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> The trick is to relabel it as education, then complain that your prospective employees aren’t getting the right kind. Well, I guess if already-educated worke

> The trick is to relabel it as education, then complain that your prospective employees aren’t getting the right kind. Well, I guess if already-educated workers are the norm in your industry, companies are going to change their hiring practices accordingly. It's okay not to like it, but arguing against it on the basis that 'it didn't used to be like this' just makes you look entitled and whiny. > Bemoaning the unpreparedness of undergraduates isn’t new. Today, however, those complaints are getting a more sympathetic hearing from the policy makers who govern public higher education. Yeah, well, when policy makers are responsible for all the cheap money flowing into the system (without which the system would probably collapse at this point), I guess that'll happen.

cgearhart 11y ago
> ...if already-educated workers are the norm... That's the point -- there's a difference between education and training. It is only an issue because so much of the education looks very similar to the desired training. It is not the purpose of an education to produce new employees, but to provide a broad basis for experiencing and making sense of the world. It just so happens that you also learn transferrable skills like a basic familiarity with a particular field, along with some tools and techniques that help you organize and solve problems. A proper education is not an extended code bootcamp, nor should it be.
- nateabele 11y ago
  > That's the point -- there's a difference between education and training. Excellent point. Two problems: (1) Over the past ~2.5 generations, the narrative about education has been informed by the conventional wisdom of {grades -> university -> job -> pension}. Hence, education is now only nominally about producing 'citizens of the republic' (so to speak), and de facto about producing well-trained workers. Disambiguating these goals is important, but hampered by... (2) The perverse incentives created by cheap government money encourage malinvestment (i.e. an English degree [I say this with love — my wife is an English major]), and the consequent propensity of industry to not only see it as a jobs program, but also as a government policy problem.

cgearhart 11y ago

> ...if already-educated workers are the norm... That's the point -- there's a difference between education and training. It is only an issue because so much of the education looks very similar to the desired training. It is not the purpose of an education to produce new employees, but to provide a broad basis for experiencing and making sense of the world. It just so happens that you also learn transferrable skills like a basic familiarity with a particular field, along with some tools and techniques that help you organize and solve problems. A proper education is not an extended code bootcamp, nor should it be.

nateabele 11y ago
> That's the point -- there's a difference between education and training. Excellent point. Two problems: (1) Over the past ~2.5 generations, the narrative about education has been informed by the conventional wisdom of {grades -> university -> job -> pension}. Hence, education is now only nominally about producing 'citizens of the republic' (so to speak), and de facto about producing well-trained workers. Disambiguating these goals is important, but hampered by... (2) The perverse incentives created by cheap government money encourage malinvestment (i.e. an English degree [I say this with love — my wife is an English major]), and the consequent propensity of industry to not only see it as a jobs program, but also as a government policy problem.