reject college. embrace apprenticeship
reject college. embrace apprenticeship
You can tell this is an ancient meme because it prices college at 4 years at $9,000 per year instead of 5 years at $30,000 per year ๐
Cool leave all the executive and judicial positions for the children of the rich. They'll make ethical decisions that benefit everyone
That, and they also keep changing it. When too many middle class people make good many with trades, they call it inflation and engineer a recession that depresses those wages.
When too many middle class people are getting higher education, they raise tuition and burden us with debt.
The real answer is: do what you love, if you're good at it and if it provides objective value to society.
And all together, we must have middle class solidarity to reign in the power the elites have over us and make sure we own and control the wealth and housing stock, while they pay high taxes and not us.
If we don't demand our share of the pie, we will end up with scraps and our children will end up with even less.
Keeping it balanced is key. It's weird for me as a swiss citizen how you guys have practically only college or lower class unlearned workers.
abolish the state
That's where the dictatorship of the people comes in.
Frankly, this is where I borrow a page from Mao's Little Red Book. If you had the sort of education that only wealth and privilege can grant you, you have no right to hold political power.
Your words are self-defeating. A dictatorship is based on privilege for the few.
Also: Your only solution for classism is put some power concentration on it?
One Worker to rule them all, One Worker to find them, One Worker to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.
Few things here. Apprenticeships are hard to come by. You have to know someone or be in the right family already.
Second, university is a universal education. You can do almost anything afterwards. Gradschool is where you have to pick something. But some folks do multiple post grads. If you pick apprenticeship, that's it. That's the thing you're doing. Forever.
Personaly, I'm very happy to have a well rounded education. I became a software engineer 10 years after graduting university. I could do it, and could get hired for it, because of that education. All the skills you hone at university helped me alonng the way, writing, speaking, critical thinking, I even leaned to sail and fence.
Apprenticeships give you a single trade, university teaches you how to think, and makes you a better person.
On top of that, apprenticeships are job training, and a unuversity education is... Not. And no number of 17 year old high school honours students, or their parents, or high school teachers, or university recruitment offices, or corporate HR departments have actually or will actually change that. And that's not to say there's anything inherently wrong with job training, but so much of the discourse around university's "usefulness" always boils down to "you spend all of this money, and they still don't teach you to do the job", which... Yeah. You don't get fried chicken from a tailor's shop, either.
Moreover, one of the key reasons university education is so damn expensive is because rich dicks don't want the poors getting one. And while they've managed to spin public perception of university as job training, and as a result managed to get people to go deeply into debt to target specific, non-comprehensive or non-critical degree programs, it remains true that a high level liberal education is soemthing they don't want us to have.
Because it gives us the tools to see through their lies and bullshit.
All we need to do is look at the degree programs they shit on most strongly: They're all rooted in examining and criticising social power dynamics. In response to that, they tell us that they'll be excited to "order their happy meals" from people perusing those fields.
Which, of course, isn't exactly rooted in falsehood, because most well paying businesses don't want to have people around who are trained in recognizing and criticising power dynamics.
Because they're abusive systems in and of themselves, run by people who don't want their power criticised or checked.
But that doesn't mean the ability to do so isn't unspeakably invaluable to society. But in a society run by entitled, unworthy assholes, the last thing they want is a populace who can recognize both that they have no place in a healthy society, and also the knowledge and gumption to create a healthy society and remove them from it.
Ha, I studied philosophy. It was perfect for becoming a bartender. But also perfect for becoming a successful software engineer out of the blue at 30.
Thank you for these expanded points. I only talked about the pregmatics and my own experience, but all of what you said is extremely important and true.
I used to think like that. As times passes I'm increasingly starting to agree with what you are saying. Sadly I do still think that is a matter of choice. There are poorly valued college educations and not all off them are philosophy and literature. I don't see anything wrong with them existing like you said, they teach people critical thinking and improve people overall. But like you said the lie that education exists to give us jobs exists and there are people going to college to learn not very lucrative things and expecting to make a living out them and coming out with dept and can't find an occupation that provides for them. Honestly I think the only way to go around that problem is to make University universal and free. That way you can always go back for something more lucrative or later in life to learn something that makes you grow.
This is elitist trash mentality my guy. It's not that serious and you can gain life skills from anywhere. Happy you found it through the medium of uni, but lmao.
No, you really don't learn good critical thinking or argumentative writing from anywhere. This is precisely why most of the population can be tricked into voting against their own self interests. Furthermore, this shouldn't be seen as elitist, as this level of education should be available to everyone. The only reason it's not is the previous point I made.
Apprenticeships are infinitely more competitive than college applications. Not to say that the quality of education isn't much better, too, but most mentors are already swamped with dozens of apprenticeship requests. It's so competitive that most will expect you to already have some familiarity with the trade, whereas most colleges go into your education assuming you have very little experience with it.
Edit
Also
$19-$23 hour paid apprenticeships
Lmao only in already high COL areas. Plus having to compete with the 1,000+ other applicants (see above). Plus "we'll select a candidate in 4-6 months." Plus "must provide own tools. Our shop only allows Snap-On brand, here's a $2,200 shopping list in case you get chosen." Also "oh yeah that position was already filled last month, so-and-so's son just got out of rehab and needed a job."
T. An actual tradie of nearly a decade who has a proper 4 year university degree and tech school certification
Electrician in IBEW here in a poor rural region. Those pay numbers are pretty close to our current rates, actually. And if you can pass a test, you can get into the apprenticeship program pretty easily. They don't expect much from first year apprentices. I had a trade school diploma and my Limited Liability Electrician license already when I applied, but it didn't matter much. The competitiveness is very dependent on your local.
You gotta buy your own hand tools, but power tools, conduit benders, etc are all provided.
So... like with everything career-related, it's gonna depend on where you live.
Where are you from? I am a carpenter from Ontario, Canada and I was an apprentice in the carpenters union for a few years. They literally hired me on the spot when I sent them my resume. I also worked with a 19 year old kid who'd never had a job in his life before being hired instantly when he walked into the union hall.
Also the pay started as $20 an hour for first years, and went up about $5 an hour for every year of experience. I think if I remember correctly journeymen made around $45 an hour with benefits, and my zone wasn't a super high COL area.
Maybe depends what apprenticeship you're looking for but in my experience the carpenters union was dying for guys.
What would Bernie Sanders do?
Bro. Be more specific about where and what apprenticeship you are talking about. You're casting a wide web as if all the apprenticeships are in the same position. My specific trades of electrician and instrumentation are highly in demand in lots of places in Canada. Can't speak for everywhere, but there are a lot of large construction projects going on now that can't find workers.
The availability of apprenticeships are based off the economy vs going to school is based on whether you can afford it.
In Switzerland, apprenticeship is the standard for a good middle class income. It's a win-win situation for all involved and if you later feel like you want to go further in your career, there's a "master" training for your profession, which is considered by employers as equivalent to a master degree from an university. I'm not sure why such a system is not more popular in other countries.
Possibly has to do with status as pretty much since forever, university schooling has been a separator of middle class and "elite" (culturally) even though it has been made to be accessible by most people. At least one possible theory.
I have to strongly disagree here. It was the case until neoliberalism hit hard on the country. From the middle 90s, the apprenticeship isn't the standard to a good living anymore. We have roughly half of the households which are poor or near powerty. If the apprenticeship was a gold standard, it would not be the case. Teenagers learned it very well as they prefer to choose to study even after an apprenticeship.
Everything has took an exponential price hike. Healthcare insurance, rent, food, energy and more skyrocket and living is more and more difficult if you don't have a tertiary diploma.
This is beyond inaccurate...
You can tell this is an ancient meme because you somehow expect "non-full-time job" position to be worthwhile in any shape or form. If it's not a full-time position, my personal belief is that either 1) they're probably going to screw you over somehow, or 2) the government regulations are going to screw you over. (I'm in Finland. The government's going to screw you over if you do anything besides staring at the phone and accept the first full-time position that miraculously comes your way. In recent years, they invented a new activity: SPAM JOB APPLICATIONS. This has not worked as well the government thinks it did.)
So infographics are memes now... Seriously?
Because people are bastardized the meaning of the word.
This doesn't work for some fields imo. I don't know how I could train someone in computer science if they don't even know how a for loop works yet.
Senior dev: "Hey junior... " waves a piece of paper "The fuck is this?"
Junior Dev: "My code, boss."
SD: squints
JD: "I couldn't figure out how to email it."
SD: squints
JD: ...
SD: "Why is there a picture of a cat?"
JD: "It's Scratch, sir."
I'm dying lmao
There is a non-null chance the Senior Developer is an absolute God at scratch.
This is so accurate it hurts
It's a regular thing in Germany.
Our apprenticeships are a lot cheaper though, below minimum wage, so it's easier for the employer to set aside time for training that doesn't earn money.
Well maybe you couldn't, but that doesn't mean there's no way to set up appropriate technical instruction infrastructure as part of a union or guild through which this apprenticeship would go. Or even that one doesn't already exist.
Often, a plumbing or electrical apprentice will come up through a technical high school. Either a technical high school or a technicial continuing education program at a community college, say.
Heck my local technical high school offers an "Information Technology" vocational program that sounds an awful lot like that program I went through in college. Wouldn't it have been great to save 4 years and countless dollars?
For programming jobs, this gap is currently mostly filled with "bootcamps." Increasingly you'll find bootcamp programs that are free but garnish your salary for some time after you've been placed in a job, or the bootcamp is run by a company directly and you get paid to go through the bootcamp after signing a contract saying you'll work for them for a year or two afterward or else need to pay back the price of the program.
These can vary from "pretty good, actually" to "predatory" to "a little bit like indentured servitude." Wouldn't it be great if there were a union or guild around these practices? Or to encourage more kids to enter trade schools that offer vocational programs they're interested in?
I agree. I guess what I'm getting at is some fields require requisite knowledge to be useful as an apprentice on day one.
Like for an electrician, on day one you can hand me tools, pull wires, carry supplies, clean up behind me, measure, etc. You may not be able to design the layout or check that things are to code, but you can help me while I e.g. explain why I needed you to grab 3-1 wire instead of a 2-1 for this fixture.
Where as in software you need a requisite amount of knowledge to do anything useful. And it's hard to sit there and explain what I'm doing when they can't read the language. It could be done, it's just harder to bring on someone that's going to be paid when they can't do much. I'd do it, but convincing the bean counters will be a lot harder
This already exists through college coop programs, and people can end a coop program with work experience and not much debt.
The problem with special programs being kicked down to high school is it creates scarcity further down the chain, meaning kids need to make their life choices early and following through depends on availability.
You fix the problem of program capacity and sure that's great.
I'll chime in with a comment above, but I am an apprenticeship mentor at a big tech company, and while you are somewhat correct, most apprenticeship schemes will mix in academic learning alongside on-the-job training.
It's a great way to learn if you are motivated. If you're not, it's immensely stressful compared to studying for a degree.
That sounds perfect actually
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$15k/year raises? What industry? I'm in the wrong field! I'm lucky if my annual evaluation gets me a COL adjustment, much less an actual raise.
I hear that HVAC payscales are pretty nuts. The trick apparently is putting yourself back on the market at the start of each summer season -- there are never enough HVAC people when July comes around.
The apprenticeship thing and pay scales only work when you're talking about union jobs in skilled trades. Which are very hard to come by.
I'm not knocking blue-collar jobs--all labor deserves to be paid a living, and thriving, wage--but that's not an honest assessment.
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UK businesses abuse the apprenticeship system for profit.
Like fucking Subway were taking on apprentices. Because making a sandwich clearly takes years of training, rather than about a day. Nothing to do with being able to pay them half the minimum wage, oh no, can't be that.
But then "not in my job description" is something I stopped hearing when I left school. In the real world, your job is what your boss tells you to do (within reason), otherwise you don't have a job any more.
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This is correct, but it's virtually impossible to get most desk jobs without a degree.
Not because the degree is important, only because it's a requirement.
So if you can afford it, unfortunately, I would recommend the degree path.
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Maybe in America...
Here you have 5 years of free college for bachelor and 5 years free for masters.
36,000? I broke 6 figures in debt.
Here's one for you: Decide you want to apprentice at 35 because the career path you initially chose didn't pan out, the market became saturated, or you burned out. See how far that gets you.
Yeah, if you can get an apprenticeship (nearly impossible).
I work as a mentor for an apprenticeship scheme at a large tech company, and work alongside several apprentices.
While it's not fully serious, there are a few inaccuracies. On the whole, I think the apprenticeship scheme is a great way to get people into work, especially as software engineers. In fact, I would put them way above bootcamps, which are essentially ways to part someone with their money in return for cheap labour.
With that being said, here are a few gotchas:
- Most employers/mentors don't give a fuck about your progression. You're an additional resource, and you're treated as such. Sadly, mentors that do give a shit typically end up getting shit from their managers because it's not "a priority".
- The money is often poor, even at FAANG companies. This is because you're not a full-time employee, so you are heavily downlevelled, earning the same as other non-tech office positions. In some locations, it's the difference between being able to go for lunch outside of the office with the rest of the team, and being forced to eat leftovers with the other apprentices/interns because you cannot afford lunch.
- There is a classroom aspect to apprenticeships, like with any part-time degree course.
- That four years of experience you hold at the end often isn't viewed as valid by other employers. I've worked with apprentices that have finished 4-5 years at a FAANG company, only to struggle to find work afterwards, despite being fully qualified with a degree-equivalent qualification, and having worked on production services. Some get treated worse than new CS grads for roles.
- Many subjects require a mix of academic and manual skilled work, software engineering is no different. Many apprentices feel the lack of CS fundamentals to severely limit them, even if just as a habit of FOMO, given that many of them can complete the standard LeetCode curriculums you see online. If you work at a company full of Oxbridge, Harvard, and MIT grads, it's hard to not feel inferior at times.
I still fully recommend people take apprenticeships, but I always say that it's not a route for everyone. The people I work with that have benefited most are self-sufficient, humble, and willing to learn. Those that aren't often find it extremely stressful and end up questioning whether a degree is better for them. As with most things, it's an option, and options are a good thing.
Benjamin Franklin wanted everyone to be apprentices.
UK here, on an apprenticeship and earning ยฃ40,000+ a year.
Recognise I'm exceptionally lucky but no idea how anyone could afford to complete a degree while living independently in current times.
It is valid path for some, maybe even for majority of people, but not for all. If you have smarts then college->undergrad-graduate school can lead you to the job of your dreams and well paid on top of this. For example, if you excel in math and physics, and want to be a rocket scientist, by all means, take a shot. Even if you miss, lots of STEM jobs pay well in industry.
community college can be $5,000ish per year (in community rn), and if you go to a smaller local college after that it might be like double or triple that per year. the average of $9,000 is still lowballing it a good bit, but you can lower the $30,000 figure a decent bit
(i am in no way saying that college isn't as expensive as people say-- it is. i am saying that community college and lower quality colleges are options many people don't include in these sorts of averages. i thought i was boned but community college saved my ass.)
People spend five years in undergrad now?
In order to graduate in four years in my state, you have to take at least 15 credits a semester. I'm only taking 12-13 credits, but am also taking a couple summer semesters to make up for it.
Only 12-13 credits? I was minimum 18, sometimes as high as 24. are you in the United states?
College is a scam nowadays
Government allows infinite lending to stupid unexperienced children, children tell colleges their tuition is on the house, colleges raise tuition costs knowing their premium is secured by either wealthy families or the infinite pockets of the government, students keep being told the lie college is the only outlet to a better life, keep taking more loans. Rinse and repeat.
So many soft losers in this thread who think the epitome of life is wasting away at a desk all day looking at code and coping with the lifelong debt they took to experience it. Unironically some moron who thinks that you can only gain critical thinking from going to a uni, completely ignoring children who show the predisposition for higher intelligence among their peers. You can't teach intelligence. Stockholm syndrome cope fr.
Honestly, would my wife and I need to save up only $1k per month for the next 16 years to pay for my kid's college? That sounds absurdly do-able and easy. I'm all for trade school too. My Wife and I went to a more technical college and are doing fairly good for ourselves. Will hope our kid goes the same path. We got our college degree and in between years we had jobs in our industry and did interning. That's the best of both worlds IMO.
Honestly, would my wife and I need to save up only $1k per month for the next 16 years to pay for my kidโs college?
16x12 = 192,000.. Where are you getting this number from? That's enough to put 2 kids through even the more expensive US colleges, assuming investments outperform tuition hikes
Given inflation, current estimates put the cost of a 4 year degree at about 180k in 2040, so not an unreasonable savings estimate. That number is both available from online estimates as well as what my own financial planner gave me when discussing my daughter's college fund