No Degree Required

[palladin9479]

Employers value education, especially live education because it teachs more than the core technical points of a topic. It teaches problem solving based on reason, it teaches human interactions and dynamics, self awareness and responsibility, teamwork, all things that employers say are lacking more and more in non or low level educated employees.

Funny enough, the aerospace company I worked for valued me for all those things. And most of the important stuff can't be taught in schools. You don't learn team creation from books or school. You learn it from creating teams.

Fortunately for me my education was not low level. I just didn't get it in school.

I remember my bosses at the aerospace company coming to me and apologizing to the effect, "I'm sorry we don't have anything really leading edge high tech for you to do next but could you help us with..." I said yes and became the go to guy for projects in trouble in the test eqpt dept.

Yeah he's pretty much talking out his a$$. It's the default go to myth for those who prefer to point to a piece of paper rather then actually demonstrate skills. Your first few years are nothing but bullsh!t and more bullsh!t, filling time slots with required coursed that have absolutely jack sh!t to do with your field of study. It's all meant to drag out the process, extract revenue and force graduates to "pay their dues" so they convince the next generation of children to do the exact same thing. All financed by debt, astronomically sized mounds of government guaranteed debt that make the housing crisis look small by comparison. That will be the next big debt crisis, too many graduates start defaulting on their loans which have fur decades been seen as "safe" debt.

[Diogenes]

Yeah he's pretty much talking out his a$$. It's the default go to myth for those who prefer to point to a piece of paper rather then actually demonstrate skills. Your first few years are nothing but bullsh!t and more bullsh!t, filling time slots with required coursed that have absolutely jack sh!t to do with your field of study. It's all meant to drag out the process, extract revenue and force graduates to "pay their dues" so they convince the next generation of children to do the exact same thing. All financed by debt, astronomically sized mounds of government guaranteed debt that make the housing crisis look small by comparison. That will be the next big debt crisis, too many graduates start defaulting on their loans which have fur decades been seen as "safe" debt.

Another area in which You and I agree.

[ladajo]

Yeah he's pretty much talking out his a$$. It's the default go to myth for those who prefer to point to a piece of paper rather then actually demonstrate skills. Your first few years are nothing but bullsh!t and more bullsh!t, filling time slots with required coursed that have absolutely jack sh!t to do with your field of study. It's all meant to drag out the process, extract revenue and force graduates to "pay their dues" so they convince the next generation of children to do the exact same thing. All financed by debt, astronomically sized mounds of government guaranteed debt that make the housing crisis look small by comparison. That will be the next big debt crisis, too many graduates start defaulting on their loans which have fur decades been seen as "safe" debt.

Another area in which You and I agree.

I agree that the Higher Education system has some issues as I noted above. But I also have tried to point out that there are things that the system provides which are essential to the future of society. These things vary in level and content, and depend on needs by society. There are however some fundamentals that will always endure that history and contemporary events continue to show us. So trying to pointly and narrowly define Higher Education as a failure based on economics is misguided at best. For example, I ask of you, how would one learn skills to demonstrate without a Higher Education system to provide training and/or education to those that want to learn or teach it at some point in the process? If you claim OJT, then I would point out that at some point in the OJT tribal knowledge chain you will find someone that was a product of Higher Education. Pull the string and you will find it everytime.
The major fallacy in Higher Education today is that "everyone can get and needs a Bachelor's Degree". This myth was well sold in the 80's based on declining enrollments in the 70's (as well as the closure of many smaller schools coming off the boom of the 40s, 50s, & 60s). The myth was so well done, it permeates the Higher Education construct even today, three decades later, with the latest manifestation being online degree programs and essentially completed conversion of Vo-Techs (Certificate) to Community Colleges (2yr) to Community Colleges (4yr). The have been many factors driving this trend involving mostly culture and economics. One key factor that remains is average life earnings potential being securely cemented to level of education. It is a fact, whatever you may want to make of it, it is so.
I personally disagree that everyone needs a 4yr degree.
My own take is that we need to do better in Secondary Education teaching Liberal Arts Fundementals in addition to Math and Literacy.
I also think that the bulk of the populace should be fine with a mix of robust secondary and lower end post secondary like a return of Vo-Techs (1yr) and 2yr schools.
These schools should also include a measure of Liberal Arts type teaching. Educational content that promotes critical thinking, rational problem solving, and social/civic skills.
The two year schools MUST teach core in the major blended with Liberal Arts. It is an imperative for a healthy and strong society. Un-educated citizens (66% of the nation) vote and debate with Un-educated input.
Four year schools are not neccessary for "everyone". But are a function required. They also need to teach full spectrum content.
Graduate programs also need to exist, but not for all 4 year students. MBA used to mean something. Now it does not because it became a stamp, vice an in depth challenging program that would advance the art of business and finance by graduates.
Doctoral Programs are also starting to trend toward "stamps". This is worrying, as anyone of us who has been involved in a Doctoral Program knows that it is meant to be the bastion of research and advancement of fields of study. Getting a doctorate means that one has been educated to do real research, unlike Master's level work which is either in-depth study of the field beyond undergrad, or field of study research support.

The core point here is that an un-educated citizenry will doom a nation to fail. Only en-educated societies can sustain dictatorships and corruption. Syria for example has great training programs, but weak educational programs. This has helped keep the Assad family in power. The more folks who can think for themselves, the less likely a government will successfully dominate its people.

The U.S. has been doing poorly over the last decades due to the deteriorating level of real education in the populace. Culturally we have steered oursleves towards an instant gratification mindset, which now includes education. It is evident in your comments. Those processes which teach rational thinking, critique skills, history, culture, socialogical concepts, humanities, etc. are not about milking money from students, they are in my opinion equally important for all our futures as having technically competent field of study courses that produce folks that can do as well as folks that can generate field of study advancements.

I firmly believe that ecducation is a core problem that the nation faces, that has, is, and will cause further issues that are putting our nation at risk. Unless we can find a balance, and address a growing apathetic populace that increasingly can not think critically or rationally for itself, we are doomed.

Our culture is based on the principle of rational and productive participation. Without it, we are frick.

[GIThruster]

Your first few years are nothing but bullsh!t and more bullsh!t, filling time slots with required coursed that have absolutely jack sh!t to do with your field of study. It's all meant to drag out the process, extract revenue and force graduates to "pay their dues" so they convince the next generation of children to do the exact same thing. All financed by debt, astronomically sized mounds of government guaranteed debt that make the housing crisis look small by comparison. That will be the next big debt crisis, too many graduates start defaulting on their loans which have fur decades been seen as "safe" debt.

This is clueless in about a dozen ways. First of all it betrays a complete lack of understanding of the context in which modern education has developed. For example, when modern academics took its original form, this whole conspiracy theory nonsense above could not have existed and the fact is, the point behind a liberal education that is required for any academic degree as opposed to a trade certification, has always been the same. All academics have always been required to study outside their fields because this is what makes well rounded individuals--a well rounded education. Academics has only partially to do with skills. If all you want to do is get skills, you do a trade certification. That's what they're for. Academics requires one study outside their field because this is what a liberal education is all about. If you have a trade certification, you were never forced to take the history of western civilization, and you'll never be bothered with the regular questions people who have academic degrees have to face, such as "how do you know that?" and "where did you learn that?"

Academics is its own reward. If you don't have a real academic degree, you made a better investment so far as recovering bang for your educational buck, but you got cheated that you were never required to learn what the Crusades were actually all about, nor what makes Carolingian art, nor the salient differences between symbolic and pictographic language, nor why we use the phonetic pronunciation of an an acronym to choose the proper article (something people screw up here almost every day), nor why Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs shows up in modern marketing, nor a thousand other things that turn out to be very important. When you stupidly decide to claim that these things people learn are unimportant, you prove yourself vulgar, and uncouth and an example of the failure to educate that has today become so common.

[choff]

An example would be when I was explaining the Ukraine crisis to some family members who have university degrees in financial management. I told them this could lead to WW3, they asked how this would affect the stock market. I then told them a nuclear war would ensue destroying civilization, they then asked how this would affect the price of gold.

After that they asked why I was shouting.

[mvanwink5]

"you were never forced to take the history of western civilization."
History has been rewritten by the surviving rulers. So, a good education has turned into a good indoctrination, which describes our current 'liberal' college education.

What I learned in EE was inadequate. First, as soon as I graduated microprocessors came out. Second, I never dealt with relay logic and that was the first thing I ran into in the field - the elementary diagrams looked like a bunch of capacitors and light bulbs.

Economic theory taught was Keynesian theory which crashed upon the inconvenient phenomena of 'Stagflation.' Of course just because it failed does not mean it has been abandoned, just re-embelished with sophistry.

I would say my best training was when I nearly completed a math degree before changing to engineering.

Glorification of the 'college degree' and 'liberal arts' education is one of those expensive myths propagated by ivory tower inhabitants, usually progressive utopians looking for a meal ticket.

[mvanwink5]

Of course, that is not to say that the education couldn't be truly enlightening and provide a fantastic platform to build upon once the real supersonic pace world is met, but even the best universities don't do that. In fact, the skills to keep up and learn new things is the key. So, if done properly, then the arguments that the degree would be a necessity would be one I would support whole heartedly. As it is now, the 'liberal arts' is just a means for Progressives' indoctrination.

[Betruger]

"you were never forced to take the history of western civilization."
History has been rewritten by the surviving rulers. So, a good education has turned into a good indoctrination, which describes our current 'liberal' college education.

What I learned in EE was inadequate. First, as soon as I graduated microprocessors came out. Second, I never dealt with relay logic and that was the first thing I ran into in the field - the elementary diagrams looked like a bunch of capacitors and light bulbs.

One of the main notions I learned in my ECE101 was that a good engineer never stops learning. That implies keeping an eye out yourself for anything new on the horizon. That also was one of the lessons in that same class from watching that paradigm shifts and paralysis video that looked like it was filmed in the 80s.

[mvanwink5]

Flexibility, being able to admit a major error, then start afresh is not possible for education based on rote. A solid theoretical foundation then is needed. Also, in college, it is possible to run into some really brilliant people, that one may never have exposure to in a work setting. I met this shabby dressed (even for a college student) guy once and what he knew about math (no degree, just some guy) really put me in my place. Later, he was killed when an auto hit him while he was riding his bike at night, and my roommate recovered a trunk of this guys math books which were well thumbed, notes all through them. I have to say, this guy had at least a post doc's math background. And he was nearly a bum on the surface. A real shame.

The point is be careful with judging anyone by degrees, dress, or status. Respect for 'lowest,' whatever that is, to 'highest' should be equal and by that I mean with great respect. Harder to say than do, I might add, but one never really knows...

[Betruger]

Both an engine of logic as is produced in one's mind from STEM classes, and an intuitive understanding of cultural/social tides as acquirable in general "liberal" classes, IMO point to the fact that rote is bad. Is effectively (if not actually) cargo cult science.

What appeared to me once I did more than dip my toe into university in the USA, after high school partly in the US and education in Europe before that, was that the strength (and IMO to this day, that this is the best way*) of the US system was that it did not drill knowledge so brutally into you the way it's done in Europe (it makes for too dry, too dogmatic state of mind), and instead left you free to use the relatively mediocre basis of in-class material for you to build a really expansive, rich understanding of the topics.


* Now I suspect it might be even more optimal to do it this way:
Teach kids that inherent drive to power; that knowledge is power, and that learning all life long in a pragmatic and correctly open minded way (as that math "bum", or as any of the more illustrious autodidact examples littered thru history) makes for the largest accumulation of knowledge in life.
Once kids have this ideal integrated nice and tight, they go thru school very properly motivated and informed enough to almost autonomously tell wheat from chaff.
And they can thus gradually exploit the growing (assuming this trend keeps going) knowledge base that's available for autonomous learning on the internet.
Where conventional academics remain essential is that the less capable students (and self-determinance of this is arguably more efficient than some 2nd hand evaluation) still need help in connecting the dots, so to speak. For some students, they'll never really be able to exploit these free knowledge bases. And no matter how autonomous the learning, there'll always be value in some mandatory and thus standardized vetting of knowledge and ability - ie conventional academic structure.

Yes there will still be deadbeats and naturally less-capable part of population. That's a given and does nothing to diminish the value, the positive consequences of making available that knowledge base for the "better" students to draw from.
And yes, I concede that this sort of generally agnostic, pragmatic culture is kind of alien to a lot of the American population. To a lot of the world, probably. But IMO it's an essential part of the American Way, even if it's gotten less and less consideration, to the point of seeming alien like that.

[paperburn1]

When I was growing up I think the smartest thing that was ever told to me was taught to me by a libraran. She said "learn how to use a card catalog and you will be smartest of anybody out there."


Card catalog, I think I just dated myself.

[choff]

Saw this one documentary on education, it made the claim that the two countries tied for top spot in math and science education were S. Korea and Finland. In S. Korea the kids spent every awake moment of their lives doing homework and studying, in Finland there is no homework. For Finland, they start the kids education one year later than anywhere else, and to work as a teacher requires a seven year Masters degree in Education.

[DeltaV]

My sixth-grade ("advanced placement") teacher told us something like "The most important thing for you to learn is how to learn", and then he taught us how to go off and individually research something that we found interesting and report back to him.

So different from the "group think" taught today.

[mvanwink5]

Medicine has been turned into a FDA regulated monopoly where 'truth' is passed down from our Progressive overseers (with all the caring help from the pharma cronies). As a result, all conferences in the US are pharma approved presenters. You have to go to the hidebound European countries to see something not controlled by the government monopoly gate keepers. As a result, medicine is stuck firmly in the 20th century paradigms.

People still think in terms of the human genome instead of the human Microbiome. Estimates are 10:1 to 100:1 bacterial cells to human cells, and that includes tissues and parasitized human nucleated cells. Then there is the interactome. So, trust your doctor to administer the latest palliation therapy for treatment, the feel good approach of the previous +100,000 years of human medical treatment, after all, in the 20th century the belief was the human body was sterile cause they only had 20th century techniques to look for the little nasties which can be so small they pass through a viral filter.

So, modern college education serves the subsidized and government crony monopoly medical industry interests. sorry for the full on rant!!

[williatw]

People still think in terms of the human genome instead of the human Microbiome. Estimates are 10:1 to 100:1 bacterial cells to human cells, and that includes tissues and parasitized human nucleated cells.

Kind of make you wonder if the explosion of Adult onset Type II diabetes couldn't be related to that. We in the west over a lifetime are over prescribed antibiotics for a wide range of illnesses even those caused by viruses like the flu. Once had a doc many years ago prescribe me antibiotics when I had the flu; when I pointed out that antibiotics don't do anything against the flu virus his response was that well maybe I had an accompanying secondary infection (presumably bacterial) along with the flu. If I recall it (the antibiotics) "bleached" my excrement for days afterward. Antibiotics do a number on your intestinal bacteria they aren't specific to killing only infectious bacteria. Could repeatedly culling your intestinal bacteria over a lifetime lead to a long term deficit in the amount and variety that are eventually left? This in turn causes your pancreatic insulin to be "overloaded" being forced to do more of the heavy lifting as far as breaking sugars down; not getting the assistance it’s supposed to from your now depleted intestinal bacteria.