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I've been thinking about some of this for a while. Someday I'd like to try an experiment where companies ignored College education and up but recruited at the H

by zaphar 16y ago

I've been thinking about some of this for a while. Someday I'd like to try an experiment where companies ignored College education and up but recruited at the High School level with the intention of taking someone from Intern to Highly Skilled worker. Something like the apprenticeship model from the past. In some ways I think College and Post-Grad education is overkill for some careers and an apprenticeship/intern model would be superior. Unfortunately I'm not the Founder/Entrepreneur type so I'm unlikely to ever own my own company to try the program out in. Maybe I'll be able to convince an employer to try it someday.

wyclif 16y ago
I hear you, and you know I agree with you on this point, but the naysayers (mostly employers, it seems) will shoot that down with, "We already know the apprenticeship model works, but we can't afford to implement it in a culture where the average American worker changes jobs every 6, 7, or 8 years. Essentially we'd be training our competitors, and we can't afford that." I myself have benefited greatly from the apprenticeship model-- up until very, very recently (for example) there was no other way to become a land surveyor. You had to actually apprentice, in the formal sense, with a licensed professional to get on the career track and achieve the minimum level of years of experience and then sit for the licensure exam.
- prodigal_erik 16y ago
  Why is apprenticeship so prevalent for that profession, compared to others which seem similar (at least to this outsider)? Is it the amount of hands-on field work? The number of potential students to support a classroom?
  - wyclif 16y ago
    Because land surveying, educationally speaking, is a subset of civil engineering. The amount of field work is part of it as well. You can't learn how to conduct a property survey or boundary delineation without lots of field work. The other reason is that civil engineering is extremely regulated (another problem).

by zaphar 16y ago

wyclif 16y ago

I hear you, and you know I agree with you on this point, but the naysayers (mostly employers, it seems) will shoot that down with, "We already know the apprenticeship model works, but we can't afford to implement it in a culture where the average American worker changes jobs every 6, 7, or 8 years. Essentially we'd be training our competitors, and we can't afford that." I myself have benefited greatly from the apprenticeship model-- up until very, very recently (for example) there was no other way to become a land surveyor. You had to actually apprentice, in the formal sense, with a licensed professional to get on the career track and achieve the minimum level of years of experience and then sit for the licensure exam.

prodigal_erik 16y ago
Why is apprenticeship so prevalent for that profession, compared to others which seem similar (at least to this outsider)? Is it the amount of hands-on field work? The number of potential students to support a classroom?
- wyclif 16y ago
  Because land surveying, educationally speaking, is a subset of civil engineering. The amount of field work is part of it as well. You can't learn how to conduct a property survey or boundary delineation without lots of field work. The other reason is that civil engineering is extremely regulated (another problem).