The Testingtard's Lament: Boo-Hoo-in' Revolution

[adr-admin]

Michael Wong (from Facebook)

Yes, the article makes some very good points, although I found the "not everyone likes school" one to be pretty dumb. The article continues to say "the mania to get more and more people into college is the brain child of people who think th...at school is fun", which is a pretty huge strawman.

I'm a licensed professional engineer and I don't advocate higher education because I think it's "fun". My education was really hard. It's the people taking low-value chickenshit courses who think it's fun (you know, the ones who graduate with an $80,000 student debt for a degree that's useless in finding a job).

I advocate trade schools for people who can't hack university (or who could only take those chickenshit courses) because I've worked in factories, and even in a factory, if you want to get ahead, you need to have an education. The skilled tradesman who went to a community college is in a far better position than the guy who dropped out of high school, even in the blue-collar sector. It's not about thinking it's "fun"; it's about thinking it's smart.

I actually think a lot of the problem is that we don't know how to sell education. Educators are not salesmen, and they don't necessarily know how to make a pitch. Worse yet, a lot of them have quite frankly never had a real job of their ow...n, so what the hell would they know about applying an education in the first place? The high school guidance counselor might be the only person who can contradict the counter-productive social messages the average poor kid is getting about the value of school, and most guidance counselors in my experience are kind of clueless.

The biggest value of an education is not that it "gives you the skills to get a good job". That's what guidance counselors tell you, but a lot of people with good educations have to start at the bottom anyway, and a lot of people with bad educations find ways to squirm into a job. People can look around and see that the "education => job" formula i not as airtight as the guidance counselor makes it appear.

No, the biggest value of an education is that it keeps an employer from OWNING your ass like a damned filing cabinet. When you don't have an education, you have no accreditation of your skills other than your work experience. I've known people like this, who had more than a decade of work experience but no papers to document it. If they were to try to go somewhere else, they would have to rely on good word from their employer to testify as to the skills they acquired on the job, and their employer didn't want people to leave, so he wouldn't give that. When that happens, BINGO - your ass is your employer's property. And who wants to live like that? These guys were owned and they knew it. They lamented to me over the cafeteria table on occasion; it was depressing to hear.

[Phantasee]

That's some good shit.



Well that final was much easier than I thought. Knew it inside out, I'll be surprised to get less than 95 on it.

Now I have to motivate myself to study all night for the intl bus law exam I write at 1 tomorrow. Couple classmates are studying at school all night, but there's another option on the table with an expiry of 9am. Worst timing… but MOB. Or SOB, I guess.

[Stofsk]

i don't even want to get into how long i've been at university for

[Agent Bert Macklin]

Link, please.

[uraniun235]

i wish i could just take "a pretty girl is being friendly with me" as just "a pretty girl is being friendly with me" and not interject my own desire of "hey maybe she is kinda into me"


is there a pill that fixes that

[Gands]

i don't even want to get into how long i've been at university for

I started March 2005.

There's been gaps.

[Flagg]

i wish i could just take "a pretty girl is being friendly with me" as just "a pretty girl is being friendly with me" and not interject my own desire of "hey maybe she is kinda into me"


is there a pill that fixes that

Pot helps.

[adr-admin]

Link, please.

i have no fucking clue how to link to stuff on fb

i found the post but idk how to get a link..


it's on surlethe's thing fb though



but i pasted that cuz i disagree with about half of it and might reply.

but facebook is so slow and hard to use that i can't dare try to type anything up in that window except really short messages liek "lulz pwned"

[Zod]

i wish i could just take "a pretty girl is being friendly with me" as just "a pretty girl is being friendly with me" and not interject my own desire of "hey maybe she is kinda into me"


is there a pill that fixes that

you know i was reading a study about that yesterday

something about how the less attractive a guy is the more he thinks an attractive girl will be into him even if she's just being friendly

where the more attractive a guy was the more reasonable his expectations were

i guess it makes sense in a way, if you're not that hot you've got to take a chance with more chicks than a good looking guy does or you're going to wind up like tubbs

[Agent Bert Macklin]

Fucking shit-stained balls. I lost all of my OEM software so my planned fresh reinstall over Christmas has been scrapped. The goddamn move and my tendency to lose shit is to blame.

[Civil War Man]

Michael Wong (from Facebook)

words

I advocate trade schools for people who can't hack university

more words

I like the part where he basically claims that university is harder than learning how to be, for example, an electrician or a mechanic.

[Aaron]

I would think that would depend on how much you enjoy it and certain qualities that we simply can't put numbers too. You know, your drive and shit.

Electrician is a very math heavy trade though.

[Zod]

Michael Wong (from Facebook)

words

I advocate trade schools for people who can't hack university

more words

I like the part where he basically claims that university is harder than learning how to be, for example, an electrician or a mechanic.

i don't really see what's wrong with that idea

the problem is we tend to lump a lot of things into 'universities' when they probably shouldn't be because of prestige

[Agent Bert Macklin]

Guys, I saw a commercial that advertized that this school allows you to try courses before paying. Why? "I don't want to pay this money without knowing I can handle the coursework". LOL!

[Losonti Tokash]

sounds like your sort of school?

[Agent Bert Macklin]

sounds like your sort of school?

My school isn't so desperate that it needs to advertise on television.

[Phantasee]

I think it's fair to say if you don't do well in Uni you should look at a different kind of education. My sister doesn't do well on exams, which university is kinda heavy on. She's transferring to NAIT, the technical school here. My father went there as part of his welder apprenticeship, but they offer diploma courses in things like engineering and accounting. It's two years but now they have applied degrees that are two years more. They focus more on assignments and practical applications, with not much weighting on exams.

Me, I test pretty well, and I do well with abstract ore abstract stuff, but I'm not super rigorous about doing assignments all the time, especially since more assignments means each is worth less. So in a way Uni suits me better.

So it's fair to say a person should get an education not only in a subject they're good at but also in an environment they're good in.

[zhaktronz]

its not that university is "harder" than a trade school, its just that university is longer than a trade school

[Aaron]

0400, pick a better time to scream at each other and wake me and the dogs. Fucking idiots.

[uraniun235]

Pot helps.

I've tried it a few times, I'm not really a big fan.

[The Spartan]

No, the biggest value of an education is that it keeps an employer from OWNING your ass like a damned filing cabinet. When you don't have an education, you have no accreditation of your skills other than your work experience. I've known people like this, who had more than a decade of work experience but no papers to document it. If they were to try to go somewhere else, they would have to rely on good word from their employer to testify as to the skills they acquired on the job, and their employer didn't want people to leave, so he wouldn't give that. When that happens, BINGO - your ass is your employer's property. And who wants to live like that? These guys were owned and they knew it. They lamented to me over the cafeteria table on occasion; it was depressing to hear.

I don't really disagree with his post's overall point (that, all things being equal, it's better to have an education than not), but one of the details I question in particular is the one above. Is this something that happens in union* shops? Or just whatever industry he was in at the time?

Because I was just this week in a drilling tools intro class where the instructor had a teaching degree in history and two of the engineers** had no degree and a psychology degree. They did have put in time in the field to gain experience and consequently both were older, but once they had that and demonstrated they knew what the hell they were doing they had no problems getting jobs, good jobs, in the oilfield industry. And not as roughnecks. These were middle age guys who didn't spend their life living at an oil derrick covered in barite.

*I'm not criticizing unions, but I'm in a largely, if not entirely, "at-will employment" industry and really don't know.
**They're not strictly engineers. They do design downhole assemblies based upon what the drilling engineer tells them is needed. I think they're technically called something else, but it's something relatively obtuse and I don't give enough of a fuck to try to remember it. I mean, I know I sometimes joke around about ya'll getting your asses back to work in the mines, but when I'm being serious I'm not going to be anal retentive about it. Well, not too much.

Electrician is a very math heavy trade though.

How much math do electricians actually do?

I really don't know; I'm actually asking. I remember a fair amount in my circuits course, but all I've really retained beyond some of the concepts I had learned prior, in physics class, is V=IR and P=IV.

I mean, do they end up doing complex algebra with imaginary numbers? Linear algebra? Or do they mainly do "normal" algebra and arithmetic to determine size of breakers, loads, etc?

[Aaron]

I don't even know what complex and linear algebra is.

But IIRC it was high school type stuff and figuring out resistance, loads and stuff. When I was briefly employed as an apprentice most of the stuff we did at the plant was just swapping out parts and motors but I did see the electrician figuring out what size motor and stuff we'd need while I was doing monkey work.

[The Spartan]

Complex math involves using the square root of -1, called i. I brought that up because I remember it being used in Circuits, just not specifically where.

Linear algebra is a subset of math that, among other things, makes it easier to solve sets of equations.

I was just curious anyhow. I kinda had an idea of what math might be involved from the course, but wasn't sure how in depth it might go since what they covered in circuits (math-wise anyhow) would likely be different from what an electrician would actually use. Much like how I haven't had to touch calculus, at least not directly, since school.

[Aaron]

Well when I say "math heavy" I just mean lots of it.

If someone is an engineer or whatever Surlyeth is then it probably wouldn't be hard for them.

[The Spartan]

Thats sort of why I was asking, wasn't sure if it was "difficult" heavy or "lots of" heavy. Or both.