My son is trying to get in with the local fire department. He was told by the fire chief that there are two ways he can go:
1. He can go to fire school for a year.
2. He can sign up as a volunteer, train for three hours every Monday for the next year and show up to fight fires as a volunteer over that same year. At the end of the year, he’ll be considered for a full-time position.
The chief recommended option 2. He said that with that option, the guys would actually get to know the kid. That this would give him actual experience in the field and that was more prized than the education.
For kids who want to get into fields such as mechanic, plumber, police officer, fire fighter, etc. I recommended having a chat with the big wigs in the actual field. Sometimes there are a few courses or classes that actually help, but most of the time the complete degree is a waste of time and money.
My son was able to get a job as an apprentice mechanic for the summer and he’s now more qualified for a mechanics job than a kid coming out of college with a two year degree.
Sounds like an entirely reasonable course of action.
It isn’t helping the USA one little bit that most high schools today don’t even have ANY vocational classes anymore.
It seems they can come up with many creative reasons why, but I suspect it is more than a little elitist of the school boards to be removing such classes.
Not every student is college material.