6 ms·
Sorry for being edgy, but please tell me where I can get jobs training for being a doctor, lawyer, etc. that isn't college. Regardless of what you think college
by pirocks 9y ago
Sorry for being edgy, but please tell me where I can get jobs training for being a doctor, lawyer, etc. that isn't college. Regardless of what you think college is, college currently is primarily jobs training.
- Hydraulix989 9y agoYou're conflating college with professional school.
- PhasmaFelis 9y agoColleges conflate college with professional school. The first time I visited my alma mater as a high school senior, I told them I wanted to be a programmer when I grew up, and they said "You'll want our computer science program, then." Nobody ever recommended me to a technical school instead, or told me that the CS program would teach me very basic programming, lots of academically interesting stuff about operating systems and electronics and math, and practically nothing that prepared me for a career. They were perfectly happy to take my money and let me believe that I was learning professional skills.
- khedoros1 9y agoClasses taught me in one area. Student-organized study groups, living with classmates, taking part in on and off-campus programming competitions, and working on side projects with the people I met at school taught me in other areas. Both were part of "college", to me; I wouldn't have done all the campus-life stuff if I hadn't been there. CS itself was always presented to me as the science that acts as a basis for the more practical engineering side of things. It was supposed to be the theory underlying the practice. That's what I paid for, and that's what I think I got (with the remainder of my experience being what I made of it). So, college could've been useless crap. For me, it wasn't.
- PhasmaFelis 9y agoSure, and some of my classmates did the same. I didn't, because I foolishly assumed that going to classes and doing homework would teach me the things I needed to know and I could relax the rest of the time, and no one ever told me otherwise until it was too late. I thought I was paying for an education. I was actually paying to hang out in the vicinity of an education, while being distracted with useless busywork.
- khedoros1 9y agoMy GEs included a lot of critical thinking courses. Maybe they influenced me more than I realized at the time. Without the classes from my degree, my practical knowledge would be built on sand. I feel like the things I learned in class provide a solid foundation for building upon, but just a foundation. The nature of what I was learning became clear as I was doing it, and I could see the delta between what I was doing and the future I wanted to aim for. As I went on, I could also see how the theory could be leveraged to get me where I wanted to be.
- pmiller2 9y agoDid you expect them to recommend something they don't offer?
- PhasmaFelis 9y agoI expected them not to lie and tell me they had what I wanted when they didn't.
- stale2002 9y agoThat is a small percentage of the population. Most people who went to college are not now working in an industry where a degree is literally required by law.
- watwut 9y agoRequired by employers tho.
- Jtsummers 9y agoOr they're working in a field where any degree will do and none are actually going to prepare the worker for the job. Many office jobs qualify here. You need to be literate and numerate to be an insurance adjuster. But no degree will prepare them for that job, generally speaking. I know many who were English, philosophy, or history majors in that field and others that require a degree but just want a box checked.
- sanderjd 9y agoIt is also not the most efficient way to achieve the required training for those jobs. We could have future doctors and lawyers go straight to trade schools focused solely on those professions, and likely shave a couple years off their total education. But most people in our society agree that we like our doctors and lawyers to have the breadth that an undergraduate degree is intended to provide.
- hanklazard 9y agoI don't really care if my thoracic surgeon has a strong grasp of microeconomics or 19th Century British Lit. I only care that s/he has good medical training and experience. Note: I'm a doctor.
- eropple 9y agoYou don't care if your surgeon has been exposed to the idea of opportunity costs and given a framework for thinking about them structurally? That's pretty weird, Doc.
- closeparen 9y agoGraduate and professional school are different animals. They, like the workforce, have a strong preference for people who have first gone to college, but not necessarily because they have dependencies on particular college classes.