Sure, Blow Off That College Degree

[Boxboy]

Lets see John goes of to college and get a degree in Gender Studies from Bubblebee State, 60 credits for life experiences in both genders. Joe just finished high and decided to join the Navy and become a Nuclear Power Plant Operator, after six years he gets out and land a $100K job as a supervisor at a Nuclear Power Plant. I worked around these kids they were fantastic, so far superior to many college graduates I know. But Joe is a failure in your eyes and will never amount to anything and well John with his college degree is going to have fantastic career. Is that what you are telling me. What about the guy that drops out after two years of college joins the Army flies C-12 in VIP transportation and gets hired a NJ without a degree, he will never amount to anything compared to John. Sue went in the Army after High School worked in Tower then Approach and got out got a job in ATC, now works in Cleveland Center, making I bet over 100K+, but she also is a failure compared to John and his degree in Gender Studies.

-John, with his Gender Studies 4 year degree, can check that 4 year college degree box and can either A) pursue a masters or even a Ph.D. and make himself more marketable, or B) fill a position at a company requiring a 4 year college degree (probably at the institute where they'll chop off Bruce Jenner's pecker). John can also become a cop or a fireman and make more than his peers without a college degree doing the exact same job. He will also be looked at more favorably for a management position since he has a college degree.
-Joe, with his Nuclear Power Plant experience, may land a good job but he will never make it up the chain to a higher paying management position because of the lack of a 4 year degree.
-The college dropout warrant officer, C-12 pilot, though he/she is fully qualified to fly commercially, will not get hired by a major airline due to the lack of a college degree.
-Sue, ex-Army ATC, will/can work at Cleveland Center making over $100K and that job does not require a 4 year degree, by law. That is indeed a good deal, if one can get accepted and make it through the program.

Your arguments are based on emotions. The huge chip on your shoulder is weighing you down and you take this way too personally. I don't think that people without a college degree are failures and I never said that so again, don't put words in my mouth. The rules that we have to play by are not fair; I agree totally but it is what it is. Everybody has an excuse and an a$$hole. There are doers then there are talkers. We all have a choice to make, so what's your excuse?

 

[NEDude]

I think the key issue is what do you want to do with your life and where you want to go. If you want to be a high school social studies teacher, then you are going to need a some sort of liberal arts degree - political science, history, etc. If you want to become a doctor you will need to an undergrad degree in some sort of life sciences like biology. If you want to become a plumber or an auto mechanic you will need vocational training. There is no 'one size fits all' approach to higher education. I think the problem is, and it has been mentioned in this thread, is that vocational education has been seriously undervalued in the United States. Plumbers, electricians, auto mechanics and more are very much needed and are honorable and satisfying career choices.

Vocational education reminds me of a joke my Dad used to tell me as a kid. ACME corporation was having trouble with their Doohickey machine and it was backing up the entire production line. Nobody in the plant could get it to run and finally management decided to call in an outside mechanic. After walking around the machine for ten minutes the mechanic stopped and swiftly kicked the machine. It suddenly sprang to life and began running smoothly. The mechanic then handed the manager the bill for his services. The manager was shocked to see the bill was $1,000. Angrily he demanded the mechanic lower his bill because all he did was kick the machine. The mechanic took the bill back and wrote an itemized listing of his services. It read: Kicking the machine - $1, knowing where to kick the machine - $999.

I do not think it will be too long before plumbers, electricians, mechanics and other similar professions will be able charge like the mechanic in the joke because people who know how to make the things run are disappearing rapidly.

 

[NEDude]

-John, with his Gender Studies 4 year degree, can check that 4 year college degree box and can either A) pursue a masters or even a Ph.D. and make himself more marketable, or B) fill a position at a company requiring a 4 year college degree (probably at the institute where they'll chop off CAITLYN Jenner's pecker). John can also become a cop or a fireman and make more than his peers without a college degree doing the exact same job. He will also be looked at more favorably for a management position since he has a college degree.
-

Fixed it for you based on the news today. LOL

 

[DCAA320]

I don't buy it, I look at a few of my nieces and nephews with tons of student debt, all in their 30's. They have degrees in Art, Photography, and French History. The degree has opened no doors 10 years after graduation. Well that is if you don't count working in an art gallery for min wage, working in a nursing home, and working at a book store as a stock clerk. But I look at others in my family without degrees who learned skills in the militarily, pilot, ATC they have great jobs. I look at my brother in-law, two years at an auto tech school, owns his own business make well into six figures. You are telling me that degrees in art, photography and french history degrees are going to offer more opportunities than those who are educated to do something but do not have a degree?

BTW: I don't mind the age thing at all, if things work out for you you may be old some day also:laugh:

Come on pilotyippie, Art, Photography, French freakin History, of course you are going to be unemployed. Maybe Airbus will hire your relatives.

Are those still actual majors?

 

[DCAA320]

Oh DCA, you just had to waive the steak at the tiger cage.

It was a slow day at the office

 

[tomgoodman]

If you want a degree in Apiary Science, you can't top Bumblebee State.

 

[Boxboy]

Fixed it for you based on the news today. LOL

uke:

 

[BentOver]

My non-college educated friends are doing great out here in the islands... Hotels are always looking for bell men, servers, deck hands, and bar backs.. All in their mid-upper 30's....And all are envious of the career path I chose.

Who knows how much college helps, but I'll take my chances with the education.

And as many pointed out... Hiring departments set the rules, not YIPs personnel opinion. ( which he has been waxing poetic about for at least the last 5 years or more). He's well known in the fractional board as being a broken record.

 

[SIG600]

Please, we are not talking about Yale, U of M, or even MIT as the universal example of getting a college degree; we are talking about a degree from Bumblebee State. The degree from Bumblebee State requires no time on campus, no classroom attendance, and only money. Yet the Bumblebee State will still check the box in the lower left corner, same as Yale.

Many college graduate tried getting into Navy Flight Training in the mid 60?s to avoid being drafted into the Army, many did not make it because the intelligence levels required to have a high probability of successful program completion were in excess of those who attended college. Yet 2 year degree guys got in and finished. How can that be? That includes my Aircraft Commander I flew with in Vietnam, one of the finest sticks and people I have ever known.

Lets see John goes of to college and get a degree in Gender Studies from Bubblebee State, 60 credits for life experiences in both genders. Joe just finished high and decided to join the Navy and become a Nuclear Power Plant Operator, after six years he gets out and land a $100K job as a supervisor at a Nuclear Power Plant. I worked around these kids they were fantastic, so far superior to many college graduates I know. But Joe is a failure in your eyes and will never amount to anything and well John with his college degree is going to have fantastic career. Is that what you are telling me. What about the guy that drops out after two years of college joins the Army flies C-12 in VIP transportation and gets hired a NJ without a degree, he will never amount to anything compared to John. Sue went in the Army after High School worked in Tower then Approach and got out got a job in ATC, now works in Cleveland Center, making I bet over 100K+, but she also is a failure compared to John and his degree in Gender Studies.

You have stated your case there are only two options college or nothing, I just happen to think this is not the case in life.

Quick story a few years back I am traveling in the back, sitting next to a guy, he finds out I am a Navy guy. He laments that is daughter Valedictorian of her class, elected not to go to college, but to join the Navy and become a Nuclear Power Plant Operator. He was disappointed because she was not going to college. I explained she had gotten into an elite program, where at the end her of her 6 years, the Navy paid pay her $100,000 to sign up another four years. Because there were so many high paying jobs out there for people with her skills and knowledge. That she would have the GI Bill to go to college for free. He felt much better about his daughter?s choice after we talked.

Good education for the guy. Clearly he was incapable of doing any research and instead sticking to stereotypes. If she gets through the program (not easy) she'll probably be doing better than her dad. After her enlistment is up she'll have more jobs thrown at her than she'll know what to do with.

 

[pilotyip]

Good education for the guy. Clearly he was incapable of doing any research and instead sticking to stereotypes. If she gets through the program (not easy) she'll probably be doing better than her dad. After her enlistment is up she'll have more jobs thrown at her than she'll know what to do with.

I think the key issue is what do you want to do with your life and where you want to go. If you want to be a high school social studies teacher, then you are going to need a some sort of liberal arts degree - political science, history, etc. If you want to become a doctor you will need to an undergrad degree in some sort of life sciences like biology. If you want to become a plumber or an auto mechanic you will need vocational training. There is no 'one size fits all' approach to higher education. I think the problem is, and it has been mentioned in this thread, is that vocational education has been seriously undervalued in the United States. Plumbers, electricians, auto mechanics and more are very much needed and are honorable and satisfying career choices.

I do not think it will be too long before plumbers, electricians, mechanics and other similar professions will be able charge like the mechanic in the joke because people who know how to make the things run are disappearing rapidly.

Thanks some people get it. What are there six airlines in the country that make the college degree a show stopper. Careers at Spirit, SWA, Atlas, NJ, and I know few guys at UAL, AAL, and DAL without degrees.

Further fuel from the WJS on how college is harming the country's kids.

A new report released by Harvard Wednesday states in some of the strongest terms yet that such a ?college for all? emphasis may actually harm many American students ? keeping them from having a smooth transition from adolescence to adulthood and a viable career.

?The American system for preparing young people to lead productive and prosperous lives as adults is clearly badly broken,? concludes the report, ?Pathways to Prosperity?

?It would be fine if we had an alternative system [for students who don?t get college degrees], but we?re virtually unique among industrialized countries in terms of not having another system and relying so heavily on higher education,? says Robert Schwartz, who heads the Pathways to Prosperity project at Harvard?s Graduate School of Education.

Emphasizing college as the only path may actually cause some students ? who are bored in class but could enjoy learning that?s more entwined with the workplace ? to drop out, he adds. ?If the image [of college] is more years of just sitting in classrooms, that?s not very persuasive.?

The United States can learn from other countries, particularly in northern Europe, Professor Schwartz says. In Austria, Denmark, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, and Switzerland, for instance, between 40 and 70 percent of high-schoolers opt for programs that combine classroom and workplace learning, many of them involving apprenticeships. These pathways result in a ?qualification? that has real currency in the labor market..

In the US, vocational education has a bad rap, Schwartz acknowledges ? and often for good reason, given the poor quality and its traditional role as a dumping ground for poorer students and students of color. And he?s not advocating the sort of tracked systems that Germany and Switzerland have, in which poorly performing students are often pushed into vocational tracks as early as middle school.
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A Georgetown University study projected 14 million job openings between 2008 and 2018 in the ?middle-skill occupations,? such as electricians and paralegals, in which workers need an associate?s degree or occupational certificate.

The college-for-all rhetoric should be broadened, the Harvard report concludes, to become ?post-high-school credential for all.?

But the report also says that will take a massive overhaul to a system that, right now, doesn?t do a good job showing kids what the link is between their learning and the jobs to which they aspire.

Employers should be more active in the learning process ? whether through internships, visits with students, or brief ?try out? experiences ? and students need more opportunities to master the kind of ?soft skills? likely to help them in the workplace, perhaps through team projects, says Ronald Ferguson, another of the report?s authors and a co-chairman of Harvard?s Pathways to Prosperity Initiative.

?If we persist with the illusion that everyone is going to college, then we?re cheating those kids who aren?t going,? Professor Ferguson says. ?A majority of the workforce does not have a college degree, and a majority of the things those people do are going to continue not requiring a college degree.?