Posted on 02/20/2007 5:24:05 PM PST by A. Pole
I thought that was the plan....
Well, it certainly doesn't look much like a "coincidence" to me, either...
the infowarrior
Students who graduate with degrees in African-American Studies and Feminist Theory are not going to be considered for jobs in international diplomacy, hard sciences, healthcare, and will not sustain the graduate through economic depression. Young adults in this country are using colleges as a finishing school before marriage and with China and other Asian countries producing engineers and scientists at an astounding rate we are indeed going to have a useless workforce in the future. We will also have a workforce unready to deal with the realities of the changing times and many will be unwilling to change but will instead sit around and theorize about apples and relationships between evil men and perfect women and insist on doing so even as China awakens and begins to bully this country.
Again, while students in this country continue to use college as a means of 'finding themselves' instead of concentrating on their chosen career path, we'll fall more and more behind. Then, the ones who are responsible and made the right choices will be expected to pick up the slack.
Welcome to the Third World. Education is everything and we are slipping..intentionally into the Third World catagory.
Any sane parent has their kids in a private school or home schooling to prevent educational failure.
Well, at least I don't have to retire until I feel like it.
Couldn't agree with you more.
Hehe. I coined the word as a case in point of how English is a . . . well . . . great language. Thanks for the persnicacious reply!
"I have an equal number of employees in the US and in Latin America - all young professionals."
If you're concerned about literacy, how come you don't hire older professionals?
That's easy - because I've not yet tapped into the market for their services. I'm trying though. :)
One doesn't have to consider immigrants to see English butchered. One just has to read any forum to get a sense of how illiterate Americans are.
We have created shame in technical and vocational schools, when there should be none.
Not only should there be no shame but there should be great respect for competent artisans as there once was. A good auto mechanic should be at least as well respected as a dentist. Think about it, a faulty brake job could cause the death of whole families. A good many years ago there was a program on TV about the earnings of nurses, I still remember one California nurse who opined that she was underpaid at thirty dollars an hour because she was charged seventy five dollars an hour for repairs on her car. "I think I should be paid more than a mechanic, I take care of people and he only takes care of cars". I was immediately struck by her amazing ignorance, first off the thirty dollars an hour she was paid was for every hour on the clock and she received major benefits over and above that while the seventy five dollars an hour was charged by the repair shop for actual billable hours and out of which all the operating overhead had to be paid before the mechanic was paid a dime. The mechanic probably was paid half the nurse's hourly rate. Secondly the auto mechanic is responsible for protecting human life to at least the same extent as the nurse, he could make one mistake which could cause a ten car pileup on the freeway. And no, I am not an auto mechanic, I chose that job as an illustration, the same things could be said for many trades, it is high time that people had some respect for those who do all the daily work necessary to keep the country running.
If it's a coincidence our leaders are too stupid to *lead*.
susie
"Sealed? the whole border "sealed"?? that's a pretty neat trick. Sealed with what... like a 22,000 mile ziplock baggie? Looking into it on this wonderful internet we have, I find that bulk ziplock baggies are about $14,666 per mile. Over 22,000 miles of both sea and land border that gives us about 77.4 Billion dollars worth of ziplock baggies to do the whole thing. Though... somebody points out to me that there is a pretty simple "scissors" method to break this "seal". Any ideas on how to deal with that?"
Sure, how about land mines?
Oh, just land miles? Do you think they'd never think of using boats?
I'm all for building a fence. But lets not kid ourselves that it would be some kind of "seal". Such language may be emotionally satisfying to say, but all it does is understate the scope of the problem.
They just need to think of it as an opportunity. Notice it said one result would be "a shifting labor market increasingly rewarding education and skills"; it may be bad for the country overall, but a scarcity of education may be good for those who do posess it.
IMO, a liberal arts degree is still a solid preparation for fields that don't require specialized education, but do require solid reasoning and communication skills. In some cases liberal arts students can go on into law and do very well (with the practical education not coming until graduate school). In other cases, though, they go into fields like banking and consulting and may get an MBA, but may do just fine without it.
However, only motivated and intelligent people will succeed in these fields, liberal arts degree or not, and the biggest waste is when less motivated or intelligent students major in the liberal arts, don't have what it takes to succeed in the sort of job listed above, and graduate with no practical skills (a know a gender studies major who took a job at a coffee shop after graduation; I refrained from commenting).
But this is just my opinion, and I am still in college (entering law school next year), so I have a limited basis for judgment.
I've said for some time that the most important classes you take in college are the ones outside of your major.
In the IT industry, its been my experience that the most useless degree for that field is computer science. Everything you learn is obsolete by the time you get a job. I've hired many IT professionals, and very few of them with actual degrees in that subject. Some liberal arts, a couple with Biology, a couple with Accounting, one with a BA in greek lit, one with a masters in English, a few ex-military with no degree at all. The only ones that really need the BS in computer sci are developers. Gotta learn the language. Beyond that, desktop support, server management, network engineering... that's often self-taught and quite thoroughly. It's either something you get, or don't get, and no amount of teaching will matter.
The most important thing about college isn't what you learn, it's learning how much you don't know.
Sit in a dive blue-collar bar with a bunch of guys with no particular education and you'll find a place full of experts on every possible subject. And please-- that's not a criticism. Those are my favorite places and often my favorite salt-of-the-earth people. They're not dumb, they simply haven't been exposed to how much there is that they don't know. Makes for lively conversation, to say the least. :-)
Of course, you find the same thing sophomore year of college, but this time they're quoting [insert anyone you read in PHIL 101]. :)
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