"CW" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@comcast.com:
Actually I was joking about the sueing part. It is just part of our culture. If we do something wrong/stupid/dangerous and get hut we want to turn around and sue someone.
Often true. My son graduated from school and passed his certification tests. The hospital where her worked said "that's nice." He left to go to another hospital for $8 and hour more doing the same exact job. After two years he left and started his own business in the field and now makes more in a year than i make in about eight.
Yes, unless you get lucky and can work in the new chosen field part time to hone your skills and get some experience. That's a rarity though.
Yes, you'd amazed at the number of people that are stepping down from high paid positions as the economy changes from manufacturing to service oriented.
Recenly read about the shortage of drivers. There are considerations to lower the age for a CDL and allowing 18 year olds to drive under some circumstances.
That bring up another thought. Didn't you say you hauled furniture? Any of your stops make the stuff and have good scraps? In the building our company is in there is a display house. I've found some nice cutoffs that have been made into my outfeed table, a sewing table fo rmy wife, plywood for jigs, etc. Dumpter diving pays.
I knew what you meant. I should have indicated that.
There's always been a question about studying for degrees in non- professional fields. I once had a young neighbor who was thinking about giving up on the Army as a career and asked me what he might be able to do with his history degree. I wasn't able to suggest any single thing for him. Even my engineering degree hasn't proven to be worth much once I got past 50.
At least the young ladies have motherhood and home management as low-cost alternative careers. [Ducking for cover if any such should read this!]
University is rarely about learning a career, college is about learning a career/trade. University is about learning how to think and be diverse. It is generally irrelevant what you study unless you specialize, such as engineering. Even then it's no sure fire way to end up working in the chosen career field. Doctors, lawyers, most business professionals all start with ANY undergraduate degree... even performing arts. After all, what better way to start a career where you can absolutely say you know how to present in front of a crowd with confidence. Sales anyone ? Once you have your undergraduate degree, you have just begun. Then you either embark on completing the process with a professional designation.... PEng, DR, Lawyer, CA,etc... or you work hard to get an entry level job with career prospects. The issue is the false sense that just because you have an undergraduate degree you some how rate an immediate professional well paying job.
The failing I see here is you friend with a degree in anthropology obviously decided he was not interested in it or didn't want to put any effort in it, believing he had apparently paid his dues and was therefore due a great career. Driving a truck is choice made either because he realized that's what he wants in life for one reason or another or it was easier than anthropology which obviously would have meant other difficult choices. Which after 6 years in higher education one would think would have been realized without having to defer to a counselor who most likely has less education or at most equivalent.
Yes and no. There's more to the story than just how much I could make in my industry. I have a nice niche job and what, for the industry, is an absolutely obscene amount of home time. I can't earn more than this without giving up another 30-40 hours a week, and I'd rather be poor and have time to play in my shop and do stuff with my kids.
So, in the short term, I have no plans to raise my income. In the longer term, my useful income is going to be going up quite dramatically once some long-running obligations are dealt with. We're going to do without it just like we have been for all these years, and that should build cash reserves very quickly indeed.
From there, I don't know. We'll figure it out when we actually get there.
I wouldn't be amazed at all. I hear about it all the time. It makes my prospects of getting out of trucking look that much more bleak too. I guess going back for my CS degree is out. :(
They already can, intrastate. There has been talk of letting them go interstate, but I haven't heard anything substantive. It's a bad idea IMHO. I once saw a dumbass kid dump the clutch and drive her Honda Civic into a video store, knocking down half of the shelves in the process. Luckily it was early in the morning, and there were few customers in the store. No one got hurt. She was maybe 17. Do we want 18-year-olds driving tractor trailers? O_o
I do, but no. Most of the stuff we haul these days, any scraps that are being made are staying in the Far East. The last American manufacturer we buy from has reached a point where they throw away a scrap after it's
13/16th" thick and 3/4" long.Every jig in my shop is built from furniture factory plywood, but that source dried up a long time ago I'm afraid.
I don't dispute that that is the case now. It hasn't always been that way, however. I know a great many folks from my parents' generation who made out quite well with nothing more than an undergraduate degree in basket weaving.
Dad for instance. He makes substantially more than SWMBO and I put together, all because he took one single class in COBOL in the early '70s.
Times have changed.
Unfortunately, any idiot can't do this shit, but thinks he can. And, if he's a good BSer, the management don't usually know the difference. Course, I'm sure there are places where this isn't true, but...
Those Toyotas are some of the best, most reliable cars made and aren't exactly the caliber of what I'd guess you'd find at WallyWorld. If the 'muricans back then realized they had to make a decent product, those durn furriners wouldn't have taken their market away from them. You'll note full size trucks are on the hit list next. Shame this country can't be at the top of the auto quality list.
Renata
Now, dontcha think educating children - yours, mine, theirs, etc. - is to everyone's benefit? You want little rugrats with nothing to do, running aorund causing trouble, growing up unskilled and unable to contribute down the road?
Renata
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Sure, but you see some of particular religious persuasions sending off 8 or 12 of the rugrats to the public schools. Kinda makes you think a factor in property tax should be a school age headcount over the average of two kids - as a "fairness" factor. After all, we're all about doing "fair shares".
-Doug
That's the crime, at one time higher education was about learning. Now colleges and universities are about getting jobs.
When the focus shifted one result was a major increase in graduates thinking they learned everything they needed to learn in school. Usually it takes someone with a little formal power, such as an employer, to break this thinking. Unfortunately it's never completely broken. Try telling an engineer something contrary to their book learning that you've learned from experience and personal observation and unless you happen to hold an advanced degree they don't want to believe you.
Another result was the teaching of the test and how to puke answers instead of thinking. This is becoming rampant.
I have been following this thread and would like your comment and suggestions how to prepare your daughter for her future career. Let say she will be attending high school this Fall. Should she targets for an engineering, Social study, IT, CPA, Medical or others career?
Thanks
Renata wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:
Now do you think what goes on in public schools today is education? And what makes you think that going to school will make a difference. I see the long term state of affairs pretty bleakly.
About 25 years ago I got into software development. It was, and still is fun and exciting to be able to create new and exciting things. I looked into the future and dreamed about eventually buying a large sail boat and doing my work from there using satalite communication and networking. What I didn't take into account was that if I could do my work from a boat in the south Pacific why can't my work be done from India? Why pay me $50.00 or more per hour when there are people in India willing to do the work for $5.00 per hour? I guess I was a little short sighted. What does this have to do with anything? Well I have been unemployeed for 2 years now.
So what does my unemployement have to do with your kids getting an education? Lots. Pick a carear for your kids, any one will do. Now ask youself if that job could be outsourced. There are very few that can't. Accountant? That can be done anywhere that has access to the company books which are all kept on computers. How about payroll, admin, management, legal, tax, scheduling, and the list goes on and on.
Just about the only jobs that can't be outsourced are those that actually require a human presence. Waitress, cook, carpenter, plumber, bricklayer, police, jobs like that.
I see a future in America when a HUGE portion of the jobs that now support middle class America slowly, of not so slowly just goes away. What happens then with the rest of the jobs that provide middle class America? When all the accountants, book keepers and computer programmers can no longer find those kinds of jobs they have to start taking jobs as carpenters, framers, plumbers and waiters. What happens to those wages when there is a glut of people that want those jobs? The wages go way down.
So what happens? Middle class America just goes away. So whay does that have to do with educating your children? Lots. Don't waste your time or money. Let them play. They aren't going to be able to find jobs when they grow up so why waste their time in school.
There are two primary political parties, Republicans and Democrats. The Democrats would rather give me welfare check than a job and the Republicans would rather give someone in India a job and make the price of stock go up. Oh and what should I do? The software engineer with a job. I should retrain into something other field.
So this week I am aplying for entry level carpenter. Two years ago I made $110,000. This year I am hoping for $10.00 per hour.
It may not have hit your area yet but around here, the carpentry jobs are being taken up by Mexicans. Illegal are preferred as they have no one to bitch to about the lack of overtime pay, ect. The Bush alien import plan should help this trend right along.
... and what were the people who left college after "the learning" supposed to do? There needs to be a balance of learning for learning's sake as well as learning for the purpose of providing the student a future beyond college.
... in most cases, the good engineers will listen to experience. OTOH, I have seen people "with experience" trying to tell engineers how things should be, the problem is that those "experienced" people did not see the big picture, in many cases, their experienced opinion would work in a single, isolated instance, but the problem being solved required a solution that could maintain operability in even the 3 to 5 sigma operating conditions.
When I was in engineering school, the arts & sciences classes were those that "taught the test" (in a number of instances, in other instances they at least told you where the answers were to be found. Most of the engineering tests I took were tests where the professor felt that the test itself should be a "learning experience" That typically meant that whatever you learned during the coursework leading up to the test, and all of the homework problems you had worked were useless, the test was going to be about something completely different.
The other "fun" classes were those where it seemed that the pre- requisite for the course was a full and complete working knowledge of all the material to be covered in the class.
My opinion only. What does she enjoy? What does she absolutely not like? That has to be considered in her decision as well as employability -- it won't do any good to have a medical degree if she does not (to the point of despise) working with biological organisms.
That said, considerations to take into account:
Mark & Juanita wrote in message news:...
You should add teaching to the list. I know, many have heard the Union propaganda that teachers don't make enough, but that is (in many areas) an outdated view. In Pennsylvania (which is rated 14th in teacher salaries) the average teacher salary is $59,000 and the average work year is 187 days. In western Pennsylvania the starting salary with a BS or BA is around $34,000 with substantial raises until the 15th to 19th year (depending on the local district) when you hit an average of $78,000. This is in addition to a great retirement package, medical and other benefits as well as about the most job security you can have. Then consider the fact that in the US we bulked up on teachers in 1968 to 1976 as the bulk of the original baby boom passed through (and the public finally accepted hiring enough teachers to support all the kids). These folks have been hitting retirement and will continue to do so for a number of years causing a shortage. Combined with the 3rd wave as baby boomers kids are now starting to have kids and the demand for small class sizes (PA's average teacher to student ratio is now 1 to 16)and the demand for teachers should continue for a number of years. Unfortunately, like many such "high demand" careers, there is always the possibility that by the time someone who is currently in high school gets through college the demand may have been satiated (i.e. like all those poor kids who finished 4 years of college with an EE degree in the last year or two).
Dave Hall
Well, your probably right, bout the toy cars. Just one of my pet peaves, Abu in his Crayola is second only to Sally in her Stupidrue and Sherie in her Subdivision. Get the furk out of my way, beemerboy coming through.
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