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garoteEvery now and then I see a news article float by from a "respectable" source, about how the working class of America has a collective distrust, even hatred, for intellectuals. The narrative usually implies that the American educational system is going down the toilet because of this attitude. Just behind that is the implication that if these hapless blue-collar people would just get off their lazy bitter asses and get an edumacation they would join the middle class and - shall we say - Make America Great Again.
But I believe that colleges, as the self-proclaimed gatekeepers of higher education, should be under pressure to make their product actually useful to the people they sell it to. As I see it, that utility can take two forms:
If a college is courting people who want to elevate their career, their product should be valuable professional skills, at a fair price.
If a college is courting people with money, their product is a classical education that helps people fit in with, and form connections to, other people with money. That's where the real value is for those people, although it flies under a different banner, a more palatable one that reads "Make you a more well-rounded and better human being."
Of course we can take the pragmatic angle and say that colleges are around to do both of these things, but the point here is this: Sometimes people with money go to college, get a classical education, and then land a job afterwards through their connections, without actually learning the professional skills very well along the way.
Or even worse, they go there without money, go into debt, work hard to learn the professional skills the college claims are important, and the college turns out to be wrong.
I've been working in my industry for a quarter of a century now. Started it right out of high school. I have seen a lot of people here who fall into these categories. People who blunder from job to job leaving things worse than they found them, bluffing their way through interviews. People who are fabulously arrogant, believing that the way they did things in their final college project is the One True Way, starting needless arguments over which tools to use (Django or Ember?), which language to write in (C# or Python?), which methodology to apply (SCRUM or Agile?) and judging others for their ignorance of the One True Way. And most often by far: People who are simply unable to do the work, full stop. Eventually you can get a sense for these people and even predict a time frame, for example, "as a recent college graduate, this person will be completely useless to the company until at least six months have passed." And possibly forever, if they don't knuckle down.
This happens. In my industry, it happens quite a lot. What is the proper response to this but skepticism of higher education?
From my point of view, people should be suspicious of a recent college graduate, until they've proven themselves. Especially when that graduate believes that being "a more well-rounded and better human being" is more important than being able to do the job. Or when they declare that they know the work better than the people who have actually been doing it for years. What is the proper response to arrogance? It sure ain't deference. "You have a degree? Oh sorry, I'll stop asking questions now." Yeah, no.
My father was the first of his family line to go to college. I dropped out after five years because my vocation - learned outside of college - was already more lucrative than almost any other the college claimed to train and be the gatekeeper for. My father was very frustrated with my apparent lack of a desire to do well in school (the undiagnosed ADD didn't help) and it soured our relationship for all of my teenage years, but eventually he had to recognize that I'd made good on my own terms, and we eventually both agreed that college was not necessarily a path to the middle class, let alone the only path.
I can tell you what did forge my path: My parents worked hard to give me time and space, and I poured almost all that into the computer. Call it an indirect version of apprenticeship. I'm incredibly grateful for that time and space.
Now I work in a small company alongside 15+ highly educated biochemists. Wonderful, smart, very hard-working people. They had to put in grueling hours to learn their trade just as I did, but they had to pay out the nose to a college for the opportunity to do so. Ask them, and they will tell you how annoying it is that a computer programmer who never took on a dime of college debt can pull down the same wage, and have higher job security. (They can't blame the college for that, at least. Supply and demand.)
I'm digressing a bit, but I'm bringing this up to say that I fully understand the frustration that people out in the world feel when someone tells them that they are ignorant, or lazy, or lower class, because they do not have a college degree, or because they are skeptical that a college degree would appreciably improve their lives relative to the many other things they could (and do) pursue outside ivy walls. ... But the only reason I don’t take personal offense along with them is that I ended up making a crapload of money. And that is really one of the best kinds of revenge.
Success isn’t all about money, but if colleges are gonna take so much of it from people who have so little, then there should be pressure on them to deliver employable skills in return. The "more well-rounded and better human being" part can come along as a bonus. (It did for me.) That pressure should apply whether the money is collected in private tuition fees, or collected invisibly as a tax on everyone.
So the next time you meet someone who distrusts higher education, remember that colleges are not perfect and their place in society is not sacrosanct. The pressure needs to be on. A big ol' pile of book-learnin' doesn't exempt you from questioning. But it does help you form answers, and you can put that to great use while you win over the skeptics.
(By the way, California’s state college system is both affordable and high-quality, and a great mix of vocational and general education. Don’t forget to factor that into the argument when someone tells you that the US educational system is spiraling down the toilet.)
But I believe that colleges, as the self-proclaimed gatekeepers of higher education, should be under pressure to make their product actually useful to the people they sell it to. As I see it, that utility can take two forms:
If a college is courting people who want to elevate their career, their product should be valuable professional skills, at a fair price.
If a college is courting people with money, their product is a classical education that helps people fit in with, and form connections to, other people with money. That's where the real value is for those people, although it flies under a different banner, a more palatable one that reads "Make you a more well-rounded and better human being."
Of course we can take the pragmatic angle and say that colleges are around to do both of these things, but the point here is this: Sometimes people with money go to college, get a classical education, and then land a job afterwards through their connections, without actually learning the professional skills very well along the way.Or even worse, they go there without money, go into debt, work hard to learn the professional skills the college claims are important, and the college turns out to be wrong.
I've been working in my industry for a quarter of a century now. Started it right out of high school. I have seen a lot of people here who fall into these categories. People who blunder from job to job leaving things worse than they found them, bluffing their way through interviews. People who are fabulously arrogant, believing that the way they did things in their final college project is the One True Way, starting needless arguments over which tools to use (Django or Ember?), which language to write in (C# or Python?), which methodology to apply (SCRUM or Agile?) and judging others for their ignorance of the One True Way. And most often by far: People who are simply unable to do the work, full stop. Eventually you can get a sense for these people and even predict a time frame, for example, "as a recent college graduate, this person will be completely useless to the company until at least six months have passed." And possibly forever, if they don't knuckle down.
This happens. In my industry, it happens quite a lot. What is the proper response to this but skepticism of higher education?
From my point of view, people should be suspicious of a recent college graduate, until they've proven themselves. Especially when that graduate believes that being "a more well-rounded and better human being" is more important than being able to do the job. Or when they declare that they know the work better than the people who have actually been doing it for years. What is the proper response to arrogance? It sure ain't deference. "You have a degree? Oh sorry, I'll stop asking questions now." Yeah, no.
My father was the first of his family line to go to college. I dropped out after five years because my vocation - learned outside of college - was already more lucrative than almost any other the college claimed to train and be the gatekeeper for. My father was very frustrated with my apparent lack of a desire to do well in school (the undiagnosed ADD didn't help) and it soured our relationship for all of my teenage years, but eventually he had to recognize that I'd made good on my own terms, and we eventually both agreed that college was not necessarily a path to the middle class, let alone the only path.
I can tell you what did forge my path: My parents worked hard to give me time and space, and I poured almost all that into the computer. Call it an indirect version of apprenticeship. I'm incredibly grateful for that time and space.
Now I work in a small company alongside 15+ highly educated biochemists. Wonderful, smart, very hard-working people. They had to put in grueling hours to learn their trade just as I did, but they had to pay out the nose to a college for the opportunity to do so. Ask them, and they will tell you how annoying it is that a computer programmer who never took on a dime of college debt can pull down the same wage, and have higher job security. (They can't blame the college for that, at least. Supply and demand.)
I'm digressing a bit, but I'm bringing this up to say that I fully understand the frustration that people out in the world feel when someone tells them that they are ignorant, or lazy, or lower class, because they do not have a college degree, or because they are skeptical that a college degree would appreciably improve their lives relative to the many other things they could (and do) pursue outside ivy walls. ... But the only reason I don’t take personal offense along with them is that I ended up making a crapload of money. And that is really one of the best kinds of revenge.
Success isn’t all about money, but if colleges are gonna take so much of it from people who have so little, then there should be pressure on them to deliver employable skills in return. The "more well-rounded and better human being" part can come along as a bonus. (It did for me.) That pressure should apply whether the money is collected in private tuition fees, or collected invisibly as a tax on everyone.
So the next time you meet someone who distrusts higher education, remember that colleges are not perfect and their place in society is not sacrosanct. The pressure needs to be on. A big ol' pile of book-learnin' doesn't exempt you from questioning. But it does help you form answers, and you can put that to great use while you win over the skeptics.
(By the way, California’s state college system is both affordable and high-quality, and a great mix of vocational and general education. Don’t forget to factor that into the argument when someone tells you that the US educational system is spiraling down the toilet.)
no subject
Date: 2018-12-14 08:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-12-14 07:54 pm (UTC)Colleges have advantage over pouring the time into computers at home: educational process then is structured and guided. It doesn't mean that the paying student just wakes up one day, and finds himself ready for life.