Zooze the Horse roams around the pasture near Lamar State College. Zooze thinks about problems in academia. Zhe wants proffies to submit posts (blog posts, not fence posts).
Monday, March 5, 2018
Why an Honors Student Wants to Skip College and Go to Trade School [wsj.com]
Good for her, I say. Do you how much a good diesel mechanic can make, these days?
There's also the satisfaction of knowing you're doing something that’s in demand. As Einstein observed during those years he was struggling with general relativity, "I know why some people love chopping wood. In this activity one immediately sees results."
There's also a shortage of people qualified to do this work. This isn’t the kind of shortage we’ve been told so many times so gravely by the N.S.F. and other pundits, about how “America is facing an imminent shortage of Ph.D.s in the sciences and throughout all other fields in academia.” Since the late ‘80s, they’ve been telling us that faculty born in the Baby Boomer generation are expected to be retiring in droves any time now. In fact, they either haven’t been retiring at all, or their tenure lines have been turned into temporary adjunct positions.
This new trend, called “the Skills Gap,” is the kind of shortage where Caterpillar simply cannot find people who can repair their heavy equipment. Mike Rowe, the host of “Dirty Jobs,” has a website on this, called profoundlydisconnected.com
As for me, I’d be glad not to be required to try to educate students who are resisting with all their might. Enrollment keeps going up and everything keeps getting more crowded ay my university, thanks to the insane price of real estate elsewhere, so this development is all good for me.
You can't outsource that job. And the good ones can make good money. Good for her, indeed! Not everyone is a fit for college. My plumber is a heck of a lot smarter than a lot of my students.
Makes complete sense to me, too. If she does at some point decide she wants a college degree (or wants to take some classes out of interest), there are many ways to do that, too, at many stages of life.
She also strikes me as the sort of person who would actually learn something in a MOOC or similar opportunity, because she pursues knowledge and skills in which she's interested, when she's interested (in short, the sort of person who doesn't really need the structure of college -- which does not, as we all know, describe the average student).
But oh, my, think of the statistics she's messing up. Some administrator somewhere is tearing hir hair out.
Good for her, I say. Do you how much a good diesel mechanic can make, these days?
ReplyDeleteThere's also the satisfaction of knowing you're doing something that’s in demand. As Einstein observed during those years he was struggling with general relativity, "I know why some people love chopping wood. In this activity one immediately sees results."
There's also a shortage of people qualified to do this work. This isn’t the kind of shortage we’ve been told so many times so gravely by the N.S.F. and other pundits, about how “America is facing an imminent shortage of Ph.D.s in the sciences and throughout all other fields in academia.” Since the late ‘80s, they’ve been telling us that faculty born in the Baby Boomer generation are expected to be retiring in droves any time now. In fact, they either haven’t been retiring at all, or their tenure lines have been turned into temporary adjunct positions.
This new trend, called “the Skills Gap,” is the kind of shortage where Caterpillar simply cannot find people who can repair their heavy equipment. Mike Rowe, the host of “Dirty Jobs,” has a website on this, called profoundlydisconnected.com
As for me, I’d be glad not to be required to try to educate students who are resisting with all their might. Enrollment keeps going up and everything keeps getting more crowded ay my university, thanks to the insane price of real estate elsewhere, so this development is all good for me.
I'm with Frod. Good for her, that she knows what she's good at and is doing exactly what she needs to do to get better at it.
DeleteYou can't outsource that job. And the good ones can make good money. Good for her, indeed! Not everyone is a fit for college. My plumber is a heck of a lot smarter than a lot of my students.
ReplyDeleteMakes complete sense to me, too. If she does at some point decide she wants a college degree (or wants to take some classes out of interest), there are many ways to do that, too, at many stages of life.
ReplyDeleteShe also strikes me as the sort of person who would actually learn something in a MOOC or similar opportunity, because she pursues knowledge and skills in which she's interested, when she's interested (in short, the sort of person who doesn't really need the structure of college -- which does not, as we all know, describe the average student).
But oh, my, think of the statistics she's messing up. Some administrator somewhere is tearing hir hair out.