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No, the story isn't about redefining college degrees. The model used by Siemens and Switzerland is certainly not about reshaping college degrees to better serv

No, the story isn't about redefining college degrees. The model used by Siemens and Switzerland is certainly not about reshaping college degrees to better serve technicians, but about updating apprenticeship programs (esp in the US) and applying them to more than the traditional building trades. It's also about the need for preparing the 70% of students who are not destined to white collar college jobs with the essential skills to work at a higher intellectual level than old-school US heavy industry manufacturing demanded. The days of unskilled assembly on the line are gone, everywhere. It's common today, esp. in China, for factories to adapt quickly to fabricate new lines of product in smaller batches, and do so without having years of experience in doing that already. This model of rapid development AND production appears to be the new model for production lines everywhere. As such, manufacturing now requires substantial computerization, and those running the machines aren't just lifting parts into place and wrenching bolts any more. The next generation of production worker needs to be computer literate and capable of quickly learning and adapting to a changing environment -- like training a robot. And the current models of training in high school and college do not serve that need.

jasode 10y ago
>No, the story isn't about redefining college degrees. You're misunderstanding what I wrote. I'm not saying that universities like Harvard and Yale need to add "Bachelor's of Science in Air Conditioning & Plumbing" in addition to "B.S. Physics" and "B.S. English" to their curriculum to serve blue collar workers. I'm also not saying that existing college degrees' curriculums need modification to accommodate future factory workers. This is what the author is saying: 1) regardless of what you label it, there's a new crop of "training" emerging to educate future factory workers to run more sophisticated machines. (E.g. John Deere and Siemens were examples.) Some of the new machines require more complex math and more complicated interaction. This new knowledge is not a traditional 4-year college degree but something like a 2-year Associate Degree in Mechanical Operations. 2) A problem still remains: that training and related career is a lower social rank than the traditional 4-year bachelor's degree even in a classless society like America. (E.g. see the Mike Row video I linked.) 3) To try and counteract that negative social stigma, the author is trying to convince us to expand the meaning of "college degree" to include that non-traditional apprenticeship training so high-school kids who choose the JohnDeere/Siemens Training path do not feel like losers in society compared to the kids who go to university and study Accounting/Law/Physics/etc.
- walshemj 10y ago
  "Bachelor's of Science in Air Conditioning & Plumbing" that would be thermofluids very useful if you want to work for a f1 team aerospace nuclear etc :-)

jasode 10y ago

>No, the story isn't about redefining college degrees. You're misunderstanding what I wrote. I'm not saying that universities like Harvard and Yale need to add "Bachelor's of Science in Air Conditioning & Plumbing" in addition to "B.S. Physics" and "B.S. English" to their curriculum to serve blue collar workers. I'm also not saying that existing college degrees' curriculums need modification to accommodate future factory workers. This is what the author is saying: 1) regardless of what you label it, there's a new crop of "training" emerging to educate future factory workers to run more sophisticated machines. (E.g. John Deere and Siemens were examples.) Some of the new machines require more complex math and more complicated interaction. This new knowledge is not a traditional 4-year college degree but something like a 2-year Associate Degree in Mechanical Operations. 2) A problem still remains: that training and related career is a lower social rank than the traditional 4-year bachelor's degree even in a classless society like America. (E.g. see the Mike Row video I linked.) 3) To try and counteract that negative social stigma, the author is trying to convince us to expand the meaning of "college degree" to include that non-traditional apprenticeship training so high-school kids who choose the JohnDeere/Siemens Training path do not feel like losers in society compared to the kids who go to university and study Accounting/Law/Physics/etc.

walshemj 10y ago
"Bachelor's of Science in Air Conditioning & Plumbing" that would be thermofluids very useful if you want to work for a f1 team aerospace nuclear etc :-)