6 ms·

Wow. Just wow. The purpose of college isn't vocational training. It never was. My college education is not, was not, and never will be "a piece of paper". That

by lbrandy 18y ago

Wow. Just wow. The purpose of college isn't vocational training. It never was. My college education is not, was not, and never will be "a piece of paper". That's just plain ignorance. The kind of ignorance that just might get cured by someone who cared enough to get a decent college education.

okeumeni 18y ago
I guess the surge of college dropout IT millionaire’s gets to the head of lot of people. Besides IT and arts in general I don’t know of any field where you can drop out of college and not end up cleaning dishes at local restaurant. College kids beware, education is the foundation of whatever you want to become in your adult life.
- strlen 18y ago
  They're also drop-outs: not people who never went in the first place. Most dropped (and the typical success stories talk about dropping out of graduate school) out because they had something else to run to, not something to run from.
- ahoyhere 18y ago
  The word "educate" comes from "educe," to pull forth. That's not how universities work any more. Anyway, you'd be surprised at how many successful people in all kinds of fields do not have a degree, or don't have a degree in the field they're in. They just don't make the news as often (cough except for Richard Branson cough). You're right that there's a selection bias, but you missed the other selection bias.
  - gravitycop 18y ago
    The word "educate" comes from "educe," to pull forth. Also related is the word "eduction", as in "the eduction of relations and correlates", Charles Spearman's definition of acting intelligence (1927). http://www.google.com/search?q=eduction+relations+correlates+spearman http://www.google.com/search?q=eduction+relations+correlates...
vaksel 18y ago
You don't go to college to expand your mind...you go to college to get a good job after you graduate. Or at least you are supposed to. The problem is that in our society, the college degree has become a commodity. You are supposed to have one, even if you really don't need it. Someone getting a CS degree, paying $80K is an investment. Someone getting a Communications degree, paying $80K is borderline retarded, why? because they'll wind up working at the Gap after they graduate making the same 25K/yr that they made before going to college, except they lose 4 years worth of promotions and raises. Yes college is not vocational training...but if your degree won't help you get a better job...then you are just pissing a ton of money away. Someone working at the Gap should not be $80K in debt. Actually, vocational training now a days is probably a better investment than a college degree. A plumber won't get outsourced, and will still make as much money as a programmer.
- deleted 18y ago
  [deleted]
- ssharp 18y ago
  Pure ignorance. Not all communications majors work at the Gap. Many work in communications, marketing, etc. These high end jobs project higher salaries than a high end computer science degree. You can find lots of people with non-vocational degrees that have had extremely successful careers, don't work at the gap, and have more fulfilling works lives than code slaves who "invested" in a CS degree.
  - vaksel 18y ago
    You can find an example of success no matter the situation. Even a broken clock is right twice a day. But you need to look at the averages. Someone who graduated from an average school and not some Ivy, someone who doesn't have connections thanks to daddy...more often than not, after graduation they'll be working at the Gap.
    - adbachman 18y ago
      You have numbers to back this up?
gruseom 18y ago
The purpose of college isn't vocational training. I agree. But our society has completely bought into the idea that it is. Even the so-called educators have. And as we know from Gatto and others, this is not a recent distortion, but one that goes back to the origin of public education.
- andreyf 18y ago
  our society has completely bought into the idea that it is What this hell is "our society"? Is it the most common occurring opinion of a set of people magnitudes larger than the set of people you will meet in your lifetime? Our society is made up of a lot of people. If some, even most, have bought into a particular idea, it still leaves many, many people who haven't. So even if 99% of our society has bought into the idea that education must be vocational doesn't mean that one can't go through life spending most of her time with people in the other 1%. As I advanced through my schooling, I had more and more Renaissance-personalties as teachers. At Rutgers University, I had enough choice that I was able to pick classes almost exclusively taught by people who didn't think of my education as vocational. Sure, it took a bit of work at the beginning of each semester - adding and dropping classes based on the first couple of lectures and conversations with the professors, but it certainly wasn't some insurmountable feat. Independent studies helped a lot, also. IMO, there's a greater pattern here - a large part of life is about avoiding the vast majority of people who focus their lives around petty nonsense. PS - Unless you're talking about maximizing social productivity of some kind, in which case, yes, it is a shame that most people see themselves as slaves being trained to do a job. The average person would be a lot happier and productive if we were to pursue our interests for their own sake, but that's their mistake to make.
  - gruseom 18y ago
    You know, when I wrote that comment I actually wrote out a list of who thinks that education equals job training: government, industry, educators (so-called), media... then I thought "this is crazy" and just put in "our society". I don't see how anyone can argue that there isn't a massive consensus around this. Your own story confirms it. Certainly it's possible to deviate from the consensus, at least up to a point, and I'm all in favor of doing so.
run4yourlives 18y ago
Is that why I see admin assistant jobs requiring a bachelor's degree?
deleted 18y ago
[deleted]
astrec 18y ago
This was more the case before our venerable institutions were turned into modern day businesses. Used to be that a university was a scholarly, research oriented institution, and vocational education was the domain of technical and further education colleges (to sub degree level). Government funds, research grants and philanthropic bequests are either drying up, or come with onerous conditions (e.g. ban on stem cell research institution wide). What we've seen in the last 25 years are universities entering the vocational education market and acquiring technical and further education colleges in the hunt for revenue and growth. Add to this full fee paying places with lower required entrance scores (you can actually "buy" an engineering degree now), and industry's incessant demand for vocational training and you'll find most universities simply ain't what they used to be, more's the pity. Now, your education might not be just a piece of paper - mine sure isn't (most guys laugh at my major) - but the sad fact of the matter is that an undergraduate degree is simply a meal-ticket for a great many people.

by lbrandy 18y ago

okeumeni 18y ago

I guess the surge of college dropout IT millionaire’s gets to the head of lot of people. Besides IT and arts in general I don’t know of any field where you can drop out of college and not end up cleaning dishes at local restaurant. College kids beware, education is the foundation of whatever you want to become in your adult life.

strlen 18y ago
They're also drop-outs: not people who never went in the first place. Most dropped (and the typical success stories talk about dropping out of graduate school) out because they had something else to run to, not something to run from.
ahoyhere 18y ago
The word "educate" comes from "educe," to pull forth. That's not how universities work any more. Anyway, you'd be surprised at how many successful people in all kinds of fields do not have a degree, or don't have a degree in the field they're in. They just don't make the news as often (cough except for Richard Branson cough). You're right that there's a selection bias, but you missed the other selection bias.
- gravitycop 18y ago
  The word "educate" comes from "educe," to pull forth. Also related is the word "eduction", as in "the eduction of relations and correlates", Charles Spearman's definition of acting intelligence (1927). http://www.google.com/search?q=eduction+relations+correlates+spearman http://www.google.com/search?q=eduction+relations+correlates...

vaksel 18y ago

You don't go to college to expand your mind...you go to college to get a good job after you graduate. Or at least you are supposed to. The problem is that in our society, the college degree has become a commodity. You are supposed to have one, even if you really don't need it. Someone getting a CS degree, paying $80K is an investment. Someone getting a Communications degree, paying $80K is borderline retarded, why? because they'll wind up working at the Gap after they graduate making the same 25K/yr that they made before going to college, except they lose 4 years worth of promotions and raises. Yes college is not vocational training...but if your degree won't help you get a better job...then you are just pissing a ton of money away. Someone working at the Gap should not be $80K in debt. Actually, vocational training now a days is probably a better investment than a college degree. A plumber won't get outsourced, and will still make as much money as a programmer.

deleted 18y ago
[deleted]
ssharp 18y ago
Pure ignorance. Not all communications majors work at the Gap. Many work in communications, marketing, etc. These high end jobs project higher salaries than a high end computer science degree. You can find lots of people with non-vocational degrees that have had extremely successful careers, don't work at the gap, and have more fulfilling works lives than code slaves who "invested" in a CS degree.
- vaksel 18y ago
  You can find an example of success no matter the situation. Even a broken clock is right twice a day. But you need to look at the averages. Someone who graduated from an average school and not some Ivy, someone who doesn't have connections thanks to daddy...more often than not, after graduation they'll be working at the Gap.
  - adbachman 18y ago
    You have numbers to back this up?

gruseom 18y ago

The purpose of college isn't vocational training. I agree. But our society has completely bought into the idea that it is. Even the so-called educators have. And as we know from Gatto and others, this is not a recent distortion, but one that goes back to the origin of public education.

andreyf 18y ago
our society has completely bought into the idea that it is What this hell is "our society"? Is it the most common occurring opinion of a set of people magnitudes larger than the set of people you will meet in your lifetime? Our society is made up of a lot of people. If some, even most, have bought into a particular idea, it still leaves many, many people who haven't. So even if 99% of our society has bought into the idea that education must be vocational doesn't mean that one can't go through life spending most of her time with people in the other 1%. As I advanced through my schooling, I had more and more Renaissance-personalties as teachers. At Rutgers University, I had enough choice that I was able to pick classes almost exclusively taught by people who didn't think of my education as vocational. Sure, it took a bit of work at the beginning of each semester - adding and dropping classes based on the first couple of lectures and conversations with the professors, but it certainly wasn't some insurmountable feat. Independent studies helped a lot, also. IMO, there's a greater pattern here - a large part of life is about avoiding the vast majority of people who focus their lives around petty nonsense. PS - Unless you're talking about maximizing social productivity of some kind, in which case, yes, it is a shame that most people see themselves as slaves being trained to do a job. The average person would be a lot happier and productive if we were to pursue our interests for their own sake, but that's their mistake to make.
- gruseom 18y ago
  You know, when I wrote that comment I actually wrote out a list of who thinks that education equals job training: government, industry, educators (so-called), media... then I thought "this is crazy" and just put in "our society". I don't see how anyone can argue that there isn't a massive consensus around this. Your own story confirms it. Certainly it's possible to deviate from the consensus, at least up to a point, and I'm all in favor of doing so.

run4yourlives 18y ago

Is that why I see admin assistant jobs requiring a bachelor's degree?

deleted 18y ago

[deleted]

astrec 18y ago

This was more the case before our venerable institutions were turned into modern day businesses. Used to be that a university was a scholarly, research oriented institution, and vocational education was the domain of technical and further education colleges (to sub degree level). Government funds, research grants and philanthropic bequests are either drying up, or come with onerous conditions (e.g. ban on stem cell research institution wide). What we've seen in the last 25 years are universities entering the vocational education market and acquiring technical and further education colleges in the hunt for revenue and growth. Add to this full fee paying places with lower required entrance scores (you can actually "buy" an engineering degree now), and industry's incessant demand for vocational training and you'll find most universities simply ain't what they used to be, more's the pity. Now, your education might not be just a piece of paper - mine sure isn't (most guys laugh at my major) - but the sad fact of the matter is that an undergraduate degree is simply a meal-ticket for a great many people.