For those who are yet decide on their university choices

[imatfaal]

[ajb]

My advice, get yourself on a plumbers or a builders course. Far better job prospects and security.

[imatfaal]

My advice, get yourself on a plumbers or a builders course. Far better job prospects and security.

 

Shameful for our society but so true.

 

 

 

 

On a ligher note -- someone has already sung and recorded it

[mississippichem]

My advice, get yourself on a plumbers or a builders course. Far better job prospects and security.

 

Highly educated types sometimes look down on tradespeople for being uneducated or unintelligent. A plumber has already bought two cars and paid off a house by the time a scientist gets an entry level PhD position. Who's really the smart one?

[John Cuthber]

Shameful for our society but so true.

 

 

 

 

On a ligher note -- someone has already sung and recorded it

I hope he's not planning to give up the day-job and concentrate on his musical career.

[Xittenn]

Highly educated types sometimes look down on tradespeople for being uneducated or unintelligent. A plumber has already bought two cars and paid off a house by the time a scientist gets an entry level PhD position. Who's really the smart one?

 

 

This is very oddly skewed. It can take many years to develop the sufficient skills in an industry to even be taken on as an apprentice. To become a Millwright takes four years of apprenticing, same with industrial electrician, and machinist. Having a bachelors degree can often open up the ability to apprentice, especially now as competition increases, having a degree can open these doors. Most trades men do not complete their apprenticeships before the age of twenty five, it is more often the case that they complete it between thirty and thirty-five years of age.

 

I mean obviously you won't go to school to get a degree in chemistry so that you can be a good painter. You don't need to know chemistry to know how to make the best mixes of paint. But, a degree in mathematics can get you into an apprenticeship as a machinist which can build into a career in aerospace--or other--with potential of earning well into six figures (math is very important in higher level jobs of this field.) Or, conversely, many trades professionals in these fields go on to get a degree to further themselves in their respective field. Commercial air pilots, as far as I'm aware, require a bachelors degree in physics or engineering. Even guys working on high voltage are forced into a degree by competition and by a need to demonstrate a certain level of precision.

 

I think that people focus too much on the stereotypes of success and not enough on the details of how one can improve themselves to become better within their fields. Most jobs attainable by a degree are not research jobs. There isn't a trade in chemistry and yet there is a lot of demand for chemists within the industrial labour market. I have personally made my choice as far as my bachelors degree is concerned and am taking a double major math/computer science. My ideal position would be working in scientific computing for the local medical research community. I haven't ruled out the possibility that I might not get into my passion. I have other pathways to financial success, I can go back to machining, I can get a much higher paying job in plant management/production engineering. There is also the possibility of me getting into game design, game programming, effects programming for the entertainment industry.

 

Four years and $50000 is not half the investment that many think it is. It isn't so small as to be considered a drop in the bucket, but at best it's only a foundation. I'm investing in my future success by getting a degree, and I'm thirty-two almost thirty-three years old. I think that students should wait to go through post secondary and first get some real life experience, but this is just my opinion. I believe that by doing so students would gain a much better understanding of what they are striving for and why they are striving for it. I'm not in anyway the standard of anything as it stands, but I think we will be seeing future students taking a much different pathway than what has been historically accepted as the proper path. I am of the opinion that each person has their own approach to education, some need to complete it in steps, and it is more a rarity that students should continue on with post secondary after high school graduation. The current view on education pushes students to get their education over and done with and I believe this is the driving factor for our observed crummy statistics. Many of the most upstanding professionals I've known have gone through a number of growth stages that got them to where they are, none of them simply got a degree.

[mississippichem]

Xitten,

 

I agree that there are a lot of ways to make a career in technical fields. But I wasn't really trying to make a sociopolitical statement. I was just making a casual statement in the spirit of the OP's cartoon.

[Xittenn]

Xitten,

 

I agree that there are a lot of ways to make a career in technical fields. But I wasn't really trying to make a sociopolitical statement. I was just making a casual statement in the spirit of the OP's cartoon.

 

It was funny, I lawled. I just assumed the cartoon was meant to initiate some deeper conversation, it is in the ed. section and not the lounge! Nobody beat me up now k . . . .

[mississippichem]

It was funny, I lawled. I just assumed the cartoon was meant to initiate some deeper conversation, it is in the ed. section and not the lounge! Nobody beat me up now k . . . .

 

I won't beat you up...for now .

[ajb]

I agree that there are a lot of ways to make a career in technical fields.

 

Still, few long term positions available and huge competition for them. I don't mean to post a gloomy picture, just feeling a bit down.

[CharonY]

Still, few long term positions available and huge competition for them. I don't mean to post a gloomy picture, just feeling a bit down.

 

Unfortunately especially in academic settings this is what you get when you follow your interests rather than market demands (and trying to figure out the demand in academia is pretty much a networking exercise). But yeah, job prospects (esp. in academia) are generally not good with a kind of limbo state between graduation until the time where you can actually settle down somewhere (often close to the 40s and above, depending on the academic system).

 

Also, you seem to be in the same spot/mood as every (non-naive) postdoc is going through. Or at least those that are not heavily promoted by prestigious advisers.

Edited May 10, 2012 by CharonY