toward apprenticeships
#244As 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…
While this is all true, the article is about white collar apprenticeships.
Re: More students are turning away from college and toward apprenticeships
#245As 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…
I worked in a call center for a while. I'd call it light blue collar work. You don't get to listen to podcasts but these days you might get a remote position. Physical risk is mostly limited to RSI I guess.
Re: More students are turning away from college and toward apprenticeships
#246College 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…
> If a person is smart enough to receive it, more education is almost always good.
Are you speaking narrowly of credential-granting schools or do you actually mean education here?
Re: More students are turning away from college and toward apprenticeships
#247As 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…
While agreeing with all your points, I think blue collar jobs will get their mojo back soon, especially something not a repeat work, as they will be one of the few jobs that will remain after LLM and AI has automated most of the desk jobs (or at least severely reduced the number of people needed to be employed in them).
Re: More students are turning away from college and toward apprenticeships
#248I wish it were easier to get a visa and move to another country without a degree. As someone without a degree, that's been the most annoying issue. The best parts are: not having student loans and not having a mindset that grinding within "the system" leads to success.
I did my Master's degree solely for visa. Nothing else. What little I learned in Master's, I could have learned from online MIT/GaTech/Michigan/Stanford courses with much more flexibility, and for free. And a lot better quality, too. All the "network" I built that was of any value to me was made in mailing lists, Twitter, Google Groups, and later Discord.
Haha, I did the same.
I've found like a week or so before deadline on applying to master's program that master's can make
getting visa easier and I've decided that spending every 2nd weekend at school for 1.5 year may be worth it
Unfortunately majority of the courses were just waste of time :(
Re: More students are turning away from college and toward apprenticeships
#249Earlier 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…
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 ).
People always use this term "critical thinking" on the internet and I am not sure anybody that uses it has a good definition of what it means or why it is something that can or must be taught in a college kind of environment.
At least personally, it's concerning to find out how many people think they are thinking critically all the time, but are not able to think critically about the definition of critical thinking.
It seems to me that there are several common ways people define the term:
1. To mean any innate interest or drive whatsoever for knowledge in any topic that is remotely academic or related to something academic. Typically in the context of something free-form and not guided by an instructor.
2. To mean the ability to re-evaluate beliefs shaped by the knowledge you have previously absorbed. This is the most common definition but also the most problematic since it rarely involves questioning your beliefs about critical thinking itself in the future. In essence you are replacing one source of truth with another source of truth making claims based on authority. This often leads to the typical "I learned about critical thinking, now I will reject anything my parents say as false and things my school says as true". I don't believe that is what is meant by this definition, but it is unfortunately very common for people to leave their "critical thinking class" with that kind of takeaway. They also might leave their critical thinking class with the tendency to come up with meta questions and meta narratives and then put them on the internet a bit like what I'm doing. I hate that as well since it's incredibly annoying.
3. To mean the ability to come up with solutions to a novel problem; to synthesize information from a variety of sources and come to a conclusion substantially different from each source individually.
Re: More students are turning away from college and toward apprenticeships
#250Honestly, what a disgrace. It’s almost like capitalism has an agenda to turn every living soul into a productive machine rather than a free-thinking, well-rounded individual. Education is meant to prepare you to think and live, not just prepare you to work. I’m glad I didn’t drop out in my first year to chase the Silicon Valley dream, because I’d be a much more manipulable, less capable individual if I did.
"Free thinking and well rounded" aren't things that seem to correspond with many current U.S college environments though.
Colleges need to cost less. Much less.
And they need to return to free inquiry with more education, and less administration and propaganda and fake studies low effort departments.
Then what you say will be much more true and we will be in a better place.