Posted on 02/28/2022 7:14:43 AM PST by karpov
Most Americans have been conditioned to believe that if you don’t enroll in college after high school, you have almost no chance at a successful life. That’s not true.
As a 3rd-year engineering student working for a semester at an old-school machine tool company in Detroit, I got my first inkling that alternative paths into careers other than expensive college degrees existed. On my first day of work, the shop foreman told me in no uncertain terms that I was not to disturb the gray-haired “master craftsman” seated next to our enormous CNC machining center, reading the Wall Street Journal while making metal chips. “If we lose him, this company goes under,” was the explanation.
The second time my college-boy pride was shaken came a few years and two engineering degrees later, at my first job working in the German aircraft industry. When I applied for an opening as a flight test engineer, I was told flatly that since I had not apprenticed first as an aircraft mechanic or fabricator, I had no chance. About the same time, I was dating my future wife, who despite having “only” apprenticed to enter her career in business administration, was jet-setting around Europe looking after multiple production plants for her employer, a major global vehicle parts manufacturer.
In Austria, Germany, and Switzerland, apprenticeships–not college–have been the primary route into careers for four centuries. Many graduates go on to earn college degrees when these are of benefit, for instance MBAs are popular among former apprentices-turned-entrepreneurs.
Despite the popularity of apprenticeships in these countries, knowledge of them remains poor in the US–but it shouldn’t be for those who know their history. Many of our Founding Fathers and leading industrialists entered careers without college degrees, for instance Benjamin Franklin (printer), Benjamin Rush (physician), George Washington (surveyor)
(Excerpt) Read more at jamesgmartin.center ...
Find the dirtiest job and learn how to do it well. Start your own company and do it for 25 years, then retire and do whatever you like.
Or, get elected to Congress.
The urban public school district where I taught had a robust trades program. One school taught car repair. Another taught barbering. My high school had an incredible carpentry program.
That’s all gone now, courtesy of George W. Bush. His idiotic ‘No Child Left Behind’ program tested only for math and English. And woe to the principal whose school scored poorly on those tests!
So as a matter of self-preservation, principals cut their trades program and shoved those students into advanced math and English classes. So the kids who had an interest in carpentry were forced to study pre-calculus and comparative literature instead.
It infuriates me to this day. George W. Bush can go to...well, you know.
Take the time to talk to people actually working in the field you are interested in.
They will tell you the real truth of what you need.
For instance, you want to be an engineer at Intel, you need to be top of your class in your discipline.
The college doesn’t make too much difference.
You want to eventually be an Executive at Intel...you need to get a Masters at Stanford, Berkeley or MIT.
A Masters degree from ASU won’t cut it.
I didn’t see any Gender Studies apprenticeships, or Grievance Studies for that matter.
Military career is a good option. Out of my roommates at college, two of us are still working while the “screw up” never finished. That “screw up” joined the Navy, spent many years traveling the globe including some time in the deserts of Africa, and is now retired and living a great life traveling the country.
So ... who was the real screw up?
My father retired from one of the major oil companies in 1970. He was a ‘gang pusher’, ie, he had about six workers, roustabouts. This was dirty hard work, digging ditches, repairing oil field machinery etc. His company insisted that all new hired engineers worked for one year as a roustabout for a gang pusher so they would know how things really worked. Dad was one of several gang pushers handpicked for a special job breaking in these new engineers.
Congress is about the dirtiest job there is. So much BS.
Okay boomer. Nice nostalgia piece about the way things used to be in the good old days.
Here in the third decade of the 21st century, though, just *try* getting past all the c*nts in HR without at least a Bachelor’s degree on your resume. They may not have a clue about what the company actually does or how to do it, but they really know how to tick off boxes on checklists and give great Powerpoint.
You are applying at the wrong companies if they are heading you off at the pass. Aim smaller where you deal with the owner, not some HR prick.
Show a little plumber’s crack and bring in the big bucks.
Plumbing is the noblest profession on Earth. Clean, potable drinking water and proper sanitation separates a superior civilization from an inferior one.
Ben Franklin once said “Don’t we know the worth of water when the well runs dry’’.
Besides plumbers make good money.
My old man was a builder and was telling a guy that next to preachers, building a home for somebody was the next most noble job. A place someone call their castle, raise a family, etc.
“Yeah? Well I’m a doctor - what about that?”
“A doctor!? Yeah, you’re right up there too. Third maybe?”
Regarding plumbing:
“The society which scorns excellence in plumbing as a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy: neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water.”
John W. Gardner
Amen to that.
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