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I reacted strongly and positively to the headline of this piece...and even more positively to the article. Apprenticeship was once considered more important th

I reacted strongly and positively to the headline of this piece...and even more positively to the article. Apprenticeship was once considered more important than academic degrees in many areas. The balance has gone too far towards academia, and blue collar 'workers' don't get nearly enough respect IMO

roel_v 9y ago
So what trade did you learn?
- olivermarks 9y ago
  If you are asking me I was a graphic designer, mostly print work initially. It's a hybrid trade/skill set that gave me a good business grounding. I grew up in a generation where a lot of my peers in the UK were apprentices at Rolls Royce, Jaguar etc. I have no visibility into apprenticeships and how they are organized today...
  - roel_v 9y ago
    It was just a snippy remark hinting at the many people in this thread saying how great trade skills are, yet very few of them actually do a job like that. I mean, commenters here mention 'the social stigma' and how unfair it is - but being a plumber is just a, well, shit job. Construction work isn't fun, when it's your job, and you're not the boss. There's a reason all those middle and lower middle class parents tell their children to get a degree - it's because they want their children to do better than they do. Working a high-skill office job is in pretty much every way 'better' than doing somewhat-skilled things like, I don't know, garden maintenance or HVAC installation or operating a printing press. Yet here are all people commenting (from their cushy office jobs, probably) how great those sort or jobs are. How many people here would tell their children 'yeah forget about that LSAT and MCAT, do a one-year part time course in swimming pool construction, much better!'? Very few, I'd reckon. What's good for the good is good for the gander, right?
    - abstractbeliefs 9y ago
      Half the issue is that all these people have done exactly that: we now have a glut of college educated young people, with supply outstripping demand, while the opposite is the case in the trades. The salaries each can command reflects this. The tradesmen telling their children to go to uni do so based on their experience in a generation where there were far more tradesmen, with poorer salaries, and poorer worker protections. What we actually need in the workforce is _balance_. A really good example of where this has gone wrong is over here in the UK: now, 50% of young people are expected to go to university and complete a degree. This means that you now need a degree just to be above-average, and most end up underemployed with student debts - it's simply the case that half of jobs do not require a degree, and this is going to shrink. Likewise, we've outsourced lots of our skilled trades to foreign labour coming from the EU. With the sudden change in how we work with the EU, the UK is going to see hard times with a distinct lack of skilled labour, with many being overeducated and in the wrong sectors. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/05/brexit-uk-food-industry-eu-fruit-veg-pickers https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/05/brexit...
      - conductr 9y ago
        > it's simply the case that half of jobs do not require a degree The problem I see in the US is that because of the glut of degrees, jobs that should not require a degree do require a degree. The employers are making things worse when they require degrees for menial jobs.
        abstractbeliefs 9y ago
        Yes, sorry, when I mean they don't require a degree, I mean that the job tasks do not require a university education. Because of how widespread degrees are now in the UK, the job ad often demands a degree, on account of this being a good signal of simply being "above average".
    - bbarn 9y ago
      I sat down with my daughter and very clearly explained why college for her was a bad idea. Her grades and ACT scores weren't good enough to get into lucrative fields, so I suggested she join the military with a specialization that opened skilled trade jobs. We discussed the benefit vs cost of the student loans, and she admitted that this would be a much smarter path and she is looking at very little career opportunity with a psychology degree. However, you underestimate the machine that is high school and the impact that has on children. Despite all our conversations, her high school "advisor" insisted she go to college and convinced her to ignore the money aspects of it. When every other peer and parent of peer is feeding them the college or nothing lines, you start to look like an asshole being the only objector. How many times can you defend "Why don't you want your kid to go to college??" before you give in. Maybe there's some super-parents out there, and I did my best to show the reasons behind it, but she was 18 and free to make her own choices.
walshemj 9y ago
Which sort of "Apprenticeship" do you mean a Trade Apprenticeship doesn't let you move that far up the ladder you would still have to get a degree level qualification if you want to progress assuming you have a permissive system that allows it until recently it was almost impossible to do this in Germany - the EU made them change this.
Consultant32452 9y ago
I generally agree with you, but I'm always hesitant when I hear the word "apprenticeship." Because in my experience that usually means a union is stopping less experienced workers from undercutting their prices on the open market by forcing the less experienced worker to pay the union for the privilege of doing work. In this way it functions similarly to the way the college scheme works, only the college scheme is for white collar work rather than blue collar work. Now, the word apprenticeship doesn't HAVE to mean that. In its simplest form it just means working with a more experienced person to get skills. That I definitely support. But if apprenticeship means stopping less skilled workers from entering the market on their own, I'm opposed to that.
- olivermarks 9y ago
  I agree.
- Double_a_92 9y ago
  Apprenticeships should be regulated (by the state). You should have some degree at the end that qualifies you to also work for a potential competitor. Meaning they should teach you a solid but generic base of skills. And not just let you do manual labour that doesn't require much skill.
  - Consultant32452 9y ago
    Why would you want the state to stop poor people from earning a decent living just because they haven't completed the full set of requirements for a state sanctioned certification? The going rate to have your main sewer line snaked in my area is $250. If that's the only thing you know how to do, why can't you just sell that service?
    - wahern 9y ago
      Because clients are rarely capable of judging competency. You can crack pipes with a snake. Furthermore, certifications typically come with a registration requirement, meaning clients have a mechanism for formally filing complaints. Similarly, there are often bond requirements, meaning you know that if the technician screws up a job you'll have a decent chance at recovering damages. Getting a bond without securing the full face value is probably easier with a certification, too, because otherwise how would the underwriter know their risk? Certifications are a public service. It's no different than for lawyers, doctors, or all the drivers on the road. In some states the requirements for some types of certification are obviously intended to limit entrants into the market. But that's a different matter.

roel_v 9y ago

So what trade did you learn?

olivermarks 9y ago
If you are asking me I was a graphic designer, mostly print work initially. It's a hybrid trade/skill set that gave me a good business grounding. I grew up in a generation where a lot of my peers in the UK were apprentices at Rolls Royce, Jaguar etc. I have no visibility into apprenticeships and how they are organized today...
- roel_v 9y ago
  It was just a snippy remark hinting at the many people in this thread saying how great trade skills are, yet very few of them actually do a job like that. I mean, commenters here mention 'the social stigma' and how unfair it is - but being a plumber is just a, well, shit job. Construction work isn't fun, when it's your job, and you're not the boss. There's a reason all those middle and lower middle class parents tell their children to get a degree - it's because they want their children to do better than they do. Working a high-skill office job is in pretty much every way 'better' than doing somewhat-skilled things like, I don't know, garden maintenance or HVAC installation or operating a printing press. Yet here are all people commenting (from their cushy office jobs, probably) how great those sort or jobs are. How many people here would tell their children 'yeah forget about that LSAT and MCAT, do a one-year part time course in swimming pool construction, much better!'? Very few, I'd reckon. What's good for the good is good for the gander, right?
  - abstractbeliefs 9y ago
    Half the issue is that all these people have done exactly that: we now have a glut of college educated young people, with supply outstripping demand, while the opposite is the case in the trades. The salaries each can command reflects this. The tradesmen telling their children to go to uni do so based on their experience in a generation where there were far more tradesmen, with poorer salaries, and poorer worker protections. What we actually need in the workforce is _balance_. A really good example of where this has gone wrong is over here in the UK: now, 50% of young people are expected to go to university and complete a degree. This means that you now need a degree just to be above-average, and most end up underemployed with student debts - it's simply the case that half of jobs do not require a degree, and this is going to shrink. Likewise, we've outsourced lots of our skilled trades to foreign labour coming from the EU. With the sudden change in how we work with the EU, the UK is going to see hard times with a distinct lack of skilled labour, with many being overeducated and in the wrong sectors. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/05/brexit-uk-food-industry-eu-fruit-veg-pickers https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/05/brexit...
    - conductr 9y ago
      > it's simply the case that half of jobs do not require a degree The problem I see in the US is that because of the glut of degrees, jobs that should not require a degree do require a degree. The employers are making things worse when they require degrees for menial jobs.
      - abstractbeliefs 9y ago
        Yes, sorry, when I mean they don't require a degree, I mean that the job tasks do not require a university education. Because of how widespread degrees are now in the UK, the job ad often demands a degree, on account of this being a good signal of simply being "above average".
  - bbarn 9y ago
    I sat down with my daughter and very clearly explained why college for her was a bad idea. Her grades and ACT scores weren't good enough to get into lucrative fields, so I suggested she join the military with a specialization that opened skilled trade jobs. We discussed the benefit vs cost of the student loans, and she admitted that this would be a much smarter path and she is looking at very little career opportunity with a psychology degree. However, you underestimate the machine that is high school and the impact that has on children. Despite all our conversations, her high school "advisor" insisted she go to college and convinced her to ignore the money aspects of it. When every other peer and parent of peer is feeding them the college or nothing lines, you start to look like an asshole being the only objector. How many times can you defend "Why don't you want your kid to go to college??" before you give in. Maybe there's some super-parents out there, and I did my best to show the reasons behind it, but she was 18 and free to make her own choices.

walshemj 9y ago

Which sort of "Apprenticeship" do you mean a Trade Apprenticeship doesn't let you move that far up the ladder you would still have to get a degree level qualification if you want to progress assuming you have a permissive system that allows it until recently it was almost impossible to do this in Germany - the EU made them change this.

Consultant32452 9y ago

I generally agree with you, but I'm always hesitant when I hear the word "apprenticeship." Because in my experience that usually means a union is stopping less experienced workers from undercutting their prices on the open market by forcing the less experienced worker to pay the union for the privilege of doing work. In this way it functions similarly to the way the college scheme works, only the college scheme is for white collar work rather than blue collar work. Now, the word apprenticeship doesn't HAVE to mean that. In its simplest form it just means working with a more experienced person to get skills. That I definitely support. But if apprenticeship means stopping less skilled workers from entering the market on their own, I'm opposed to that.

olivermarks 9y ago
I agree.
Double_a_92 9y ago
Apprenticeships should be regulated (by the state). You should have some degree at the end that qualifies you to also work for a potential competitor. Meaning they should teach you a solid but generic base of skills. And not just let you do manual labour that doesn't require much skill.
- Consultant32452 9y ago
  Why would you want the state to stop poor people from earning a decent living just because they haven't completed the full set of requirements for a state sanctioned certification? The going rate to have your main sewer line snaked in my area is $250. If that's the only thing you know how to do, why can't you just sell that service?
  - wahern 9y ago
    Because clients are rarely capable of judging competency. You can crack pipes with a snake. Furthermore, certifications typically come with a registration requirement, meaning clients have a mechanism for formally filing complaints. Similarly, there are often bond requirements, meaning you know that if the technician screws up a job you'll have a decent chance at recovering damages. Getting a bond without securing the full face value is probably easier with a certification, too, because otherwise how would the underwriter know their risk? Certifications are a public service. It's no different than for lawyers, doctors, or all the drivers on the road. In some states the requirements for some types of certification are obviously intended to limit entrants into the market. But that's a different matter.