Decline in craftsmanship

[Swingman]

Not much has changed, depending upon the department, at UofH. Dad got his BS, and Masters in Geophysics there, working his way through; and my oldest sister likewise. My youngest went to summer school there in the last few years and found it much tougher than the small liberal arts university she attended full time in AR.

Parents in those days, at least around here, were not predisposed to pay for college at all. If you went, you mostly worked while attending.

I went to A&M because it was a state supported agricultural/engineering college and therefore inexpensive ... my first year, room and board, tuition, books, and laundry left me with $40 change to last the year after taking the $1000 I saved up from working in jr high, high school, and the summer before. As an Aggie Fish in the Corps, which was mandatory the first two years, it was pretty damned tough to spend the forty bucks in any event.

Just try that today ...

(Mom took pity and sent me a check for $5 in April of the second semester, bless her little pea picking heart) :)

[-MIKE-]

Welcome to the Occupy Movement. Except now, they are covered in colorful tattoos, faces look like tackle boxes, dread-locked hair, guys are wearing kilts, can't take the slightest admonish without some sort of reward for motivation..... and they wonder why no one will hire them.

[Bill]

Someone (T. Huxley) said "Perhaps the most valuable result of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not; it is the first lesson that ought to be learned; and however early a man's training begins, it is probably the last lesson that he learns thoroughly."

Someone else (A. Einstein, by one source) said "Education is what remains after you have forgetten everything you learned in school."

I will say: If I was hurt in an auto accident, I would rather a dumb but "trained" emergency technician find me than a smart street walker.

Bill

[Leon]

And all this time I thought that was simply a result of mentally maturing.

[Leon]

Well to be truthful, the first time I heard the comment of earning the right to a good job it came from my BIL, he is pushing 70 and never really had a decent paying job. This "right to a good job thinking" is not a new way of thinking.

[Bill]

Not everyone who ages matures.

[Bill]

Unfortunately, not everyone who ages mentally matures. Some are really stubborn! ;)

[-MIKE-]

No, not new. There have always been socialists. :-)

[Leon]

Did you mention age? And or don't think that an education makes "everyone" responsible.

After the schools and colleges finish holding their hands half still need to have their butts wiped by some on else.

[Ed Pawlowski]

Depends on your view of money. If she is happy with her life and career with low income as opposed to being a shrink with big bucks and sad life, she made the right choice.

My guess is that at some point she will trade helping people for a better life of her own if she gets tired of carrying that student debt.

[Bill]

No, I agree. Some people "fight" the educational process tooth and nail.

Most of the ones that remain in the analytical sciences are probably in the other half.

[phorbin]

Given the political core of China this begs the questions, 'But who gets preferential treatment and for what reasons?' and, 'What must one be and/or surrender to get this kind of preferential treatment?'

[Swingman]

[Larry Jaques]

Some day, humans will realize that they're all part of the same race: human.

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

[phorbin]

That is part of my picture of the issues.

There is also the issue of colonization, the moving Han Chinese into minority territories/conquered countries to turn the 'indigenous minorities within China' into minority populations in their homelands.