[lit-ideas] Re: Sunday waffle...
- From: Paul Stone <pas@xxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2005 15:27:27 -0400
>Steven Cameron: **A double-edged sword. However, we need to end our
>promise of higher education for all -- replacing it with a pledge to
>provide further academic instruction only to those qualified. What's wrong
>with a trade --surely not the money -- have you seen what mechanics,
>plumbers, and electricians earn??
Yeah, but when there were a million plumbers etc. they WEREN'T really
expensive to hire. They're laughing now because 30 years ago the whole
'right to an education' mantra took a whole lot of prospective tradespeople
and got them to enroll in higher education. They became scarce and now they
can basically charge whatever they want. "Trades" are actually getting to
be reputable, almost white-collar jobs. The guys who own the local HVAC
companies all have nice big houses and shiny cars while the doctors,
engineers and professors live in a bungalows and drive 8 year old compact cars.
Now, ironically, a lot of those who perhaps should have gone into a trade,
are back in exactly the place they "belong" [by their own admission in many
cases] -- factories/trades -- having wasted themselves tens of thousands of
dollars and four years of gainful employment. I know many classmates from
University -- even post-grads -- who are now working in factories and
doing trade jobs. I say that not because they are inferior, it's just that
they were fooled into believing that university was where they should be,
and it wasn't. Some people just simply don't belong, but you can't say that
today.
The really sad part is not so much that they wasted years -- most of them
are probably more well-rounded for having been through the experience; but
it's that they took up spots for people who really DID want to go to school
and couldn't. It was the proliferation of these dozens of people going
through the motions, getting degrees, which on paper, said that they were
my Academic equal, and then basically throwing them aside because they
never wanted to go to school in the first place. It sure as Hell cheapens
my degree's worth. This is what made me quit my quest for a PhD: the place
-- Academia was full of people who didn't want, and in many cases, didn't
deserve to be there. My graduate degree is basically worthless.
a bitter quitter,
p
##########
Paul Stone
pas@xxxxxxxx
Kingsville, ON, Canada
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