1 More left wing thug politicos gone wild

2 My degree is in Political Science (The marine Corps said "Get a degree, any degree, and you can be an Officer). Now that I'm a civilian, my trade is Network Engineering, learned at a Vo-Tech in Tulsa, Oklahoma. College was great, but my degree choice, made when I was 20, was poor. My tech education, done on my own, for much less money, actually doing things I like, has been much more rewarding, both personally and professionally.

3 The problem with those jobs you listed is that they are highly dependent on construction being up. That would be OK in Myrtle Beach right now which has been expanding at logarithmic rates for the past 30 years but I suspect not so good at other places.

I do agree with your basic premise though.  Spending and going into debt to the tune of 100K in a college is not for everyone. Especially if you are getting a stupid degree in something like Polly Science or Sociology. 

As I posted the other night, a major car dealer in Columbia was offering 80K a year starting for mechanics qualified in the new electronic diagnostic machines a couple of years ago.  

4 When I was in HS, you had two choices:  either you could pursue an academic diploma or a vocational diploma.  If you wanted to go to college you needed to pursue an academic course.  If you were not going to college you pursued a vocational course, taking classes such as drafting, mechanical shop, wood shop, etc. and usually taking classes 1/2 day your senior year and being placed in a job pursuing your craft the rest of the day.  Course credit for your job.  We even had vocational/tech schools you could transfer to if you wanted to pursue a craft. 

We could save a lot of drop out kids today if we had vo-tech schools where kids could pursue an interest that would turn into a trade.

5
Incidentally....

lawyers.

Why are law schools still churning out new lawyers? Don't colleges have a fiduciary responsibility to tell their students the world doesn't need any more lawyers?

Open up any yellow pages and you'll find more listings for attorneys than hair stylists and pizza joints combined.

6 The problem with those jobs you listed is that they are highly dependent on construction being up

A/C units and water heater fail constantly.  The maintenance work on those is construction independent.  This is why I specifically didn't mention electrical work.  Once a joint's electric is in, it tends to stay unmodified for decades, and any mods that do occur tend to be low dollar jobs.

Every large HVAC service business in south FL is constantly looking for experienced people...even in this horrible economy and dead construction climate.  The HVAC and plumbers trucks are the only ones you see on I95 anymore.

7 Posted by: rls at June 18, 2010 08:12 AM (mekQN)

Sounds like my old HS.

8 I took 3 years of drafting in H/S and a year of wood shop as electives.  They've done me well through the years.  Being able to draw up a set of plans and make some of my own furniture has been rewarding.

9

I contend that part of the trouble we have now is cultural.  There's no glamor in doing work that involves using your hands/body as part of it, or working with things that are "dirty."  A big part of what motivates young people in their career choice is prestige.  It's part of why plenty of smart folks, who could make more cash, stay in "fashionable" careers. 

I realize this is purely a male perspective, but consider the young man's drive to attract females.  He askes himself - what kind of job will make me an attractive option for the hottest chicks?  A good plumber probably makes as much as (or more than) a mediocre lawyer.  But if some chick asks you what you do, which one do you want to admit to?  It seems that these days the best options for attracting women are 1) overeducated pencil/data pusher, or 2) unemployed bad boy POS.  If you fit in the middle, things are more difficult.

I'm convinced that much of our avoidance of jobs of real and direct impact on the grind of daily life is based on a cultural problem.  We do not honor honest work in general.  We only honor high-status work.  That's wrong headed, and has misdirected a tremendous amount of human effort.  It has also drained ambition from those who know they probably can't secure the high status jobs due to their limitations.

10
I'm a pipe fitter/ welder by trade, can operate just about every heavy piece of heavy equipment out there as well as have my CDL. I am highly experienced in pipeline and overhead/ underground power work. Right now I am a construction supervisor working for a utilities company specializing in natural gas infrastructure upgrades. The the level of experience I have gained in the construction industry over the years affords me the luxury of bouncing around from time to time when work gets slack or something more interesting comes along without taking a hit in pay. I am not rich by any means, but I do live fairly comfortably and am not hurting financially, however a lot of my college educated friends have lost their jobs over the last few years and if they do manage to find work its at a salary that is far below what they were making before.

11 A/C units and water heater fail constantly.  The maintenance work on those is construction independent.

That is probably true for a large urban area where you would have enough large businesses to have steady maintenance work.

Personally I would prefer to live away from the large urban areas.  But there is always call for a plumber regardless of area.

In any case, I had my fill of large urban areas when I lived in the Bay Area in CA. 

12

I have a theory that just about anyone with a high school degree, a strong work ethic, and a frugal nature can become independently wealthy in this country (assuming they don't live in high-tax liberal sh*tholes on the East or West coasts). 

Hell, my best friend barely graduated from high school, but he now owns his own home (no mortgage) in a very nice part of West Michigan, has zero debt, and has over $200,000.00 worth of investment savings.  He's only 35. 

The guy started working as a mason's assistant right out of high school (general labor = $10 an hour); then, worked at Steelcase for a few years until he got laid off; then, worked as a realtor until the housing market dried up.  He also was married young (23). 

Basically, he's frugal - he never, ever buys anything on credit, and he's a fanatic saver.  When I used to live with the guy, he used to cash his $400 a week paycheck, take out $40 to get him through the week, and deposit the other $360.  Plus, he never got saddled with huge student loan debts or a huge sense of entitlement, like so many of our brilliant young college grads. 

 

 

 

13

Not knocking a college education, but I think we may have come to the point where there is over saturation. Too many college grads, not enough jobs. Outsourcing is one problem. The other of course is that a lot of companies and corporations are simply closing up shop in these economic times. Get that degree, but it doesn't hurt to have a skilled trade to fall back on when needed.

14 I think HS grads should go out into the workforce for two years before moving on to college.  A two year dose of reality and paying taxes will cement some common sense values before being subjected to the libtard vultures called "professors" in college.

That's right, a minimum age for enrollment.  20 years old.

15 I think many kids would greatly benefit from a stint in the Military and then onto College when they are older and know what they really want to do. That's way it works in Israel.

16
I think colleges and CC's are offering more remedial courses because the H.S.'s are graduating their students without the necessary skills and knowledge for college courses.

So even as a contractor in the trades it would behoove you to require your employees to have at least two years of college just to make sure they're at least at the high school graduate level.

17 Get that degree, but it doesn't hurt to have a skilled trade to fall back on when needed.

Yep, people can't outsource the actual repair of plumbing/HVAC/electrical problems.

18
Yep, people can't outsource the actual repair of plumbing/HVAC/electrical problems.

Posted by: Purple Avenger at June 18, 2010 08:29 AM (zk7AY)

Unless you include employing illegals as outsourcing, which I do. At any rate they don't seem to have penetrated that field yet.

19 Unless you include employing illegals as outsourcing, which I do.

Well, the quality and code compliance of the work many of the illegals are doing leaves much to be desired. 

20 Unless you include employing illegals as outsourcing, which I do. At any rate they don't seem to have penetrated that field yet.

Unless we can stop the Dems it will soon. Maybe not in the electrical which in most States requires a license, but in plumbing and HVAC I can see them taking over. They have already taken over the brick mason jobs.

21
Well, the quality and code compliance of the work many of the illegals are doing leaves much to be desired. 

Posted by: Purple Avenger at June 18, 2010 08:34 AM (zk7AY)

Yep, it's a myth they work harder or do better work. No, they just work cheap and without benefits. I've seen whole subdivisions around my area built using armies of illegal labor. A year later and the houses were falling apart.

22 but in plumbing and HVAC I can see them taking over

When R-410 systems become prevalent (happening right now since all the R-22's are gone), the incompetent ones will kill themselves off.  R-410 systems operate at very high pressure.

I doubt most illegals can pass the EPA certs for HVAC

23
Unless we can stop the Dems it will soon. Maybe not in the electrical which in most States requires a license, but in plumbing and HVAC I can see them taking over. They have already taken over the brick mason jobs.

Posted by: Vic at June 18, 2010 08:34 AM (6taRI)

As far as licensing goes, you would be surprised or maybe shocked at the number of illegals driving big rigs driving on our nations highways without a CDL or with a forged one.

24 Just think, if a kid took 4years of math and all the science he could in HS he'd be way ahead of the game, even if it's college prep stuff he "won't use."   Then getting through vo-tech or union apprenticeship programs would be a breeze.  Instead, teh stupid take bonehead courses because they hate school, drop out, then have trouble even in the lamest remedial programs.

I'm all for trades, and loved the guys who knew who were electricians, sheet metal etc. They always had money, new cars, worked around different parts of the world and knew what was happening.  Some coulda gone to college and all but saw the writing on the wall.  

25 As far as licensing goes, you would be surprised or maybe shocked at the number of illegals driving big rigs driving on our nations highways without a CDL or with a forged one.

I wouldn't be surprised. As I was trying to tell Ace the other day on his comments about regulations, they are only there for honest people.  There is our "conservative blind spot".

As for EPA certs on HVAC, I thought that was only for adding and recovering freon.

26

Got my undergrad degree from RPI. Knew a few people that came over from HVCC after servng in the navy.

In hindsight, I should have gone to GA Tech where I achieved my first masters degree. GA Tech far better suited me personality wise -- had arguably better facilities than RPI for my major -- and being state supported I could have gotten my bachelors degree there for a fraction of the cost spent at RPI.

So, I would agree that shopping around for great bang for the buck on college/univerities is a very prudent thing to do. Don't put too much stock into reputation when making a choice.

27 This article is from 2007 but is along the same line... http://tinyurl.com/243xtzs $55k to $100k a year and they can't give them away because it doesn't fit the narrative that white collar is better.

28 Another satisfied HVCC Alum 1997. I cannot speak highly enough about the education quality per dollar paid value there. In fact, I was disappointed in the quality of instruction at the subsequent 4 year institution (at least the 2nd year physics) by comparison.

29 $55k to $100k a year and they can't give them away because it doesn't fit the narrative that white collar is better.

LOL, that reminds me of something that my younger brother was talking about a few years ago. He interviews potential candidates for a large firm in GA. He said new graduates with an Engineering degree expected to start at 100K/yr, work 40 hours/week day shift only, and not have to travel at all.

So not only do kids of today not want to work the trade type jobs, they want to start in a job with benefits like they had 20 years of seniority.

30 As for EPA certs on HVAC, I thought that was only for adding and recovering freon.

You can't buy refrigerant without the EPA cert.

31 You can't buy refrigerant without the EPA cert. Posted by: Purple Avenger at June 18, 2010 08:50 AM (zk7AY) And ya can't buy a refrigerator without credit or cash? /

32 You can't buy refrigerant without the EPA cert.

OK

33

I am vaguely familiar with the German school system, but I remember someone telling me they start vocational training in highschool.

The people who will go on to universities take different classes than the people who will be electricians, plumbers, buldings, etc.

I think that is a fantastic idea. It is about time certain people learned trades in highschool.  If you or a kid isn't interested in a desk job then why not get them started ahead of time. If you start learning a trade at 14, you will have 7 years experience by the age of 21.

 

here in america, shop class is mocked, if it is even offered anymore. That's a shame. Being in my mid 20s, I wish I would have taken a shop class. Now when something goes wrong in my house I normally have to call someone to fix it. And I can't make anything out of wood, even a birdhouse, and I really wish I could.

Too many kids who will end up doing vocational(trade) work are pressures to go to college by their parents or friends. All it does it rack up the debt and they just end up doing trade work, but they get started late and have bills to pay from their college years.

I think a big part of our problem is that labor is looked down upon in America.It's sad if you consider that working in a labor job has been something of a badge of honor in american history. I know my grandparent who worked for Westinghouse took great pride in it. 

I don't know when the shift in America happened. When everyone was expected to go to college.  College, these days, is an extension of highschool. for 50 percent of the people that go, you learn useless shit and you party all the time. Clearly the university system is a racket.  Instapundit has tons of articles on how law schools lie to students about pay and employment for lawyers. It's more of a business than a place of learning.

 

As someone who has a B.S. in History and does accounting/managment at a small business, I really regret not knowing the basics of how electrical systems, plumbing, etc work.

That's not to say I want to be a trade worker, but I wish I would hace been exposed to those things in highschool.

34 And I can't make anything out of wood, even a birdhouse, and I really wish I could.

My brother (a PhD mathematician) was like that.  I convinced him to buy some tools, read some books on woodworking and finishing and dive in.  He makes all sorts of stuff now and the garage and basement have kind of become his private decompression zones for staying sane.

35 Albert Haynesworth sucks monkey cock.

36

Been in my "trade" 20yrs this month, since I'm 19yrs old. Still love my job, but suspect I'll have a hankering to something different soon, If not-no biggee. I tried College in my early 20's, didn't have the money or the patience and study habbits to make it work; I was too busy persuing the AoS lifestyle(although I didn't realize it at the time)  Maybe I'll go back to school and learn a new trade or start a small thing on my own. The difference now is that I have the money, patience and maturity to actually see it through...I think

 

 

  

37

Spent my freshman year at Boston College.  Hated it.  Hated it so much, I shortly gave up on college altogether.  Now 16 years later, I'm working on a degree at Rhode Island College, a small, public, northeastern liberal arts and teaching college.  At literally 1/10th the expense.

Never made a worse decision than to go to BC.

38

Gold is up to 1258/oz.

Will we be able to afford air conditioning in the future?

39 Not going to college right after high school...... bingo!  Long gone are the days when if you didnt go to college at age 18, you didnt go at all. I did my first degree at 18 but had no trouble doing my second degree and masters when I was 35-39. I was a much better student in my mid thirties (unfortunately the quality of the education I received in the late 90s early 2000s paled to what I got in the early 80s) but more importantly, I was a far more critical thinker, willing to challenge my professors when I was older. Needless to say that got me into trouble and was one of the reasons I never went on for the PhD, but that was for the best.

My son is 22, and I have no idea if or when he will go to college. I wouldnt mind a plumber or electrician in the family.

40

LOL, that reminds me of something that my younger brother was talking about a few years ago. He interviews potential candidates for a large firm in GA. He said new graduates with an Engineering degree expected to start at 100K/yr, work 40 hours/week day shift only, and not have to travel at all.

As someone who works for a company that is in heavy industry, I can tell you the best paid engineers are chemical engineers and certain electrical engineers. If you are good at Organic Chemistry, and I mean real good, you are easily making 100K a year.  It is very rare. Most engineers tend to be structural, mechanical, or electrical. The first two being the most common in my experience.

Also, there are NO 40 hour a week jobs that pay over 60 grand.  If you want to make 100K and work 40 hours a week then you should be a high priced attorney. Everyone else, doctors, engineers, business owners, wall street traders, work a absolute minimum of 50 hours a week.

41

I still think going into the military is the route to go.  Get in, get your training and experience in some high demand fields, get your degree via the GI Bill and then take it from there.  It's hard work but the pay off potential down the road with minimal checkbook impact is huge.

42

I agree PA - I am a scientist (chemist) and work in the pharmaceutical industry.  While things are still limping along for now, as I often tell people, I doubt there'll be much in the way of pharma left in America in 20 years.  My son, who is 8 months old right now - I would rather NOT see him follow in my footsteps, because he will either have a degree which is unemployable so that he is instead working down at the local Burger King, or else he'll be emigrating to India to get a job in his field. 

I'd much rather my son go into plumbing, electrical work, HVAC, auto mechanics, etc.  At least they haven't figured out a way to outsource plumbers to China (yet).

43 My mother was the first of her (54) cousins to graduate from college, so I had no choice (plus I was 17 when I left high school, so I couldn't legally sign anything on my own).  I'd have been better off getting a dental hygenist certificate and getting married instead.  I hate my life.

Been kicking around the idea of taking a welding class if I don't find my next job right away, but I don't have a lot of upper-body strength; not sure anyone would hire a middle-aged woman to build stuff.

44 have a great uncle that owned and operated a multimillion dollar battery manufacturing company until he was 90. Has a GED. he told me once "when I need a college education, I hire one".

45 I still think going into the military is the route to go. Get in, get your training and experience in some high demand fields, get your degree via the GI Bill and then take it from there. It's hard work but the pay off potential down the road with minimal checkbook impact is huge. Posted by: CDR M at June 18, 2010 09:02 AM (cqZXM) Absolutely.

46 Also, there are NO 40 hour a week private sector jobs that pay over 60 grand.

FIFY.

47

Little Discussed Law School Info - (and yes, I'm a graduate and I'm actually working!!!)

the dirty little secret is that *every* law school in the county - from the real cheap to the real expensive - teaches the same courses, uses the same textbooks, and gives students the same level of education.  The only real difference between schools is the networking value of the alumni club you get to join.   Now some of those are indeed quite valuable - see Harvard and Yale - but that's all a student is paying for with those extra tuition bucks. 

And here's the other dirty secret - it's a 3 year degree but 2 1/2 years of it is useless bullshit.   A crash program designed to let a skilled student with an undergrad degree pass the bar could be mastered in 6 months pretty easily.  But that wouldn't keep all that many professors employed.

Oh, and *no* *one* graduates from any law school knowing anything that is actually worthwhile in the workplace.  The bit about actually learning to be a lawyer is all OJT - the degree and the license are just the expensive tickets to the club, designed mainly to keep the riff raff out.  (although that plan is obviously failing)

 

48

"Also, there are NO 40 hour a week jobs that pay over 60 grand."

Au contrare!  I believe there are some union jobs that fit that description!!

49

 And I can't make anything out of wood, even a birdhouse, and I really wish I could.

My brother (a PhD mathematician) was like that.  I convinced him to buy some tools, read some books on woodworking and finishing and dive in.  He makes all sorts of stuff now and the garage and basement have kind of become his private decompression zones for staying sane.

Really? i've always wanted to do wood work and make furniture or chairs. I have a thing for Hitchcock chairs(i own a bunch) and have always wanted to make something similar.

My problem is I am a visual learner for technical stuff like that. I need to see it being done to learn. I can't just learn from diagrams. I can devour 1000 page history books, but I can't seem to read and comprehend technical books.

I think the community center across the street offers wood working classes. I've been thinking about signing up. Maybe I will. I love doing yard work, gardening, and working with my hands. And wood work has always sounded appealing to me and would save me some cash if I were able to fix more things in my home than having to call professionals.

50 If you are good at Organic Chemistry, and I mean real good, you are easily making 100K a year.

LOL, my younger bother has a PhD in chemistry, organic I believe as well.  I don't know how much he makes, but since he is now in management I will assume he is not going hungry.

51

My son, who is 8 months old right now

and he's still living with you? That bum needs to get a job. pull his weight.

 

I love you handel by the way.

52 In 1940, my Dad was a 16yo HS grad. Before his 19th birthday, he was a chemical engineer (UofR) cranking out avgas for war planes. By his 24th birthday, he was in business with my grandfather - roofing, siding and remodeling. He did well because he was punching down - simply really, know the math to estimate a job, show up and do it.  Unlike the more skilled trades - electrical, plumbing, HVAC, not much barrier to entry, but a little knowledge, skill and diligence go a long way. His regret was almost no on the job intellectual stimulation. There are times when I long for that. He and Mom raised 3 engineers and a physicist.

I'm too lazy to find the link. but watching Mike Rowe's TED lecture on honest trades work is 18 minutes well spent. Rowe, classics major in college, is impressive.

53

handel=handle.

typing to fast again

54

Michelle Bachman is coming up on Fox to discuss the Joe barton apology..

..think she'll ever get one for the Fuck Michelle Bachman 2010 concert coming up on July 3rd?

55 CDR M I can't agree with you enough. I left the Navy in 2007 and had 4 competitive job offers. I was fortunate in the my community is in demand by the commercial world. But then again, that hearkens back to the article the other day comparing and contrasting Engineering to Women's Study programs. Snipes are having not trouble getting jobs outside while YN's wonder why.

56

One of my sons, Matt the Marine, recently restarted his education, over the web from N. Carolina to a CC in Penna. Then he wants to get a degree in Marketing, for some reason.....

Then it's on to Warrent Officer.

 

57 I still think going into the military is the route to go. Get in, get your training and experience in some high demand fields, get your degree via the GI Bill and then take it from there. It's hard work but the pay off potential down the road with minimal checkbook impact is huge.

Agreed.  I had thought about signing up after HS, but I was too cowardly to actually go through with it.

But I believe everything happens for a reason.  Now I'm going through the process to see if I can join the Army Medical Services Corp as a Biochemist.  I'll know by next year.

58

Should a conservative parent recommend that his/her children get a government job?  that's where the money, benefits and job security are now.  I have three young adult children.  this is a question I've been asking myself a lot.

My tentative answer:  your plan from day 1 should be to go into business for yourself, be your own boss.  Whether as a plumber, lawn mower or lawyer.  Do not put your future in anyone else's hands.  And if you must work for someone else, you'd be nuts not to consider taking government work if for no other reason than the job security.

59 Why are law schools still churning out new lawyers? Don't colleges have a fiduciary responsibility to tell their students the world doesn't need any more lawyers?

I was going to bring this up.  There's a huge discussion underway right now about legal education and the fact that the vast majority of graduates will discover that, upon graduating and passing the bar, they are going to get jobs that pay roughly the same as, if not a little less, than one year's tuition.  I was involved with a local university on the steering committee for a paralegal program and I voted to shut it down because I could not in good conscience continue with a program that cost more than the students could reasonably expect to make, at least in this area.  Now, I don't agree with these rumblings about suing the law schools for violations of fiduciary duty.  But I do think that the current gaming of the career stats to show say 90% employment in the legal field by including those with one month contract positions at $15 per hour should stop. 

I finished Shop Class as Soulcraft recently and found it to be quite good.  I think the premise is a bit overstated but the overall thrust is right on point.  There's something primal about being able to do things and build things that a pure academic life does not give. 

Look, I'm an academic by inclination.  But part of that is because I happily admit that it's a miracle that I keep myself alive on a daily basis.  You want pie in the sky theorizing?  I'm your girl.  You want me not to walk into that fall?  Yeah.  That's not happening.  I think it's a failing that I cannot do more things on my own.

As far as the attracting a mate thing, I was involved with someone who dropped out of high school while I was in law school.  He was also, quite literally, a genius.  The sheer and open contempt I received for being with him based solely on the fact that he was a high school dropout who worked in a restaurant was shocking.  I would rather be with someone who makes minimum wage but who is drug free, not an alcoholic and who treats me well than some billionaire who treats me like shit. 

60 Now I'm going through the process to see if I can join the Army Medical Services Corp as a Biochemist. I'll know by next year. Posted by: Kratos (missing from the side of Mt Olympus) at June 18, 2010 09:18 AM (9hSKh) How old are you?

61 Should a conservative parent recommend that his/her children get a government job?  that's where the money, benefits and job security are now.

The problem there is that the government pendulum has swung too far in that direction now and it MUST swing back soon.

That is the way it is with all jobs. You really have to look down the road for what is happening in the future. As someone said earlier, while you are in HS get ALL the courses you can get while they are "free".  Do this at the same time you are watching the job market and trends. 

62 The other bonus going the military route is that you get a security clearance which is worth a lot of money out in the civilian sector when you get out.

63 I'm in manufacturing. Hiring a competent machinist is hard. The trade is difficult, requires a sharp mind and many skills. A good machinist would generally make a good engineer. Most kids these days are too lazy and muddle headed to learn a trade like machinist. You can't do it while hung over, and 8 hours a day of reality TV/day is poor preparation for a job that requires a sharp mind. A good machinist will find gainful employment most anywhere there is manufacturing within a couple of days. That is, if the economy is working. With our Socialist in Chief and his moronic minions, that is changing.

64 30 As for EPA certs on HVAC, I thought that was only for adding and recovering freon.

You can't buy refrigerant without the EPA cert.

Posted by: Purple Avenger at June 18, 2010 08:50 AM (zk7AY)

We sell refrigerent as well as service the recycling and recovery machines.

Technically you need whats called a MACS card (mobile air conditioning society) Its a 10 page test with the answers on the back page. Our guys got their card 15+ yrs ago(at the height of the ozone scare) and have never been called upon to show their credentials. We sell a approx 2skids a month of R134 and have never been ask to supply our MACS card to the wholesaler.   

65

MSNBC's Keith Olbermann interviewed Greene as if he had Lee Harvey Oswald in the dock. Chris Matthews asked guests: "Do you think this has the look of a dirty trick -- sort of a Watergate number?" Watergate, you'll recall, involved the Nixon White House trying to persuade a mildly retarded black man to run for the Senate.

 

I love Ann Coulter's snark. Like her or not, you can't help but laugh at her dry wit.

66 Good luck on that Kratos.  You'll be a fine addition to the Army!

67 54

Michelle Bachman is coming up on Fox to discuss the Joe barton apology..

..think she'll ever get one for the Fuck Michelle Bachman 2010 concert coming up on July 3rd?

Posted by: beedubya at June 18, 2010 09:15 AM (AnTyA)

And...the winger are hatefull monsters, the beat goes on...

 

68

The problem with college is that there are only eight or ten majors which have any value at all: Math, Physics, Chemistry, Molecular Biology [of one form or another - involving genetics or protein folding or whatever], Computer Science [the good kind, with heavy emphasis on the theory of algorithms], serious Philosophy [with a specialization in Symbolic Logic or the Foundations of Mathematics], and, of course, the Engineering degrees [Electrical, Chemical, Aerospace, Mechanical, etc]*.

And that's about it - maybe 5% [10% max?] of all the degrees awarded by the American baccaulareate system.

The remaining 90% [or 95%?] of the degrees - Poly Sci, Psych, English, Drama, Art, Edumakashun, Speech, Communications, Afro/Latino/Eskimo/Feminazi Studies, etc etc etc - aren't worth the paper they're printed on.

In fact, to the extent that those other specialities pervert the children's minds with all manner of hopelessly desperate soul-eating nihilism - not to mention saddling the children with $100Ks' worth of debt - they're even worse than worthless - they're proactively malevolent.

 

*Stuff like Bachelor's in Accounting and BSN's [Nursing] and BPharm's [Pharmacy] have the potential to provide excellent curricula, but they're really more vocational than baccalaureate in nature.

Latin and Greek also have the potential to help discipline young minds to the drudgery of long-term heavy-duty intellectual scut work, but I imagine that, in this day and age, the number of Latin and/or Greek majors is so small that it wouldn't even amount to so much as a statistical insignificance.

And "History" [like "English", and "French", and "German", etc etc etc] has become so hopelessly politicized & revisionist that it really ought to be called "Anti-History" [resp. "Anti-English", etc etc etc].

 

69 TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) - A concert by Elton John has given Israelis a boost after a string of cancellations by other world-famous artists. The British rocker performed late Thursday in front of a screaming crowd of nearly 50,000 fans at a Tel Aviv stadium. John, who wore blue-tinted sunglasses, told the audience those cancellations "ain't gonna stop me from playing here, baby." Recent cancellations by the Pixies and Elvis Costello, who cited Israeli government policies, have added to Israel's growing sense of isolation. John swiped at those artists, saying, "We do not cherry-pick our consciences," before hitting the opening chords of his 1972 hit "Crocodile Rock."

70 How many states have "guaranteed admissions" programs from CC to State schools?

71 Ben@49

Don't know if he still does it, but a guy named Michael Dunbar had short courses - week maybe? - where you would go and learn how to make a Windsor chair. By week's end, you had built your first chair to take home. He also wrote a book on Windsor chairmaking - Taunton Press I believe. Don't know who if anyone does this for Hitchcock chairs though. Taunton would be a good place to try and find out.

72 Reactionary at June 18, 2010 08:22 AM (xUM1Q)

Too true.

'The dignity of labor' is a forgotten concept in today's society.

And I might add, we're also seeing the end results of multiple decades of 'hard' feminist influence in the education machine.  Males, in many school systems are 'second tier' inhabitants, and that's getting reflected in the college attendance numbers.

And add to that government led 'preferences' on hiring.

That being said, there's nothing shameful about being a skilled tradesman or a technician.

Somebody needs to be around to know what gets plugged in where.

Remember that dreaded phrase: 'some assembly required'.

73 #60  How old are you?

I'm 27.  I've already talked to a recruiter, who gave me a whole bunch of paperwork to fill out.  All I need to do is graduate from grad school, which I hope to do next year.

66 Good luck on that Kratos.  You'll be a fine addition to the Army!

Thanks much, CDR M!

74

69 Posted by: nevergiveup at June 18, 2010 09:28 AM (0GFWk)

Rush's wedding, Jooo concerts??? someone check Elton for fever, shit..someone check me for fever, I'm starting to like the cut of that guys jib.

 

75 The remaining 90% [or 95%?] of the degrees - Poly Sci, Psych, English, Drama, Art, Edumakashun, Speech, Communications, Afro/Latino/Eskimo/Feminazi Studies, etc etc etc - aren't worth the paper they're printed on.


The Edumakashun degree seems to be worth $86k + benefits for nine months' work in New Jersey, and $100k + benefits for nine months' work in Milwaukee...although I agree with your larger point that "earning" it won't involve strenuous thought or critical thinking.

76 "Also, there are NO 40 hour a week jobs that pay over 60 grand.  If you want to make 100K and work 40 hours a week then you should be a high priced attorney. Everyone else, doctors, engineers, business owners, wall street traders, work a absolute minimum of 50 hours a week."


Take another look around.

77 My problem is I am a visual learner for technical stuff like that. I need to see it being done to learn. I can't just learn from diagrams. I can devour 1000 page history books, but I can't seem to read and comprehend technical books.

Well, your first attempts will be pretty bad and not the sort of thing you'll be showing off at parties. 

The key thing with woodworking is being able to visualize the result.  If you can see what you want in your mind, then you can start to figure out what will be needed to make it. 

If you want a fancy edge on something that generally means a router with a suitable bit for it.  If you have 90 degree joints, then start thinking dovetails, laps, doweled butt joints, etc.

Making stuff from wood is like putting a puzzle together, where you made all the pieces of the puzzle too.

78

 Now I'm going through the process to see if I can join the Army Medical Services Corp as a Biochemist. 

Well, I'm sure that will help you get to your end goal.

79 The HVAC and plumbers trucks are the only ones you see on I95 anymore. add fire alarm - sprinkler guys to that mix. Constant, sustaining maintenance work.

80

And "History" [like "English", and "French", and "German", etc etc etc] has become so hopelessly politicized & revisionist that it really ought to be called "Anti-History" [resp. "Anti-English", etc etc etc].

You've hit the nail on the head. I've always been outspoken and that would led to contentious debates between my professors and myself, usually infront of the entire class. I got into a really heated argument with a Latin American studies teacher infront of a class of 70 kids or so. He had decided to show a movie called "The Pananma Deception".  In the discussion after the movie I completely tore it apart. Not just the simple factual inaccuracies, but the outlandish claims that we tested "laser weapons" and killed tens of thousands of people and burried their bodies in hidden places.

The most rewarding part of speaking up was the kids who would come up to me after class and say they totally agreed with me but were afraid speaking up would affect their grade.

Most, not all, history professors are left wing nuts. Liberation theology, marxist studies, black studies, gay studies, etc.  I found that the most "conservative" teacher were the ones who taught early american or civil war history.

I wanted to teach history at the college level, but I didn't think I could actually get a job considering the faculty simply wouldn't hire a conservative even for a lowly TA job.

I do think that when I am finished with my current career that I will go back and get my masters and teach highschool history as it should be taught.

81

Hey, a little off-topic, but has anyone knocked up AlexTheChick or HeatherRadish yet?

Those gals need to be sending their own young-uns off to college, circa 2028...

 

82

Hmm, I need to get out and take the woodworking class they offer on base. Make myself useful and set a good example for the kids.

As homeschoolers, it would be easy for them to take a few college classes while living at home or start learning a trade at 15 or whatever. I can't see them doing what I did; going to a name school for a degree, any degree. It worked fine for me, but things do change.

83 If you want to make 100K and work 40 hours a week then you should be a high priced attorney. For me, the whole line between "work" and "not work" has blurred considerably, but then I write software for a living -- my "job" is where ever my laptop is. I've never though of my job in terms of "hours per week" because I'm on salary and don't get paid that way. If I need to put in more hours to get the work done, I do, but generally it evens out. I make pretty good money, but I'm also on-call 24x7. Work-life tradeoffs are always personal -- if you want to make more money, you're going to have to trade off more of your personal time. That's just how things work.

84 I went to RPI and the HVCC guys who came in were uniformly top notch.  This was a deliberate strategy between HVCC and RPI so the grads of the community college with good grades were guaranteed admission.     I think if you paired community colleges with local 4 year colleges of national reach it would work there too.

I think a lot of guys who went to 4 year schools would be better off in the trades or tech roles.   The problem is unless you have a friend or relative who has taken this path you are often ignorant of the possibilities.

85

Ben@49

Don't know if he still does it, but a guy named Michael Dunbar had short courses - week maybe? - where you would go and learn how to make a Windsor chair. By week's end, you had built your first chair to take home. He also wrote a book on Windsor chairmaking - Taunton Press I believe. Don't know who if anyone does this for Hitchcock chairs though. Taunton would be a good place to try and find out.

is it an online thing?

Not only would i need to buy the books, I would also need to buy tools, and I have no concept.

I own a hammer, screwdrivers, a level, and measuring tape. That is the extent of my tool collection. It's not that I  would be adverse to buying more tools, it is just I don't even know what tools are needed?

86 oh. speaking of stupid majors. A girl I went to highschool with  majored in Hinduism at a 50,000 dollar a year colege.

87 If you don't go to college - how are you supposed to spend 5 years drinking with topless coeds?

88

"There's something primal about being able to do things and build things that a pure academic life does not give."

Definately.  I took wood/metal shop in Jr High/HS. My friends and I, being contrarian punk rockers, decided to take the classes that the cheerleaders didn't.  I loved it and has proven to be a good skill to have. 

However, skipping out on Home Ec? Bad bad idea!

89 Hey, a little off-topic, but has anyone knocked up AlexTheChick

ahahahahahahahahahha

AHAHAHA

*wipes eyes*  Oh that was funny - it is entirely possible that I am the least maternal person in the world.  My mom tells people that she's known since I was 8 that she wasn't getting grandkids from me.

90

I began dealing with this just this year for HS kids. I'm becoming convinced that college is a swindle in some cases...there are a lot of little schools popping up that are hideously expensive and many times don't have real accreditation. Full Sail in Orlando for example, promises you can be the next P-Diddy for just 45Gs a year, and those jobs just aren't that prevalent. And the credits don't transfer.

Funny this thread sohould come up, since I'm really into the whole question now.

91 Wandering in late, but I have to agree with nearly everything here. Especially the idea of a minimum age for higher education--frankly, after what I saw my last time going in for a skill recharge, most kids just out of high school just aren't mature enough for it. (I'll rant about the sorry state of their 'basic skills' another time.) To be honest, there are probably few, if any, useful skillsets that can't be handled later, with night school or such. This is as much a statement about what can be done as what passes for higher education--ethnic studies as useful education? Seriously?--but also...frankly, having to work and go to school for something useful is just plain character building. The student is making concrete sacrifices for his or her future; when you're the one putting up the green and the sweat, giving up free time, etc. it just means more, and you're far more motivated to go the distance and make it work.

92

@87

with a girl.

Today is not my day for accurate spelling or grammar

93 #79  Well, I'm sure that will help you get to your end goal.

Heh.  I'm merely a messenger of chaos.

/'cause that's all there will be, in the end.

94 I'm kidding with the above (#8 . I am working with a Catholic university group to institute a program for Family education -- married students with children, and a no credit loss transfer policy for pregnant women. Essentially a housing/child care add to the campus life packages. One of the goals is to up the maturity level on the undergraduate campus.

95 One thing to think about in regard to these jobs that require labor is that the pay is undercut by the illegals doing the same work.  Perhaps as more American's attempt to take up these jobs, their attitudes towards illegals will change as more American's vie for these type jobs.

96 We have friends who were appalled that we "let" our kid go into the Marines without literally forcing him to go to college first.  D'oh Boy is about to begin on-line college courses.  He loves the "corpse" and dearly loves working with armored vehicles.

Last summer, before going in, he (at our urging) took a course in historic preservation, learned to read/draw blueprints, etc.  Loved that, too.  Also took a welding course for fun.

He still has no idea what he wants to do if/when he leaves the Marines, but he's got time to figure it out.

In the meantime, he has friends in college who may or may not have jobs when they graduate.  And a couple of them really don't know what they want to do, either.

97

It would help with costs if colleges would do away with electives that have no bearing on your degree and cover topics you either don't give a shit about or can learn on your own for free on the internets.

98

It would help with costs if colleges would do away with electives that have no bearing on your degree and cover topics you either don't give a shit about or can learn on your own for free on the internets.

the first two years of college are a total waste.

It is unbelievable to me that you pay tens of thousand of dollars to be told what you can and can't take.  I could have had my history degree in two years if I didn't have to take mandatory classes in other subjects.

99 Jane he did absolutely the right thing. My parents wanted me to go to college, but I wanted an adventure not just a job. By the time I got out of the Nav I could handle college. Raised all the hell I wanted and still graduated with a decent GPA. BS major, but a decent GPA. He'll be just fine.

100

I guess everyone has moved onto Gabe's World Cup thread.

Yay! Soccer.

101 #101  I know he did.  He recently said he's going to take an on-line course in military history, which he has always loved. 

102 *rofl*

During my fertile years, I lived in Iowa, where telling guys I was an engineer meant there would be no second date.  My smarts do not extent to that special female "life knowledge" I'm told is more important than math, or I might have figured out sooner that was a bad choice.

My nephews are too young to know for sure, but if they ask my advice, I plan on steering them toward the military out of high school. If their Mimi wants to pull the "everyone in our family goes to college" shit, I'll smack her upside the head with the 2022 version of the G.I. Bill.

103 Upperclassmen in high school taking transferable core credit community college coursework are doing themselves a HUGE financial favor.

Finding GOOD community colleges matters. Austin's suck big time as an educational rip-off beyond "continuing ed" image. Whereas, the community college network in Arizona was established credibly on par with university coursework and texts and FACULTY, with respectable transferable credits to universities.

Gaining initial training in a reliable trade while putting yourself through school part-time is a most respectable manner of growing up before graduating.

Mechanics have a most stable enterprise. Businesses requiring contract per job better plan for bad times and save while times are good. White collar nurses and medical technicians are stable.

Service careers will require perpetual training to meet government trial laywers' and big business legislated mandates. Despite being a journeyman or having completed apprenticeship, every new product or technology will be accompanied by a mandate to attend a training course to become certified as required by laws that would no longer recognize on the job training as effective--AS IF certification or any diploma guarantees that you have the experience to immediately function on the job. And pay union dues for your own sweat, as if all the labor laws enacted don't exist.

Securing our economy so as to PERMIT employment requires achieving certain public opinions in order to rescind Marxism from governance.

104 100 Half agree, half disagree. Some basics in language and math should always be required, but the electives and fluff do need trimming. I suspect half the requirements on credit hours away from the core course of study are to create full employment for academic types. Still, folks should have to learn to write coherently, do useful math competently, and put together a convincing argument that doesn't bear resemblance to 8-year-olds on a playground. All things colleges are currently failing on badly...

105 Another plus for the trade school...you seldom hear the professor/teacher/indoctrinator waste your time telling you how Amerikkka is the locus of evil in the world. And, now that I think on it, you don't have to wear your Che t-shirt every day unless you want to.

106

Upperclassmen in high school taking transferable core credit community college coursework are doing themselves a HUGE financial favor.

I took a Statistics course in highschool and received college credit for it. All i had to do was fill out a form and pay 90 bucks. It was a steal.

I wish I would have taken advantage of summer classes offered to highschool students at my local college. It is an easy and cheap way to get credits for college.

107

My husband doesn't think we should pay for college for the kids. He borrowed money from his parents and actually paid it back, but most of it was paid for by an ROTC scholarship.

I don't necessarily agree, but I don't intend to throw large sums of money at them to explore a liberal arts degree just because it's there.

108 I think this thing of "no success without college" that's beat into kids' heads from day 1 will soon be re-examined.

109

100

Half agree, half disagree. Some basics in language and math should always be required, but the electives and fluff do need trimming. I suspect half the requirements on credit hours away from the core course of study are to create full employment for academic types.

Still, folks should have to learn to write coherently, do useful math competently, and put together a convincing argument that doesn't bear resemblance to 8-year-olds on a playground. All things colleges are currently failing on badly...

That is why I said it was a total waste. My english and math classes were harder in highschool than at college. I had to take 12 credits of philosphy at college. That is 4 classes. What a f'ing waste of my time.

The flaw in your premise is that colleges these days require math, science, and language classes in the first two years. May don't anymore. They require philosphy, communication,  and other wasteful classes. I was required to take more philosophy classes than math or science combined. And colleges consider psychology to be a science class.

Also, if you are not planning on getting a job that involves too much math related work, then the chances are good you learned all you need to know in highschool.

110

They also went into great detail about how people treated money, such as being careful about expenses yet willing to pay a LOT, vs people who just didn't spend anything. 

I get so twitchy about that. I like having money but I also like stuff. (Not decorative stuff; I missed out on the gene for that.)

Monday: I'm not buying anything, we don't need anything, I don't want anything.

Tuesday: oh yeh, gotta buy Father's Day presents.

Wednesday: the scale broke, order a new one from Amazon, oh look another book in that series the girl loves. Oh, and I need a couple science books for the kids.

Wednesday pm: car repairs for $700.

Thursday: lunch out because of having to take husband back across town to pick up car.

etc.

Okay, now I"m not going to spend any money...

111
Ben,

My wife and I took a woodworking fundamentals class at Woodcraft a couple of years ago.  It was a little pricey, but the schedule worked for us.  It was twelve hours over four nights (Wed & Thu in two consecutive weeks).

I recommend it.  I had taken wood shop in high school, but I had little interest in it then.  I had done a lot of around-the-house basic carpentry stuff in the interim, but that is not very closely related to woodworking.

My wife was fascinated by it.  The class filled many gaps left by my indifference/immaturity when I took shop in high school. 

112 I went to college and have only used my degree about 1/3 of my adult working life.  My favorite jobs had nothing to do with my degree.  My kid went to a Vo Ed high school.   As he said, he could teach the computer classes at his "regular high school" and wasn't interested in studying sociology,etc..  He went on to tech school on a partial scholarship and worked part-time to defray the costs.  He now has had a high paying job in a field that he loves for several years and has had other offers from numerous companies.  Best advice, find out what you absolutely love to do, find a job where you can do it.  Barring that, find a job that contributes something, that you can do well,  and gives you either time or money to do what you love. 

113

Mike O

was it at a local community college?

 

Concerning work around the house. It may not be wood working related, but the wood work breed a familiarity with tools and how they are to be used.

 

 

114 I agree and disagree. 1. Disagree point: It's typically easier to go to school right out of college because you aren't really bound to any "life" (wife, kids, home, other debts), but it is not always the right time for some people. 2. Agree point: I found my 2nd degree to be a freaking breeeeeeze at my late 20's than my early 20's. @20, I had much different goals than when I was 27, married and with children. @27 I was more focused, honed and experienced. I think the way to go about it is to give high school kids TRAINING in the field they want to go into and actually get them working in it BEFORE they get out of high-school so they can get a job using that skill and then hit college when the need for upper movement is required. By this time, they'll have several years of industry experience and school would be a cake walk. I know that after programming for 5 years before I went back to school to get my "programming" degree (for lack of a better description), I actually tested out of 6 classes, saved thousands of dollars in doing so, finished a year early and graduated Salutatorian (missed Val by .01 points, literally). POINT: Teach your kids young, get them experienced before they go out into world.. you know, kind of like how it was done half a century ago. Where did we get off track with that? or more precisely... when?

115

AlexTheChick: My mom tells people that she's known since I was 8 that she wasn't getting grandkids from me.

And yet you wonder why the civilized world is rapidly going extinct.

HeatherRadish: During my fertile years...

I thought you were still in your mid-30s.

 

116 Contractors in Sacramento are low-balling bids and traveling out of their traditional work areas to towns as far away as Chico, Grass Valley, Modesto and the Bay Area (90-120miles).

I just looked at a buddies bid sheet, he is bidding against 15 other contractors and the job is tiny. He is an established industrial pipping systems plumber with 40 years of experience - his pop was a plumber. Lately, he's been shagging any job that walks his way - toilet/hot water tank replacement jobs.

His brother is a HVAC/plumber and that market has cratered.

San Mateo community college has one of the finest electronics departments in the US. Foothill and Skyline CC's offer excellent automotive certification courses. Butte CC offers fire and police academies.

California Regional Occupational Programs offer 9-11month/6hr a day certification programs.

117

For those of you who hire, how willing are you to hire someone without a degree, if you usually hire people with degrees?

I had written more, but it got eaten. That's the basic question, though.

 

118 The math you use for the replacement of a 5 ton condensing unit is way off. Condensing unit $2,000 Copper fittings $20 refrigerant $50 Pad $40 Driers $20 And if my techs take 1 full day to replace a unit, they will be fired. Any HVAC tech with 3-4 years on the jpb should be making $30-40 an hour, if they want to work in NYC that number could go up to $50/hr. This is the NY metro area so I understand things are expensive, but the problem is that, nobody is going into the field. I put a lot of the blame on High Schools and their counselors. In order to show that they have a great school system, they push everybody into college, regardless of whether that person drops out a year later. They can always show a high college bound percentage and therefore raise taxes to supposedly support this.

119 112 I guess this is a question of where I'm coming from. I saw the same thing in the late 80s when I hit college the first time; comparing it with 2006-2008 when I went in for another run at a smaller school is like apples and oranges, which is sad in and of itself. Your point assumes a lot about the nature of what the kids get in high school; what may be true for you (and certainly was for me) isn't even close to accurate in many cases. Frankly the state of the 'basic' skills in a lot of the younger students would have required a lot of work to be merely appalling. Doesn't seem to be much actual useful educating taking place in school anymore, if what I saw is any indication... As for math, science, etc., I think we have a difference in philosophical basis here. One of the good gentlemen in my high school education once opined that nobody should be allowed to operate anything they didn't understand the principles of. I take this to the next level, expanding it past technology to other fields; frankly a responsible participant in representative democracy SHOULD seek to have at least a basic familiarity with many fields, if only because of the nature of the decisions to be made. How many times do we decry decisions being made by people who know absolutely nothing about them? I tell you now, there is a cure for that problem...but it takes work, and personal commitment. I know I'm a minority on this point, but I'm sticking to it--if your grasp of economics is wishful thinking, your view of technology resembles magic, and your ideas of human nature bear no resemblance to the actual animal, you're not going to make good decisions. OK, enough ranting on that subject. Maybe we shouldn't require as much side study, but the option should be there, and some basics should be taught. Besides, you'd be amazed how useful some of it actually proves to be...

120
Ben,

was it at a local community college?

No--Woodcraft is a retailer for woodworking stuff. We couldn't fit the schedule of Adult Ed courses at our county schools, and the regional CC does not offer shop because it's available with Adult Ed.

Concerning work around the house. It may not be wood working related, but the wood work breed a familiarity with tools and how they are to be used.

Yes and no.  At a very basic level, that is true, but basic around-the-house carpentry is done on a gross scale.  Woodworking starts at a level at least an order of magnitude more precise than the most exacting basic carpentry.  As such, the tools are both quite different and operated quite differently.

121

Where did we get off track with that? or more precisely... when?

GI Bill and other ways of saying "college is a right".

Not to say it was all bad. Really not. Just swung too far and is starting to swing back.

122 alexthechick -- Do you know about the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator? If you do, are you an INTP?

123 Still, folks should have to learn to write coherently, do useful math competently, and put together a convincing argument that doesn't bear resemblance to 8-year-olds on a playground. If you can't do this by the time you graduate from High School, you ought to sue your school district. College is not the place for remedial education training. It is supposed to be a place of higher education. I've often argued that if you have a university system that 80% of the population can pass, then you have a completely broken university system. Only about 30-40% of the population at large (those on the right-hand slope of the bell-curve, in other words) should be able to graduate from a decent university.

124

I would give my eye teeth to know welding.

There is a community college, about 45 minutes' drive from here, with an outstanding program in welding - which means about 1.5 hours of driving for each class - but I really seriously covet the idea of going for it.

If it were just a little bit less of a drive, then I would be all over it, like white on rice...

 

125 129 Agreed. But we have the situation we have, and until we can arrange a different one, to paraphrase, we go to school with the skills we have. If someone came from a school that didn't deliver, some capacity should exist for remedy, be that extra night school or sticking in high school an extra year. We can work both tracks at once, and until we no longer have to, we should.

126

Hire homeschoolers!

 

127 The math you use for the replacement of a 5 ton condensing unit is way off.

I was being very conservative. 

128 I joined the US Navy as a Boiler Tech. Upon discharge I found a job in a high pressure boiler plant. I am now a licensed stationary engineer making a little more than $50 per hour. I went back to college at night to get my bachelors degree in history which I use to argue witrh my fellow morons. I think the best way to go is learn a trade for free in the US Navy. Then, use the GI bill to go to college. Then.....start life and good luck!

129 HeatherRadish at June 18, 2010 10:05

That was then. This is now.

When our kids were young, we encouraged them to consider the long term benefits of military careers. But they chose otherwise.

Our daughter spent years after high school traveling and working before deciding to return to school. She's now transferred from community college to TX A&M majoring in engineering. Her generation of girls never had to suffer the burdensome societal sexist attitude that real-girls-must-be-weak-and-dumb in order to be socially acceptable, i.e. attractive to men.

My sister's sons graduated in engineering and served in the military as officers and are doing very well in life, happily married with children. But they didn't fight combat, having been stationed in Japan.

I do not support Obama. I do support our military troops sent to combat.

Nonetheless, given the perpetual years in combat presently required of our enlisted personnel, were my children graduating from high school today, I would not encourage them to enlist prior to earning an undergraduate degree. Our kids' friends who enlisted as privates after 9/11 and served in Iraqi combat have completely lost their peace of mind and become miserable alcoholics. So young to end up writing off life for themselves. It's hard enough figuring out life at that age without being in a war, particularly a war meant to win the hearts and minds of the Islamic Jihadists. How on earth, given the publicity of Afghan's VAST mineral and oil wealth, are "the enemy" going to deliver their hearts and minds to American "victors" in this war? And although Iraqis enjoyed their democratic elections, the government we helped them to build is as corrupt and cruel as Saddam Hussein's was. But it's in Obama's interest to not see or publicize that, or make too much of Karzai's corruption, either.

War against Islam is an exercise in futility, even if administered swiftly as initially promised, shock and awe. Even had shock and awe been understood as total destruction, i.e. annihilation of the population, futility would remain given any population remnants from other Muslim nations, or any sense of guilt by Americans.

Somehow taking the war to them instead of fighting it here has become the federal default of border security compounding the federal refusal to enforce immigration law AND RULE OF LAW. While fighting warfare "over there" our Constitution is being dismantled at home.

130

College isn't for everyone, obviously.

If you're going to have kids and you expect them to go to college, then don't have them unless you have a plan to pay for their education.  Then, if they're not the type or you get scholarships/grants, then you have the extra money, and the kids don't start out in the world covered in debt.

That's the way it was with my parents and that's the way it is with our kids.  It flabbergasts me to think of any parents who just pop out kids without having a plan in place to help secure their success with the education they'll need to achieve it.

131 Adding AFTER I hit post...showing a student the courses they took to learn what they already should have, and then pointing out what they paid to correct the deficiency...I can think of no better way to drive home to the next generation the need to fix our schools. Nothing drives a point home better than showing what it costs in solid terms...

132 While there is nothing wrong with the trades, careers in the trades tend to be shorter due to the physical demands - how many 60 year old roofers are working today? On a different note: I attended RPI, and a couple of my fraternity brothers attended "Happy Valley" to get their grades back up after flunking out. The both returned to get their bachelor's degree. The first two years at the "Tute" are brutal for students who were able to coast through high school, being challenged for the first time, academically. Admittedly, a maturation process had to occur. The value of HVCC was to promote effective study habits in a learning environment that was not "sink or swim".

133 Only about 30-40% of the population at large (those on the right-hand slope of the bell-curve, in other words) should be able to graduate from a decent university.

The dropout rate for incoming freshmen at UC San Diego was around 80% in the early 1980's.  The first year drop-out rate for my incoming grad school class was 50%.

134 #135 My Marine son will be deploying to Afghanistan early next year (or earlier).  I really hope what you say doesn't happen to my kid. He's not in the infantry, he's in vehicle support.  He's a strong, moral young man.  I hope he won't get messed up the way you describe.

135 Have I mentioned that I hate windows applications with the heat of 10,000 suns? Because I do.

136 For those of you who hire, how willing are you to hire someone without a degree, if you usually hire people with degrees?

This is the other half of the problem.

Once an employer is subject to responding to the Office of Federal Contracts Compliance Programs, it will almost *need* to require 4-year degrees for any job that does not have certification prerequisites. 

The bar is set very low for being covered.

Requiring a 4-year degree for exempt positions is still a generally accepted screening practice under the law.  In many markets, not requiring the degree will lead to a spectacular failure to meet the Affirmative-Action Program requirements.

Arithmetically, requiring the degree vastly reduces the number that goes in the denominators when you calculate your selection rates for protected classes.

137 I would agree with this blog post, with the addition of some business training, or business experience.

It would increase the chance for success by a factor of 10.

138 It also depends on the time and the market. I know a guy who graduated with an engineering degree from Case back in the late 50s and many of the graduates had a hard time finding a job.  Just too many graduates for the market then.  He worked as a civil engineer for a while, but ended up as a carpenter( he had worked summers to pay for college),  and then went on to own his own construction company.  Paid better and he got winter's off to go hunting.  LOL

139 130 degree attics aren't fun.

140 At some point in your education, trades or not, you should have the following: Basic understanding of macro and micro economics. A good grasp of statistics. The ability to read, write, and speak in the lingua franca of the place you intend to be employed. (This may require multiple languages, depending.) A basic, honest grounding in history, for your home culture and whatever other such you may be dealing with. A good, general grounding in How People Work. Psychology, sociology and such get a deservedly bad rep in these parts, but if you weed out the politics and fadspeak there's some useful stuff there. Some founding in the sciences, preferably ones related to your field, but encouraging others as well. Arts strictly optional, but they can't hurt, honestly. None of these should -require- more than one class each to teach what you need, on a college level. Much of it should be received before that point, but there should be room to fit in whatever you're lacking. The option to finish in three years by dropping electives should be present.

141 Still, folks should have to learn to write coherently, do useful math competently, and put together a convincing argument that doesn't bear resemblance to 8-year-olds on a playground.

Sorry, Monty, but in the world we have now, there is no profit in limiting oneself to the rules of logic and facts based in reality.

A few months back, every lefty asshole was kicking around the concept of "epistemic closure on the right."  That's their little pet name for adherence to truth and rejection of fallacious thought.

Until the rewards (e.g. Retarded Barry as POTUS) for engaging in "8-year-olds on a playground" argumentation are replaced with dire consequences, things are going to keep getting worse.

142 Great, Purple, now you've let the cat out of the bag: GIBBS: "Adminstration to Crack Down on Air-Conditioning, Plumbing Profiteering" (AP)

143 130 degree attics aren't fun.

Nope, but $125/hr makes it bearable.

144 Sorry, Monty, but in the world we have now, there is no profit in limiting oneself to the rules of logic and facts based in reality. Nature is not fooled. You cannot live in fantasyland forever. My economic rants every day boil down to this simple fact: Nature is not fooled. And "Nature", you know, is just a word we use to describe the reality of everyday things. Human beings have the lamentable habit of acting in accordance with how we wish things to be rather than how they are. It causes untold harm and suffering, but -- it's human nature. Our educational system is fundamentally broken. It has been for years, but the pace has accelerated. A youngster can now graduate from high school -- twelve years of education; thirteen if they had some Kindergarten and Head Start -- without knowing how to read or write at a basic level. Our public schools are jobs programs for adults, not educational systems for our children. The harm this is wreaking can be seen every day: the general level of fecklessness and incompetence in this country is enormous, and getting larger every day. Our politicians are mostly useless at least in part because they were not taught very well as children and young adults. There is a price to be paid when the level of competence among the citizenry drops below a certain critical thresh-hold. The producers, the competent, smart, and able people who make the world run, will either go elsewhere or simply become dispirited and stop producing. The answer is not to further debase the universities to act as nursemaids to the incompetent and under-educated; it is rather to focus on the gifted and able and competent. A nation that focuses on the dullards at the expense of the best and brightest is not long for this world.

145

Only about 30-40% of the population at large (those on the right-hand slope of the bell-curve, in other words) should be able to graduate from a decent university.

It depends on what portion of the population you're talking about.

In a classical Caucasian population [classical average IQ 100, classical standard deviation 15], you get to IQ 120 at about the 91st percentile - i.e. only about 9.1211% of that population can hope to handle "real" college work.

Unfortunately, almost 50% of all newborns in this country are now either Negro, or Mexican Indian illegal alien, and if, as many people fear, their average IQ is about 77.5, and their standard deviation is more like 12, then only 0.000198806 of them [about two one-hundredths of one percent, or about two out of every ten thousand] can hope to attempt to master "real" college work.

For almost everyone else, "real" college would be a complete waste of time [since the subject matter would fly right over their heads, and they would quickly flunk out and be expelled from school].

 

146 151 130 degree attics aren't fun.

Nope, but $125/hr makes it bearable.

Not if your overhead is $120/hr.

147

Wow, PA. I don't know who you are behind the mauve mask, but we might know some of the same people.

Someone with access to these statistics once told me that the grades for transfre juniors and seniors at RPI were higher than their four-years-at RPI classmates' grades. Remember: By this time, they're taking the same the same exact classes. It's comparing apples to apples, and the HVCC graduates preform better.

Plus, after graduating the HVCC grads might also know machining, welding and other practical skills. Not only do these skills make more valuable engineers, but they can also practice the trade if the market for engineers goes dry. Besides, the school that Dr. Bulmer biult while he was president of HVCC is full of modern, world-class facilities.

My experience at a comminuty college (FMCC -- Go, Raiders!) was different than at my other alma matri. I think it's because there were so many returning students, people in their 30s and 40s. As a result, the instructors aren't pedagogues the way they are in a classroom of 18- to 22-year-olds. Professors treat all students like grown-ups, and the students act accordingly.

I could go on, but I'm already bogarting the thread.

In short, what you said, PA, and then some.

148

looked up and asked her "what's a dangling participle?"  She looked at me with that blank expression that I see so often in the video game generation and said, "We didn't do that stuff."

You're HR Department probably thought you were hitting on her.

149 A book people here might like: Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work by Matthew Crawford.

150 Ben@86

For Dunbar's course, you'd take a weeks vacation, decamp to Maine (IIRC), and learn by doing in a small group. Tools would be supplied - spokeshaves, planes, a scorp to shape the seat, etc. Very traditional, but you could accomplish things quicker with power tools once you know a little more. His book was for reference and/or for those who didn't/couldn't attend a course. Woodworker's stores, as mentioned, often hold low cost evening courses to hook in new customers for tools.

Fine Woodworking magazine has a lot of interesting articles, probably including building Hitchcock chairs. They also publish books like Dunbar's.

151 Nature is not fooled. You cannot live in fantasyland forever.

Some people--a majority of this country in November 2008--are incapable of learning this until the consequences drop on their heads.  Hell, there is probably a hard core that would not know it even then.

Stupid should hurt.  We, as a society, have made stupid profitable, instead.

152 (But what they don't teach very well at community colleges are speling and proofraeding. Sorry.)

153 Jane D'oh at June 18, 2010 10:41 AM

All the best to your son who represents our finest youth.
God's speed bless him.

154 She looked at me with that blank expression that I see so often in the video game generation and said, "We didn't do that stuff." You didn't use an example, silly! "After asking a very difficult question, the interviewee could not understand Wodeshed and burst into tears."

155 154 151 130 degree attics aren't fun.

Nope, but $125/hr makes it bearable.

Not if your overhead is $120/hr.
Posted by: franksalterego

And not if the hours are limited.

156

Thanks ChuckR. I will look into it.

I've taken 2 vacation and 5 sick days in the past 3 years at work. i am due for a vacation.

157 Since the University's were built to support a much larger demographic - the Baby Boomers - why haven't we been closing them down?

158 I work in higher ed and I agree with you. If your family is rich, go ahead and do 4 years at a college.  It's fun, and it's a great way to grow up a little and pursue different avenues of knowledge.

However, at our State U, only 15% graduate in 4 years; most take six. That's a lot of time and money. Most of the teachers of the general ed courses are freelancers who also teach at the local CC, so why not go there for a cheaper price?

159

... looked up and asked her "what's a dangling participle?" 

Desparately needing the job, this rule of grammar eluded the candidate.

160

157

Sadly true, Ben.

it probably didn't help that the next sentence out of your mouth was ," Wanna find out, baby?"

161 looked up and asked her "what's a dangling participle?" 

Desparately needing the job, this rule of grammar eluded the candidate.

the rule was pretty desparate.

162 I agree with the post....  but, dammit, if you have the brains for it, we should be pushing kids into math, science, and engineering.

Tons of great jobs and lots of scholarships.

163

I would have liked to have joined the millitary, but I didn't. Go to college for a real degree like mine (electrical engineering).  And to the poster above, I do 40 hr weeks most of the time and make well north of 40K. However it is drilling related, so I dunno how long that will last.

As for education, I taught physics labs in college. Most of my students were 'pre-engineering' but almost none could do even basic algebra. So I taught my students algebra in the library.  The chairman of the pysics dept. called me in his office because my lab sections were acing all of their tests, but the others weren't. He thought maybe some shenanigans were going on. I told him 'I just teach them algebra. They understand the physics, but can't do the math part.' 

Its sad that even 'pre-engineering' students are leaving high school without knowing the most important foundation in their chosen field, mathematics. Like another poster said, they should sue their school district.

164 A thousand times agreed, Monty. The recent schooling I mention ended in a 4.0 GPA and Valedictorian status for my course of study. I came to the conclusion that my primary advantage was that, on top of life and prior college, I had an insurmountable advantage over my younger fellows--a real, useful, rigorous high school education, where I learned how to make proper use of the 8 pounds of tissue between my ears. (Thank God for Catholic schools.) Colleges deal with the students they're given. There's no point working on them until the K-12 end can be overhauled or replaced.

165

It's sad that even 'pre-engineering' students are leaving high school without knowing the most important foundation in their chosen field, mathematics.

It's pathetic and dismaying that so many students don't learn arithmetic and basic algebra. These make up an essential basis for basic life skills. There are a lot of people my age (mid 40s) who don't aspire to be millionaires, yet they think they'll retire at age 67 and live off their savings and Social Security. People in my generation are going to need at least a million dollars just to get by. Really: The poorest "millionaires" 25 years from now will truly be poor.

2035 is going to be a bad year, people.

166 After hitting on the cute job-seeker, the HR department flogged Wodeshed and transferred him to the remedial-ed wing.

167 My HVAC guy lives in my upper middle class neighborhood AND has a beach house.

168 Colleges deal with the students they're given. They're not being given anything. They are seeking obviously-unqualified students purely and simply to bring in more revenue. More than 50% of the students on any given University campus should not be there, and in all probability will not graduate; and even if they do get some useless "Studies" degree, they'll never find a job that offsets the time and money they lost chasing the degree in the first place. It's a con job, and a pretty rotten one.

169 dammit, if you have the brains for it, we should be pushing kids into math, science, and engineering.

A few years out in the field first will provide some valuable insight into how shit works (or doesn't) though. 

ex.  My neighbor is an A/C tech and needed some help since he's getting on in years so I went out and helped him with  these units that needed field repair because the manufacturer's filters had clogged and their head pressure had shot up like crazy.

We cut one of the failed filters apart and it was clear to me that it was a really poor mechanical design.  There was an internal cone shaped filter (pointy end towards the outlet) held in by only a crimp around the inlet side.  As the filter starts to collect crap, the tension on the crimp increases dramatically and the crimp fails allowing the cone to be blown hard against the small outlet pipe orifice.  When that happened, suddenly the effective surface area became about 3/8" diameter and flow essentially stopped at that point.  All it would have taken was some sort of little hollow honeycomb standoff supporting the pointy end of the filter element from smacking hard against the outlet and all the pressure on the crimp would have been relieved and it would never have failed.

Having a real world understanding of how shit fails is valuable experience.

170 Another transfer to RPI here (not from HVCC but a SUNY)... The HVCC transfers were indeed great but it's also important to consider that the ones that you'd see at RPI were the ones who had their shit together enough to get in. The same could be said of all of the transfers. The reason, it seems to me, is that tenure-track (or tenured) professors at a serious research university are there to do research, not teach freshmen. Time spent teaching is time that could have been used to write an NSF, DOE or NIH proposal. And funded proposals are the benchmarks for tenure & success (as you can't do research without grad students, and you can't pay for grad students with monopoly money). University types will deny this every time, and they're lying in your face. Teaching is irrelevant to tenure and promotion at research universities. The kind of person lecturing on chemistry or calculus at a CC is genuinely interested in teaching. That's his primary objective. HUUUGE difference in motivation. As the U bubble gets worse, expect to see research universities clamp down on transfers and take in more freshmen to balance the revenue streams.

171

Get into the energy business. Really.

I design building control systems for a living. We call them Energy Management Systems now because the word energy gets owners all excited. I have more work than I can do so we just hired another guy (BSME new grad) to help.

I do a bunch of controls design work on the side too. I'm doing some design work at home for the government with (snicker) stimulous dollars. So I'm gettin myself all stimulated. I'm going to buy a garage door with the money so some garage door guy guy will get some of that also.

So, look for work on the solar panel bubble before it collapses or on anything with the word "green" or "energy" before people realize that solar and wind are VERY expensive without massive taxpaer subsidies.

172 Not all colleges have turned into that muck, Monty...but yeah, sadly you're quite right. I guess it's a matter of trying to see which is reacting to what, and the head does ache trying to sort it out. How to deal with it, though? Rework what we have? Gut the institutions and start over? All at once or in phases? Ditch the whole thing and try a new paradigm entirely? This is an honest question--I like to hear some suggested remedies with my diagnoses, on account of 'you're screwed' not being terribly useful for the redemption of a society. (Yes, I like nice, realistic plans. Probably why I'm constitutionally incapable of voting D...)

173
Both my daughters went to a four-year college immediately after high school. They attended small liberal-arts colleges in Iowa, and were helped by generous scholarship money. Neither graduated with a lot of debt, and it was the right thing for them to have done at the time.

Both my sons enlisted in the Marines immediately after high school. Both spent time in the Sandbox. After they were discharged, one went into professional diving, and is now working in oil business in the Gulf of Mexico (what little of it there is left, after BP and The One got through with it), while the other enrolled in the state university and is wrapping up his degree in accounting. It was the right thing for them to have done.

I'm proud of all four of them, obviously. On leaving high school, they made mature, responsible decisions, and have done well on their chosen paths. A great depends on a realistic evaluation of your resources, skills, and ambitions. But what you shouldn't do, ever, is go to college simply because you don't know what else to do - to spend four years evading a decision about what you want to do with your life. College is simply too expensive to permit a young person to take a four-year vacation from life.

174 A few years back, my local paper had an article about how some high-paying blue collar jobs (some paying over 100K a year) were going begging. In some instances, unions and employers were doing outreach to entice workers to take free training programs that would lead to a guaranteed job. But there were few takers. There was a stigma attached to working with one's hands, and the parents wanted their kids to go to college.

175 The reason, it seems to me, is that tenure-track (or tenured) professors at a serious research university are there to do research, not teach freshmen.

My graduate adviser at UCSD had office hours for like 2 hours a week.  He was the freaking invisible man.

176 I too went to community college in my first year. In my first calculus class, the professor memorized the names of every student in the class. He would seek you out in the student's lounge if you missed an assignment. All of the professors made it clear that we weren't in high school anymore, and they expected us to work hard and do well. My second year was at a major university. The quality of teaching plummeted. Only in the third and fourth years, where the class sizes shrunk and the topics became more specialized, did the quality of teaching improve. I feel sorry for those students who went to that big university in their first year, for they likely had no one to set them on the right track.

177 I think the reason why university degrees have devolved into little more than advanced vocational certifications is that the general education component has itself decayed.

Once upon a time, back when Liberal meant Libertarian instead of Communist, and the humanities were not all eaten up with the cancer of post-modernism, a well-educated person was someone who knew HOW to think.

Logic, reasoning, and the open exchange of ideas were what someone learned when they went to college.  Crazy marxist nonsense was there, but so were many other ideas, and all of these ideas had to compete with one another in an ongoing open debate.  Marxism, its analogues and ideological partners, don't fare very well in an open debate with ideas that are actually valid.

Today of course our universities have completely betrayed the Classical Liberal values that once made them great.  Go into any humanities department and you'll find people who belong in a padded cell (or a prison cell in some cases) rather than a lecture hall. 

As a result, the only departments that a university has which offer anything of value are those that teach a practical skill.

I work at a university.  The people who go into fields where the nutters rule come out as nutters themselves more often than not, flaming far-left retarded ignoramuses.

Meanwhile the people who study engineering, hard science, business, and other fields where reality cannot be denied without dire consequences, leave school with valuable skills.

I don't expect this to change, but I do hope that the nutter departments continue to see their funding cut. 

Right now the starting salary for a Poli-Sci professor in a tenure track position is about 45k a year.  Meanwhile a finance professor starts out at 130k a year.  That Poli-Sci professor will be lucky if he makes more than 70k a year, while the sky's the limit for the finance guy.  This tells you everything you need to know about the value of these two fields. 

178 Posted by: Lonny Eckert at June 18, 2010 08:44 AM (pyWwh)

wow RPI and GATech seem to be on two sides of the universe.  I know people who went to both.  The RPI guys had a little bit of the "snooty" and the GAtech guys were humble but brilliant.   So you are a ramblin wreck ha...lol
They always hated that Carter went there.

179

DarkLord --

What you outlined in #148 is close to what they teach in European high schools, and I'm all for that. Languages are useful, and they need to be taught early. Double the arithmetic and algebra: Twice as much in elementary school, and complement the math for science we get in high school with math for business and finance, including elementary accounting. Social psychology might be a good course at the high school level; it provides a foundation for all economics. Limit the popular culture studies (and yes, pop culture can be rigorously studied) to one college-level course and to appropriate majors. Get rid of stress management and similar for-credit courses altogether.

At the other end, the shenanigans involving grades and grade-point averages has to stop, as do the meaningless graduation rates, placement rates, etc. Maybe these figures once meeant something; now, they're marketing gimmicks for people stuck in the good-old days and the easily swayed. Another gimmick is an honor code. These are worse than meaningless.

The main thing you, personally, can do is stop relying on the schools to provide all of this. What schools provide are only part of someone's education.

FWIW.

180

Jean: Since the University's were built to support a much larger demographic - the Baby Boomers - why haven't we been closing them down?

Rest assured, in another ten years or so, with the looming horror of dysgenic fertility, legions of [former] schools and colleges and universities in this nation will look like The Fabulous Ruins of Detroit.

Of course, at that point, the two halves of the nation will probably have split up into new Blue State / Red State nations, and goodness only knows how the two societies will be structured at that point.

 

181 It's a good suggestion for many people who really don't know what they want to take in college but are good with their hands but it's not for everybody. Unfortunately, there is very low status attached to being a journeyman even if you have a graduate degree and make more than a professor. Kids these days are willing to go into hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt so they have a shot at becoming investment bankers, doctors, or lawyers. Making a good living simply isn't enough anymore. People are desperate to impress others and you aren't going to be impressing many people if you make $100-200k fixing refridgerators.

182 PA@181

amenable to a big hose clamp or wire coat hangar fix?

183 amenable to a big hose clamp or wire coat hangar fix?

Not really, we just removed/bypassed the failed ones and put external dryer/filters on.

184 191 Wait, what? European high schools do a better job providing minimum education than US schools? I'd have thought they'd gone off into the Far Whack Beyond by now...

185

DarkLordOfTheIntarWebs: How to deal with it, though? Rework what we have? Gut the institutions and start over? All at once or in phases? Ditch the whole thing and try a new paradigm entirely? This is an honest question--I like to hear some suggested remedies with my diagnoses, on account of 'you're screwed' not being terribly useful for the redemption of a society.

You're screwed.

The nihilists have destroyed the modern world.

[Actually, it would be more accurate to say that the modern world is, by definition, nothing more than a rapidly accelerating descent into nihilism, death, and extinction.]

There is no hope for elitist society or the Blue States in general.

Those folks aren't making any babies, and they're already effectively extinct.

If you had even a rudimentary familiarity with demographics, then you'd be experiencing more than a few sleepless nights, thinking about that awful maelstrom of dysgenic fertility which is now on the horizon - and set to mow us down over the course of the next decade or so.

Or at least those of us who aren't busy making plans to survive it.

 

186 Why go to college? Well, back in another life when I hired people for what then was the largest consumer goods company in the world, I required a college degree before I'd even interview you. For a sales job. Now the job did not actually require college. My best sales person had no college. But when we advertised for sales people I'd get literally thousands of applications. I had to find some way to thin that herd. Requiring a college degree was one way. I bet that I overlooked numerous hard-working, enthusiastic, and potentially useful employees. But the best way, which was to actually put the person to work for a couple of months on a trial basis, just wasn't legally available to me. So I required a college degree for jobs that did not need one.

187 How many locales require a city permit to put in a new water heater? It used to be a DIY thing with me, but then the city says got to have a permit. The permit costs half as much as the heater. Last one I had put in was $800 installed by a plumber.

188

rawmuse: the city says got to have a permit

Move.

Now.

Not tomorrow, or the day after.

Now.

 

189 @200, yeah I am fast trying to figure that one out, pal. I am deeply rooted here, all my clients are here, got a house mostly paid for. Family, friends, the whole deal. Probably what happened is some DIY guy screwed up his install and burnt down the whole block or something.

190 What you guys are forgetting is that education is BIG BUSINESS.  I think it is fascinating that this is the only area he won't touch.  He doesn't mind messing with the banks and the car companies and possibly oil...but he leaves education alone.  Is education completely unionized?  That may be the answer.

191

Probably what happened is some DIY guy screwed up his install and burnt down the whole block or something.

Not to be too pedantic, but I can pretty much guarantee that you're living amongst a bunch of Blue State nihilists, which means that your city is about to go DOWN for the count [sometime in the next five to ten years].

Get to a Red State locale which has some hope of surviving the coming maelstrom.

Seriously - I am not being facetious or melodramatic here.

Get out, while the getting's good.

In a worst case scenario, sell your bidness to a Negro or a Mexican Indian [mulatto or mestizo] with a line of credit from some "person of color" gubermint funding program.

But get out, while you still can.

 

192

curious: He doesn't mind messing with the banks and the car companies and possibly oil...but he leaves education alone.  Is education completely unionized?

Modern "education" forms the priesthood of the pagan religion of nihilism.

Obama himself was one of the priests [albeit untenured] at the UChicago School of Law.

Obama is a nihilist - he seeks the destruction of our nation.

 

193 Oh, I am in the bluest of blue areas, that I can assure you. I am in Nancy's district.

194 197 I do have a pretty fair familiarity with demographics. None of what you mentioned is even near to a surprise, I've been watching it happen for a while now. But it's not my nature to go down without a fight, I guess. Looking for things that can be 'crash proofed' and act as the nucleus for something After is probably much more useful than bemoaning 'The End Is Near' in any event. In other words, thanks, I knew that. Now come up with ideas on how to get through it and rebuild on the other side.

195

European high schools do a better job providing minimum education than US schools?

An Irish guy I used to work for told me that high school in Ireland is five years. It was awhile ago, so I may have some details wrong, but I think he told me that the requirements included 5 years of English, 5 yrs of Gaelick, 1 year other modern language, 1 year classical language, 5 yrs history, 4 yrs math, 2 yrs science. (A German guy told me his high school had pretty much the same requirements, except with German instead of English and Gaelick.)

The Irish guy asked about here. I told him a Regents diploma in New York State required 4 yrs English, 4 yrs social studies, 1 "sequence" (which was 3 yrs math or science or foreign language), 1 year math (which can be included in the sequence), 1 year science (also can count toward sequence), 4 years of gym and a half-year of health. Successful completion of most courses included passing a standard statewide Regents test.

Individual schools could award their own diplomas with fewer requirements but these aren't certified by the Board of Regents.

So, yeah, the Europeans have us beat in this regard.

Their techno music is better than ours, too.

196 Mike Rowe, the guy who's on Dirty Jobs, has a real nice project going for promoting the value of "dirty jobs". His website is here

http://www.mikeroweworks.com/

197

Addendum to #207: The five years of high school are only for kids on an academic track. I hear Japan is the same way. The other kids go to trade school instead of high school. So whenever you hear about how our high schoolers' test scores are the worst, it's because the tests guage all American teenagers against only the academically inclined kids in other countries.

Aside: One of the more popular career choices among French students is on how to be a bureaucrat. I think that a college major. No joking.

198

Now come up with ideas on how to get through it and rebuild on the other side.

Re-locate to a [deep-Red] Red State locale. As above: Not tomorrow, or the day after, but NOW.

Purchase ammunition [in multiples of 1000 units, and in excess of 1600fps muzzle velocity, so as to be able to hope to penetrate bullet-proof vests].

Make as many babies as you can [six, eight, ten] before your Baby Mama's womb goes barren.

Homeschool your children.

Scour the used book sites on the internet [now, while the internet still works, and before we start to experience widespread instability of the electrical grid] so as to stockpile older, "politically incorrect" textbooks and history books.

Learn survival trades - small engine repair, large engine repair, welding, electrical work, plumbing [to include potable well-water drilling and septic tank/field laying].

Stockpile older [used] tractors and electrical generators and water pumps and spare parts [spark plugs and carburetors and ignition coils, etc etc etc] in anticipation of the day when we [the entire world] can no longer produce them in quantity [and that day is not all that long from now].

Divest of any and all real estate holdings you have, especially in Blue State areas, where there is not a [sufficient] succeeding generation of Caucasian youngsters to support the astronomical real estate prices.

Etc etc etc - I could go on in this vein from now until the cows come home...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

199 Mike Rowe should have a Cabinet post. (But he's used to doing real work and not pretend work, so maybe not.) He's got the kind of attitude towards work that I wish more people had. I mean, yeah: he makes a shitload more money for doing those "dirty jobs" than the people who do them for a living, and he can parachute in, work for a day, and then fly off. But he doesn't look down on the folks we works with, and he does his best to give an honest day's work in whatever he does. He did more than anyone I can think of to give manual-labor jobs back the honor and respect they used to command. Not everyone is born to be a physicist or a neurosurgeon. Most of us aren't. There's no shame in doing a hard and dirty job; they are the rule, not the exception, in this world. I've had shitty jobs before (literally shitty; I was a cowboy/farmhand for a couple of summers), but I'm not ashamed of those jobs. In many ways I felt like I earned that money in a more fundamental way than I earn my money now.

200 Colleges deal with the students they're given.

They're not being given anything. They are seeking obviously-unqualified students purely and simply to bring in more revenue. More than 50% of the students on any given University campus should not be there, and in all probability will not graduate; and even if they do get some useless "Studies" degree, they'll never find a job that offsets the time and money they lost chasing the degree in the first place.

It's a con job, and a pretty rotten one.

Thus endeth the lesson, thus endeth  the thread.

201
I mean, yeah: he makes a shitload more money for doing those "dirty jobs" than the people who do them for a living, and he can parachute in, work for a day, and then fly off. But he doesn't look down on the folks we works with, and he does his best to give an honest day's work in whatever he does. He did more than anyone I can think of to give manual-labor jobs back the honor and respect they used to command.

He also provided the answer to that bullshit "jobs Americans won't do". When one of my son's teachers vomited that up, my boy raised his hand and asked if she'd ever heard of a sceptic diver. She quickly changed the subject.

202 I'm new to commenting here but have enjoyed going all in this past week, though socking as Rosie 'O Donnell and Sean Penn left me feeling dirty and used. Thanks to everyone for making me feel like part of the family- one day I hope to share in a hobo kill with you. I have a differing opinion regarding the 4 years in a trade is as good as a college degree line, abandoning flowery words and flow charts for fellow Morons: FUCKING BULLSHIT That fucking line served as the catalyst for my electrical career (master electrician with business) and if I could build a time machine, that asshole with a college degree and no trade experience would be in a dsl consulting box heading for Medtronic to be used as an example of extreme cranial trauma and open choke shotgun spread patterning example. Go to a community college, attain a general education degree, and if you like, FALL BACK on a trade. I'd put everyone more detailedge here, but I'm way late to the thread, so unless some Moron explains to me how to post links and use italics in my comments (I is Dumb), your not gettin' any. Call me Joran.

203 Dear peons, It is absolutely imperative that the fantasy, that our silver tomgues are worth more to the world than your calloused hand, be preserved. Warmest regards, Your betters

204

wirenutdh: That fucking line served as the catalyst for my electrical career (master electrician with business) and if I could build a time machine, that asshole with a college degree and no trade experience would be in a dsl consulting box heading for Medtronic to be used as an example of extreme cranial trauma and open choke shotgun spread patterning example.

Joran - scroll back to comment #6: "This is why I specifically didn't mention electrical work. Once a joint's electric is in, it tends to stay unmodified for decades, and any mods that do occur tend to be low dollar jobs."

The consensus is that most electrical work is on NEW construction, and because of dysgenic fertility [and the collapse in the Caucasian population], there won't be any need for further NEW construction during the remainder of our lives.

The point was made that you want to hit high-maintenance systems, like HVAC, and plumbing, and automobiles, which are constantly breaking down, and in need of repair.

 

205 A lot of the "need" for the trades are due to deeply coveted insider secrets - like getting a DBA to set up an account and buy wholesale; that EPA cert to buy your own refrigerant will set you back about $25; same with getting the good shiite for killing bugs; most home electrical can be picked up with a $5.00 dollar how to guide that tells you what the three color codes mean; want to put in a new HW heater, buy one at Home Depot and put the damn thing in.

206 This is an excellent post. It is very informative. Thank you so much. I'll be a regular viewer.