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this post was submitted on 26 May 2024
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Graduation is optional. The dream we were sold in highschool of "go to college" was propaganda spun up by colleges looking to pad their books with your tuition. Many jobs you are seeking have apprenticeship programs where they pay you to learn.
College is and remains a giant expensive mixer to find someone to date. That's mostly it. Anything outside of a select few professions can be learned outside of a campus with fresher material.
If you want to learn a profession there is nothing gatekeeping you from doing it.
I can't speak for you, but I personally want a doctor who learned the profession through an organization that gatekeeps people who didn't go to college from doing it.
It's almost as if you breezed by the acknowledgement that some jobs do require secondary education. A fun fact about those doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals: following school they then spend another 4+ years in residency where they actually develop the skills they need to be that doctor you were referring to.
You acknowledged that first and then you said- "If you want to learn a profession there is nothing gatekeeping you from doing it."
So the second thing you said contradicted the former. I assumed via the way time works that the second one was the one you meant to say.
One statement does not contradict the other. Learning and education are not gatekept by a school. That is the point I made. Widen your view for a moment and maybe understand that a person can learn anywhere. The means to do so exist outside the hallowed halls of academia.
They are when it's medical school.
Not if they legally want to practice as a doctor.
Not if you wish to legally practice medicine.
I can't help but notice your... selection... seems to align with something I already covered. It really is a shame they dropped language arts from grade school curriculum.
edit:
To drill into this further - while there is a barrier to practice: that does not mean you cannot learn anything about the medical field while outside academia.
Yes, and then you keep contradicting that by saying things like "Learning and education are not gatekept by a school" and "Widen your view for a moment and maybe understand that a person can learn anywhere. The means to do so exist outside the hallowed halls of academia."
It's not my fault you can't make up your mind.
What precisely am I contradicting? Both of those statements are accurate.
They are only accurate if they apply to doctors as well. What you said before you said those things is not really relevant because, again, of the way time works.
The gatekeeping happens at the end or after the university and before you enter the profession.
It's generally called a test (or multiple tests) which judge the quality of one's knowledge before one is allowed to practice as an expert in a certain area.
The graduation is the part where the University produces a certificate in which they state that they have indeed tested somebody's knowledge and how good it was determined to be. If a person goes through the whole learning process but don't get that certificate, future employeers might not (in some areas, they legally can't) consider that person for employment in that area (I explain why at the end).
Generally the actual learning is not gatekept: for example, in my area - software development - people absolutelly can do the entire learning outside formal education and still end up working in it professionally, though at the start of one's career one still has to have some kind of evidence of one's capabilities (which in this case isn't provided by a University having assessed your knowledge on it), so normally the path to it that bypasses Academia involves first working professionally in an adjacent area (such as systems administration) and moving from that to software development (good sys admins have to know how to program)
However for "protected professions" (such as Law) or for were the costs of errors can mean death (such as Medical or Civil Pilot) at minimum you have to be assessed including a significant practical period under supervisions (a couple of years for a Medical doctor depending on speciality, 1000h of flight for Civil Pilots, plus specific training each kind of plane they're flying) and that practicing under supervision is lot harded - often impossible - to get if a person didn't come via a formal education setting.
Also in some areas it's pretty close to impossible to get certified as knowledgeable without going through the entire formal Education process, which is indeed unfair and should not be the case - if should be possible for anybody to pay to be assessed and certified without having to pay for the formal learning.
Even in areas which are neither protected professions nor life-and-death, not having the certification which is the Diploma negativelly impacts a person's chances to find their first and maybe second jobs. The problem is when hiring managers get lots of candidates for a position, they don't have time to talk to them all because they also have to do their normal job alongside candidate selection, so instead they prune the list of candidates and not having something that in some way certificates that a candidate has the required knowledge (which for a first job is generally a Diploma, but for latter jobs is going to be previous job experience) is a common criteria because it usually works.
That use to be the case for programming jobs, but ever since the layoffs, those with a degree are at an advantage. I was laid off, but it only took me 6 weeks to land a new job thanks to my CS degree. My cohorts without a degree have been looking for 6 months...
I've seen the opposite be true as well - but food for thought here: some of your cohorts probably had similar work experience as you... meaning the differentiator (tie breaker) was certainly the additional "experience." I'm glad you found the job. Layoffs have been brutal lately.
Balls
College (esp private schools, more than community colleges) can certainly be overpriced for plenty of people.
Though…
What percentage of Big 4 and big tech company employees have college degrees?
Learning a profession is sadly a relatively small part of how an institution helps you get a good job.
There are a number of jobs that have an insurmountable check box for "has college degree" in the HR checklist. Doesn't matter if every interviewer says "hire him", HR will refuse. Hell about three years into my career, my employer lost some records including their documentation that I had a degree, and they had informed me that I had three months to get my university to prove my status again, or my job would be terminated, that I had gotten and by their own admission I could not possibly have had if hadn't proven it before, but their process was clear, so I had to get them what they wanted to keep the job.
Further, there are particularly exclusive companies that may insist on a particular set of colleges, e.g a list of ivy League universities that they will accept applicants from and nothing else will cut it, because they advertise their ivy League credentials to clients.
Even without a formal list, the names carry weight. When I was working on vetting candidates, which was usually a pretty grueling interview process, management had one guy skip the interviews and go straight to job offer because they saw MIT as their school.
In my experience, the people from there are not special and are not particularly better equipped for the sorts of work I deal with, but branding carries a lot of weight.
That sounds like a rough experience friend, but if I was working at a company that needed to check up on my documentation after working there for some time - I'd probably find a new job where I wasn't just employee 253966.
To your point about names carrying their weight - that's a problem in itself: what about those that don't go to ivy league? What about those that do that simply lack any marketable skill outside of where they went?
I agree that the interview process at a lot of aforementioned places is particularly awful. Once working there it typically doesn't improve. The facilities are nice enough, sure... but I've seen far too many people working for companies like that get laid off regardless of how performant they were. They are just a line item.
The point I made initially was that many jobs do not require the degree to do the work. Many professions do not benefit from a 4 year college building a curriculum around now outdated information.
There are good companies and good professions that do not have those requirements.
It was a mild inconvenience inflicted by a bureaucratic HR I almost never dealt with. If I acted out by walking on the job, well that job was paying about 40% more than other offers I had on the table. It simply was an anecdote to demonstrate that some companies have formalities around the degree.
Not saying it is the most rational or the most fair, I'm simply saying it is a thing, and a thing that these would-be-graduates likely paid a lot of money for, specifically. Some of them might have had offers lined up at 'Harvard-only' companies (which sounds terrible, but I've heard it's a thing and a thing that earn lots of money). Also, what if these would-be grads are in that camp of 'no marketable skills apart from the name on their degree'? Then for them they especially want that institutional name on their degree.
This is good advice, but keep in mind you could lose your job wherever, so it's less a game of trying to find out where you won't get laid off, but about mitigation for if it happens, in terms of contractual severance and savings. Sure if a place is particularly layoff happy, maybe not worth the trouble, but no matter how personal and respectful the treatment you get is, layoff is always in the picture, up to and including the employer just completely going out of business.
Sure, but these people paid for a Harvard degree and are presumably on a career track where that would be very valuable. The good companies and good professions may not be as lucrative for those graduation candidates as options that the Harvard degree would open up.
While it's true that many people's careers post-college are not directly related to their degree, it's still valuable to employers.
What a degree says is that an individual can sucessfully complete a project that takes years of work and at least enough professionalism to get through.
I see this point used frequently - and it isn't wrong ... but it's only half of a statement. In that time let's say someone holds a position for 4 years of experience. These two things are not equally weighted, but very similar at that point. As time progresses that piece of paper continues to lose value when compared to experience in the field.
The degree is, in essence, a signal that someone has achieved at least the base level of competency in a field and stuck with it for x time. So assuming 2 parties with 0 work experience vie for a job naturally the degree holder will win out. It gets murkier when comparing someone with 4 years with in field experience to a 4 year degree holder with 0 experience.
The point I aimed to make was just that. It's a perfectly reasonable assertion.
There's a world of difference in dedication to completing a 4-year project when you're being paid to be there working and when you are not.
Sucessfully completing a college degree shows that someone is driven, can accomplish goals, and make forward-looking decisions.
I respectfully disagree with the difference between someone working on a project or job for 4 years being less "driven" than their counterpart. Execution and follow through are based on per individual. Downplaying the efforts simply because it doesn't align with your perspective is incorrect. Both individuals are putting forth similar efforts to learn a trade. As I asserted above.
Someone simultaneously spending money, building debt, and foregoing income for years to complete a project that will result in better longer-term prospects absolutely shows drive and a focus on the long-term.
Not going to college doesn't mean someone doesn't have those qualities, but the degree is prrof of minimum qualifications and drive.
I know everything necessary to build a house from the ground up, but if you want an electrical upgrade you should hire a licensed electrician and not me because they have the credentials to back it up.
As I asserted earlier - you are heavily downplaying the efforts of someone working in the same field for the same amount of time and treating it differently. That simply isn't a fair assessment and is being used to sell a statement that is a half truth. Both individuals have something to show for their time investment that highlights their value. One has a degree which, for the reasons you have specified, is valuable - one has 4 years of experience in the field highlighting they are competent enough and skilled enough to be an asset to the same company for 4 years. To head off the followup: does every worker at a job have 100% "hire this man" energy? Certainly not. Conversely does every graduate have what it takes to succeed in a field? Absolutely not. With that in mind both individuals applying to a new job with the aforementioned experience/degree will, and should be, weighted similarly.
With regard to your electrician example: a licensed electrician is just that. When you hire one do you care if he got a degree in EE prior to getting his license? The result is what matters. This is the point I keep driving at. If I hire a lawyer, I could care less what is hanging on his office wall - I care that he passed the bar and wins consistently. There are many paths to the same result... don't simply scorn one because it is a path you wouldn't take.
You literally can't take the bar without a law degree. The bar is just a test at the end of the journey.
Because the ability to pass one test is no replacement for a holistic education in the law.
Hell, I know more about the law in my particular field than 99% of attorneys. But that doesn't mean shit in a courtroom.
Do you care of your electrician is licensed? You should. Because someone can know enough about electricity to get by and make things work and still be dangerous. That shortcut they used to steal a return off a separate circuit to save a wire run in the garage works great until the GFI fails on a short and you get electrocuted using the sink.
Credentials are important. Some college degrees are essential for their specific jobs (doctors, lawyers, scientists). Others are useful skillsets combined with a degree that acts as a credential that says "independantly accomplishes multi-year complex goal involving 40+ successful milestone tasks (courses) with no supervision required."