I'd like to give you my own personal perspective on this - just for fun ! Way way back (in the early 70's) I was a high flyer and was being lined up to go to Cambridge University - in the UK that is the equivalent of Yale and Harvard - and I did my Mathematics and Applied Mathematics (the complicated stuff) in preparation for Cambridge. I went down to visit the university and basically hated it :( So when it came to the entrance exam, I wrote....nothing, determined not to go there ! I took the rest of that academic year off and came to the US for some 'real life' - and had decided on going to Manchester University, primarily because they were the ones who built the very first large scale computer. In late 1973 I arrived at Manchester University full of hope. Only to discover that, in doing the Cambridge entrance exams, I had already done well over half the course I was enrolled in at Manchester. And so I became a regular at the Student Union bar - got very good at table football (fusball) - and if ever I did attend a lecture it was a mid afternoon one so I could have a nap ! The professors taught what I considered to be 'not real world' practices and I would frequently (perhaps not frequently as I wasn't there that much) stand up and argue the point that in the outside world people didn't do things the way they were teaching them, and I would get hushed up ! After a year of this, and having always been involved with bands of various sorts since I was even younger - I went to see a friend of mine who had started working with his brother in a little band called Supertramp, who were just starting to make a noise for themselves. In a classic piece of right place right time - my friend told me that one of their crew had just left, and was I interested in replacing him. Er ok !! I went home packed a bag and left that night - without telling anyone my plan !! Eight weeks later, we finished that tour and had a couple of weeks off before starting again, so I returned to Manchester, as much to sort out my affairs there - only to find out they had *just* discovered my absence at the University and there was a grand flap on, and I was to go and see the Dean forthwith !! Ok, no big deal, I went to see the Dean and told him my story - which he accepted (having no alternative) - except he told me I *must* go and see my father and tell him. Oops, my father had spent large sums of money on my education, and here was I, waltzing off with a rock'n'roll band !!! So with some trepidation I drove home to talk to my Dad. He was a high flying businessman, and I went to see him in his grand office, where I had to wait in his secretary's office for quite a while until there was a space for me to talk to him ! And of course that immediately puts you in a worried frame of mind ! But the time came and in I went to tell him what was going on. I determined that the only way to go was to put a positive spin on it !! And so I told him that I was going to make this into a business, and that (the crucial part to your story) 'these days' (1974) a degree was not essential to furthering your career - which I knew was stretching it a bit - but history proved me right ! Within 5 years, my Dad had retired and ended up helping me build my company (he taught me everything I know about business) - and for a while there, I ruled my corner of the music industry :) Happy days....but I think the moral here still remains that a degree *can* help but has never been an absolute must. All the people I ever employed, I never went by their academic status - I went by their face to face character. Overall though, it is a very poor state of affairs that education, globally, has ended up at. The answer is so simple - teachers should get paid way more than they do currently. And everything else good would follow. Will it happen ? Doubtful, but it should....
Great article! In Germany, they would not accept my daughter's High School Diploma, even though she had been the Valedictorian, so she added another year to her schooling. Missing from her education were Geography and Biology, and of course she had to improve her German.
Both of my kids have been jumping from Major to Major as they don't know what they want to do with their lives. Here in the US kids are expected to get their degree in 4 years and if they don't, the Universities get penalized, so it's no wonder that they just push them through.
The whole system is broken. They have the youngest students sit at their desks the whole day and have cut recess to a bare minimum. Children learn best when they play and discover things for themselves. In many other countries, elementary aged children go to school for 4 hours a day at most, and they are learning more. Here, we are saving parents from paying for childcare.
There is little or no creativity in our schools. Teachers are not allowed to deviate from the set methods and standards. We are testing every year, but there is no improvement in scores. Shouldn't that tell us that what we are currently doing is not working? Most private schools are no better, and a lot of the Charter Schools have teachers that are not qualified, so the children are not learning and teachers are told not to discipline their students, as parents will get upset with the school and take them out, and that affects the bottom line. Homeschooling is only effective if the parents are educated and engaged, otherwise it is just glorified online schooling, with mixed results at best.
I suppose if our young people are not educated and learning to think for themselves, they are more easily manipulated. Sorry, long rant.
whats really strange is despite these shortages, seeing soo many people (most of this evidence comes from subreddits for particular professions so take that into consideration lol) compete for the chance to earn a law degree or a medical degree or whatever. It seems like there is a much higher societal demand for these professionals than spots in these university programs, so that probably should be addressed. and even if they manage to get in, they must somehow withstand the crazy levels of burnout that come with these programs that seem like they're meant to weed out people who are otherwise intelligent and amazing at what they do but cant swing working 60+ hours a week for the rest of their life in their future careers at intentionally understaffed companies. I cant imagine its a good idea to be burning out our future doctors/lawyers/professionals while only in school so they come out the gate too exhausted to be fully present at their jobs.
A degree shouldn’t cost so much today, number one. It should be something you like and are good at. It shouldn’t be vocational training, more of a Foundation in Something, showing you learned to learn. My degree had nothing to do with my first career and little to do with my second one.
But thats all gone. you are right about all this unsustainable devolution and mismatched needs skills ambitions… been watching itfir yeas and it never gets any better.
Heh. I agree with everything you wrote, and add that the breaking point came in 1986, when the MBA became the must-have degree. Prior to that, there was at least some pressure to go for a degree with some approximation of a connection to a student’s aptitudes and abilities. I remember lots of contemporaries abandoning degrees in everything from engineering to astronomy because having a business degree promised about double the starting income they’d get from anything else, and it also gave an out for the party animals expected to get something from eight years of keggers besides a coke habit and syphilis. 38 years later, not only are business schools such a default that a lot of employers now insist upon an MBA instead of “just” a degree in something that matters, but now so many offer “executive MBA” programs to distinguish from all the rabble and oldsters who ONLY have an MBA. (The assumption that most business majors are completely illiterate is to the point of being a regular joke: “I’m not stupid! I have a…uh…uhhhh…how do you spell ‘MBA’?”)
“We can’t lower [medical school] standards without losing lives. I mean really, do you want someone who can’t read doing your bloodwork!?”
No, but I might well welcome someone intelligent and attentive doing it whose only flaw is that they don’t have the mental, emotional or physical stamina to sustain years of 12-hr work-days.
There ought to be better AND various paths to careers in medicine — even at the highest end.
I'd like to give you my own personal perspective on this - just for fun ! Way way back (in the early 70's) I was a high flyer and was being lined up to go to Cambridge University - in the UK that is the equivalent of Yale and Harvard - and I did my Mathematics and Applied Mathematics (the complicated stuff) in preparation for Cambridge. I went down to visit the university and basically hated it :( So when it came to the entrance exam, I wrote....nothing, determined not to go there ! I took the rest of that academic year off and came to the US for some 'real life' - and had decided on going to Manchester University, primarily because they were the ones who built the very first large scale computer. In late 1973 I arrived at Manchester University full of hope. Only to discover that, in doing the Cambridge entrance exams, I had already done well over half the course I was enrolled in at Manchester. And so I became a regular at the Student Union bar - got very good at table football (fusball) - and if ever I did attend a lecture it was a mid afternoon one so I could have a nap ! The professors taught what I considered to be 'not real world' practices and I would frequently (perhaps not frequently as I wasn't there that much) stand up and argue the point that in the outside world people didn't do things the way they were teaching them, and I would get hushed up ! After a year of this, and having always been involved with bands of various sorts since I was even younger - I went to see a friend of mine who had started working with his brother in a little band called Supertramp, who were just starting to make a noise for themselves. In a classic piece of right place right time - my friend told me that one of their crew had just left, and was I interested in replacing him. Er ok !! I went home packed a bag and left that night - without telling anyone my plan !! Eight weeks later, we finished that tour and had a couple of weeks off before starting again, so I returned to Manchester, as much to sort out my affairs there - only to find out they had *just* discovered my absence at the University and there was a grand flap on, and I was to go and see the Dean forthwith !! Ok, no big deal, I went to see the Dean and told him my story - which he accepted (having no alternative) - except he told me I *must* go and see my father and tell him. Oops, my father had spent large sums of money on my education, and here was I, waltzing off with a rock'n'roll band !!! So with some trepidation I drove home to talk to my Dad. He was a high flying businessman, and I went to see him in his grand office, where I had to wait in his secretary's office for quite a while until there was a space for me to talk to him ! And of course that immediately puts you in a worried frame of mind ! But the time came and in I went to tell him what was going on. I determined that the only way to go was to put a positive spin on it !! And so I told him that I was going to make this into a business, and that (the crucial part to your story) 'these days' (1974) a degree was not essential to furthering your career - which I knew was stretching it a bit - but history proved me right ! Within 5 years, my Dad had retired and ended up helping me build my company (he taught me everything I know about business) - and for a while there, I ruled my corner of the music industry :) Happy days....but I think the moral here still remains that a degree *can* help but has never been an absolute must. All the people I ever employed, I never went by their academic status - I went by their face to face character. Overall though, it is a very poor state of affairs that education, globally, has ended up at. The answer is so simple - teachers should get paid way more than they do currently. And everything else good would follow. Will it happen ? Doubtful, but it should....
Universities have become trade schools. Engineering students often can’t answer the most basic liberal arts questions.
Was an ex software engineer, can confirm that most engineers can't do much haha
Good article, thanks!
Great article! In Germany, they would not accept my daughter's High School Diploma, even though she had been the Valedictorian, so she added another year to her schooling. Missing from her education were Geography and Biology, and of course she had to improve her German.
Both of my kids have been jumping from Major to Major as they don't know what they want to do with their lives. Here in the US kids are expected to get their degree in 4 years and if they don't, the Universities get penalized, so it's no wonder that they just push them through.
The whole system is broken. They have the youngest students sit at their desks the whole day and have cut recess to a bare minimum. Children learn best when they play and discover things for themselves. In many other countries, elementary aged children go to school for 4 hours a day at most, and they are learning more. Here, we are saving parents from paying for childcare.
There is little or no creativity in our schools. Teachers are not allowed to deviate from the set methods and standards. We are testing every year, but there is no improvement in scores. Shouldn't that tell us that what we are currently doing is not working? Most private schools are no better, and a lot of the Charter Schools have teachers that are not qualified, so the children are not learning and teachers are told not to discipline their students, as parents will get upset with the school and take them out, and that affects the bottom line. Homeschooling is only effective if the parents are educated and engaged, otherwise it is just glorified online schooling, with mixed results at best.
I suppose if our young people are not educated and learning to think for themselves, they are more easily manipulated. Sorry, long rant.
whats really strange is despite these shortages, seeing soo many people (most of this evidence comes from subreddits for particular professions so take that into consideration lol) compete for the chance to earn a law degree or a medical degree or whatever. It seems like there is a much higher societal demand for these professionals than spots in these university programs, so that probably should be addressed. and even if they manage to get in, they must somehow withstand the crazy levels of burnout that come with these programs that seem like they're meant to weed out people who are otherwise intelligent and amazing at what they do but cant swing working 60+ hours a week for the rest of their life in their future careers at intentionally understaffed companies. I cant imagine its a good idea to be burning out our future doctors/lawyers/professionals while only in school so they come out the gate too exhausted to be fully present at their jobs.
Good article. I love "no one likes to live in a brain drained place"... yup!
It's great until you need a doctor. Or a lawyer. Or sanitized food.
A degree shouldn’t cost so much today, number one. It should be something you like and are good at. It shouldn’t be vocational training, more of a Foundation in Something, showing you learned to learn. My degree had nothing to do with my first career and little to do with my second one.
But thats all gone. you are right about all this unsustainable devolution and mismatched needs skills ambitions… been watching itfir yeas and it never gets any better.
i fear for my daughter.
Heh. I agree with everything you wrote, and add that the breaking point came in 1986, when the MBA became the must-have degree. Prior to that, there was at least some pressure to go for a degree with some approximation of a connection to a student’s aptitudes and abilities. I remember lots of contemporaries abandoning degrees in everything from engineering to astronomy because having a business degree promised about double the starting income they’d get from anything else, and it also gave an out for the party animals expected to get something from eight years of keggers besides a coke habit and syphilis. 38 years later, not only are business schools such a default that a lot of employers now insist upon an MBA instead of “just” a degree in something that matters, but now so many offer “executive MBA” programs to distinguish from all the rabble and oldsters who ONLY have an MBA. (The assumption that most business majors are completely illiterate is to the point of being a regular joke: “I’m not stupid! I have a…uh…uhhhh…how do you spell ‘MBA’?”)
Do you think these licensing exams will be made easier soon? Or are they insulated enough to not be as impacted as the schools?
After a certain point, they won't have a choice.
“We can’t lower [medical school] standards without losing lives. I mean really, do you want someone who can’t read doing your bloodwork!?”
No, but I might well welcome someone intelligent and attentive doing it whose only flaw is that they don’t have the mental, emotional or physical stamina to sustain years of 12-hr work-days.
There ought to be better AND various paths to careers in medicine — even at the highest end.