Decline in craftsmanship

[Han]

Swingman wrote in news:srWdnY5mZ70yxZDNnZ2dnUVZ [e-mail]:

+1

[Richard]

They do that in the US too. Check the high school syllabus.

But I have a question for all of you guys.

Do you feel better after venting here?

[tiredofspam]

My son is going to RPI, the cost is astronomical. Fortunately he received the RPI award. But it just makes a dent in it.

The president of the university has a chauffeur driven Audi A8... one for each day of the week. Yes 7 A8's...

The school just built a new stand so she can act like Cesar at the hockey games... But she doesn't go to them. That took away a lot of grand stand area for her to entertain.

They built a world class auditorium.

The money that they are being endowed with seems to go more toward the admin side or to build prestige. On top of that outrageous increases in tuition, it doubled in the last few years or so before he was of age.

I made a promise to him when he was young.. if he got the grades I would provide the tuition. I put away a lot of money when he was born, and for the next few years.

The stock market took it away.. I lost principle as well as the early gains. I wish I stuck it under the mattress. I won't go back on my word, but I am in serious trouble for retirement. It's been hard holding a job lately. More foreigners are getting them, then us citizens.

All this makes for a perfect storm here. I only hope he has a better life than I, and doesn't have the problems I face now. Unfortunately he is in comp sci , so he is in the same career.

[tiredofspam]

That's here NOW! There are certain cultures that don't care for the bachelors,the 2 you mentioned. They believe that the masters is important, the baccalaureate is just a step to the masters. The problem is that the masters doesn't make you smarter. I have seen quite a few masters who can't put things together. To me programming, system architecture, etc.. are like furniture or building a building, or car repair. You need to build the foundation and work from there. You don't put the top on the building and then build up to it from the ground...

Yet I see a lot of that from masters.. It's just another piece of paper. It's the person.. not the degree. I have seen people without degrees build better than people with. I have seen people with degrees do well. I have watched many PHds flounder. Absolutely no clue...

[clare]

And the ONE carreer that contrary to public opinion, will be the HARDEST to make a living in over the next decade or two in North America.

You want a GOOD job? Work on something that cannot be shipped off-shore. Design and build of equipment is gone from the NA market. Same with consumer goods. SERVICING big ticket items, like automobiles and homes, will provide employment for another couple of generations. Same with installing and repairing the equipment that is required to manufacture what little is left being manufactured here.

MOST of the millrights and industrial mechanics are reaching retirement age, and very few new ones have been trained. Same with Auto Mechanics. Electricians and other building trades are in the same boat. Forget tool and die for a few more years - it's all sent offshore except for the repair and re-work. Appliance repair is going the way of the TV repairman - as is computer repair. Throw it away - not worth fixing. Send another job to China, Maylasia, or very soon Africa. Computer programming? India, China and eastern Europe are eating your lunch. Same with tech support.

[clare]

The most valuable degree you can get is the one from "Hard Knocks College" - and yet it has become almost obsolete in the job market.

[Larry Jaques]

Not to small businesses, and by that, I mean from my size (1) to maybe

20 employees. I love people who can think on their feet helping me with tasks I can't do alone any more. I try to hire minorities, too. By that I mean single white guys like me. We're the last minority.

-- In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer. -- Albert Camus

[Bill]

I think there is some truth to that, in which case academia helps perform the screening. People reveal something of their general determination. Most (students) also probably learn how to be better communicators.

I have seen people without degrees

[tiredofspam]

I know. I worked for a company that was an early adopter of Indian labor. Back in 1986 they started.. I saw the writing on the wall. Its getting very hard to get a job as an American in the computer field. I have been the only American on my last 3 teams. Very large teams. I feel like a foreigner in my own country.

[Larry Jaques]

My neighbor's son was a principal (now an admin) when the school system started having money troubles. He unilaterally closed the school sports division, offering to maintain it if the athletes' parents covered the costs. The State immediately jumped in and told him it was unlawful to stop the sports program and to refer to his documentation from the state. Sure enough, it was there. They school would just have to dump a few -teachers- to be able to afford it, but sports stayed!

The country is being run by damned speaking weasels (attorneys, for those of you in Rio Linda) and Unions. It's going to shit.

-- In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer. -- Albert Camus

[Ed Pawlowski]

In today's job market, you have to be able to check off the appropriate boxes. I know a fellow that is presently out of work and is having a hard time finding new work for that reason.

He can out engineer most engineers in his field, but he does not have the piece of paper that says so. Years ago, you could get an interview and explain that to the guy doing the hiring. Now you fill out a form on a web page and come up short. In his mid-fifties, it will be tough for him.

[Ed Pawlowski]

But it has to be balanced education. You have to be able to contribute to society to make it better.

[Ed Pawlowski]

Some truth to that, but the engineer may at least be able to get a job at the Jiffy Lube while the art guy would not know which end of the mop to used if offered a janitor's job.

[m II]

Better off to give the menial jobs to the other countries rather than the high tech jobs. Code writers are a dime a dozen these days with most of the kids with a grade eight education. If we could ship our ditches to those countries we could have them hand dig our trenches too.

MS robs thee young kids of their higher education by taunting them with high paying money. At thirty years old when they can't write code for

80 hours per week they toss them back on the job market with no education tickets and nobody wants a burned out code writer with grade 12.

[Dave]

Of course. I can't argue with that.

[phorbin]

It is around here.

[Leon]

A little truth to that, you simply don't go for a vocation that is not necessary. My son is in a relative secure and growing industry, thank you Enron. He is a financial statement auditor of public companies.

I never ever understood, even during the 90's, how any one graduating from college thought that they earned the right to a good paying job just because they had a college diploma.

My son had his first good paying job offered to him 5 months before he got his bachelors degree, 20 months before getting his masters and he even passed all 4 of his CPA exams between the masters degree and going to work for that company.

There was no marketing at all unless demonstrating that you can work and go to school at the same time is considered marketing yourself.

[Leon]

I think that because damn near every one graduating from HS at least starts college these days that the bachelors degree is so common place that it has little value over a HS diploma.

And I totally agree that a masters degree does not make you smarter, not even a doctorate makes you smarter. I will say that both make you more knowledgeable but that has little to do with being smart, something that you are born with.

But because of the belief that a college degree entitles you to a good paying job, HA HA, every one tries to gets that "expensive" degree and in many cases the cost of the degree eats up any advantage to having the degree.

[Leon]

My son works for one of the Big 4 accounting firms. The local office recruits directly from UofH, Texas A&M, and UT. The latter are the much more prestigious of the 3. He went to UofH. Today the recruiters look more favorable at the recruits from the UofH because 95% of them work and go to school. They have more street smarts so to speak, they have the advantage of knowing what is expected in the real world.

[Leon]

I think you can thank the excess number of lawyers for the fact that one the average Joe cannot find find a good job with out that college degree. It only makes sense with cover your bases by hiring those with a degree vs those with out a degree to help limit your liability should something go wrong and you end up in court.