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More students are turning away from college and toward apprenticeships

wsj.com

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

#421

Post by yutijke »

I went to undergrad in India so YMMV for the primarily North American population here.

A lot of people look back at college fondly, but to me it just felt like a lot of time and money spent for skills that I had to acquire on my own any way.

It was a common opinion among my friends that other non STEM majors seemed to have an easier undergrad life where they could find time to explore things rather than trying to build their profile for the cutthroat competition in the Indian tech industry.

It felt very wasteful to spend hours on all that theoretical knowledge and the Leetcode rat race while knowing they will heavily atrophy from lack of use the moment you get your first job. It left you wondering if it was worth it in the end.

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

#422

Post by maximinus_thrax »

dimal wrote: post #193
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…

This comment seems out of place because most of the article was describing apprenticeships for white collar jobs, and listed a bunch of white collar industries removing their college requirements.

Most people just read the headline and jump to conclusions

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

#423

Post by softfalcon »

suzzer99 wrote: post #167
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…

If I was rich I would still make sure my kids worked at least one blue collar job in their teens. There's no substitute for first-hand experience in that world.

My Dad made me do this. We were well off, but he pushed me to "get a job" to buy a computer so I could study for college. I worked as a janitor and construction labourer. Taught me right quick that I DEFINITELY wanted to pursue a degree in engineering or computer science.

By contrast, my brother was never pushed in this way. He went to school, got good grades, finished his degree, and then just... never worked. He's a "yet to be successful" writer now. Goodness bless his wife's heart for supporting him, cause no one else will (ironic too, cause she's blue collar).

Doing some real labour early on in life distills work ethic into someone. What is shocking is how lazy people will turn out if they aren't given that push early on so they learn what's what.

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

#424

Post by xyzelement »

quadrifoliate wrote: post #385
meany wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 p…

The person you are replying to was onto something when he called your comment "heated"

Your first post had none of the things you are talking about in your 2nd post... It simply said "that's bullshit" and suggested that what changed is the openness of western culture to criticism.

Your second post (one I am replying to) is more reasonable but if this is somehow what you originally meant that's not what came out..

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

#425

Post by lawtalkinghuman »

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...

First = highest undergraduate degree classification in the British system.

Universities in the UK treat a degree from the US with a 3.7 or 3.8 or higher GPA as equivalent to a first according to Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_undergraduate_degree_c...

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

#426

Post by juve1996 »

palijer wrote: post #270
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…

>It also grows the intellectual souls, exposing people to far more depth of thought. This is a thing that happens to folks who attend school, but I don't think it is the school that causes this to happen. I think this effect is bound to happen to any young person who moves away from their home to live independently for the first time with a thousand other folks who are doing the same thing. Just moving to a large cit…

But not everyone moves far away to go to school and not all schools are in the big city. In fact, schools now have evolved closer to daycares with the amount of money being poured into dining halls and fitness centers.

> Just moving to a large city and working when you are young is enough to "grow the intellectual soul". Taking out loans and paying for lessons I don't think is a critical part of that development.

Eh. Plenty of people migrate. That doesn't make them educated, necessarily.

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

#427

Post by mikeg8 »

harvey9 wrote: post #245
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…

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.

A call center is probably as opposite of blue collar as it gets. The term “blue collar” comes from the blue collards shirts factory and industrial workers used to wear, and is now synonymous with manual labor. There is nothing remotely close to manual labor at a call center. You just had the lowest tier of a white collar job.

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

#428

Post by nonethewiser »

yutijke wrote: post #421

I went to undergrad in India so YMMV for the primarily North American population here. A lot of people look back at college fondly, but to me it just felt like a lot of time and money spent for skills that I had to acquire on my own any way. It was a common opinion among my friends that other non STEM majors seemed to have an easier undergrad life where they could find time to explore things rather than trying to bui…

well what would your job prospects have been with a non-STEM degree?

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

#429

Post by muyuu »

azinman2 wrote: post #40
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…

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…

out of all the reasons, IMO that is most anachronistic given the way that both Universities and society at large have changed away from these dynamics - and given also that the need for that personal access has also decreased dramatically over the last few decades

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

#430

Post by juve1996 »

thomastjeffery wrote: post #99
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…

College/University does not have a monopoly on intellectualism or networking. There is no guarantee that attending a college or university will help you develop more than you would outside that setting. There is, however, a guaranteed cost; and that cost can be debilitating.

> There is no guarantee that attending a college or university will help you develop more than you would outside that setting. There is, however, a guaranteed cost; and that cost can be debilitating.

Two things - that guaranteed cost CAN be debilitating. It also might not be. There are plenty of cheaper options available for higher education. And, in general, people with higher education make more money overall.

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