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Employers: "You have to go to college to prepare for the workforce." Colleges: "It's not our job to prepare you for the workforce." Recent grads with $50k+ in

by radcon 7y ago

Employers: "You have to go to college to prepare for the workforce." Colleges: "It's not our job to prepare you for the workforce." Recent grads with $50k+ in debt and no useful job skills: "..."

SketchySeaBeast 7y ago
What's the other option? Not get a education and then be further disadvantaged? You can definitely make better choices, but if everyone made the better choice, it would stop being the better choice - not every college grad can be an engineer. I can tell there's some momentum building for trades, but this is the unfortunate generation that got the wrong old advice instead of the new advice. By the time the new "trades" message is clear I'm sure it'll be useless advice as well.
- randomdata 7y ago
  > Not get a education and then be further disadvantaged? Why would you be disadvantaged? Not going to college isn't going to give you down syndrome to limit your career advancement. However, it is true if you already have down syndrome, you are going to really struggle to get into a college and are very likely to struggle in the workplace. We need to be careful to not conflate the two. It is true that people with higher levels of scholastic attainment are statistically more likely to be successful in the workplace. However, more interesting is the change over time. With a substantial increase in post secondary attainment over the last several decades, what hasn't changed is the level of success in the workplace. Incomes are stagnant. Job quality is in decline. If education gave advantages, the more and more people being formally educated to a higher degree should result in rising incomes and/or job quality should be increasing, not the opposite. Which brings me back to my opening paragraph. Post secondary schooling appears to provide an advantage only because it has already filtered out anyone who is inherently disadvantaged. It does not create advantages and disadvantages, it only reflects the advantages and disadvantages which are already present.
  - maxxxxx 7y ago
    If you don’t have a college degree your choices of companies who are willing to even talk to you for a well paying job is very small.
    - malvosenior 7y ago
      This is definitely not true (source, myself -- sans degree). You have to do something though. Github, community projects, start a small business... University takes an incredible amount of time and money. If people put their resources into more independent endeavours, they'd certainly see a return on the investment greater than most college degrees. If you've done something interesting (and really having a degree isn't all that interesting), then large companies will be happy to talk to you.
      - SketchySeaBeast 7y ago
        You're only thinking of development, which is still a bit of the wild west when it comes to figuring out who does what.
        malvosenior 7y ago
        Not true, it works for any field where you can show a "portfolio". I've seen designers, craftspeople.. all capitalize on this method.
      - maxxxxx 7y ago
        When I was 18 i could not have figured out how to approach this. And i had nobody who could have told me what to do. Getting a degree is still the safe option. In addition at least in The big companies I know having no degree is pretty much a showstopper. You simply won’t get an interview
        malvosenior 7y ago
        When I was 18 I also had nobody who told me to do this. I figured it out on my own (something I think all 18 year olds are actually capable of). Any giant tech company will all happily interview you if you have a good portfolio without a degree. All of this takes work of course, but not more work than getting a degree. It does take a lot of independent thought and strength to do what you think is right even when others are telling you it's wrong though.
- radcon 7y ago
  > What's the other option? Not get a education and then be further disadvantaged? I thought the other option was obvious: Colleges should prepare people for jobs rather than hiding behind excuses like "We're creating well-rounded citizens!" Unfortunately, that would mean they'd need to replace all the TAs and adjunct professors with people who are actually qualified and have real world experience in their field, so it will probably never happen.
  - SketchySeaBeast 7y ago
    You've just described an institute of technology.
  - SantalBlush 7y ago
    It's the employer's job to give specific training to college grads. Any specific training you receive in college is a risk, because you don't know if you will be hired for a specific job.
scarface74 7y ago
Speaking specifically about computer science degrees, God forbid that the colleges teach useful skills instead of all “theory” because a college degree should not be a “vocational degree” and it should “make you a better citizen of the world and expand your mind”.
- SlowRobotAhead 7y ago
  Sort of agree. Just hired a guy for embedded. A lot of on the job training later and a few times he struggled with something recalling that maybe they talked about this in Architectures. I’ve used the Observer Pattern high level on AWS and bare metal chip to chip communication. I hope “theory” is t lost completely as it’s what helps you identify the problem and not just implement the solution.
  - Wohlf 7y ago
    You really don't need a 3-4 year program to learn theory though.
  - scarface74 7y ago
    So how much about the “Observer Pattern” do you think I learned from my CS degree in 1996 as opposed to learning it on the job?
- ghaff 7y ago
  If you just want to learn "programming," there is no shortage of programs you can attend instead of college in order to do that.
  - scarface74 7y ago
    Yes but jobs require “BS in Computer Science or Equivalent” even if they are just writing yet another software as a service CRUD app.
  - nsxwolf 7y ago
    Who is telling this to the kids?
ThrowawayIP 7y ago
more like Colleges: "Pay us $100k so that the interviewer will call you back"
asdff 7y ago
People who get out of college with fat debt and no skills have been plugging their ears during their four years. Fact is, you get the job skills during your internships or research experiences depending on the field, and the only way you aren't way in over your head on internships or research is if you take the next step, connect the dots, and apply that foundational knowledge you received in class to your internship/research. Colleges train you on the concepts and technical foundation you need as a baseline to not waste everyone else's time in the workforce. People should be applying to these internships and research jobs during their freshman year, the clock is running from the day they step on campus. I have no sympathy for people who opt to work an irrelevant part time job instead and wonder why their empty resume isn't getting any bites after they graduate.
- WhompingWindows 7y ago
  Do you have sympathy for the knock-on effects for the rest of society? We may not be able to prevent 18-22 year olds with underdeveloped minds and who are aggressively marketed to throughout high school from choosing poorly in college. However, think of all of the lack of productivity and financial progress on the macro scale, that's where I feel we need to act beyond the level of personal decisions. If we don't put the right incentives and regulations in place, what's to stop the collective from just slowing down the economy? I have sympathy for all of us who have to deal with the student loan ball and chain around our country's former students.
- stale2002 7y ago
  > People should be applying to these internships Ok, then why not just do this, without going 200k in debt? People should just learn these useful job skills without doing the college part.

by radcon 7y ago

Employers: "You have to go to college to prepare for the workforce." Colleges: "It's not our job to prepare you for the workforce." Recent grads with $50k+ in debt and no useful job skills: "..."

SketchySeaBeast 7y ago

What's the other option? Not get a education and then be further disadvantaged? You can definitely make better choices, but if everyone made the better choice, it would stop being the better choice - not every college grad can be an engineer. I can tell there's some momentum building for trades, but this is the unfortunate generation that got the wrong old advice instead of the new advice. By the time the new "trades" message is clear I'm sure it'll be useless advice as well.

randomdata 7y ago
> Not get a education and then be further disadvantaged? Why would you be disadvantaged? Not going to college isn't going to give you down syndrome to limit your career advancement. However, it is true if you already have down syndrome, you are going to really struggle to get into a college and are very likely to struggle in the workplace. We need to be careful to not conflate the two. It is true that people with higher levels of scholastic attainment are statistically more likely to be successful in the workplace. However, more interesting is the change over time. With a substantial increase in post secondary attainment over the last several decades, what hasn't changed is the level of success in the workplace. Incomes are stagnant. Job quality is in decline. If education gave advantages, the more and more people being formally educated to a higher degree should result in rising incomes and/or job quality should be increasing, not the opposite. Which brings me back to my opening paragraph. Post secondary schooling appears to provide an advantage only because it has already filtered out anyone who is inherently disadvantaged. It does not create advantages and disadvantages, it only reflects the advantages and disadvantages which are already present.
- maxxxxx 7y ago
  If you don’t have a college degree your choices of companies who are willing to even talk to you for a well paying job is very small.
  - malvosenior 7y ago
    This is definitely not true (source, myself -- sans degree). You have to do something though. Github, community projects, start a small business... University takes an incredible amount of time and money. If people put their resources into more independent endeavours, they'd certainly see a return on the investment greater than most college degrees. If you've done something interesting (and really having a degree isn't all that interesting), then large companies will be happy to talk to you.
    - SketchySeaBeast 7y ago
      You're only thinking of development, which is still a bit of the wild west when it comes to figuring out who does what.
      - malvosenior 7y ago
        Not true, it works for any field where you can show a "portfolio". I've seen designers, craftspeople.. all capitalize on this method.
    - maxxxxx 7y ago
      When I was 18 i could not have figured out how to approach this. And i had nobody who could have told me what to do. Getting a degree is still the safe option. In addition at least in The big companies I know having no degree is pretty much a showstopper. You simply won’t get an interview
      - malvosenior 7y ago
        When I was 18 I also had nobody who told me to do this. I figured it out on my own (something I think all 18 year olds are actually capable of). Any giant tech company will all happily interview you if you have a good portfolio without a degree. All of this takes work of course, but not more work than getting a degree. It does take a lot of independent thought and strength to do what you think is right even when others are telling you it's wrong though.
radcon 7y ago
> What's the other option? Not get a education and then be further disadvantaged? I thought the other option was obvious: Colleges should prepare people for jobs rather than hiding behind excuses like "We're creating well-rounded citizens!" Unfortunately, that would mean they'd need to replace all the TAs and adjunct professors with people who are actually qualified and have real world experience in their field, so it will probably never happen.
- SketchySeaBeast 7y ago
  You've just described an institute of technology.
- SantalBlush 7y ago
  It's the employer's job to give specific training to college grads. Any specific training you receive in college is a risk, because you don't know if you will be hired for a specific job.

scarface74 7y ago

Speaking specifically about computer science degrees, God forbid that the colleges teach useful skills instead of all “theory” because a college degree should not be a “vocational degree” and it should “make you a better citizen of the world and expand your mind”.

SlowRobotAhead 7y ago
Sort of agree. Just hired a guy for embedded. A lot of on the job training later and a few times he struggled with something recalling that maybe they talked about this in Architectures. I’ve used the Observer Pattern high level on AWS and bare metal chip to chip communication. I hope “theory” is t lost completely as it’s what helps you identify the problem and not just implement the solution.
- Wohlf 7y ago
  You really don't need a 3-4 year program to learn theory though.
- scarface74 7y ago
  So how much about the “Observer Pattern” do you think I learned from my CS degree in 1996 as opposed to learning it on the job?
ghaff 7y ago
If you just want to learn "programming," there is no shortage of programs you can attend instead of college in order to do that.
- scarface74 7y ago
  Yes but jobs require “BS in Computer Science or Equivalent” even if they are just writing yet another software as a service CRUD app.
- nsxwolf 7y ago
  Who is telling this to the kids?

ThrowawayIP 7y ago

more like Colleges: "Pay us $100k so that the interviewer will call you back"

asdff 7y ago

People who get out of college with fat debt and no skills have been plugging their ears during their four years. Fact is, you get the job skills during your internships or research experiences depending on the field, and the only way you aren't way in over your head on internships or research is if you take the next step, connect the dots, and apply that foundational knowledge you received in class to your internship/research. Colleges train you on the concepts and technical foundation you need as a baseline to not waste everyone else's time in the workforce. People should be applying to these internships and research jobs during their freshman year, the clock is running from the day they step on campus. I have no sympathy for people who opt to work an irrelevant part time job instead and wonder why their empty resume isn't getting any bites after they graduate.

WhompingWindows 7y ago
Do you have sympathy for the knock-on effects for the rest of society? We may not be able to prevent 18-22 year olds with underdeveloped minds and who are aggressively marketed to throughout high school from choosing poorly in college. However, think of all of the lack of productivity and financial progress on the macro scale, that's where I feel we need to act beyond the level of personal decisions. If we don't put the right incentives and regulations in place, what's to stop the collective from just slowing down the economy? I have sympathy for all of us who have to deal with the student loan ball and chain around our country's former students.
stale2002 7y ago
> People should be applying to these internships Ok, then why not just do this, without going 200k in debt? People should just learn these useful job skills without doing the college part.