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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

#371

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…

Might be considered part of #2, but "feeder program for professional athletes" would be another goal for some.

Or #1 possibly...

The whole American college athletics thing is crazy, and almost completely disjointed from the rest of what "college" is.

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

#372
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…

With the economic downturn coming, companies are really going to ask themselves who's necessary. Those white collar workers that have plenty of leisure time are going to suddenly be out of work, and will be forced into the blue collar market, only they are going to have to compete with blue collar workers that have been in the market for many more years than they have. Guess who the company's are going to hire...

As for the white collar workers that made the cut, their job isn't going to be as cozy. You're trading in back-breaking work for mental-straining work with severe time constraints.

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

#373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completed my BSCS at a state school in my 30s after already being a freelance/amateur programmer for many years. I can honestly say I did not learn a single new thing about programming. In fact, almost every single bit of the programming I learned was completely wrong by todays standards, and rife with mistakes.

Sounds like you attended a bad school. I earned a MS in CS at age 30 atop my BS in zoology and 6 years of work as a programmer. My MSCS program introduced me to many new and useful concepts and techniques that have informed all the nontrivial computing tasks I've undertaken since, now 33 years. That degree has proved to be the best investment of my life, by a large margin.

Why are you comparing a BS program to an MS program?

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

#374

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…

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.…

> inconvenient truths now get muzzled because they don’t fit an acceptable meta-narrative

Are you in college?

> 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

Wow. That's pretty wild! Can you back that up somehow? On the Internet, extreme statements somehow have more credibility. In college, more extreme statements require more extreme support for them.

> Analyzing cultures for weakness? Doesn’t sound like a particularly meaningful or commonly needed study.

What is more important than looking at ourselves in the mirror, and learning everything we can from others? It's not like we are doing so well right now.

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

#375

Good. Needs to happen. Was talking to our HVAC repair dude. He makes as much as I do with a high school education and two years of trade school. Adjusting for age, he definitely makes more than I did at 34. No reason to send kids who want to work with their hands to four year colleges and saddle them with 100k in debt when they can work through a trade school, be done at 20, and have no student loan debt.

I assume you work in software. How hard does the HVAC guy work? I wager if you compared wages earned per hour worked (not just employed), you come out ahead. You probably beat doctors and lawyers, too. Large salaries mean nothing if you don’t account for how much effort is expended to earn the money.

Yeah I had nurse friends who had impressive pay on paper, but we’re desperate to work in anything else because the shifts were hellish.

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

#376
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…

At the risk of sounding like a terrible person, I'd like to be honest for a second about why I went to college, which is to avoid this exactly reality that you just laid out. I enlisted in the military after finding college to be too boring for my taste. 3 months later I found myself doing the hardest manual labor of my life on a riverboat for the Coast Guard. The pay was not great and nobody cared if you didn't feel…

Both can still be valid.

Mental health days are good, and burn out is a real phenomenon.

It's a shame that blue collar workers don't have access to these facilities, and yes office workers are by and large 'softer' than blue collar workers. But we should fight corporations and organisations to provide those facilities for everyone, and not pick sides in a working class debate (not that you did that).

All paid workers real enemy is the capital class, and we should never forget that.

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

#377

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…

I can’t speak to what the original poster experienced in college, but your heated response implies a resistance to at least some forms on inquiry as unacceptable or inappropriate or at a minimum worthy of disparagement, which I think undermines your argument a bit.

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

#378
post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I don’t think anyone idealizes those kind of physical labor jobs. Usually “the trades” is much more skilled manual labor: plumbing, hvac, welding, specialized mechanic work and repair, woodworking/carpentry, etc. No one says people should want a life of a mover, meatpacker, or ditch digger.

I think that's a cultural thing.

In Australia, trade workers are very highly paid and generally very well respected in society (even day labourers).

In fact many envy 'tradies' as they're called, because they can outearn white-collar workers pretty easily.

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

#379

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.…

> inconvenient truths now get muzzled because they don’t fit an acceptable meta-narrative Are you in college? > 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 Wow. That's pretty wild! Can you back that up somehow? On the Internet, extreme statements somehow have more credibility. In college, more extreme statements require more extr…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambodian_genocide

It's not an extreme statement, just a brief description of well-known events.

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

#380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

Hmm. I mean an actual class in critical thinking. It consisted of several things, but mostly things like basic logic, fallacies and so on. In other words, neither of three options listed.

The CIA has a school for intelligence analysts.[1]

"At the beginning of 2002, the courses were as following: during the first week, an introduction to intelligence topics included the history, mission and values of the CIA, as well as a unit on the history of intelligence an literature taught by the Center for The Study of Intelligence’s (CSI’s). Next, during the following five weeks, analysts are introduced to a variety of skills including analytic thinking, writing and self-editing, briefing, data analysis techniques and teamwork exercises, these representing the basic skills for a CIA analyst. After these five weeks in the classroom, the students go on a four-week interim assignment meant to help them understand how the DI relates to other CIA components, making them better understand their future role. Then, they return to the classroom for another four weeks of training in more advanced topics: writing and editing longer papers and topical modules addressing issues like denial, deceptions, indicators and warnings. These special kinds of analysis require advanced and sophisticated tradecraft skills. Afterwards, they go away again, for a second four-week interim assignment and when they return, after another four weeks in the classroom (when they deal with even more advanced topics), a task force exercise awaits them: a two days terrorist crisis simulation outside the classroom. This is an opportunity to show what they’ve learned and to see how they react in a situation that they might come across in real life."

That's a real "critical thinking" course. What they're trying to do is teach people how to extracts facts from contradictory, incomplete, and deliberately false information.

Some of the concepts are generally useful. Here's an overview of the subject, from the U.S. Army.[2] "The critical thinking material has been used with permission from The Foundation for Critical Thinking, www.criticalthinking.org, The Thinker’s Guide to Analytic Thinking, 2012 and The Miniature Guide to Critical Thinking: Concepts and Tools, 2009, by Dr. Linda Elder and Dr. Richard Paul." See especially section 2-13, "AVOIDING ANALYTICAL PITFALLS".

[1] https://www.performancemagazine.org/how-the-cia-analysts-are...

[2] https://info.publicintelligence.net/USArmy-IntelAnalysis.pdf

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