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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

#361

Post by david927 »

newhotelowner wrote: post #4

My daughter got rejected from one of the UC. They received 130+k application for 6k openings.

Someone in this thread wrote this:

"California Universities just had the most applications in history. UCLA 145k applicants, UCSD 130k applicants. Respectively they are both down now to about a 3% and 5% acceptance rate due to the spike. Might be Covid holdovers due to a gap year, or with the economy as it is, out of state applications have dropped."

If it's true, that's crazy. Up until this year, I think the lowest acceptance rate was Princeton at 3.9%.

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

#362

Post by jvanderbot »

kdmccormick wrote: post #100
jvanderbot wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's more fun to be had with 80k than college.

Like?

Youre really asking for examples?

- couple years off traveling the world all expenses paid

- buying a small lake cabin near family and friends, or down payment on a very nice place.

- 10 years of international, three-week vacations

- retiring 10 years early because over 40 years that'll be almost 1.3 million.

- you could get the college experience but for twice as long by not paying for classes

- take less expensive classes, live at home, and work more, and end up with much less debt, then spend 80k on your first house down payment.

Im not trying very hard, but I had way more fun after college than in it, it seems obvious that there might be better ways to have fun with 80k, that's all. Maybe I'm wrong.

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

#363

Post by syzarian »

throwaway4aday wrote: post #110
azinman2 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re: critical analysis. I agree with you that inconvenient truths now get muzzled because they don’t fit an acceptable meta-narrative. This is very problematic for society and when taken to the maximum, can lead to thinks like Cambodia’s attempt at restarting society by killing all those who didn’t fit the model they were looking for. > If that's what you are hungry for, college is perhaps even your least likely bet.…

Arguably, the Cambodian people could have potentially avoided the genocidal deaths of millions of people by analyzing the weaknesses of the Soviet/Communist culture, weaknesses that repeatedly lead to mass death. Seems pretty meaningful and deserving of study to me.

Communism does not lead to deaths and genocide. Concentrated, uncontested power does.

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

#365

Post by xyzelement »

quadrifoliate wrote: post #360
xyzelement wrote: post #54

Earlier 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…

> Eg I had a class that really critically analyzed native American cultures. Today the class would be considered racist, it would have to a priori be an admiration of those cultures, rather than a critical analysis. This is bullshit. The difference is that today, your own culture e.g. (non-native) American society till the modern day is considered fair game for analysis, whereas 20 years ago there was probably a fair…

// The difference is that today, your own culture e.g. (non-native) American society till the modern day is considered fair game for analysis

These was definitely no shortage of ability to analyze and criticize western civilization in a college 20 years ago.

// An unnecessary dichotomy. The Internet is not blocked at a college

You are replying to a comment about what is accessible. College does not preclude internet. College however is an extremely large resource and time commitment. Therefore ability to learn outside of that is a great addition.

// Guess what, things change, and usually in a way that society is better off.

Agreed. Hence the article we are all talking about - people wisely chosing to forego college as a default.

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

#366

Post by whateverman23 »

Forgeties79 wrote: post #251
ragtete wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know why folks put down college sports. If you do 4 years on a D1 team, you can certainly call yourself an expert in that sport. They're not just messing around, they're learning and developing their skills. They may not go pro or use that knowledge directly later in life, but neither do a lot of degree holders in their field.

> They're not just messing around, they're learning and developing their skills. Yes, but almost universally at the expense of the education they are allegedly there to get. Especially D1 programs. That is why many of us don’t think it makes sense to tie it to education. To play at the level they are required to, they have to sacrifice their education. I think we all know how there are “football player classes” and c…

I'm guess asking: Why is 4 years of dedication to a sport (in at least the D1 context) not considered an education on its own?

List the degrees achievable from a typical college, and rank them in terms of usefulness outside college. Then fit 4 years of a D1 sport into that list. I have a hard time believing the usefulness of 4 years of a D1 sport would be at the bottom of the list.

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

#367

Post by pacaro »

inglor_cz wrote: post #262
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 narrow thinkers / cranks dilemma is beautifully described, thank you. You aren't in the academia, are you? Because you explain things in simple terms, yet very efficiently. One of the diseases of current academia is use of an extremely stilted language, perhaps intended to paper over some logical cracks.

I've done a bit of both so to speak. I studied History and Philosophy of Science as an undergrad, but have worked as self taught software engineer for nearly 30 years.

I don't think that jargon is created to confuse or obfuscate, most likely the opposite. My favorite example is in sailing. Every functional part of a sailboat has a name, because precise communication between crew can be critical and saying "pull the rope, no the other one, no the other other one" doesn't help. But telling a non sailer to tighten a jib sheet seems unnecessarily persnickety.

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

#368

Post by psyklic »

phpisthebest wrote: post #317
Dudeman112 wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Seem you have a very inflated view of the programs... just how much debt are you attempting to justify? I agree with them and I had 0 debt. Making higher education free was one of the few things I think the government back home actually didn't drop the ball on Apparently it's done wonders for a bunch of industries

Well like with many things. Context matters. here we are talking about the dysfunctional schooling system of the US. Other nations have different style of education that may be actual education. There are also aspects and some intuitions in the US worth it. But they are few and far between, and becoming more rare as the institutions in the US move away from actual education, and more towards political based goals

I for one didn't know the political views of my professors -- it simply never came up.

That said, college students are adults and can be exposed to different viewpoints without worry. IMO students are influenced politically vastly more by fellow students than professors.

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

#369

Post by OJFord »

Balgair wrote: post #351
OJFord wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, as cousin Melchior put it, 'anything other than a first or a fourth is wasted'. ( Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh. Not sure how internationally read it is, but a worthwhile classic. British degrees are classified from firsts to thirds (via upper and lower second class honours) - but the story is (initially) set at Oxford, which at the time awarded fourths.)

Thanks for the reccomendation! I am a bit confused though. Is 'a first' the top score on an exam or like a suma cum laude ? Free link to the book here: https://gutenberg.ca/ebooks/waughe-bridesheadrevisited1945/w...

People sometimes talk about it in terms of exams in the sense that they'd achieve a first overall if that exam was 'it', or that it brings their average up etc. - but strictly speaking you can only achieve first class (or any other) honours for the degree as a whole. It's commonly (but not necessarily) >70% overall. Equivalent to achieving some high GPA range.

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

#370

Post by wolverine876 »

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 had a class that really critically analyzed native American cultures. Today the class would be considered racist, it would have to a priori be an admiration of those cultures

If we are going to be collegiate, let's critically examine our own posts. What is that based on? It doesn't match what I know.

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