3 ms·

In Germany you have basically two education/preparation for work life tracks after secondary school ends. One is the very intellectual heavy university educatio

In Germany you have basically two education/preparation for work life tracks after secondary school ends. One is the very intellectual heavy university education. The other is a dual education system of apprenticeship for Craftsman/manual work. For three years You go to school two to three days a week and work at a real craft business. That way you get the theory and it's practical application. After your exam you are a certified handy man in your profession with the relevant skills to work professionally. This solves the mentioned ambiguity of real work. University education was associated with staying in higher education or R&D. But the creation of vast PhD programs had created a wave of PhD that cannot be absorbed by the University and research institutions. So it bleeds into "normal" work life. The software profession would benefit from a dual apprenticeship system. But company's are not willing to take on the responsibility and train their talent that way. At least not in Germany.

sdoering 5y ago
Additionally the apprenticeship way was open to 'lower' educational tiers. Nowadays you often need a good high school education for jobs that some years back were clearly open to pupils with a so called 'Realschulabschluss'. I would also add that we have the highly theoretical universities and the Universities of Applied Sciences. Later ones are more practically oriented. Having studied at a "regular" university and watched people study at an Applied Sciences University, I believe that the later is better grounded in reality.
3pt14159 5y ago
This is what we have at the University of Waterloo, my alma mater, in Canada. Two semesters of study, then alternating study-work-study-work etc until you graduate. It takes five years instead of four and you graduate with industry contacts, virtually no debt, and a couple years of experience. Plus the time you did spend in class or at the lab was coloured in from your work experience and your teammates could be leagues ahead of you at one specific speciality that they focussed on during their last semester. The program is so successful that some departments like Engineering mandate it. There is no non-coop engineering degree from Waterloo.
lumost 5y ago
I suspect the outsourcing wave of the 70s-present underestimated the complexity that goes into "mundane" manufacturing that could easily be "outsourced" while the R&D parts of the company sorted out the hard problems. In practice many smart people would have gone to work in manufacturing doing the mundane work, hone their "practice" and eventually solve or at least work around the swampy problems inherent to the field. Eventually moving up into various lead positions with the firm. Now we're left with credentialed experts produced by academic programs designing machines while never visiting a factory floor.

sdoering 5y ago

Additionally the apprenticeship way was open to 'lower' educational tiers. Nowadays you often need a good high school education for jobs that some years back were clearly open to pupils with a so called 'Realschulabschluss'. I would also add that we have the highly theoretical universities and the Universities of Applied Sciences. Later ones are more practically oriented. Having studied at a "regular" university and watched people study at an Applied Sciences University, I believe that the later is better grounded in reality.

3pt14159 5y ago

This is what we have at the University of Waterloo, my alma mater, in Canada. Two semesters of study, then alternating study-work-study-work etc until you graduate. It takes five years instead of four and you graduate with industry contacts, virtually no debt, and a couple years of experience. Plus the time you did spend in class or at the lab was coloured in from your work experience and your teammates could be leagues ahead of you at one specific speciality that they focussed on during their last semester. The program is so successful that some departments like Engineering mandate it. There is no non-coop engineering degree from Waterloo.

lumost 5y ago

I suspect the outsourcing wave of the 70s-present underestimated the complexity that goes into "mundane" manufacturing that could easily be "outsourced" while the R&D parts of the company sorted out the hard problems. In practice many smart people would have gone to work in manufacturing doing the mundane work, hone their "practice" and eventually solve or at least work around the swampy problems inherent to the field. Eventually moving up into various lead positions with the firm. Now we're left with credentialed experts produced by academic programs designing machines while never visiting a factory floor.