13 ms·

My brother in law is an electrician. I had enough EE in college to change a light switch without burning the house down. However, that book-learnin' fell apa

My brother in law is an electrician. I had enough EE in college to change a light switch without burning the house down. However, that book-learnin' fell apart when confronted with troubleshooting a strangely wired room, and I got very polite while asking him over to bail me out. These fellows eschewing the ivory tower, where being of European extraction and bearing a Y-chromosome on the college campus is an indictment, are going to trade schools and will make fat piles of cash repairing plumbing. Hopefully, they are gracious with all the Grievance Studies majors who are standing by to condescend in their direction.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
atoav 5y ago
I am a certified EE and have a MA of fine Arts (film). Living in Europe where I had to pay 350 Euros per semester (which included a public transport ticket for the whole province), I didn't have to make a choice between the two. I did both because I was interested in both. After university I was well equiped to do freelancer work in my field and earned well. I don't think this "you have to be hard or else you won't survive"-mentality in the US is very beneficial to its society as a whole. Ideally you want to live in a society where everybody is well educated, healthy, happy, friendly and so on. Maybe it is a naive idea, but I think this is more achievable if there is collective investment into those goals rather than internal economical warfare where everybody is a army of one, except for the big corporations who will happily milk a atomized, divided population. Yet I am constantly amazed by how much some of you guys endure. I just wish you wouldn't have to.
- ceilingcorner 5y ago
  > "you have to be hard or else you won't survive"-mentality Europeans often have this opinion but I don't think it's an accurate reading of the issue. The issue is not that Americans work too hard, it's that this hard work is no longer actually amounting to anything. In the past, you could pay for college by working summers at the local restaurant. Today the average debt is $30K and you still won't get a decent job. The article (and others) just show that American men are starting to put their efforts into places that do reward them; namely, the trades and entrepreneurship.
  - atoav 5y ago
    > The article (and others) just show that American men are starting to put their efforts into places that do reward them; namely, the trades and entrepreneurship. Good point. I did not intend to argue otherwise. To go into trade is not an irrational reaction on an individual level — quite the opposite in fact. What I did argue however, was that making it hard for people to get a higher education is not a good thing for a society. Not good in the short term, because educated societes will make more informed decisions, and at the same time not a sustainable strategy for any western society that wants to play any role in the next century. Having an educated society should be in the national interest just like having public roads or drinkable water is. > accurate reading of the issue. The issue is not that Americans work too hard, it's that this hard work is no longer actually amounting to anything. That was the American dream. This is a nice model to keep big numbers of people playing the lottery and bear a ton of stress, because they have the hope that one day they might win and then everything will pay off. But even of you are one of the few lucky ones that wins you still live in a society where 90% are struggling and crushed. There may be people that enjoy being on top while everybody else suffers, but I personally would prefer being middle class in a society where nobody is poor over being a billionaire in a society where everybody is crushed. Maybe this is empathy, but maybe it is also just egoistic: I like to walk through my city and not see suffering, I like to walk through my country without having to fear being robbed, shot or angrily screamed at. I simply prefer living in a healthy, happy society where people help each other over living in one where everybody has to kick down to stay on top. Not that that any nation achieved that goal, but there are certainly observable differences in tone between the industrial nations.
    - ceilingcorner 5y ago
      You have still missed my point. The American dream was an effective, real thing for a long period of time. Most Americans today are descendants of poor immigrants that worked hard and gave their children a better quality of life. This wasn’t “a lottery” and your characterization of it as such is both historically misinformed and just ideological in nature. As I said, the issue is that this hard work no longer results in progress. The system has become broken. This is easily observable via a bevy of statistical measures like inequality and college costs.
- roenxi 5y ago
  If you are a certified EE, you almost certainly paid for your own MA with your own taxes. So I don't have a problem with the MA, but the framing of "life is wonderful in Europe" is missing the fact that the only theoretical upside is you had less choice.
  - TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
    How do exactly do you get from "I could afford to go to college for a STEM professional degree and an arts MA without any debt or financial stress" to "Less choice"?
    - roenxi 5y ago
      If he? hadn't consumed the resources necessary to get the MA, he would still have paid the same amount of taxes - most of which will be subsidising other people. But if paying the full cost, there would be a choice where down one path there is more money because less resources were consumed, and one that would be roughly equivalent.
      - sammalloy 5y ago
        I just want to point out that a MA in film was extremely cheap at one time. A friend of mine got one at a state school for about $5 grand in the early 1990s. The issue is that inflation and rising costs in the US have wildly diverged from real wages. People aren't going to college in the US because it isn't economically feasible. Meanwhile, all my European friends have PhDs which were subsidized by their native countries. The fact of the matter is that the US is not taking care of their citizens, and has failed an entire generation.
        the_only_law 5y ago
        I determined I didn’t want to continue school around 17/18 for a variety of reasons. Some out of my own arrogance and some I still hold to this day. Because of this of course, I didn’t “set myself up” for school so to speak. Didn’t bother with managing good grades, taking standardized tests or building my portfolio with any of the academic or non academic line items schools typically look at. Flash forward and I start to rethink the decision. I want to go back now, but I’ve attempted multiple times to investigate it and the numbers never work. Because I didn’t play my HS years correctly, the bureaucracy will not let me in, regardless of the things I’ve accomplished in the years since. Additionally the price is just so prohibitive, combined with the fact that I would get next to no aid and even a standard State school would be ridiculously expensive. These are just a handful of the issues though. Let’s not even bring up how I would need a simultaneously drop out of the workforce, suddenly turning the financial burden into Tuition/Books/Fees + everything needed to survive. I’m really convinced that universities in the US do not want non traditional students at all. Obviously there are some programs that target them, but are often limited. I.e. you have to be part of the right demographic, be limited in the areas you can study. A notable state university near me offers over a dozen online Bachelors programs, but not a single “useful” degree, they’re all BA’s in subjects that people in HN mock. Other seem to cobble together “made up” degrees, which are bachelors that don’t have a traditional or on-campus equivalent and seem to be not particularly useful for employment in attempt to scam poorer, non-credentialed people out of their money. I could still probably go back, but since I can not hack my way out of the bureaucracy or financial cost, majority of the value proposition would be completely dead by the time o could manage it.
- hollerith 5y ago
  I am pretty sure that the US graduates a larger fraction of its population from college than Germany does. At least that was true in 2012: https://www.businessinsider.com/r-us-falls-behind-in-college-competition-oecd-2014-9 https://www.businessinsider.com/r-us-falls-behind-in-college... (ignore the headline and go to the actual numbers)
  - someguydave 5y ago
    having a degree is no guarantee that you possess employable skills. Germany is much better at shunting people away from university who are not qualified to be there. Generally, they go to trade schools and apprenticeships.
    - atoav 5y ago
      Also there is a hybrid called "Fachhochschule" which is a more practical variant of an university
- arthur_sav 5y ago
  Agreed, there should be a threshold where people can get the minimum to live a normal life. Basic healthcare, a job with liveable wage, easy access to education etc... However, there should be a playground for innovation as well. Europe makes it so damn hard to innovate because of it's many laws. Ambitious people inevitably move to the US.
- refurb 5y ago
  Don’t more Americans have a 4-year university degree than Europeans? OECD data seems to suggest so https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tertiary_education_attainment https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tertiar...
WalterBright 5y ago
EE programs tend to focus on electronics, not electrical systems. But learning how house wiring works is a simple book away. But be careful - unlike electronics, house electrics can kill you. On the other hand, electricians have weird gaps in their knowledge. If I ask them to do something slightly out of the ordinary, this becomes apparent. For example, none of them understand inductive coupling, or even know what it is. When I ask them to do certain things to avoid inductive coupling, they give me this indulgent smile, and do what I ask, although it's clear they don't understand why. I eventually wound up doing the low voltage wiring myself, because I simply couldn't explain to them why you don't run low voltage wires through the same holes as the A/C wires. One of them tried to run a 12VDC wire in 25 feet of conduit with a 120VAC wire. They also simply did not understand how generators worked, and botched up the wiring for mine. It's the same with roofers. They have no idea what galvanic corrosion is, and will invariably use the wrong nails for anything metal.
- blueblisters 5y ago
  That's the thing with vocationals skills - they make you really good at understanding how something works or how to fix something without breaking something else, but beyond that range of problems and solutions, you need to talk to an engineer. Not that vocational jobs are not important - clearly they add value and create employment.
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    I'm not so sure they understand how it works, though. BTW, if you ever see an EE with a card that has printed on it: V = I*R I = V/R R = V/I it's a sure sign he's a formula-plugger, and has no idea how it works. He doesn't even understand algebra. https://testguy.net/content/266-Ohm-s-Law-Watt-s-Law-Cheat-Sheet https://testguy.net/content/266-Ohm-s-Law-Watt-s-Law-Cheat-S... A definite no-hire :-/
    - hellbannedguy 5y ago
      There's a book called, Everytjing I should have learned in Engineering School, but didn't. I had no idea there were EE's walking around who were rusty with basic electrical formulas.
xattt 5y ago
The piles of cash come at the expense of physical health. I can’t imagine being a labourer at 55. I’m a registered nurse which is a weird hybrid of university-level knowledge (understanding pharm and patho) but also it is a physical trade (turning patients, providing personal cares, mental resilience). It has roots in being vocational with a push in the last 50 years to provide an academic background to turn it into a profession. Floor nursing is the bread and butter of the profession, but it burns you quick. Older nurses, particularly in medical-surgical nursing, tend to take on less stressful 8 hour day shifts, end up as spinsters, or have a terrible home life that they’ve resigned into accepting. I moved into a desk position in my mid 30s and can’t possibly imagine going back to the physicality of it all.
- symlinkk 5y ago
  I can’t imagine it can be better for you physically or mentally to hunch over a desk for 8 hours a day in dead silence vs being on your feet, walking and talking to people.
  - xattt 5y ago
    There is a trade-off indeed. My overall quality of life improved. I wore a fitness tracker then and now. I averaged about 10 km in a given shift, where as my daily total now is now closer to 5 or 6. However, now I have time and energy at the end of the day to do an actual physical activity instead of coming home like a limp noodle and taking the next day to recover. Mentally, there is comradery that I absolutely miss. This is something really hard to explain unless you’re in it. When things got tough, the dark humour got us through. We took care of each others’ loved ones (at their family’s request). We demanded excellence from each other, and (rightfully) called out unsafe practice and supported staff as needed. However, my home life suffered. It was fine at first as my partner is also a nurse so there was a mutual understanding. However, it started to wear on me when I had kids. I’d come home and my kids would be asleep/at school/daycare, so I’d have missed out on a day’s interaction. I realized that they’re only little once and no job in the world is worth missing out on them.
lordnacho 5y ago
A colleague of mine had a physics degree and decided to become an electrician. Took very little time to learn. That's not to condescend on electricians, they clearly have a useful skill. And being able to certify a house pays a good few hundred pounds a day, nothing to sniff at. But if you're used to looking at physical models, learning a few conventions and adding another model won't be terribly difficult. I think a lot of people are actually better off doing that kind of work. There's a tangible output that is much easier to connect to purposefulness than if your job is mainly in the ideas realm. A cousin of mine that I grew up with is a carpenter and seems to cheerful all the time, now that he knows what his thing is. I grew up with him and it wasn't always so.
hellbannedguy 5y ago
I've was a union electrician for a few years. Get in early. Get in a union. 25-30 years to retirement in most unions. You don't want to be 60, and still in construction. The test is easy, but figure 1000-2000 guys are taking the test too, so you need to get most of the questions right to get in. An oral interview counts for 1/2 the hiring process. Just say you love working with your hands--love unions, but understand the needs of the contractors too. Remember it's construction. You're around guys all day long. It's brainless work, and you will never have to act cheery when the owner's spoiled kid comes to work. I do not recommend non-union construction at all. Then again---hide in school for a long time. I loved college. It was cheaper 25 years ago though, and not that fun, but much better than any job I've had. Your interest will change as you age.
- thehappypm 5y ago
  This sounds like a lot of advice that boomers give, "do exactly what I did".
znpy 5y ago
> These fellows eschewing the ivory tower [...] are going to trade schools and will make fat piles of cash repairing plumbing. I read somewhere that (ironocally) plumbing it the less likely thing to be "automated" via an AI or something.
pessimizer 5y ago
> These fellows eschewing the ivory tower, where being of European extraction and bearing a Y-chromosome on the college campus is an indictment I hate to have to mention this, but not all American men are white.
- inkblotuniverse 5y ago
  What does that have to do with the quoted sentence?
tchaffee 5y ago
> I got very polite while asking him over to bail me out. > all the Grievance Studies majors So you're polite to those you find useful and insulting to people majoring in something you presumably disagree with? And assuming they will all be condescending to a plumber or electrician for some reason? Perhaps you don't have to look quite so far away if you're looking to reduce the amount of condescending happening in the room you're standing in?
michaelcampbell 5y ago
> However, that book-learnin' fell apart when confronted with troubleshooting a strangely wired room, and I got very polite while asking him over to bail me out. This feels very much like the "astronomy/telescope" argument.
baron_harkonnen 5y ago
> all the Grievance Studies major Area, ethnic, cultural, gender, and group studies (I'm assuming "Grievance Studies" falls under this category), at least in the US, have been in steady decline since 2008, and even at their peak only accounted for 0.5% of majors (now just 0.3%). Even if you want to add in humanities in general that has gone from 3% to just above 2% The idea that college campuses are ever more filled with people studying "useless" majors is a fiction. The largest areas of major concentration are business, biology, health professions, and engineering and all of these have been more or less growing for years. There is this pervasive myth that most students in undergrad are having trouble transitioning to industry because they wasted their time studying their non-practical passion, but the data[0] clearly shows that the trends for the last decade have been increasing focus on career oriented practical majors. [0] https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d19/tables/dt19_322.10.asp https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d19/tables/dt19_322.10.a...
- hintymad 5y ago
  I really appreciate this kind of discussion: data driven, narrative free. I'm very sad to see that giving up facts for narratives accelerates the decline of the US.
- staysafeanon 5y ago
  I don't see where in your source the data paints that picture? Social sciences and history is 8%, family and human sciences is another few percent, journalism is also listed out separately, as is liberal arts and humanities... Maybe there are better sources that break things down per major so we can see the growth?
anm89 5y ago
The irony is that this will be viewed as a new form of of privilege. Its schrodingers privilege. the privilege was being so priveleged that you were pushed out of the traditional credentialing system.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

atoav 5y ago

I am a certified EE and have a MA of fine Arts (film). Living in Europe where I had to pay 350 Euros per semester (which included a public transport ticket for the whole province), I didn't have to make a choice between the two. I did both because I was interested in both. After university I was well equiped to do freelancer work in my field and earned well. I don't think this "you have to be hard or else you won't survive"-mentality in the US is very beneficial to its society as a whole. Ideally you want to live in a society where everybody is well educated, healthy, happy, friendly and so on. Maybe it is a naive idea, but I think this is more achievable if there is collective investment into those goals rather than internal economical warfare where everybody is a army of one, except for the big corporations who will happily milk a atomized, divided population. Yet I am constantly amazed by how much some of you guys endure. I just wish you wouldn't have to.

ceilingcorner 5y ago
> "you have to be hard or else you won't survive"-mentality Europeans often have this opinion but I don't think it's an accurate reading of the issue. The issue is not that Americans work too hard, it's that this hard work is no longer actually amounting to anything. In the past, you could pay for college by working summers at the local restaurant. Today the average debt is $30K and you still won't get a decent job. The article (and others) just show that American men are starting to put their efforts into places that do reward them; namely, the trades and entrepreneurship.
- atoav 5y ago
  > The article (and others) just show that American men are starting to put their efforts into places that do reward them; namely, the trades and entrepreneurship. Good point. I did not intend to argue otherwise. To go into trade is not an irrational reaction on an individual level — quite the opposite in fact. What I did argue however, was that making it hard for people to get a higher education is not a good thing for a society. Not good in the short term, because educated societes will make more informed decisions, and at the same time not a sustainable strategy for any western society that wants to play any role in the next century. Having an educated society should be in the national interest just like having public roads or drinkable water is. > accurate reading of the issue. The issue is not that Americans work too hard, it's that this hard work is no longer actually amounting to anything. That was the American dream. This is a nice model to keep big numbers of people playing the lottery and bear a ton of stress, because they have the hope that one day they might win and then everything will pay off. But even of you are one of the few lucky ones that wins you still live in a society where 90% are struggling and crushed. There may be people that enjoy being on top while everybody else suffers, but I personally would prefer being middle class in a society where nobody is poor over being a billionaire in a society where everybody is crushed. Maybe this is empathy, but maybe it is also just egoistic: I like to walk through my city and not see suffering, I like to walk through my country without having to fear being robbed, shot or angrily screamed at. I simply prefer living in a healthy, happy society where people help each other over living in one where everybody has to kick down to stay on top. Not that that any nation achieved that goal, but there are certainly observable differences in tone between the industrial nations.
  - ceilingcorner 5y ago
    You have still missed my point. The American dream was an effective, real thing for a long period of time. Most Americans today are descendants of poor immigrants that worked hard and gave their children a better quality of life. This wasn’t “a lottery” and your characterization of it as such is both historically misinformed and just ideological in nature. As I said, the issue is that this hard work no longer results in progress. The system has become broken. This is easily observable via a bevy of statistical measures like inequality and college costs.
roenxi 5y ago
If you are a certified EE, you almost certainly paid for your own MA with your own taxes. So I don't have a problem with the MA, but the framing of "life is wonderful in Europe" is missing the fact that the only theoretical upside is you had less choice.
- TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
  How do exactly do you get from "I could afford to go to college for a STEM professional degree and an arts MA without any debt or financial stress" to "Less choice"?
  - roenxi 5y ago
    If he? hadn't consumed the resources necessary to get the MA, he would still have paid the same amount of taxes - most of which will be subsidising other people. But if paying the full cost, there would be a choice where down one path there is more money because less resources were consumed, and one that would be roughly equivalent.
    - sammalloy 5y ago
      I just want to point out that a MA in film was extremely cheap at one time. A friend of mine got one at a state school for about $5 grand in the early 1990s. The issue is that inflation and rising costs in the US have wildly diverged from real wages. People aren't going to college in the US because it isn't economically feasible. Meanwhile, all my European friends have PhDs which were subsidized by their native countries. The fact of the matter is that the US is not taking care of their citizens, and has failed an entire generation.
      - the_only_law 5y ago
        I determined I didn’t want to continue school around 17/18 for a variety of reasons. Some out of my own arrogance and some I still hold to this day. Because of this of course, I didn’t “set myself up” for school so to speak. Didn’t bother with managing good grades, taking standardized tests or building my portfolio with any of the academic or non academic line items schools typically look at. Flash forward and I start to rethink the decision. I want to go back now, but I’ve attempted multiple times to investigate it and the numbers never work. Because I didn’t play my HS years correctly, the bureaucracy will not let me in, regardless of the things I’ve accomplished in the years since. Additionally the price is just so prohibitive, combined with the fact that I would get next to no aid and even a standard State school would be ridiculously expensive. These are just a handful of the issues though. Let’s not even bring up how I would need a simultaneously drop out of the workforce, suddenly turning the financial burden into Tuition/Books/Fees + everything needed to survive. I’m really convinced that universities in the US do not want non traditional students at all. Obviously there are some programs that target them, but are often limited. I.e. you have to be part of the right demographic, be limited in the areas you can study. A notable state university near me offers over a dozen online Bachelors programs, but not a single “useful” degree, they’re all BA’s in subjects that people in HN mock. Other seem to cobble together “made up” degrees, which are bachelors that don’t have a traditional or on-campus equivalent and seem to be not particularly useful for employment in attempt to scam poorer, non-credentialed people out of their money. I could still probably go back, but since I can not hack my way out of the bureaucracy or financial cost, majority of the value proposition would be completely dead by the time o could manage it.
hollerith 5y ago
I am pretty sure that the US graduates a larger fraction of its population from college than Germany does. At least that was true in 2012: https://www.businessinsider.com/r-us-falls-behind-in-college-competition-oecd-2014-9 https://www.businessinsider.com/r-us-falls-behind-in-college... (ignore the headline and go to the actual numbers)
- someguydave 5y ago
  having a degree is no guarantee that you possess employable skills. Germany is much better at shunting people away from university who are not qualified to be there. Generally, they go to trade schools and apprenticeships.
  - atoav 5y ago
    Also there is a hybrid called "Fachhochschule" which is a more practical variant of an university
arthur_sav 5y ago
Agreed, there should be a threshold where people can get the minimum to live a normal life. Basic healthcare, a job with liveable wage, easy access to education etc... However, there should be a playground for innovation as well. Europe makes it so damn hard to innovate because of it's many laws. Ambitious people inevitably move to the US.
refurb 5y ago
Don’t more Americans have a 4-year university degree than Europeans? OECD data seems to suggest so https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tertiary_education_attainment https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tertiar...

WalterBright 5y ago

EE programs tend to focus on electronics, not electrical systems. But learning how house wiring works is a simple book away. But be careful - unlike electronics, house electrics can kill you. On the other hand, electricians have weird gaps in their knowledge. If I ask them to do something slightly out of the ordinary, this becomes apparent. For example, none of them understand inductive coupling, or even know what it is. When I ask them to do certain things to avoid inductive coupling, they give me this indulgent smile, and do what I ask, although it's clear they don't understand why. I eventually wound up doing the low voltage wiring myself, because I simply couldn't explain to them why you don't run low voltage wires through the same holes as the A/C wires. One of them tried to run a 12VDC wire in 25 feet of conduit with a 120VAC wire. They also simply did not understand how generators worked, and botched up the wiring for mine. It's the same with roofers. They have no idea what galvanic corrosion is, and will invariably use the wrong nails for anything metal.

blueblisters 5y ago
That's the thing with vocationals skills - they make you really good at understanding how something works or how to fix something without breaking something else, but beyond that range of problems and solutions, you need to talk to an engineer. Not that vocational jobs are not important - clearly they add value and create employment.
- WalterBright 5y ago
  I'm not so sure they understand how it works, though. BTW, if you ever see an EE with a card that has printed on it: V = I*R I = V/R R = V/I it's a sure sign he's a formula-plugger, and has no idea how it works. He doesn't even understand algebra. https://testguy.net/content/266-Ohm-s-Law-Watt-s-Law-Cheat-Sheet https://testguy.net/content/266-Ohm-s-Law-Watt-s-Law-Cheat-S... A definite no-hire :-/
  - hellbannedguy 5y ago
    There's a book called, Everytjing I should have learned in Engineering School, but didn't. I had no idea there were EE's walking around who were rusty with basic electrical formulas.

xattt 5y ago

The piles of cash come at the expense of physical health. I can’t imagine being a labourer at 55. I’m a registered nurse which is a weird hybrid of university-level knowledge (understanding pharm and patho) but also it is a physical trade (turning patients, providing personal cares, mental resilience). It has roots in being vocational with a push in the last 50 years to provide an academic background to turn it into a profession. Floor nursing is the bread and butter of the profession, but it burns you quick. Older nurses, particularly in medical-surgical nursing, tend to take on less stressful 8 hour day shifts, end up as spinsters, or have a terrible home life that they’ve resigned into accepting. I moved into a desk position in my mid 30s and can’t possibly imagine going back to the physicality of it all.

symlinkk 5y ago
I can’t imagine it can be better for you physically or mentally to hunch over a desk for 8 hours a day in dead silence vs being on your feet, walking and talking to people.
- xattt 5y ago
  There is a trade-off indeed. My overall quality of life improved. I wore a fitness tracker then and now. I averaged about 10 km in a given shift, where as my daily total now is now closer to 5 or 6. However, now I have time and energy at the end of the day to do an actual physical activity instead of coming home like a limp noodle and taking the next day to recover. Mentally, there is comradery that I absolutely miss. This is something really hard to explain unless you’re in it. When things got tough, the dark humour got us through. We took care of each others’ loved ones (at their family’s request). We demanded excellence from each other, and (rightfully) called out unsafe practice and supported staff as needed. However, my home life suffered. It was fine at first as my partner is also a nurse so there was a mutual understanding. However, it started to wear on me when I had kids. I’d come home and my kids would be asleep/at school/daycare, so I’d have missed out on a day’s interaction. I realized that they’re only little once and no job in the world is worth missing out on them.

lordnacho 5y ago

A colleague of mine had a physics degree and decided to become an electrician. Took very little time to learn. That's not to condescend on electricians, they clearly have a useful skill. And being able to certify a house pays a good few hundred pounds a day, nothing to sniff at. But if you're used to looking at physical models, learning a few conventions and adding another model won't be terribly difficult. I think a lot of people are actually better off doing that kind of work. There's a tangible output that is much easier to connect to purposefulness than if your job is mainly in the ideas realm. A cousin of mine that I grew up with is a carpenter and seems to cheerful all the time, now that he knows what his thing is. I grew up with him and it wasn't always so.

hellbannedguy 5y ago

I've was a union electrician for a few years. Get in early. Get in a union. 25-30 years to retirement in most unions. You don't want to be 60, and still in construction. The test is easy, but figure 1000-2000 guys are taking the test too, so you need to get most of the questions right to get in. An oral interview counts for 1/2 the hiring process. Just say you love working with your hands--love unions, but understand the needs of the contractors too. Remember it's construction. You're around guys all day long. It's brainless work, and you will never have to act cheery when the owner's spoiled kid comes to work. I do not recommend non-union construction at all. Then again---hide in school for a long time. I loved college. It was cheaper 25 years ago though, and not that fun, but much better than any job I've had. Your interest will change as you age.

thehappypm 5y ago
This sounds like a lot of advice that boomers give, "do exactly what I did".

znpy 5y ago

> These fellows eschewing the ivory tower [...] are going to trade schools and will make fat piles of cash repairing plumbing. I read somewhere that (ironocally) plumbing it the less likely thing to be "automated" via an AI or something.

pessimizer 5y ago

> These fellows eschewing the ivory tower, where being of European extraction and bearing a Y-chromosome on the college campus is an indictment I hate to have to mention this, but not all American men are white.

inkblotuniverse 5y ago
What does that have to do with the quoted sentence?

tchaffee 5y ago

> I got very polite while asking him over to bail me out. > all the Grievance Studies majors So you're polite to those you find useful and insulting to people majoring in something you presumably disagree with? And assuming they will all be condescending to a plumber or electrician for some reason? Perhaps you don't have to look quite so far away if you're looking to reduce the amount of condescending happening in the room you're standing in?

michaelcampbell 5y ago

> However, that book-learnin' fell apart when confronted with troubleshooting a strangely wired room, and I got very polite while asking him over to bail me out. This feels very much like the "astronomy/telescope" argument.

baron_harkonnen 5y ago

> all the Grievance Studies major Area, ethnic, cultural, gender, and group studies (I'm assuming "Grievance Studies" falls under this category), at least in the US, have been in steady decline since 2008, and even at their peak only accounted for 0.5% of majors (now just 0.3%). Even if you want to add in humanities in general that has gone from 3% to just above 2% The idea that college campuses are ever more filled with people studying "useless" majors is a fiction. The largest areas of major concentration are business, biology, health professions, and engineering and all of these have been more or less growing for years. There is this pervasive myth that most students in undergrad are having trouble transitioning to industry because they wasted their time studying their non-practical passion, but the data[0] clearly shows that the trends for the last decade have been increasing focus on career oriented practical majors. [0] https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d19/tables/dt19_322.10.asp https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d19/tables/dt19_322.10.a...

hintymad 5y ago
I really appreciate this kind of discussion: data driven, narrative free. I'm very sad to see that giving up facts for narratives accelerates the decline of the US.
staysafeanon 5y ago
I don't see where in your source the data paints that picture? Social sciences and history is 8%, family and human sciences is another few percent, journalism is also listed out separately, as is liberal arts and humanities... Maybe there are better sources that break things down per major so we can see the growth?

anm89 5y ago

The irony is that this will be viewed as a new form of of privilege. Its schrodingers privilege. the privilege was being so priveleged that you were pushed out of the traditional credentialing system.