This is how it went down for me:
My senior year, they herded us into the auditorium for a 45 minute presentation on how you would be a total failure and will be scrubbing toilets for all of your days if you didn’t sign up for college RIGHT NOW. After that, you were put in line for the recruiter where you’d pick your school and your major. When it came my turn, I told them that I wasn’t sure and was thinking of trade school. The recruiter said “oh.” and sent me back to class. The school seemed to care a lot less about my academic well being after that exchange. The Military recruiters were VERY interested in how I was doing though. Being a teen during the 00’s was wild.
Calls from a recruiter literally every week and a monthly drop by because apparently that’s an ok thing to do.
Very controlling and didn’t care about what we wanted in my experience. Wanted to be an aerospace engineer. Got a great scholarship to the school I wanted to go to, told me they’d disown me and not help if I moved out of state and ever failed. Showed where all income was coming from as it was Kettering University so with the scholarship and their program was set up for co-op, so you’d do school and internships (they help set you up with them too) back and forth through till you finish your degree. Nope.
Instead just wanted to put doubts in my mind and force me to go to a local University with the promise they would help me pay for it instead. Told me if I joined the Marines or such to get school paid for they would be pissed as well, my Uncle told my mother that a lot of people do well working after getting out of the military as they often get first dibs on positions, my mother didn’t talk to her brother for months.
They never paid a dime to the school they wanted me to go to, I never liked their programs… and when I did finally graduate had between $30-40,000 in debt… no internship experience and just kept trying to work in IT with the experience I had built without a degree. (No one accepted applications in other fields)
Maybe someone has agreed to hire me for having a degree, but really all of them have seemed to hire me because I had years of experience working and suppoting the software/hardware they needed/had. After all, the experience they want isn’t taught in any class I took to get the degree.
I didn’t have that experience, but it was a given for anyone in honors/AP classes that you’d head to college–they didn’t ask if you wanted to. My grades weren’t that great, but weighted my GPA was still alright. My guidance counselor asked if I wanted in state or out of state; public or private; small, medium, or large; and what I’d like to major in. After I said in state, she talked about a state-funded scholarship that was really easy to get 75% of my tuition covered. So, I went to the local university and majored in the first thing I blabbed about in that meeting. I basically signed my name in a couple of places and I was off to college. Ended up fine for me, but it could have gone much worse if I was a few years younger.
Also:
- Don’t rush having children, get some financial stability first!
- Don’t rush having children, get some financial stability first!
- Don’t rush having children, get some financial stability first!
- Don’t rush having children, get some financial stability first!
- Don’t rush having children, get some financial stability first!
- Don’t rush having children, get some financial stability first!
- Don’t rush having children, get some financial stability first!
- Don’t rush having children, get some financial stability first!
- Don’t rush having children, get some financial stability first!
- By the way, this rule only applied to people of color. By the age of 30, you supposed to have at least 4 children. Now tell me where are my grandchildren?
Never felt so targeted in my fucking life.
We were sold a false bill of goods and then got blamed for it.
The money I spent on my education could have bought the roof, a ton of bootstraps to pull up, but probably not the electricity. :(
I’m just saying if mortgages were treated like student loans we’d actually be in a better place as a society.
Banks would fucking love this. They would be salivating at the idea that home loans can’t be discharged via bankruptcy.
Being that most of the people who didn’t/couldn’t pay their student loans did pay rent… The banks would have gotten their money and many of the people would have equity. I’m not saying there wouldn’t have been defaults, but I get what they meant
That was made the case because you can’t repossess an education (yet). I don’t necessarily agree with it but I also don’t actually have a problem with banks not being allowed to seize private homes within certain limitations.
Students would love this, you’d be able to discharge the debt via bankruptcy!
If somehow I was able to purchase a house where I live (was never possible), it would have gone up in value more then the money I have been earning working my jobs.
Throw in the $168,000 in rent I’ve paid since college and that would have turned into quite a bit of equity
You got so woke since going to college!
I love taking my twice graduated college educated ass to job postings for my field and being offered $60k CAD for highly skilled work that requires both a bachelor’s and about 5-10 years of experience to pay for my $40-50k worth of education. It’s great!
I’ve been in the job market for a while and apart from not having a bachelors degree, I have most of the certifications and experience needed. But I did the math, I am unable to afford my bills (excluding things like fuel for my car and food for the table) on anything less than around $65-70k. I don’t ask for much for everything else, but I generally need at least $75k a year to survive without starving or going bankrupt.
Life is expensive and it keeps getting more expensive, but the wages I saw posted over 10 years ago when I graduated, are the same wages I see now for the same or similar work. Since the cost of everything has increased significantly over that time, I just move on to other job postings.
Don’t mention salary in the post? I’m not interested. Don’t have an option for full time remote? No thanks. I don’t want to spend hours of my life every week in traffic, spending hundreds of dollars a month on fuel, just so you can look me in the face and say “you look tired”… Yeah, because I’m forced to be here and I’m not able to do this work from home.
What is the difference if I go to the office and use these online/cloud tools, versus doing the same from home? I don’t understand.
What is the difference if I go to the office and use these online/cloud tools, versus doing the same from home?
Control.
Exactly. It’s basically “tell me you don’t trust me as an employee, without telling me you don’t trust me as an employee”.
Americans are the poorest people I know with the most disposable income that seems to buy them nothing.
Come to Europe. You will be poorer and somewhat miserable, instead of regular poor and stressed.
I’m not sure that sounds much better lmao
The misery is the other Europeans telling us to stop smiling so much lol
I went to trade school after college. Now I get my hands dirty for work and out-earn all my higher educated friends - except the ones who also work in trades. I also don’t need to worry about AI taking my job.
I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you this but it isn’t all rainbows and sunshine in the trades either, especially for the self employed.
When you’re young it’s fine but as you get older your body starts to wear out and dragging water heaters out of some crawlspace or running wire in a non air conditioned attic becomes harder.
Still, sitting for 8 hours a day a desk can be bad for you too I guess. 6 of one, half a dozen of the other.
Tell me about it. I barely made it to 30 before I washed out of the film industry due to back and foot issues.
It’s pretty easy to extrapolate this to the whole concept of a full-time job being bad for you. It’s not whether you’re wearing out your body or your mind more, it’s that modern life requires you to wear yourself out just to survive.
Our ancestors fought hard for the 40 hour workday not realizing we were just deciding the dimensions of our cage.
To be clear I am not mad at them or blame them. But it’s still true.
I absolutely love the metaphor and it succinctly express the class issue.
Because mechanization will.
mechanization may not but venture capital corporationism might.
Someone will “invent” Uber for plumbers and gardeners and now the trades all work for $4/day while the CEO graciously only accepts a $200,000,000 bonus that year.
Not that capitalism will do ot better, it will just find a way to pay less. And use automation as a scapegoat. “CEO did not rob you, algorithm did”.
I highly doubt that will happen during my lifetime.
I applaud your enthusiasm but stay vigilant, companies opting for AI are we less about “they can do my job better than me” and more just another tool to opress the working class.
I say this as someone who works in the film industry, who’s job right out of college is currently being replaced by AI. Soon much more than you think could be replaced, will be too.
Well, luckily I’m self-employed and I believe that even if there was robots doing the kind of manual labor that I do there would still be enough people left who’d rather hire a human. Time will tell I guess.
Nope. Turns out robots are expensive and break down frequently.
A 100k boston dynamic that works from morning until evening without breaks is hell of a lot cheaper than paying a lazy sack of meat 50k year.
But they just said it takes breaks frequently
You guys are all delusional and lying to yourselves lol, if they sold a roomba that could paint your floors or the upgraded version that allows you to subscribe to paint your walls, all of you fuckers would be posting pictures of the meme’s you’ve plastered all over your house.
Well, I sure would. I fix broken robots for a living and prefer it over house painting.
As a corollary, go to college for something commercially viable. If your degree is in medieval Estonian poetry, you are going to have a hard time getting a job with that that pays off the debt. Recent history aside, there were very few people who went into things like electrical engineering or medical science that could not find employment.
That is so out of touch that I feel like I am having a stroke.
There is a lot of qualified people with “commercially viable” degrees that can’t find a job, or the job they find pay like shit.
Companies want over qualified people for shit pay, and they want you to go through 5 interviews because that’s what the cool companies do, and get offended when their ridiculous offer gets rightly rejected.
There is a lot of qualified people with “commercially viable” degrees that can’t find a job, or the job they find pay like shit.
Sure, but the point is, however bad this problem is for the more ‘viable’ degrees, it’s 50x worse for the social sciences, arts, etc. I have a belief EVENTUALLY the job market will turn around for engineers, but I do not ever think it will turn around for history majors.
They aren’t trying to “be like the cool companies”, they want their labor markets to feel saturated and laborers desperate for work so they accept lower pay.
That was good advice 40 years ago. Now your costly degree will just exclude you from service jobs and mean nothing in the field you studied.
If you want to get into a trade, find someone to apprentice with. Your degree will get you an unpaid internship at best.
If you want to get into a trade, find someone to apprentice with
This is great advice.
recent history aside
Man this would be great advice if I could just stop taking part in recent history
The extra kick in the teeth is for those that for whatever reason couldn’t/didn’t go to college! All that messaging of “go to college or you’re going to be worthless” just so happens to have the affect of making you feel completely worthless for not having a degree! All those years on online dating I’d pass on people that were educated and/or had good jobs because “why the hell would they be interested in a worthless uneducated factory worker.” It’s fun!
I have no debt, nor a house though, but I do have tons and tons of depression and self loathing!
I too am exactly like you except I own a few homes.
I decided to pretend to go to college in a different country. Seems to be working fine for my career since I started doing that. It didn’t fix the self loathing tho.
The over-gay is sadly true 😢
Don’t diminish yourself! You’re beautiful the way you are.
too real for me
“You have your own head to think, why did you listen to me?”
Yeah, you have a college degree, you should be able to make smart life choices.
Don’t forget that most highschools also dropped any trades oriented classes too. So now if you want a decently paying career without a college degree then too fucking bad. They’re trying to eliminate any alternative to the college debt shackle to make their worker drones more easy to manipulate and abuse.
college debt shackle to make their worker drones more easy to manipulate and abuse.
They have a better one now. H1-Bs. Do what the boss says or you get fucking deported.
Are tech schools still a thing?
The tech schools from my area offered trade focused education paths like plumbing, drafting, auto, hairdressing, and few others.
So you could basically go to them, skip college, and go right into a trade.
I know quite a few people who did that and they seem to be doing okay now.
Not sure, but shop classes, carpentry, electrical/plumbing, mechanic, and those such classes were being cut when I was in highschool back in the mid 2000s. I think classes like that are usually what would open kids up to seeing that they may enjoy those trades.
All arguments about the college situation should start with this info. As a non-american, this sounds so out of fiction that I don’t believe it.
Where and why did they do that? Is there any data showing that they cut trade?
I remember having all that in elementary school when I lived in New Jersey. Moved down to Texas and people looked at me like I was crazy when I explained we were using power tools and kilns and computers in 3rd grade.
Oh no! You don’t get to go anything like that until high school! And this was in one of the wealthier suburbs.
Parents and school boards simply did not want to spend anything close to that kind of money to educate their kids.
We had a little of it in 5th/6th grade in Texas when I was in school, however absolutely nothing in High School, I did have a game dev class hosted by a coach who barely knew how to work a computer. Definitely didn’t just play games during that whole class or anything.
So now if you want a decently paying career without a college degree then too fucking bad.
Go through college, fuck it up.
Go to job center.
“We want this specific blue collar job”
How do I get it
“Know the union guy or pay for a certification course”
Thanks fuckhead
Yeah, you basically need to luck into being hired at a place that’s desperate enough to hire and attempt to train anyone off the street.
As far as the certs go though, at least in the US, most of the 100% legally required certs are pretty easy to get. Our regulators have been so defunded that there is very little effort put into beefing up the requirements. One example is that I’m in HVAC and that means I need my EPA 608 cert to handle refrigerants. I self studied with free online resources for less than a week, paid $80 for an online test, and got my 608 universal cert without issue. It’s actually kinda scary how easy it is to get some of the certifications required to do jobs that have pretty major consequences if you screw them up. The only trade that seems to still have fairly strict requirements as far as training goes is electricians and that seems to be largely due to the unions enforcing it.
You should see how little training I was given to literally apply poison in homes and schools as a pest management professional.
You’re not wrong about schools, but also it’s not hard to get into the trades. I’m in the trucking industry so easiest example for me, but any of the big trucking companies will (usually) train you with the only cost being to work for them for a set period of time. Others will reimburse your trucking school costs. I make $70k. Could make more, but I like sleeping at home.
My father in law was a Boilermaker and the union offered on the job training. He was making in the $100k+ range before he passed.
May not be able to get a head start in the trades while in high school anymore, but it’s not difficult to join them. All of the trades are short on bodies to do the work, and as a result, are often quite happy to teach you.
Part of the issue though, and the reason trades are currently so desperate for people, is that it’s never even presented as an option to kids anymore. With most trades you’re going to get far more out of on the job training than you would with formal education anyways. But people need to know that it’s an option. The classes aren’t so much about giving kids a head start but rather about presenting them with the option and letting them see if it would be something they enjoy and could do.
I was lucky in highschool, we still had shop classes and a couple teachers that were passionate about the trades. It was presented as an option. But even then it was presented as an option for losers and outcasts. It was presented as something for those people who were too dumb or broke to go to college like a “normal” person. My dad was a tradesman so I personally knew that wasn’t actually the case but many kids don’t have that and go through school seeing trades as being something you do if you fail.
Like you said, you can get into most of trades fairly easily if you just apply at one of the places desperate enough to try training anyone off the street, which is most of them now a days. But people have to actually apply for those jobs. Right now our highschools not only don’t present them as a realistic option, but they are actively hostile towards anything that isn’t college orriented.
But even then it was presented as an option for losers and outcasts. It was presented as something for those people who were too dumb or broke to go to college like a “normal” person.
At the same time as kids were told “go to college or you won’t have a job”, back in the 90s/00s, lots of industrial jobs were either being shipped overseas or swamped with visa workers and gray market migrant laborers.
Pay in fields like construction, plumbing, and HVAC took a huge hit. So did a bunch of back office IT and accounting work. Pure race to the bottom as businesses consolidated and cartelized hiring rates.
Of course, the same thing was happening in professional management and technical careers. But it’s less obvious you’re getting screwed as a Developer earning $60/hr when your parents earned $120, than as a carpenter earning $25/hr when your parents would have earned closer to $80.
If my school system was typical, and I have no reason to believe it wasn’t, what happened was that individual high schools dropped their trades oriented classes but the school system opened a dedicated vocational/“tech” high school. That means in order to take any such classes you’d have to completely switch schools, or at least drive there halfway through the school day or something. So, on top of having to arrange your own transportation instead of taking the school bus, you’d probably also have schedule conflicts and be forced to choose between the vocational classes and things like gifted/AP academic classes. And finally, you would also be disincentivized against that (at least in my social circle) by the stigma that only the stupid kids who couldn’t hack the normal curriculum, troublemakers, and teen moms would go to an ‘alternative’ school (which was wrong in retrospect, of course, but the key phrase is “in retrospect”).
To add insult to injury, my AP physics class was held in the classroom that used to be for the school’s shop class. In addition to a whole bunch of intriguing CNC equipment and other neat science/engineering doodads scattered around the back and sides of the classroom, there was a huge attached storage room that had all the traditional woodworking power tools. And we never had the opportunity to use fucking any of it!
My school never split off trades classes into their own school. They just stopped hiring teachers for those classes.
But also, yeah I feel your second point. My old highschool still has an entire wing of the building filled with a full machining shop, a very well stocked wood shop, a CAD lab, and an automotive shop which all sit there entirely unused. They didn’t even sell the machines off or move them. They just shut the lights off and stopped using those rooms.
I wonder if it’s really hard to recruit shop teachers now. If the trades are so desperate for people, would it be more lucrative to go into the trades or teach at a school. Also I think most states require a college degree plus credentials to teach at all. So if you worked in the trades until you’re 50 and then wanted to go into teaching, it’s like 5 years of schooling before you can do that. Schools have a lot of trouble getting and retaining male teachers at all at this point and I wonder if that contributes too. If you don’t see male teachers and there’s a stigma attached to men wanting to work with kids, it isn’t going to be something boys aspire to.
