I’m curious what the future will bring. It seems rather uncertain. I’m only in my late twenties and the world seems vastly different from how it was when I was a kid and there are many things that are better and many things that are worse. I’m also uncertain about the future of my chosen occupation because in the past ten years, it’s made leaps and bounds, some good directions some not-so-good. When some of the greatest educational institutions in the world have turned more towards profits and away from the superior educational service they provide, it seems rather daunting as these leaders of complex thought abandon rationality for the flavor of the month.
I’m no nihilist, but I’m growing more and more skeptical of the future and I think the “Great Reset” is going to be a lot of people opting for self-education and focus more on skilled trades rather than classroom learning because there are boatloads of highly educated people who found out they were “non-essential” in these past years while others who brought valuable everyday skills to the table were still able to provide for their families.
I don’t believe college is for everyone, nor should it be. College isn’t what it used to be and people are starting to recognize that. College was originally for superior thinkers and practically guaranteed a well-paying job and that the degree-holder was prepared for the workplace. Now, college prepares you to spend the start of your adult career strapped to massive debt with no way out and it doesn’t even guarantee you a job. However, getting trained as an electrician costs significantly less and there is always a need for electricians. Same with other trades. There will always be a need. However, our country has fallen away from the hard work of working with your hands and opted for more “comfortable” ways of living, sitting in an office chair wasting your adult years sending and receiving condescending passive-aggressive emails to coworkers.
The job market should return to apprenticeship style. Think about it, of the things you do at work, how much of it did you really learn at school and how much of it did you actually learn how to do at work. Yes, there are some exceptions to this like engineering and math but in terms of human resources, business, construction, law. Many of these have always been “learn on the job” fields but they’ve created a prerequisite of a college degree that proves nothing more than you showed up and (nowadays) for four years paid for the pleasure of going into debt for a piece of paper.
After working a few different jobs, I can tell you that many jobs in the “business” sector are learned through trial and error and on-the-job training. Same with law. However, these fields typically require degrees to work for someone else. Yet, I’m sure if they were to eliminate the college requirement and instead implement a three to six month training portion, you’d still hire great candidates that you will train for exactly what they’ll be doing and they won’t be saddled with debt and start the adult game of life in the red.
Long story short: we need to return to the apprenticeship style of jobs. Previously, people went to college to specialize in something but with the random requirements now to complete a bachelors degree, many of which are not in any way associated with your chosen course of study, are simply a way of forcing you to pay more money for a less-valuable education. Your “broad” education should’ve been completed by graduating high school. College is where you specialize and they’ve managed to bastardize and fuck that up for profits. There’s nothing they can teach you that a motivated person couldn’t learn on their own.
Drew Schroeder 