Thanks MonkeyBalancingBuddha, I agree, the best thing I got out of college was the people, and I'm not talking a network to make more money, I'm talking friends that enrich my life.
I went to college, a four-year degree and became a graphic designer. It was a decent living for a while, but became driven down over time by technology. Photographers and illustrators suffered as well. My last job as a graphic designer ended when the company of 300 was bought and dismembered down to 50. Knowing a lot about home renovation, I took a low paying job with an Ace hardware, and used that to get side work. There is always demand for skills in the trades, and when times get really tough those kinds of skills can translate to survival. I would consider teaching my kids to have skills similar to what was needed in the 1800s and use that college money to buy land at this point.
I’ve been thinking all of this ever since I left university and promptly left the profession I had selected (architecture) disillusioned by what actual commercial work was like outside of the tiny number of rare or insanely high end practices which made it seem like there was positive work to be done to build a better future, as vaguely aware of climate catastrophe as I was then...
I had a 1st class degree and was in one of the best small businesses in the area.
University seems to increasingly teach people simply to graduate university, churning out fresh workforce to be broken in the mill, not how to actually live and work and make change in the real world.
There are still many things I valued from my degree and took into other areas of work, and allowed me to develop more practical building and designing skills - but the highest value was meeting new people and perspectives. Which I could have done in many other formats, potentially more useful or even fun ones.
I’m not sure I could recommend my daughter to attend university when the time comes, until there is a distinct profession she is set on and already begun happily working in.
It's a “capitalism problem”, not an “education problem”. Cuba built a whole university of the fine arts, where every young person in the country could attend tuition free (a kind of institution completely missing in the United States), and not merely to “increase GDP”, but because the arts are crucial to a humane society, and every human being should be entitled to develop their creativity and contribute to our collective cultural flourishing. https://www.unfinishedspaces.com/
I agree, the general issue with much of education is what is being taught, to the goal of churning out recursive replica students intent on plugging into the machine to earn back what they spent. As opposed to rewarding real critical thinking, group organisation skills and preparing young people for the real world and how to change it for the better, they penalise a lot of that, or stifle it with insane productivity demands, and train people to work in the system their parents did.
Unless you have the money, higher ed is just another form of debt slavery. The cost to benefit ratio is prohibitive.
Universities cling to a model that was designed hundreds of years ago. Other than science courses other classes could be taught online for next to nothing or free. The whole system needs to be restructured.
AI is now going to eliminate many of the engineering and research professionals.
If degrowth were to become a reality by choice, many of those jobs would be eliminated. If not by choice they and many more will be eliminated regardless by the chaos which will occur by climate change.
Learning how to swing an ax and plant a garden is probably a better idea than college at this point. In 40 to 50 years we are going to regress 200 years if we are lucky. Planning for the future no longer means planning on advanced technology and lifestyle. Plugging in your Tesla will be replaced by saddling your horse.
The institutions of higher learning can't seem to recognize what is going to happen to society in regards to climate change. Why would anyone want to attend and pay for an education when it's part of the very system that h brought civilization to the point of collapse? We've equated intelligence to wealth, and the purpose of college is a means of obtaining wealth which is exactly what has brought us to collapse.
Thanks MonkeyBalancingBuddha, I agree, the best thing I got out of college was the people, and I'm not talking a network to make more money, I'm talking friends that enrich my life.
Not bad advice.
I went to college, a four-year degree and became a graphic designer. It was a decent living for a while, but became driven down over time by technology. Photographers and illustrators suffered as well. My last job as a graphic designer ended when the company of 300 was bought and dismembered down to 50. Knowing a lot about home renovation, I took a low paying job with an Ace hardware, and used that to get side work. There is always demand for skills in the trades, and when times get really tough those kinds of skills can translate to survival. I would consider teaching my kids to have skills similar to what was needed in the 1800s and use that college money to buy land at this point.
I read this right after I clicked post! You beat me to it....
I’ve been thinking all of this ever since I left university and promptly left the profession I had selected (architecture) disillusioned by what actual commercial work was like outside of the tiny number of rare or insanely high end practices which made it seem like there was positive work to be done to build a better future, as vaguely aware of climate catastrophe as I was then...
I had a 1st class degree and was in one of the best small businesses in the area.
University seems to increasingly teach people simply to graduate university, churning out fresh workforce to be broken in the mill, not how to actually live and work and make change in the real world.
There are still many things I valued from my degree and took into other areas of work, and allowed me to develop more practical building and designing skills - but the highest value was meeting new people and perspectives. Which I could have done in many other formats, potentially more useful or even fun ones.
I’m not sure I could recommend my daughter to attend university when the time comes, until there is a distinct profession she is set on and already begun happily working in.
It's a “capitalism problem”, not an “education problem”. Cuba built a whole university of the fine arts, where every young person in the country could attend tuition free (a kind of institution completely missing in the United States), and not merely to “increase GDP”, but because the arts are crucial to a humane society, and every human being should be entitled to develop their creativity and contribute to our collective cultural flourishing. https://www.unfinishedspaces.com/
I agree, the general issue with much of education is what is being taught, to the goal of churning out recursive replica students intent on plugging into the machine to earn back what they spent. As opposed to rewarding real critical thinking, group organisation skills and preparing young people for the real world and how to change it for the better, they penalise a lot of that, or stifle it with insane productivity demands, and train people to work in the system their parents did.
Before climate change was 2016? We have known about it since the 70/80s. It was the universities that informed us.
Instead of being good fellow citizens they sold their souls to the billionaires and did their bidding to make everything worse.
Our university systems earned their deaths.
Unless you have the money, higher ed is just another form of debt slavery. The cost to benefit ratio is prohibitive.
Universities cling to a model that was designed hundreds of years ago. Other than science courses other classes could be taught online for next to nothing or free. The whole system needs to be restructured.
AI is now going to eliminate many of the engineering and research professionals.
If degrowth were to become a reality by choice, many of those jobs would be eliminated. If not by choice they and many more will be eliminated regardless by the chaos which will occur by climate change.
Learning how to swing an ax and plant a garden is probably a better idea than college at this point. In 40 to 50 years we are going to regress 200 years if we are lucky. Planning for the future no longer means planning on advanced technology and lifestyle. Plugging in your Tesla will be replaced by saddling your horse.
The institutions of higher learning can't seem to recognize what is going to happen to society in regards to climate change. Why would anyone want to attend and pay for an education when it's part of the very system that h brought civilization to the point of collapse? We've equated intelligence to wealth, and the purpose of college is a means of obtaining wealth which is exactly what has brought us to collapse.