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The Stigma of Choosing Trade School over College

theatlantic.com

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Re: The Stigma of Choosing Trade School over College

#3
I don't know why more tech companies don't do apprenticeships straight out of highschool. You can pay a high school student with some programming experience a fraction of the salary of a college graduate and it probably doesn't take that much longer to get them productive and they won't be saddled with student loan debt.

Re: The Stigma of Choosing Trade School over College

#4
post #3

I don't know why more tech companies don't do apprenticeships straight out of highschool. You can pay a high school student with some programming experience a fraction of the salary of a college graduate and it probably doesn't take that much longer to get them productive and they won't be saddled with student loan debt.

Perhaps one reason is that job-hopping is very common in the tech industry. I wouldn't expect many apprentices to hang around long enough for there to be a payoff to the employer.

Re: The Stigma of Choosing Trade School over College

#5
post #3

I don't know why more tech companies don't do apprenticeships straight out of highschool. You can pay a high school student with some programming experience a fraction of the salary of a college graduate and it probably doesn't take that much longer to get them productive and they won't be saddled with student loan debt.

The people you would recruit that way would be way different than the people you recruit from college; it doesn't work very well.

How do I know this? My country has an apprenticeship system and software developer is actually an option, but nobody does this because it doesn't work very well. My company tried it; the person failed to produce even very rudimentary programs.

College really isn't about the education it provides; it is all about signalling that you can deal with deadlines, people and semi-complex problems. That signal often doesn't work though.

Re: The Stigma of Choosing Trade School over College

#6
College has all the markings of a scam. The intense marketing using fear is the most obvious, ie: you'll be a loser if you don't get a degree

It's a pretty slick system, eliminate all the good paying low skill jobs with outsourcing and illegal immigration, forcing native citizens to go to college to get a decent paying job, make college loans unable to be discharged, massive increase in demand for college means that you can jack up prices.

The result is you now have an army of debt slaves that you can milk for decades

There is no reason for college in the 21st century, outside of a select few majors where you need physical labs. People calling for free university are stuck in the past, we should instead be providing open source textbooks and a set of exams to verify knowledge, proctored at public libraries. Why are we still learning like it's 300BC in Athens?

Re: The Stigma of Choosing Trade School over College

#7
The crazy thing is that most colleges have evolved non-academic party tracks, or simple tuition-extraction tracks: https://jakeseliger.com/2014/04/27/paying-for-the-party-eliz.... Talking about "college," as if it's just one big unified thing, doesn't make sense today (if it ever did). I spent ten years teaching college, and I wish this point were better emphasized in the media narratives.

Re: The Stigma of Choosing Trade School over College

#8
post #2

Is 'video production' really a trade school? I think more of the blue-collar trades. Also, aren't video/music production classes like that usually the realm of for-profit schools like Full Sail and the job prospects dubious?

Any schooling specifically intended to be vocational is a trade school.

Re: The Stigma of Choosing Trade School over College

#9
post #2

Is 'video production' really a trade school? I think more of the blue-collar trades. Also, aren't video/music production classes like that usually the realm of for-profit schools like Full Sail and the job prospects dubious?

Between the rise of youtube, the porn industry, "peak" TV and the constant stream of CGI-based movies, there is plenty of work in video production. A degree doesn't really matter, but knowing how to use the tools does. Whether you get hands on the tools at a university or a college isn't an issue.

Re: The Stigma of Choosing Trade School over College

#10
post #3

I don't know why more tech companies don't do apprenticeships straight out of highschool. You can pay a high school student with some programming experience a fraction of the salary of a college graduate and it probably doesn't take that much longer to get them productive and they won't be saddled with student loan debt.

The people you would recruit that way would be way different than the people you recruit from college; it doesn't work very well. How do I know this? My country has an apprenticeship system and software developer is actually an option, but nobody does this because it doesn't work very well. My company tried it; the person failed to produce even very rudimentary programs. College really isn't about the education it pr…

YMMV The company I work for has taken on a few people through a apprenticeship scheme straight from high school and they've all been superb.
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