“Yet too often, degrees are still thought of as lifelong stamps of professional competency.”
Sorta depends on WHERE that degree is from doesn’t it?
65%? Sure, that’s a number they can predict with accuracy!
I graduated from high school in 1972. The most useful class I took was touch typing. :-D
I find it fascinating because I took that course as an “easy A” class and for no other reason.
A plumber, electrician, welder, mechanic, or carpenter, with a bachelor's degree in business administration is a win-win.
If that Duke Power vs “??” court decision could be rolled back/overturned it would be a huge step in that direction!
As has always been the case, and why all the hand-wring over “robots will take all our jobs” is silly. Not that many years ago someone who it Python proficiency on their resume would have bben considered to be a circus performer, and Physician Assistant meant “nurse”.
A college degree is worth its cost if, and only if, it’s received as a part of a plan to qualify its recipient for a career where it will be essential either in itself or as a prerequisite for post graduate professional education. Engineering and accounting degrees, for example, are necessary for one to become an engineer or accountant. A liberal arts degree with a history major, OTOH, is a good foundation for going to law school, but not worth much to an individual who has no plans to use it as a basis for seeking post graduate education.
(b) they are giving college degrees away these days.
(c) all a four year degree really tells me is that this person may know a little more than the next guy, but mostly that they can successfully manage a four year project; themselves.
My son went to college for 2 years and said it’s not for me. I don’t want to spend my life behind a desk. He then went to trade school and got every kind of welding certification you can get. He also learned Autocad and CNC machine operation. He now designs and builds race cars. He can make anything out of metal at 27 y/o.
Fact is, most people don’t need to go to college.
I’d say, that’s always been the case.
But a college degree is proof that you have a certain amount of training and skills. And that tends to open doors for you to gain more skills.
You can compete without it, but you are at a disadvantage until you have a really solid work record.
I did a BA Honours in history, but then took accounting and computer courses to round out my skills. Ended up doing a diploma in accounting at my local community college, so I did a fairly common route in terms of doing a practical thing after doing a liberal arts degree. BTW, took typing in high school as well.
In other words, how It should have always been.
Became very successful....
I've known plenty of people that don't/didn't hold college degree's and are very successful.
I've also known and know of...many,many with college degrees ...that are WORTHLESS..!!!
93 percent of freelancers with a four-year college degree say skills training was useful versus only 79 percent who say their college education was useful to the work they do now.
True, but you have to get hired before you can work. Every job I've had since 1990 has used a BS or MS as a discriminator during hiring.
And nobody cares where mine came from.
I read an article recently- maybe on here- in which a British surgeon talks about how he is beginning to see problems with surgeons-in-training due to a lack of hands-on skills for much of anything, due to the prevalence of cell phones, gaming, and so forth.
I think we need to go back, way back, and restart teaching kids things like how to tell time on an analog clock (think about it, this is a completely different skill than reading off numbers to “tell time”. Teach cursive writing again, for the same reason: it’s training the brain.
Then teach what we used to call “basic math” or “consumer math.” (Without benefit of calculators). Everybody does not need algebra; in fact, probably very few people actually need algebra.
Then, go back to courses like Home Ec and what we used to call “Industrial Arts.” Learning hands-on skills, even if those aren’t used in a career, can’t be useless and likely helps train the mind and the muscles to learn more skills.
93 percent of college-educated freelancers say their skill training is more useful in the work they are doing now than their college training.
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Of course... it can it get you through HR?