stop requiring college degrees for jobs that dont need them, they say

Started by billy rubin, March 19, 2023, 07:59:15 PM

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billy rubin

https://www.vox.com/policy/23628627/degree-inflation-college-bacheors-stars-labor-worker-paper-ceiling

when i got out of college to go work as a prospect geologist with exxon corporation, i needed a masters degree. thats four years of college with two more years of post graduate education.


when my father got work in tbe oil fields as a prospect geologist, all he needed was a bachelors four year degree. all his contemporaries were my bosses, less formal education than me.

when his fathers generation needed education, they did the same work as me and my father, with a secondary education. no university at all.

people are finally realizing here that staying in school until youre thirty years old is a bum deal. in many fields the education isnt needed and it just means you start behind the curve and stay there.

i have two kids with university degrees, one who isnt going to university but will go into the trades, and two who are taking a year off between secondary and university to think about it.

good idea.


"I cannot understand the popularity of that kind of music, which is based on repetition. In a civilized society, things don't need to be said more than three times."

Tank

This is a massive can of worms. I think the whole of the UK education system is going this way.
If religions were TV channels atheism is turning the TV off.
"Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt." ― Richard P. Feynman
'It is said that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die. That is true, it's called Life.' - Terry Pratchett
Remember, your inability to grasp science is not a valid argument against it.

jumbojak

The problem isn't just requiring a degree for the sake of having one. There's an expectation that no company will provide any training whatsoever and I think that most of these requirements are pushed by HR departments who have no idea what their prospective humans are actually supposed to do when they are working.

Years ago I applied at a company that was looking for someone to run a brand new machine used to form industrial gaskets and seals. This is a very specialized machine that makes enormous gaskets and seals for papermill parts and ships. That particular machine had only been designed two years before and there aren't many in existence. Papermills and shipyards are niche customers.

HR required a minimum of five years experience running that particular model before candidates could even be considered for hiring. Talking to them was like being part of a Monty Python skit. They were all specialized idiots. The reality of time made no difference to them. I suspect that their machine has sat idle during the intervening years as nobody could possibly use it without having used it before...

"Amazing what chimney sweeping can teach us, no? Keep your fire hot and
your flue clean."  - Ecurb Noselrub

"I'd be incensed by your impudence were I not so impressed by your memory." - Siz

billy rubin



"I cannot understand the popularity of that kind of music, which is based on repetition. In a civilized society, things don't need to be said more than three times."

jumbojak


"Amazing what chimney sweeping can teach us, no? Keep your fire hot and
your flue clean."  - Ecurb Noselrub

"I'd be incensed by your impudence were I not so impressed by your memory." - Siz

Asmodean

The vast majority of "higher-end" jobs in my area (both of expertise and geography) have a soft requirement for a university degree, which means that you can use that as your ticket into the business - or have relevant documented experience to compensate.

When we hire for my team specifically, what a university degree does, is weigh up for lacking field experience. That is, it puts you on potentially-equal footing with the guy who has no such degree (or an old one) but has done "this exact" job for the last ten years with good results. On the other hand, that guy with ten years of documented experience does not really get any bonuses from his degree. Oh, potentially, if all other concerns are indistinguishable between two candidates, but one is a M. Sc and the other is a highschool dropout, but in practice, I have not seen this situation arise.

Don't get me wrong, there are some benefits to having studied at a university - provided the student in question does it well, but unless you are young or changing careers, over here it's... Not required, with the usual exception being jobs that have an academic component (Such as research or similar, teaching, some management positions, etc.)
Quote from: Ecurb Noselrub on July 25, 2013, 08:18:52 PM
In Asmo's grey lump,
wrath and dark clouds gather force.
Luxembourg trembles.

No one

You could avoid all this by just being born wealthy. Do things smarter, not harder.

Asmodean

Quote from: No one on March 20, 2023, 09:58:15 AMYou could avoid all this by just being born wealthy. Do things smarter, not harder.
You won't though.

At least over here, for the vast majority of jobs, the employer could not even access the applicant's credit score. So, if you are in your early twenties and want a gig on my team, the most sure way of getting it qualification-wise would be at least a bachelor of science in a relevant field - whether your net worth be measured in cobwebs or private jets. (I won't even know which, and even if I do, it's your money, and as such beyond the scope of things I care to care about)

My team is nothing at all special around these parts, both business-wise and geographically speaking, in that regard.

Oh, I suppose a wealthy person could go into the family business "for free," but for the sake of this argument, I'm assuming that they are applying for the job they actually want to do - and not just to avoid slowly going insane from idleness.
Quote from: Ecurb Noselrub on July 25, 2013, 08:18:52 PM
In Asmo's grey lump,
wrath and dark clouds gather force.
Luxembourg trembles.

billy rubin

look at me. i went to university and got an undergraduate degree in zoology. went to graduate school to get a two year masters graduate degree. was expecting a to go for a pHd.

halfway through i realized the career opporunties for an academic evolutionary ecologist were zilch.

so i walked over to the geology department and used my biology background to talk my way into a masters program studying palaeotology. so i was in two graduate programs at once.

while in geology, i studied sedimentology as well as.paleo, got a masters there (two masters now)

and when tbe oil companies came to interview i talked my way into a job as a petroleum geologist and went to texas to look for oil.

without an undergrafuate degree in geology, just the masters. did that until the oil bust in 86, when everybody was laid off.

so i went to california and talked my way into a job writing computer manuals as a contractor for IBM in silicon valley. no degree in computer science or writing. but after a couple of years i was managing a department with a 2.5 million dollar budget and 30 writers.

then i said screw it all, ran away with my best writer, married her, became a commercial beekeeper with no experience or background by calling a beekeeper at random in the phone book and offering to work for him for free if he would teach me.  and in 6 years was running 800 beehives of my own and grossing $150,000.

NOT netting. i lived in a shack in a cotton field.

then i became a farmers market vendor, long haul trucker, frac equipment operator, dump, flat, tanker, and roll off driver.

anyway, i have all this education, but my chief skill appears to be in talking my way into careers for which i have no credentials. so now i drive trucks,  im still married to tbe love of my life,  have five kids, and will go to the races in july.

im not convinced sticking with mybeducation and holding down a steady job would have given me this much. so im not pushing my kids into college if theyre reluctamt


"I cannot understand the popularity of that kind of music, which is based on repetition. In a civilized society, things don't need to be said more than three times."

Icarus

I am afraid that a college education is not necessarily an education any more.  Lots of colleges bestow  BS and MS degrees for underwater basket weaving and other narrowly defined subjects. At best the graduate is a competent specialist in basket weaving,or a more highly perceived specialty such Geekdom.. The graduate may have a credential and some competence in the selected field, but he/she does not have an education because of the certificate. The specialist may be brilliant at his or her job but a dumbass otherwise.

Education implies that one have a familiarity with civics, literature (not spider man comics) history, language, philosophy, geography, and yes, even religion. Specialist graduates are merely well trained, not well educated.

I suspect that I am being a bit harsh here. I once worked at a manufacturing firm that built specialty equipment. I was a design engineer which actually meant that I was a glorified draftsman. My direct boss was a graduate with a degree in Petroleum engineering....whatever that means.  He was one of the specialists with no apparent education beyond about seventh grade. I will call him Bob. That was his real name.

Bob would dictate letters to customers. His secretary whose was a sharp young lady named Patty. Patty would do what good secretaries do.  She would edit the letters for correct English structure and sometimes delete an errant remark that Bob had included in his dictation. Executive secretaries are usually paid well and respected for such expertise and attention to propriety.

Patty often came to me in tears because despite her good effort to make Bob look less like a Juke or Kallicak, he would blow up and insist on using his original wording. Bob was a trained engineer but he was not at all educated.

Sure enough, the above diatribe sounds mean, curmudgeonly, or perish the thought,liberal.   

Dark Lightning

College education has a lot of pitfalls. I know people who managed to graduate with a Bachelor's degree and never took a math class. If I had to take English and History, etc., they should take some math and physics. Will they use them? Nope, and I don't use my history classes, either. I don't consider Bob to be educated, and I can't imagine how he has an engineering degree if he hasn't had more English classes and at least a technical writing class, though to be fair I didn't have to take technical writing to get a B Sci in physics. I'm different though; I wanted to be a Renaissance Man, and most people just want to slide through life with minimum mental effort. If one wants to do that, one shouldn't complain if all they are qualified to do is manual ditch digging.

My take is the technological society that was expected to develop in the US was a pipe dream. There isn't enough drive in the people to take on that sort of effort without the political will to drive and fund it. Kennedy did a good job of motivation with the Space Race, but by and large that has faded with the lack of political will, and in fact, I'll say that the Republican Party has driven that out of a lot of people. I can expand on this, but that's all for now.

Recusant

Quote from: Icarus on March 31, 2023, 01:31:14 AMI am afraid that a college education is not necessarily an education any more.  Lots of colleges bestow  BS and MS degrees for underwater basket weaving and other narrowly defined subjects. At best the graduate is a competent specialist in basket weaving,or a more highly perceived specialty such Geekdom.. The graduate may have a credential and some competence in the selected field, but he/she does not have an education because of the certificate. The specialist may be brilliant at his or her job but a dumbass otherwise.

Education implies that one have a familiarity with civics, literature (not spider man comics) history, language, philosophy, geography, and yes, even religion. Specialist graduates are merely well trained, not well educated.

I suspect that I am being a bit harsh here. I once worked at a manufacturing firm that built specialty equipment. I was a design engineer which actually meant that I was a glorified draftsman. My direct boss was a graduate with a degree in Petroleum engineering....whatever that means.  He was one of the specialists with no apparent education beyond about seventh grade. I will call him Bob. That was his real name.

Bob would dictate letters to customers. His secretary whose was a sharp young lady named Patty. Patty would do what good secretaries do.  She would edit the letters for correct English structure and sometimes delete an errant remark that Bob had included in his dictation. Executive secretaries are usually paid well and respected for such expertise and attention to propriety.

Patty often came to me in tears because despite her good effort to make Bob look less like a Juke or Kallicak, he would blow up and insist on using his original wording. Bob was a trained engineer but he was not at all educated.

Sure enough, the above diatribe sounds mean, curmudgeonly, or perish the thought,liberal. 

Agree with your exposition on education. To borrow from the smiley zoo, in my opinion it is not so much
 :geezer!:

as it is
 :spock:


I would hope that there is still some respect for the ideal of a well rounded education. Regrettably, it does seem that there is more focus in contemporary education on a number of bare competencies rather than a serious attempt to nurture an informed citizenry. It also depends on the institution of course. I hope that it is not a completely outmoded mindset--there are few enough informed citizens as it is.
"Religion is fundamentally opposed to everything I hold in veneration — courage, clear thinking, honesty, fairness, and above all, love of the truth."
— H. L. Mencken


Asmodean

When them "kids" don't learn how to learn or how to appreciate being challenged though, any genuine possibility of anything beyond those bare competencies is kind-of moot, no?

That's the problem we seem to be breeding, nurturing and buying its first home and car to in primary and secondary education. Now, I could take the opportunity to rant about the affirmative "everyone deserves to be a winner, preferably without ever having to compete" culture, but even that is a symptom, I think. The world got... Shallower, in a way, with the advent of buzzword debates and the ease of finding at least one other person to take an idiot seriously...

...

...I believe I shall return to this mess of a rant.
Quote from: Ecurb Noselrub on July 25, 2013, 08:18:52 PM
In Asmo's grey lump,
wrath and dark clouds gather force.
Luxembourg trembles.

Icarus

Early fifties I enrolled in my largest and most prestigious state university. I wanted to become an engineer... immediately. The university system did not work that way. 

The beginning student was obliged, nay required, to take the first two years of what was called comprehensive courses ("C" courses). Those courses consisted of classes that included History, civic studies, English, Logic, art appreciation including classical literature and music theory. The student was allowed to take math courses as an elective that led to the presumed specialty. Chemistry classes were allowed but could not become a major credit for the eventual scientific degree. Chem classes did look good on ones application for admittance into the engineering college. C course students were encouraged but not required to take some classes in Physics.  At the end of the two year curricula the student was awarded an Associates Degree. Now we could be admitted to the college of our choice.....if we had maintained sufficient grades.

That method implied the term "education" as opposed to the shortcut method that can be called "training".

The education concept at university  has gone to hell in a hand basket. Part of the fault is the interference from dumb fuck politicians of the christian nationalist persuasion.  Those dumb asses in the legislatures do control the purse strings of the state institutions. In my own alma mater the governor has appointed  a far right wing physician to the university med school.  That dude is a vaccine and mask denier who is reviled by the university med school staff but does have regulatory power because of political forces.



 

Tank

If religions were TV channels atheism is turning the TV off.
"Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt." ― Richard P. Feynman
'It is said that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die. That is true, it's called Life.' - Terry Pratchett
Remember, your inability to grasp science is not a valid argument against it.