This is sorta piggybacking on my "Is college overrated thread" but what do you think? Is it overrated? http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?t=226955 Should we re-think how formal education is executed by administrators? Should employers value it less (big yes for me)? I think, while necessary at a young age to get students off to a good start, especially those who lack good parenting or a functional family, it loses its absolute necessity as you get older with some exceptions such as really hard college majors that require instruction from an expert. Otherwise, now days it's much easier to obtain knowledge on any subject and even getting access to and communicate with experts than at any other time in history. The pacing can be an issue since it is consistent for all pupils in a given class. Like Major and minor league baseball players, some kids need to be fast tracked while others need more time than average to get where they need. Also, the reality is that not all people are book smart or good at a subject. We all know of that guy that's dumb as rocks books-wise but turns into Einstein when they get in front of something like the hood of a car. That these people should be expected to complete college to be taken serious in the market place is sad. Then, you have people like me. While schooling got me off to a good start as I argued earlier, I didn't need school much over the years to seek to uplift my mind. While I didn't go to a big name college by any stretch of the imagination and my grades weren't even overly outstanding there, I still think it's fair to suggest I'm more knowledgeable than many people (which is MUCH different than saying I'm more intelligent, which encompasses more than knowledge). Anyways, I'm just getting it started, what do you think?
Immigrants and twenty-something women and HURMs under 30 would be stuck in minimum-wage shift work without formal, standardized education and some quantitative, verbal and technical skills tied to practical business tasks.
I think when you say formal education you really mean college. I think college is going to change dramatically in the next 20 years. More and more people now see college as job prep. People don't go to college now to get a classic education, they go to get job skills or to network and such. Strangely enough, I saw this article a few weeks ago about these programming schools. One in San Francisco called Dev Bootcamp I believe. It's like a 12 week program where all they teach is programming skills. The people that run the camp are connected with tech companies and most graduates of the program have good paying jobs within a few weeks of finishing the program. I think this is the future of formal education. Companies will start tying to programs like this to find skilled workers more easily.
We definitely should reformat the way K-12 classes are taught, because they don't seem to be doing very well at fostering ambition and curiosity in students nowadays. I feel like making students want to ask questions is the most important part of teaching, so I think Salman Khan's idea of having students read books/watch instructional videos at home then doing homework at school, where they can ask teachers questions in class, would be a great starting point. This way, students wouldn't have to worry about waiting until the end of class, when they might have other commitments, to ask a question that might pop up.
When I was in school I had to work a full time job as well at night. Nothing I learned in school was applied to any good job I ever had. I say give kids the options of either going for a formal education, or be allowed to go to a trade school through high school to better prepare them for the work force ahead. Some say college is a preparing people for work, but what if your work involves a lot of smarts & hard labor? College can not prepare you for hard labor that involves a lot of modernized rough necking. Formal education is not enough to produce hard work ethic.
Like everything in life, everything eventually is capitalized and monetized. In the last decade, college has become the new bubble. Like everything else in life too, college is what you make of it. There are some who have this notion that Americans are too uneducated and college is the solution to the problem. The fact remains there will always be a class system. You can't educated 75% of the population and have them all making 5x over minimum wage. It has come to the point where you must go 50k in debt for college to get the same job your parents could have gotten w/out an education. The both have the same education in respect to their time periods for their jobs. There used to be a time when any four year education qualified you for a good position, but now there are many degrees that are borderline useless. What will become more important than ever is networking and ambition. No amount of studying can create these skills. Im not arguing that college is useless, but the days of getting a degree to get a good job are in the past. It takes so much more than that.
When I was hitchhiking around the country a very well to do gentleman, but somewhat inebriated, gave me a lift. He quickly asked me to drive. He said there are only two reasons for college, doctors - to save people and lawyers - to cheat people. Everything else, he said, just requires love and focus. I'd like to add by way of my experience here on this board, higher ed also seems to give people the right to suggest someone without higher ed doesn't belong in the conversation. Okay, that was purely personal on my part and it doesn't happen every day, but the arrogance of this board can be stunning.
One of my TAs made the great point that graduating college without knowing how to use Excel is a waste. That is particularly and especially true if you ever expect to work in an office, use computers, use databases, do research, etc.
I'd also like to add from my OP on the point that the steady pace can be a hinderance. To continue on the baseball analogy, you woulsn't mandate when all players drafted were promoted to the next level because they're all of different talents and skillsets. I realize schools already do this to a degree but we should emphasize it more in the same way we do with sports players at a young age. Kids get the feeling that all they have to do is complete what's given and at the pace handed to them. Plus, there's minimal incentive to actively seek to learn and instead, like the job everyone hates, it becomes a laborious task that people coast through until it's finally done. Or alternatively, there's such pressure, usually social, to pass students whether they learn the material or not. Parents and students just can't bare the idea of students getting left behind a grade level because they either need to master their grade or actually try harder. And I haven't even touched the overemphasis on testing and busy work.
That's a core curriculum issue; but Excel isn't so difficult to learn that someone who's done research, written papers or studied for and passed exams isn't either disciplined or curious enough to figure it out.
Am I the only one who has noticed it's easier to get a 4.0 today than in previous generations? That's at least what I've read.
It's hard for me to tell how much of my education contributed to my general thought and comprehension that I use on a daily basis. When I look at my job, I think, man I probably didn't need college for this, because the specific skills I learned on the job and not in school, but the question is would I be able to adopt those skills if I didn't spend so much time learning how to learn.
College is definitely worth it if you do it right. If you study hard in high school and go to a top 40 university, pick a major that is useful like computer science, engineering, medical, law, or business. Then you study and get above a 3.5, network with a lot of people, and bam you're graduating as a 21 year old with a six figure job. Also choose the best school for the cheapest cost. I graduated yesterday, probably dropped 40-50 K on tuition, and can pay that off in 2-3 years with the job I landed.
I still think college can be a good thing if you plan for how to pay for it, have plan for your life overall and don't just think a degree will solve all of your problems.
As a hiring manager a degree proves to me how hard you work not how smart or prepared you are. 4 years is a grind and a commitment, fulfilling it tells me about your character. Soft skills that elective classes help reinforce are more valuable than most people realize. I took an IT class once and the entire first chapter was on how to get people to embrace change in their systems. It's actually a very hard skill to master as many people are so reluctant to change and buy in to a upgraded process or system. Communication is often touted as a most desired skill and it is really really true. I have an employee now who is excellent at her job but she just comes off so caustic when she suggests what should be done differently that no one wants to deal with her. Another employee takes all constructive criticism terribly and becomes highly sensitive and angry when challenged. Even though I've been at my company a shorter period of time and have less experience than both individuals I was made their supervisor because of these lack of soft skills. It's not an easy thing to delegate without looking like your pushing off all you work or to instruct and mentor without coming off as condescending. Or to train without losing patience and just doing it yourself. I think what's ultimately lacking is on the job training. A degree is just a base to build off of and companies should look at employees as assets to be built up. Employees that I have seen are loyal when their employers are and the relationship can be mutually beneficial.
College Degree are not created equal. There are only so many art historians needed in this country. Most of the job growth in the future will be in the area of STEM in the future IMO. Not saying everyone should be in these areas, but if you want to play the probability, these are are good bets. Not everyone needs to go to college, if you want to be a plumber or welder, it is much better to go to a trade school, but you should definitely get training/schooling beyond high school for most of the decent paying jobs.
There's an extremely wide berth of degrees between those two stereotypical categories. Physics undergrads without internships or people skills aren't getting squat outside of teaching; art history majors with language skills or decent contacts can get all kinds of non-profit, benefit work here or abroad; and develop all kinds of PR and event planning skills. Also, all kinds of engineers (my father included) can be left out of the lurch if projects or their particular commodity or manufacturing sector dries up; remember those are high-capital, long-term endeavors that depend on expanding sectors and economies. The best options are typically majors that incorporate calculus-type math or statistics with decent research and writing requirements; other than that I think nursing/pharmacy and accounting proper will always be in demand. I think Computer Science or at least MIS-type alternatives could eventually get too crowded in the same way undergrad business has (25% of all students now).
The thing is if you have good solid math science background, it is much easier if you have to switch career in the future. Physics major can easily pickup teaching in K-12 for example, especially in states where you can just test for teaching license. Of course if you have liberal arts major, it does not mean you won't find good jobs, it just means the odds are more stacked against you. Everything could change in the future, computer programs might replace pharmacists or even many doctors. You can only guess the likely hood the profession will be useful in the future.
A major problem is that everyone wants to and thinks they need to have a glamours job. Except some immigrant groups, few Americans people are willing to get their hands dirty or even take pride in having a job like store manager at a retail outlet. GRANTED, there are factors that make these type of jobs less than ideal sometimes but the last couple generations (myself included) needs to get over themselves. Not everyone can be an entertainer (as a matter of fact, only a few ten thousand out of hundreds of millions can). Not everyone can make enough to live in a luxurious McMansion with two expensive cars in the suburbs or even better with a family of four or more. That's why we need more people taking trades, in addition to the fact that not everyone is book smart and thus really can't afford to invest in college, even if the academic standards are now worse than they were years ago. These types usually end up in blue-collar fields anyways after accruing 50,000+ in debt for something that may not pan out. Why not go blue-collar from the start, higher education isn't going anyways if ultimately necessary (as I've said many times, stop pressuring kids to go to college right out of high school unless they have a solid overall plan and focus, especially financial).
