Are You Offended by the Idea of Going to College to Be "Educated"?

[Crosson]

You can't legislate against people being offended by peoples opinions and comments no matter how ignorant they may seem to you without infringing on civil liberties.

Ok, but we are not talking about free speech, we are talking about whether it should be necessary for everyone to go to college. If you want to shift the discussion towards legislation, I don't see any reason why congress couldn't pass an anti-discrimination act that barred employer's from discriminating on the basis of formal education. In general, I would be in favor of such an act because:

1) People who don't need the university system will no longer be required to go through it to earn white collar jobs.

2) People who go to college will only go to learn skills, which is far from the reason for why most people go to college (to earn a degree to get hired).

I suspect there will be various criticisms of this anti-discrimination proposal:

1) Current students and recent graduates who have or are working towards having degrees but not skills, they will be upset that the fiat worth of their degrees has evaporated.

2) Employers who totally depend on the degree to screen new hires, who will complain that it is too difficult to look at candidates as individuals, consider their diverse accomplishments, interview them, etc.

Regardless of whether I am in favor of such potential legislation, I don't see any reason why it would violate civil liberties.

 

[FredGarvin]

I am not offended in the least. It does piss me off a bit when you run into academic snobs who really push the fact that they are more educated therefore your opinion doesn't matter. I guess your question depends entirely if you are referring to a professional or personal situation.

The whole point of a degree is really to help ensure a MINIMAL level of education. It doesn't mean you are smart or dumb (I hear arguments that degrees make you dumb and smart from both sides of the fence). From any standpoint, if you are someone who you needs people working for them, you need at least some kind of assurance that they have a basic, minimum education or were at lest exposed to it. Maybe I am jaded, but someone who says they have experience in something is a lot tougher to swallow than someone who has some kind of proof to back it up. If you have the time to really get into a person's background, you can tell if they are full of it.

I had a sort of apprenticeship under a non-degreed engineer. It was great. So I don't entirely throw out the idea of a non-degreed engineer. HOWEVER, I have a ton of experience with "self educated" individuals who had no clue as to what they were doing. They could recite memorized facts, but had no idea on what it really meant.

To summarize:
Professional engineering setting: A degree is a very necessary thing.
Personal/Social setting: A degree is not a factor.

 

[Kurdt]

Ok, but we are not talking about free speech, we are talking about whether it should be necessary for everyone to go to college. If you want to shift the discussion towards legislation, I don't see any reason why congress couldn't pass an anti-discrimination act that barred employer's from discriminating on the basis of formal education. In general, I would be in favor of such an act because:

1) People who don't need the university system will no longer be required to go through it to earn white collar jobs.

2) People who go to college will only go to learn skills, which is far from the reason for why most people go to college (to earn a degree to get hired).

I suspect there will be various criticisms of this anti-discrimination proposal:

1) Current students and recent graduates who have or are working towards having degrees but not skills, they will be upset that the fiat worth of their degrees has evaporated.

2) Employers who totally depend on the degree to screen new hires, who will complain that it is too difficult to look at candidates as individuals, consider their diverse accomplishments, interview them, etc.

Regardless of whether I am in favor of such potential legislation, I don't see any reason why it would violate civil liberties.

Thats because you've got the wrong end of the stick, so let's just leave it there shall we.

 

[turbo]

Early on, I was the beneficiary of the insights of some people who valued skills over paper. I had been working for a couple of years for the prime contractor on a large construction project. I started out clerking, got promoted to asst superintendent, and eventually ended up superintending the project during punch-listing and turn-over - one of the most stressful jobs I've ever done. I got promoted to that position through proven ability. The company wanted me to move to Mass so they could put me through constructor's school and get certified to handle even larger projects in Boston. I had to refuse because I HATE Boston with a passion. The bad drivers, rudeness, etc are too much.

I then applied for a general laborer's position at a pulp mill that I had done materials-testing for during its construction. Someone in personnel saw "Chemical Engineering" on my resume and though I had switched majors and had no degree, they set me up for an interview for a Process Chemist opening. I knew that I was going up against some recent ChemE graduates so I held out little hope of landing the job. All went just OK (no really positive feedback from the engineers in the Tech Dept) until I got to the final interview - with the director of the department. During the interview, the chief environmental engineer interrupted with concerns that a planned acid-wash of the Kamyr digester would kill the bugs in the waste treatment plant's aeration basins and upset the plant. I asked the director if I could make a suggestion, and he said "go ahead". I told the engineer that he had valving options to pump secondary clarifier sludge (concentrated good "bugs") directly to sedimentation basins in back of the aeration basins, so he could stockpile bugs very quickly, and they wouldn't die from lack of aeration in such a short time. Then run the aeration basins in series instead of parallel to give the waste pH a chance to moderate and feed both secondary clarifiers from the second aeration basin in the chain. When the ph moderated, he could pump the sludge from the sedimentation basins back into the aeration basins and repopulate the bugs. The engineer and the tech director both asked how do you know that? I told them that I had done materials testing all through the construction of that plant, and saw the blueprints every day. Neither said much except to thank me for coming in, and I went home. By the time I got home, my wife was at the door saying "You start Monday".

I hold out little hope for the long-term success of that company because the present management requires that applicants for many critical positions be degreed. That let's out some very sharp, skilled people, to the detriment of the company. Frankly, I would rather see a paper mill superintendent or assistant superintendent be selected from people who had worked their way up through the ranks and had actual operating experience. Let the paper mill manager (usually an MBA) and his staff handle the business end of the operation and let the superintendent and his staff make sure that quality and production goals are met. Frankly, the degreed people in that mill (often engineers) generally lack the operating experience necessary to effectively manage large crews, problems-solve, etc.

 

[Monique]

Frankly, I would rather see a paper mill superintendent or assistant superintendent be selected from people who had worked their way up through the ranks and had actual operating experience. Let the paper mill manager (usually an MBA) and his staff handle the business end of the operation and let the superintendent and his staff make sure that quality and production goals are met. Frankly, the degreed people in that mill (often engineers) generally lack the operating experience necessary to effectively manage large crews, problems-solve, etc.

I think it is very clear that the skills you learn on the work floor are more valuable than the skills you learn from a book. I know people who went from being a sales man to being a successful chemical products producer, or college drop outs who become very successful property exploiters. You really don't need a degree to be good at something (actually, there are statistics that show that college drop-outs are an over represented population among billionaires http://www.forbes.com/2000/06/29/feat.html).

I actually grew up in a family that thought that educated people were very ignorant, exactly for the reason that educated people look down on uneducated people, so yeah, people get offended by the mindset that was mentioned in the first post.

 

[turbo]

I was lucky to be associated with, and employed by, the 2nd-largest training services company in the world (at the time) after I left the paper mill. They hired me because they had nobody with the expertise to operate a pulp-and-paper training division and that's where they had decided to branch out. Nobody there ever asked me if I had a degree. 1) I had come highly recommended by a respected industry insider, and 2) most of the highly-placed people in that company had been hired directly out of the Navy, without a degree - with a heavy tilt toward people with nuclear sub service. Stable, get-along types with multiple skill-sets. There are a lot of multi-taskers in the nukes.

 

[BobG]

Ok, but we are not talking about free speech, we are talking about whether it should be necessary for everyone to go to college. If you want to shift the discussion towards legislation, I don't see any reason why congress couldn't pass an anti-discrimination act that barred employer's from discriminating on the basis of formal education. In general, I would be in favor of such an act because:

1) People who don't need the university system will no longer be required to go through it to earn white collar jobs.

2) People who go to college will only go to learn skills, which is far from the reason for why most people go to college (to earn a degree to get hired).

I suspect there will be various criticisms of this anti-discrimination proposal:

1) Current students and recent graduates who have or are working towards having degrees but not skills, they will be upset that the fiat worth of their degrees has evaporated.

2) Employers who totally depend on the degree to screen new hires, who will complain that it is too difficult to look at candidates as individuals, consider their diverse accomplishments, interview them, etc.

Regardless of whether I am in favor of such potential legislation, I don't see any reason why it would violate civil liberties.

The second reason for being opposed is pretty significant. The opposition would be for the same reason resumes are only one page; two at the very most.

The company is paying for the time of every person that reviews that resume or sits in on that interview. Yes, interviewing one person is pretty cheap, even if a few managers sit in on the interview. Interview a hundred people and those costs start to add up.

Likewise for reading resumes. You can't afford the time to read through a good package that really tells you something about each applicant. You only have time to read through a quick highlight that allows you to eliminate people.

Ideally, the process eliminates a bunch of people by skimming resumes, and the first interview narrows down the field to just two or three that all have a pretty good chance of being qualified for the job.

Those last few are the only ones the company can really afford to invest some time and money into and the managers are probably still more concerned at making sure they don't pick someone totally wrong for the job than they are about getting the best person possible for the job (in spite of what some managers may say).

The best possible doesn't stick around forever - he/she can always find good opportunities. The mistakes just won't leave! They're happy to have any kind of a job and will aspire to the lofty heights of doing just enough not to get fired.

 

[rootX]

1) People who don't need the university system will no longer be required to go through it to earn white collar jobs.

This would help old people who are experienced, but definitely not the younger ones.
There will more drop outs --> more crime.
If there is no incentive for going to colleges then most of people would not.
Less research?.

And, I really don't see how the younger people would enter into work force. I think he/she
would have go do lot more work to get a simple degree job.

 

[D H]

The company is paying for the time of every person that reviews that resume or sits in on that interview. Yes, interviewing one person is pretty cheap, even if a few managers sit in on the interview. Interview a hundred people and those costs start to add up.

I would not call $5000-$10,000 "cheap", which is the typical real cost of an interview with my employer. There's an airplane ticket, a rental car, and a hotel room for the interviewee ($1000 or more) and 20+ hours of employee time (mostly uncharged, but still easily worth $4000 and more likely worth over $10,000). For a small company those costs start to add up with one single interview.

Our office manager does an initial screening that cuts the number of applicants by well over 90%. Phone interviews cut the remainder by another 2/3, and reference checks whittle the number down a bit more. There are probably a few gems who get thrown out during this screening process just because they do not have the paper qualifications or can't conduct a decent phone interview. Too bad for them. We simply cannot afford to conduct intensive, all-day interviews for every Joe Blow on the street.

Ideally, the process eliminates a bunch of people by skimming resumes, and the first interview narrows down the field to just two or three that all have a pretty good chance of being qualified for the job. Those last few are the only ones the company can really afford to invest some time and money into ...

That's exactly right. Skimming is cheap, the intermediate steps cost a few hundred dollars, but that final interview is very expensive.

... and the managers are probably still more concerned at making sure they don't pick someone totally wrong for the job than they are about getting the best person possible for the job (in spite of what some managers may say). The mistakes just won't leave! They're happy to have any kind of a job and will aspire to the lofty heights of doing just enough not to get fired.

The five-figure cost of a final interval pales in comparison to the cost of hiring the wrong person. A bad employee can cost a company orders of magnitude more, and in extreme cases, can drive a company bankrupt. Looking for dead weight, downright bad apples, and even good people who nonetheless won't fit in the company culture is an important part of the interview process.

 

[Artman]

My stepfather is an engineer. He got his first job when they were accepting applicants that didn't have a college degree. He had plenty of hands on experience through actual work in the field but one day his bosses started hiring outside people over promoting him because they had degrees and he didn't. They had no idea what they were doing though and he always had to clean up their messes and train their replacements. And still they would not promote him because he didn't have a degree.

This is me almost exactly. I trained a newbie college kid who didn't know anything. He was still working on his senior project, which I even helped him with before he graduated. After he graduated, they made him production manager for the office. That same year one of my projects won the top Engineering award offered in my state, but I don't have a degree. Yeah, occasionally I am offended.

 

[Moonbear]

I hold out little hope for the long-term success of that company because the present management requires that applicants for many critical positions be degreed. That let's out some very sharp, skilled people, to the detriment of the company. Frankly, I would rather see a paper mill superintendent or assistant superintendent be selected from people who had worked their way up through the ranks and had actual operating experience. Let the paper mill manager (usually an MBA) and his staff handle the business end of the operation and let the superintendent and his staff make sure that quality and production goals are met. Frankly, the degreed people in that mill (often engineers) generally lack the operating experience necessary to effectively manage large crews, problems-solve, etc.

Sure, there are plenty of jobs where a degree doesn't really help at all, or very little. What does a college graduate know about running the machines in a paper mill? Supervisors/foremen in a setting like that should be people who work their way up the ranks based on skill and experience, not a diploma. On the other hand, it would be very hard to move someone up the ranks from mill floor to office manager...there just isn't a crossover in skills there, and the financial side of things is something that a college degree helps with.

You'd probably still prefer that your physician have a sound scientific training before starting their clerkships so they know how to solve problems and diagnose ailments that they haven't necessarily seen before. On the other hand, I don't need my car mechanic to have an engineering degree, nor do I need the shop manager to have a business degree.

 

[wolram]

Scientists all ways squabbling

 

[mheslep]

I've come to believe one of the more significant aspects of a diploma to perspective and busy employer is that it provides immediate indication that the typically very young candidate can focus on and complete a long term task independently and in the midst of many distractions; that you could complete the application process, show up to class, not burn down the campus, accept challenges to your ideas, and graduate. There are other ways to demonstrate this ability but none so familiar. Likewise as your career advances and one has more opportunities to demonstrate these same skills in the work place, degrees become less important than experience and at some point they're expected to slip from the top of the resume.

 

[Gear300]

The vast majority of people contend that one must go to college to become "educated".

Whether you're in college or not, doesn't such a mentality offend you?

As if you just aren't smart enough to sit down with some books and learn some material for yourself?

I agree. Intellectuality does not come from schools/college. It is characteristic of one self. Thing is that to educate the public, systems such as these tend to be used.