Posted on 04/06/2014 5:26:49 AM PDT by Kaslin
True, but I would never "show" anyone up, and always keep a degree of humility when they come to me for guidance or direction.
(I do, however, quietly fade away when the conversation turns to University pedigrees...)
I can see at least one lie in this paragraph. Maybe three.
For the life of me I can't understand how college has become so expensive. If congress wants to investigate something investigate this.
Poor kids who do go to college have such a financial burden to start off their life it's depressing.
I agree with you that high schools should be revamped, and also to some part that high school graduates should go to work if they can find jobs to work them through college, but I also think those that do have the brain for college, but can not afford to go to higher education should get some help.
I think that nationally the level of high school teaching has declined to the point where “Community College” is now 2 years of the old senior year in high school.
I employ a couple very bright young people. One of them wrote a list of the things he didn’t learn in high school that I had to teach him - things that were part of my high school (graduated in 1969 and I did NOT go to college).
Here is a partial list:
- How and why to vote. Used to be called Civics.
- How to use banking (checks, savings, etc). Used to be called Home economics or something similar.
- PRACTICAL math. This was the course that the “vo-tech” kids took and taught how to use math every day.
- A simple, general shop class. How things work like your kitchen sink, toilet, your car and the like. When I was in school EVERYONE took a shop or home economics course.
- A basic human biology course. He learned all about sex but learned nothing about kidneys, livers, gall bladders, etc.
The list goes on to include about 30 things.
So high school is now geared toward teaching just enough so a kid can get into college, but not enough so upon graduation a kid can function in the working world.
He is indeed a genius
Colleges are full of taxpayer funded students who bog the whole system down. They aren’t bad people but they and the nation would be better served in trade schools.
The worst part is the fact that all that taxpayer funding does what taxpayer funding always does. The colleges invent new ways of justifying the funding with worthless courses and professors.
My sister is trying to get some sort of business degree though our local community college. Used to be you paid a couple hundred dollars, took the courses and got the degree. Unfortunately our community college is trying to become another unneeded 4 year school and they’re behaving like one. The first thing she has to do is take an orientation course so she can learn to juggle college and social life. She’s nearly 50 years old and hasn’t had or needed a social life in decades. The orientation course requires several school specific books that will cost hundreds of dollars.
Good on ya. I only had a high school ed. but during my 36 year career I showed that I could do the job and went from a grade 7 mechanic to a senior engineer position by the time my career ended. Am I that smart? Maybe, maybe not. I think that I could pick out a particular “tree” in a forest full of them and understand how it worked and how to take the best advantage of it. Either that or I was REALLY good at fooling management. LOL! Or maybe it was because I was willing to do whatever it took to get the job done safely and as close to schedule as possible. Plus sometimes telling the bosses certain truths they didn’t like but knew were right.
And that is a shame, but what can you expect from educated idiots, which these elites are?
Did he listen to you? Him being a liberal I doubt it though
“For the life of me I can’t understand how college has become so expensive. If congress wants to investigate something investigate this.”
College has become so expensive because of all the money Obama and the Left have been throwing at it. Exactly as housing prices soared before the 2008 crash because so much money was being thrown at that market.
Just as a hypothetical, suppose word got out that you needed to own an Upright Piano to get a good job, and the government started pushlng loans to buy Upright Pianos and encouraging as many people as possible to get into the market regardless of how much debt they incurred. What do you think would happen to the price of Upright Pianos?
Poor kids who have the brains, should get help with their college education
You, sir, should be directing education. There is more of worth in your reply than exists in the vast majority of out “education “ faculties in both high school and college.
When I was growing up, a worthless degree was only so you could get into a management training program. Today the same worthless degree is only used so you can fill one of the squares on a job application. “College Degree? Yes”.
My field is Operations & Projct Management. People in my field parade around their MBA’s and that’s what companies want in their PM’s. When I interviewed for my current job I was asked why I should get the job and not someone else. I said because with the MBA all you are going to get are the pretty reports that management wants to see and a delayed project. With me you will get a project completed on time and on budget.
The manager interviewing me said that was a little rude. So I told him, “83% of projects fail for whatever reason. Notice how many PM’s are MBA’s? If you want someone to get a project done, always hire experience over education. Especially one who has the same PMP credential.” I was asked to wait outside for 5 minutes. When I came back in they offered me the job on the spot.
Just finished my first government project for the company. We came in on the day we said we would at the cost we said we would. Side note: I barely graduated high school and have over 20 years in as a PM.
Often, they don’t know I’m the engineer.
Silence is the best course
“Unfortunately the elites who run the education industry look down at people who work the hands and their minds.”
This REALLY annoys me - you can even see this attitude on “The Big Bang Theory” - where Sheldon looks down upon and constantly derides Wolowitz, the lowly engineer. In Europe (particularly Eastern Europe), engineers are (or at least were) addressed and announced as “Mr(s). Engineer” as much as “Mr(s). Professor”, “Mr(s). Academician”, Mr(s). Doctor”.
A good percentage of college graduates today, maybe even a majority, would have been better off learning a skill or trade instead of attending college.
When they do graduate, many have inflated expectations but almost no marketable skills.
They can’t fix a plumbing leak or change the oil in their car themselves, and thanks to a near useless college degree, they can’t earn the money to pay a plumber or mechanic to do it for them.
Is that like a PHD? (piled higher and deeper)
That always makes me giggle when I hear someone say that! :)
Correlation is not always causation. It could be that those who did earn degrees would have earned more over their lifetimes even without the degree. It could be IQ and motivation that is responsible for the financial success, not the college degree.
For instance, if the engineering student hadn't gone to college, perhaps he would have started his own business in a technical field that could be mastered with self study or apprenticeships.
Most of those new “credentials” are total, absolute, self-serving crap and a racket. Project management must have 40 new methodologies and a hierarchy of credentialing BS behind each one. Still, project fail. Why? For the same reasons that they have for the last 6000 years:
0. Collective magical thinking.
1. Feature creep.
3. Poor governance and milestone management (e.g., execution failure, particularly that discovered late in the project).
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