Apprenticeships/Internships Over Education
Our college system in the United States is broken, not only on the level of what you receive but what its actually worth in the real world. Most companies only care that you are semi competent so having a somewhat related degree is needed for many jobs just to get you through the door. Just to get that degree though will put you into debt for years and the costs are only rising. For the majority of professions out there that are unspecialized your best bet is to get the most inexpensive bachelors degree you can, via an organization like a community college, then pursue an apprenticeship or an internship.
I don't see big companies pulling the requirement for a basic bachelors degree anytime soon so if you have to play by their rules to start, do it in a way that wont kill your finances for the next few decades. However what they really care about when it comes to a potential hire is experience, not usually the education. Even my dad who works in management for a large advertising agency says that tangible work experience is better than a masters almost every day of the week. Training people has a real economic cost to it and companies dont want to have to do it more than just a little bit.
Unfortunately the working for free internship scam is what many of us have to do in order to at least get that starting experience. Some companies will pay a little, but for many of us you will need to work for free or minimum wage. We live in a time where employers have all the power, which is why we still have to play by their rules, unless you want to start your own business, which is a totally different thing, but things arent like they used to be. I hate the idea that you need to go to college for many professions that would usually only need training, but in an environment where the majority of people are going to have a bachelors, if you dont, you are going to get filtered out by the recruiting system.
I think there are many people who are naive who think that any job can be done without a college degree and I think in many ways these people are feeding you misinformation. Skills like computer programming might not need a degree, but if you wish to work most desk jobs, it will be required to get you through the door. Like I said before, play by the rules and get the cheapest degree possible then focus solely on experience. Even if you work for free there is economic value you are gaining by making yourself more marketable.
In the past you might have been able to just get a job for life right out of highschool but things changed and they are only going to get worse. Fulfill the bare minimum with education then focus on experience. Get as much experience as you can and become someone they cant afford to lose. Maybe this whole college debt bubble will eventually pop and we can actually start a real discussion about how they are exploiting the youth, but at this point in time not many people want to hear about it.
-Calaber24p
The worst part about most university degrees is that they require you to go into debt and take all kinds of unrelated courses under the guise of making you an all-around "better human being."
But what's actually happening is that students are wasting their time taking courses that have nothing to do with the field they plan to work in.
It's a scam so these useless professors keep their jobs and tenure.
I wrote an article about general education classes a while ago. I think they are a scam and a joke. I dont think they make you better people and that isnt the job of the university anyway, its to train you, that was the job of primary school.
I am impressed over and over from the US education system. For me as a Swiss it is really wierd that you have to take a big loan just for a „basic“ education.
After my basic school education I was doing a internship. This is a very normal thing to do here (and Germany). I basicly attended school for two days and the other 3 I was working in a company where I learned the practical aspect. I got paied from the first day and with every year my salary increased. After 4 years I was ready to work on the job.
After that I started to go to a university for applied science where I continued to study for my job and during the vacation I went back to the company to work and got payed like a normal worker. I will finish uni in half a year and I dont have any fear I wont find a job quite fast. I even think I am more valuable with my practical background then if I had done a similar education with just highschool and university.
Also the university is almost free (700$/semester) and I even get money from the state to support my life and I dont have to pay it back if I finish my studies.
Yeah its unfortunate that our education system is the way it is in the US. Your best bet here is getting a scholarship which many colleges have to offer in order to be competitive. I know a few people who got into good schools because they could pay the tuition.
Experience is the ultimate feat to remaining relevant in any organization.
Unfortunately, the Nigeria's academic system is just a total mess.
The experience doesn't even count. Who you know is the order
Yeah our system is better in that sense, but for many who make one stupid choice by choosing an expensive college while young, they will spend the rest of their lives paying it back.
I also think that education is very important in order to get a well paid job unless you open your own company that doesn’t require education. There is another issue with education and I think it’s our government’s fault. “The student loans”. The goverment made it so easy for students to get a loan that it led prices to scyrocket since schools got used to geting this easy money backed by goverment. I’m not surprised the schools had taken advantage of it, it’s perfect example of them not giving a s..t about students, just make as much as they can. My wife had this easy to get student loan with over 6% interest rate. After few years when I realized it would take us years to pay it off we decided to pay it off all at once. We saved on Interest and I hate to support such as methods where greediness overcomes honesty.
Yeah student loans have been cracked down on in recent years after 08 but now all they just require a cosigner which means that both the parent and child is stuck paying them off for eternity.
Its a pretty vicious circle. Employers want experience but noone wants to give entry level people a chance to get the experience. I myself went to a technical school in 2000 that cost me $23,000 . I checked on yhe same program today and it is almost $40,000. That is insane.
The same goes in Philippines too. I find their criteria very irrelevant. Aside from that, in our country, politics play a crucial role. I applied in a government agency for an entry level position. I was not admitted but instead it was someone who only attain two years in college. It hurt me a bit because the office itself did not follow the guidelines that the HRMO made.
In every country you are going to have people with connections getting better positions which is actually one of the negatives to having internships and unions as well, people bring their family members in and you cant get in if you dont have a connection.
I agree. For occupations that require intensive training on highly specialized and/or expensive equipment (e.g. various medical/health related fields, etc), you'll likely have to pay for training.
But for many other pursuits (e.g. music, software development, arts, writing, blogging, etc) your best bet is to develop your own portfolio and/or website that can clearly show your talents and what you've done lately.
Exactly, most people care about your portfolio in those fields, get the cheapest tangible degree you can and work on your portfolio.
There are more than a few programming centered companies that desire to get kids before they go to college. So that they can train the correctly in programming.
A college education in CS is actually damaging.
And, from my umpteen years of college, I have found that everything they taught me is wrong.
Sure, big businesses will probably continue to demand a college degree to get in the door, however, these same businesses are about to go the way of the dinosaurs.
I suggest anybody heading towards college read
Worthless - by Aaron Clarey
My company always has about a dozen paid Colledge/University co-op positions. It benefits both the employee and the employer.
For the student, they get paid to get experience.
For the company, we get to “try before you buy”. It reduces the burden of finding good people.
stop posting the same picture to everyone's comments.