3 ms·

I think you'll come to regret this attitude when you reach your mid-30s with no skills other than the concrete procedural skills you picked up on the job. I us

I think you'll come to regret this attitude when you reach your mid-30s with no skills other than the concrete procedural skills you picked up on the job. I use my education constantly, and in ways I wouldn't have anticipated. I often see people doing things the hard way because they don't know there's any other way, or passing on opportunities to do something interesting because they don't realize it's even possible.

quacked 8y ago
The comment you're responding to isn't an attitude that the poster has, it's an explanation of how students are responding to changes in incentives. As the total number of college graduates grows, they're competing in job markets that are smaller than the total number of college graduates. This ratio is unbalanced and becoming more unbalanced with every year. The people hiring college graduates are developing stricter and stricter filters in order to decide what body of people they're even going to allow to compete in the job market; the biggest, easiest filter to sort out who's truly competitive for positions is grades, and so it makes sense that students compete to get the best grades. rather than competing to be the most competent. Most grads are leaving college in tremendous debt with the understanding that the longer they go without employment, the less likely it is they'll end up employed. This means that while they're in college, rather than focusing on the material they're learning, they're focusing on whatever will allow them to have the largest advantage when they enter the job market. In order for this trend to reverse, the cost of college needs to be dramatically lessened; I think this could be accomplished by reducing the total percentage of high school graduates that attend college immediately, increasing the prevalence of online schools, and reducing university overhead by cutting services to students and administrative positions.

quacked 8y ago

The comment you're responding to isn't an attitude that the poster has, it's an explanation of how students are responding to changes in incentives. As the total number of college graduates grows, they're competing in job markets that are smaller than the total number of college graduates. This ratio is unbalanced and becoming more unbalanced with every year. The people hiring college graduates are developing stricter and stricter filters in order to decide what body of people they're even going to allow to compete in the job market; the biggest, easiest filter to sort out who's truly competitive for positions is grades, and so it makes sense that students compete to get the best grades. rather than competing to be the most competent. Most grads are leaving college in tremendous debt with the understanding that the longer they go without employment, the less likely it is they'll end up employed. This means that while they're in college, rather than focusing on the material they're learning, they're focusing on whatever will allow them to have the largest advantage when they enter the job market. In order for this trend to reverse, the cost of college needs to be dramatically lessened; I think this could be accomplished by reducing the total percentage of high school graduates that attend college immediately, increasing the prevalence of online schools, and reducing university overhead by cutting services to students and administrative positions.