Quote:
Originally Posted by cmccuist
DAmn, you just described my brother's life. He got a degree in economics from UC Davis (pretty good school!) and ended up managing a paint store for 10-15 years. He hated that. Then, through some friends, he got a foot in the door to becoming a plumber! He loves that. Takes as long to learn that craft as it does to get a college degree.
Maybe we should go back to emphasizing trade schools over college.
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Absolutely!
One of the reasons we're in the hole we're in right now is that we (through over-emphasis of college, because there's so much MONEY in it) have allowed the trades to become irrelevant and looked down upon in this country. As such, what has happened to manufacturing? It's gone. "Outsourced".
One thing that I really liked about my particular college program in architecture was that it was not a "typical" elitist-mentality program. It involved a lot of cutting and building stuff out of wood and metal and concrete and whatever else down in the shop, in addition to the more "intellectual" aspects of the curriculum. It tried to keep us grounded in reality that what we were learning was about BUILDING things and understanding how to make physical stuff out of materials.
If we're ever going to capture back our manufacturing in this country (which I believe is the key to recapturing our industrial might and our economic clout), we need to stop brainwashing our youth into thinking that building, constructing and producing things is somehow "beneath them". Completely wrong. I've known some awfully smart and articulate individuals who were carpenters and sheet metal workers. By contrast, some of the biggest idiots I've ever known were ones working in offices holding pieces of paper saying they were "educated".
I absolutely agree that we should be teaching trades and encouraging people to learn them in this country today, not just telling everyone that they can be a "solutions consultant" if they just sign here and keep writing us $10,000 checks every semester.