The same energy as "entry level job, 10 years of work experience needed".
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The original idea behind school isn't to educate the masses. Why would a factory worker need to know calculus and Shakespeare? He needs to read the clock and timetables, be on time, wake up in the morning early enough to be punctual, ...
Likewise higher education isn't about the thinks you learn. It is about learning methods to learn. If you can learn the nitrogen cycle, you can learn our scrum statuses. If you can hand in your homework in time, you can keep our deadlines.
This isn't to say the system is good, but it helps to understand it when you want to criticize it.
Cant you find out the answer for these questions with a series of short tests?
I once applied for a job at IBM and instead of an initial interview they sent me a series of interactive tests to check my skills. I ended up moving to another country and didn't follow through, but still liked this approach.
Also in the EU I can see lots of job listings are using now a system where you either have a certain type of education/degree or a certain previous experience to be eligible to apply.
Still you need to have knowledge of the specific field, but technically if you started at the bottom with an entry level low skill job you can get higher with experience alone and without a university degree.
Can they? Yes. Absolutely. 100%.
A local factory likes people with college degrees, any degree, no matter what college or course, but also offer tests twice a year in large groups for exactly the reason that plenty y of people are qualified, and can do everything they need, but never went to college.
Will they? Probably not unless it's a niche employer. Why bother going through the extra effort when you can just say "degrees only" and turn your nose up at anyone without one?
I guess 5 rounds of 90 minutes long multi-stage interview process is much more efficient, where people selling an idealised version of themselves in imaginary scenarios.
Also talking to HR/recruitment department, who has no idea of the actual job is a great way to find the right candidate.
...its ridiculous
I hate interviews. I've been on both sides and neither is fun.
One person is pretending to be what they think the employer wants. The other is trying to figure out who's the least full of shit.
I just generally hate situations where everybody is expected to be fake, and not playing the "right character" will get you shunned.
A college degree ahows you can complete a series of seemingly-unrelated tasks (courses) across multiple phases (semesters), to finish a major project (degree).
It means you finish what you start and have an eye on the future instead of the present.
Your answer sounds like it was lifted from a LinkedIn motivational post.
College favours the rich, who can afford it and I don't think people with higher education are better at planning their future.
Lots of people are forced through college by their parents, often backed up with money and safety nets of security - if they fail the first time they just throw more money at it and try again.
Not everyone has the capacity to make it through college.
A lack of a degree isn't proof of anything, good or bad (for most jobs).
But a degree is a positive indicator.
The reality is that when hiring an employee I don't care how privileged they are. I care about whether they're going to be a good fit for the position.
There are other things people can use to demonstrate their ability to be a good employee. If someone worked for a company for multiple years and was promoted during that time it's a good indicator.
If someone is 23 and has worked for 10 different companies, I'm gonna guess they're flaky.
However, if someone worked for the same company more than once that's a good sign, because after leaving the company wanted them back.
But, all else being equal, having a degree is better than not for a skilled position, and will usually demand more money.
It's definitely not a perfect system and you're absolutely right that it significantly favors people with strong support and safety nets, especially those of a financial nature.
That being said it's a very easy shorthand for a company to take and is reliable enough to keep using it, just like how financial institutions in the US use SSNs as private identifiers because it's easier and cheaper than running and supporting their own systems/assessments and mostly works well enough
College favours the rich, who can afford it and I don't think people with higher education are better at planning their future.
I'll rephrase it to show flaw: Schools favours the rich, who can afford it and I don't think literate people are better at planning their future.
I've grown rather cynical of corp-speak lately, and I've heard this line before.
Whether said overtly or not, at least nowadays I'd be willing to bet a degree is used as a positive indicator that the candidate is likely in debt, will do anything for a job, and therefore will stick around and put up with almost anything for less wages, because they lack leverage.
They're therefore cheaper to hire than an independent individual that might exercise their freedom to leave if they're not treated with respect.
This might also explain why folks with high level degrees are constantly called "overqualified" and ghosted.
But learning to critically question statements and judging them yourself (which requires some knowledge, for example you can't question anti-vaxxers when you don't know anything about how vaccines work) instead of simply believing them is extremely important in a democracy.
Judging sources for the information requires way less knowledge. To continue your analogy, for most people it's obvious to take your medical advice from your family doctor instead of that crazy aunt in Facebook
While you'd generally believe that to be true it can be hard for people with no knowledge who aren't the brightest to see through statements like "doctors just are part of the wealthy smart people society who aim to keep us down".
Never underestimate human stupidity.
The problem is when medicine is for profit, you really do end up with that feeling when doctors are rushed to get you out of the door because they need to see ten patients an hour. When you’re the product it’s harder to build that trust.
It was probably better before when family doctors actually had a relationship with your family.
Dont you think that answer is far to clear cut? How about if it's abstatement heard from a supposed friend's doctor and you dont want to get a hold of your family doctor for as inane of a question as it is?
There’s ample evidence to show that no one learns critical thinking in college. At best, you select for people who are better at it.
I have watched YouTube videos of smart people reading a smart book that basically said that our education system has the focus on learning facts which gives us a submissive attitude. It gives us a feeling of passivity, of the silent observer.
That said, I realize that the system is getting better in the sense that it tries to evoke curiosity and makes kids to explorers instead of observers if that makes sense. Also, as someone who got interested in history only after school, I know that basic knowledge is important and bad if missing. Than again, why didn't school make me want to know stuff.
A factory worker seems like one of those jobs that doesnt require a college degree.
Ah, Elementary through Highschool teaches you to be an employee.
Higher education is being sold dreams and taking on debt to learn to be a better employee. Sounds about right.
I teach myself new complex skills all the time, but I imagine I'm still written off a ton because I didn't pay for at least the four year license to learn to learn. Lol
(I want to emphasize I'm being playfully sarcastic about our clown world society and not attacking you, you are very correct about needing to understand before one critiques!)
No offense taken. That's about the criticism I had in mind
Higher education is being sold dreams and taking on debt to learn to be a better employee. Sounds about right.
Don't be worse than Russia. Please fix.
Well that's about the system in the USA or some third world countries. Locking higher education behind a paywall only helps to keep the population uneducated, combine that with no focus on critical thinking in school and you get a population that's easy to control and to polarise.
Of course politicians like Trump (or pseudo-democracies or straight up autocratic regimes in third world countries) really benefit from an easily-convinced population that's not questioning them too much, so, given how strong the republicans currently are, that sadly probably won't change anytime soon.
At some point they'll realise that they need free or at least very affordable education to stay internationally competitive...
The original idea behind school isn't to educate the masses. Why would a factory worker need to know calculus and Shakespeare? He needs to read the clock and timetables, be on time, wake up in the morning early enough to be punctual, ...
In certain country reading clock and timetables was deemed not enough for factory worker.
Don't think I've ever actually heard a company say "forget everything you learned in college".
because they don't
From what I understand it's fairly common in engineering, but less of a forget everything you learned and more of a that’s all gonna be pretty much useless in the context of the specific job you're doing so just pay attention to the training
I can recall employers saying something along the lines of "don't think you know everything about business because you just got a business degree" but that's mostly about the attitude some new grads have.
You don't work where I work then.
Family-owned business. Realizes they're behind-the-ball on technology and practices. Hires college-educated & outside people to make suggestions.
"Well none of that makes sense to us. Forget all that and do it our way."
"That way is wrong."
"Well it's our business, we'll do it how we want."
Then they get all when the talented people get burnt out and quit after a few weeks. Eventually it's "well these kids just don't want to work hard like we do."
...there were a couple things I learned in nursing school that I benefited from forgetting. Mostly the racism and sexism.
Imo university most important task is to teach you the basics and how to accumulate and use the knowledge you need to do a job.
Yeah, some of the computer science theory I learned occasionally comes in handy when I'm reasoning about problems or when I'm picking apart some spec. My husband who attended a code school instead is a perfectly apt developer, but he struggles more. College also just gave me the time and resources to get a survey of knowledge outside of formal coursework. On the job, I tend to go more in-depth on topics closely related to the job.
Me, reads comments: Man there's a lot more of the 'college ain't nuthin' but debt and a piece of paper' people on Lemmy than I thought there were.
Ya'll are just trying to overcompensate for feeling inadequate about not going to college. If you don't go, don't go. It's not for everyone. But don't shit on and downplay the people who have the talent and ability to do so.
"It just teaches you do be a useful tool of the machine!" yeah that's exactly what someone who didn't go or shouldn't have went to college would think.
Not going to college doesn't mean a lack of talent or ability.
In fact, going to college doesn't mean you have either of those either.
Here, you want one of my lollipops?
Not going to college doesn't mean a lack of talent or ability.
I didn’t say that. Thanks for proving my point. 😊
You didn't need to say what you clearly implied.
I didn’t imply it. You inferred it. Incorrectly, at that.
People that are perfectly capable of going to college choose not to. Doesn’t make them inferior. And I don’t think they are, by any stretch.
You are just wrong in every reply. I don't even care to write a college level explanation of it to you.
"Forget everything you know about slipcovers!"
Nursing school was basically,"here's how to not kill anyone while you spend a year working to become a nurse." They give you the license when you prove you're unlikely to kill someone, but you don't really have any idea what you're doing until at least a year in and even then 90% of nursing knowledge is gained out on the floor.
- college doesn't teach much.
- college is still useful tho. It does require some determination and persistence to get through, or at least tolerance for dealing with. "This is the way to learn" junk.
- most actually useful knowledge is gained on the job
- I think most people fresh out of high school aren't ready for a real job, but college grads are barely ready too to be honest. Hyper generalized and i bet most people reading this are actually very qualified, that said I've met many college grads interning with us who just don't have the fortitude to do it just yet, hopefully by their second job they've grown accustomed to the dumb way of life we all call work.
I had terrible imposter syndrome when I landed a sw dev job. I thought everyone could tell that I didn't belong. I was / am self-taught. Everyone had CS degrees. I thought I was a fraud. I later recalibrated to realize that I'd earned it even harder without a degree. But I had to get that spot to be able to leverage my knowledge. There are probably people who know a lot more than me getting rejected because they don't have the right credentials.
Brother, recently i landed my first official job as system administrator (I'm still in university as EE), even though i know almost all things, i just don't know nuances of how they adapted these technologies we know of in their specific case, and i am too felt terrible imposter syndrome
25 years after graduation in CS I’m still waiting for the Pumping Lemma to have any relevance to my work as a dev.
Its not about learning, its about paying your dues to the church of capitalism
For the US, id certainly agree with you. College is free here and some employers require it (less and less though). A coworker once told me a degree shows you can be serious for one thing and see it through. It shows you are capable of achieving a goal.