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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

#381

Post by WWLink »

Balgair wrote: post #238
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…

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.

A lot of CS students need to be told this as well. If you take the bare minimum CS so that you can double major in business, don't come crying on here that CS didn't teach you anything about programming lol.

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

#382

Post by downrightmike »

rthomas6 wrote: post #264

Rant: I feel like most people haven't really thought about why colleges are so expensive now. It is because of the federally guaranteed student loans. It means there's pretty much no downside to banks loaning an arbitrarily large amount, because if the student doesn't pay it back, the government will. And since most 18 year old students have pretty much zero price sensitivity, and they now have unlimited funds, colle…

Also, if the colleges give out a certain amount of grants to students who can't afford the artificially high tuition, they become non-profits and can bank all that cash into their endowments. That's really the why of tuition hikes. Greed. Thanks MIT who took this to the supreme court in 91 and fucked all future generations!

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

#383

Post by derbOac »

InvaderFizz wrote: post #39
Mc91 wrote: post #9

I have been programming for a Fortune 500 company for four years. Not long ago, I applied for a job at another Fortune 500 company. HR really had only question for me, they saw on my resume I did not have a college degree listed, and did I have one? I said I went through most of college towards a Bachelors in Computer Science but dropped out before graduation. I did not get the job, although I don't know if that's wh…

I got my degree at 35 because of this. Not that I actually learned much of anything in the program, I was there purely for the paper. This is where schools like WGU excel for those of us just seeking credentials for what we already know. The terms are six months, you can do as many courses as you want during that six months. Over half the courses are just a final exam. You take a pre-test on day one of the course. If…

"seeking credentials for what we already know"

Not about you at all in particular (quite the opposite), but this is what drives me into a frenzy of frustration about the world today. Seems like everything is about credentials and appearance rather than obvious potential or ability.

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

#384

Post by charlieyu1 »

rthomas6 wrote: post #264

Rant: I feel like most people haven't really thought about why colleges are so expensive now. It is because of the federally guaranteed student loans. It means there's pretty much no downside to banks loaning an arbitrarily large amount, because if the student doesn't pay it back, the government will. And since most 18 year old students have pretty much zero price sensitivity, and they now have unlimited funds, colle…

Am I the only one who want government intervention on college fees?

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

#385

Post by quadrifoliate »

meany wrote: post #377
quadrifoliate wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> 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

I'm trying to engage reasonably by assuming some things here, specifically that the OP has peripheral knowledge of some courses (since they haven't actually attended college recently) and they are categorizing the relatively detached nature of those courses as "a priori admiration".

I guess I could also respond by simply asking for specific examples of "a priori admiration" that the OP has seen in college courses recently. I doubt I will get any, but am open to changing my mind if I do.

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

#386

Post by wolverine876 »

mkl wrote: post #379
wolverine876 wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

The statement didn't describe the Cambodian genocide. How about backing up the actual claim?

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

#387

Post by throwaway675309 »

gautamdivgi wrote: post #28
Mc91 wrote: post #9

I have been programming for a Fortune 500 company for four years. Not long ago, I applied for a job at another Fortune 500 company. HR really had only question for me, they saw on my resume I did not have a college degree listed, and did I have one? I said I went through most of college towards a Bachelors in Computer Science but dropped out before graduation. I did not get the job, although I don't know if that's wh…

I hate to say this but you were probably an unfortunate bait for a labor certification of an existing employee on an h1b visa. That is generally the only reason companies will stick to the bscs requirement. Normally if you have requisite experience the degree - especially bscs is not needed.

I can't speak to other industries, but many of the companies that I've worked for the last two decades as a software engineer required or at the very least strongly recommended a BS in computer science.

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

#388

Post by thiagoharry »

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 do not think that what society needs is equal what the market needs. People with critical knowledge about society, philosophy, people that could question how good is the market deciding everything are not interesting to the market, but it is interesting to the society. Without publicly funded education, however, everything boils down to what the market decides.

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

#389

Post by throwaway675309 »

scrapcode wrote: post #52
Mc91 wrote: post #9

I have been programming for a Fortune 500 company for four years. Not long ago, I applied for a job at another Fortune 500 company. HR really had only question for me, they saw on my resume I did not have a college degree listed, and did I have one? I said I went through most of college towards a Bachelors in Computer Science but dropped out before graduation. I did not get the job, although I don't know if that's wh…

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.

I would argue that it's not necessarily the job of a computer science degree to teach you programming, which is more about the craftsmanship and likely should be practiced and learned individually. Computer science is about the theoretics. I greatly value the CS education I received in linear algebra, discrete mathematics, etc. which I decidedly would not have learned on the job.

If you just want to learn programming you may as well just enroll in a code camp.

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

#390

Post by Forgeties79 »

whateverman23 wrote: post #366
Forgeties79 wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I think the forms of education here are pretty darn distinct. Didn’t say it wasn’t worth it/wasn’t valuable. Same reason we have conservatories like with ballet.
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