My eldest Granddaughter has become involved with VEX Robotics program for school children from Middle School through High School. She started in Middle School last year and is now a Freshman in High School.
I attended the first tournament of the year with 25 teams from 11 schools - both Middle and High Schools.
The general aim of the competition is for each team’s robot to pick up what look like a 16 sided ‘ball’ and place them in various scoring goals. Two teams compete against two other teams in head to head qualifying - which with the 25 teams entered had 39 qualification matches.
After the Qualification rounds, the highest ranked team selects another team as a partner who they will pair with through the elimination rounds. The second ranked team then selects a partner and so on until all the teams have been paired. With 25 teams entered, one team was not selected and was thus eliminated.
My Granddaughter’s team had a 5-2 record through qualifying and ranked 7 among the 25. They were selected by the team that finished second in qualifying for the elimination rounds. They reached the finals in the elimination round and lost in the final.
The one observation I have is that Orientals, be they Korean, Chinese or Japanese seem to be more involved in this competition than others.
There have been comments from the White House that Americans are not qualified in many cases for the job vacancies that exist in today’s job market. To me, it is a travesty that only 11 schools - both Middle and High were competing.
This tournament took place in Hagerstown, MD - a city that one thrived on heavy industry, building Mack Trucks and Fairchild Aircraft among other industries.
It comes from the Parents of the kids, not the kids themselves. The fact that Americans are not qualified? Who is in charge of the educational system? The same people that are complaining about qualifications. Ironically the Executives that complain about there not being enough trades people would never stand it for a minute if one of their kids chose a trade school over a University.
I observed this when I was the age of deciding what I wanted to do with my life:
Long ago there was a push because Manufacturing companies were complaining (before they left the country), there were not enough vocational folks trained to run their plants. So where I lived at the time they started a campus called Waukesha County Technical College. Fairly wealthy suburban county of Milwaukee that could afford the extravagance. The school was setup to train mechanics, machine operators, tool and die, computer programming, etc, etc. Donations from major manufacturing and white collar firms in the area as well because they were enthusiastic someone was finally taking an interest where they had labor shortages. In 15 years, the school started to run into issues of lack of attendance and eventually I think it converted into a college without the technical stuff. In my view it was the Parents who caused this. As the county became more affluent, more and more Parents would steer their kids towards college and degrees. Leave the blue collar stuff to others.
Remember how long it took to get whatever that college is in Kansas City to adapt a railroad worker type coursework or prep? The investment from BNSF as well? I forget the name but I think it was in Overland Park, KS.
After the Army I drove a school bus for a short stint while I was waiting for my college to start in the Fall. The run with school kids: Kids complaining about how they had all this homework to do in various “Advance Placement” courses and how the homework was impeding on their social life and they really did not want to take the courses and their Parents were behind it all. Nightly charter run with parents to a baseball game: Parents bragging about how Johnny or Susie were in advanced placement this or advanced placement that. How their kids might be a Doctor or Lawyer some day. It was sad for me to watch and listen to. The conclusion I came away with was Parents did not really care about their kids beyond using them as a tool to impress others. Nobody on the ballpark run bragged about their kids going into the railroad industry or becoming a tool and die maker.
I think we have a lot of overeducated people with too many college degrees that cannot find meaningful or rewarding employment. Having been a business consultant with a Big Five consulting firm I can also tell you there are a lot of business Executives that are in roles they do not like or are underqualified for because they saw money over personal fulfillment (either coasted into the role or they were pushed into the role). Generally very unhappy people who initially probably embarked on that path to either impress their Parents or their Parents expected them to take that path. They do not really seem to be in a position they want to be in.
I feel the CEO of the contracting firm I work for now. Should not be in that role and is basically running the company as a hobby. Little future book of business, does not want to venture outside of government contracting, found the comfortable niche to feather his nest. Reactive vs Proactive. Bumps from crisis to crisis at times. But the guy has these goals to be a multi-Billion company (will never happen because he does not have the motivation or drive for that). Pretty much a zombie company waiting for a larger firm to pick them off or run them out of business. I think once Palantir grows large enough, this firm is toast and Palantir will cut through them like a hot knife through butter.
There are major differences in the needs for training and preparation in fields like medical, law, engineering, accountancy and academia vs business management, where education might be less important than motivation and creativity. On the other hand, professional or graduate degrees are needed for basic competency in the first five categories. Vocational school ain’t gonna cut it there regardless of some folks’ wishes.
The high school that my kids attended had courses that were affiliated with the county’s adult education program. Both of my sons got their SolidWorks certificate in high school along with exposure to CNC and welding. That experience has been extremely helpful with their engineering courses.
In my older son’s case, his learning about how welding can affect the strength of metals prompted him to focus on Materials Science and he is on track to getting his PhD in a few months.
And I am going to guess there is a market for that college degree in which he can support himself decently. There are quite a few people that decided on a major that was not all that marketable. Then go for a career field they will never be happy in. I find in a lot of those cases it started with their Parents.
Part of the problem is vocational schools have traditionally been a dumping ground for sociopaths,discipline problems, learning disorders etc anyone that doesn’t fit the mold.
Guidance counselors rubber stamped trades and didn’t direct students to industries that were “dirty” or were for students with lower intelligence.
You’re paying the price now because there are no tool makers coming up through the ranks. There are some entering CNC programming but the bulk of them don’t understand geometry and think that because they can run video games they can program.
Had 4 employees that went through the state run program for manufacturing, all 4 didn’t last more than 4 months.
I’m very confident that there is a market for his degree, which is why I encouraged him when he expressed an interest in Materials Science. My point in bringing his college focus was that it was derived from his taking a vocational class in high school and those classes have been as important for preparing him for his college education as the academic classes he took in high school.
To my thinking - School through High School is a about presenting ‘options’ to students that will catch their interests - be those interests be academic, artistic or craft based.
I got divorced and was required to pay child support. That requirement ended at age 18. My deal with my kids was that I would continue to PAY THEM from age 18 until the secured all the education they desired.
My daughter graduated from the University of Maryland with a degree in Accounting and is now a licensed CPA in Maryland and Florida.
My son and books fought to a standstill in his getting through High School. After High School he decided he wanted to attend Catawba Community College in Hickory, NC for their Race Car Fabrication curriculum. After completing that he got a fabricators job on Dave Marcis’ NASCAR team, until after a year and a half he got tired of putting in 80 work hours a week and getting paid for 40, Going with the team to whatever track on Thursday and towing back home on Friday because the car was not fast enough to qualify. He then moved on and spent a number of years employed by a speciality trailer manufacturer in Lawrence, KS.
Everybody has some unique interest they can get additional education and earn a living in the field. Like everything else, you get out of it what you put into it.
Exactly. A lot of us who were kids in the 80s and 90s kept getting hit with the whole gotta go college, gotta get a degree or you’ll be a bum flipping hamburgers from our parents, teachers, guidance counselors and the media. They gave us a bunch of pie in the sky promises of all these high paying jobs we were supposed to get from that little magic slip of paper. We really got sold a bill of goods on that one. They pulled up the ladder and saddled us with giant student loan bills and gave us physical and emotional abuse if we didn’t do well on tests or got a bad grade on an assignment leaving us with a bunch of emotional disorders. We did everything we were told to do. We did it “the right way” and we still got the shaft. I’m one of those kids who went through that abuse so yeah I’m gonna raise hell about it every chance I get. I’m sure my post will get deleted for not kumbayaing enough. Toxic positivity FTW!
Sorry it didn’t work out. Why didn’t you drop out and do something else? Motivation is a major factor in success. And every generation has had hurdles to overcome, not just you.
Yes, no regrets on the path I chose. I departed the Army because of the heavy emphasis on college. The flip side of that is I would have got sucked into the Operation Desert Storm chaos if I did another enlistment. So it was the right choice looking back to leave when I did. This was years before ODS but some of my friends that did another enlistment or enlistment extension…yanked out of college and back into the Army for training up for that war. Then at the end of training…hey the war is over, you can go back to school now. Some of them had jobs and were really upset.
I graduated just in time for the recession during the George w. Bush admin. Otherwise I would have prob went on to grad school, but I could see the writing on the wall.
But by that time dropping out would have been pretty dumb since I was all but done. But the rr was hiring like crazy at the time, so here we are.
From my vantage point - the only thing that a college degree identifies to an employer is that you possess the ability to be trained in whatever skills the employer wants you to be trained on in their workplace.
I had a varied progression through colleges, year and a half at Purdue finding out I didn’t grasp mathematics when the Greek alphabet was introduced. A year at Vincennes University rebuilding my self respect and then graduating from Kent State. While attending Vincennes and Kent State I was also working full time as an Extra Operator for the B&O on the various divisions.
After graduation from Kent State I got promoted into the B&O’s Official training program.
Education is what YOU make of it. Through my career there were a number of times I wished I possessed a skill that would have allowed me to make a living with my hands.
When it comes to education and debt - Neither my family or my ex’s family believed their children should be saddled with debt for obtaining an education. My family paid the necessary fees. My ex’s mother worked for the college the she and her brothers attended.
My ex and I paid for the education our son and daughter obtained.
College is a broad term. Choosing a major depends on cognitive ability set, interest/motivation, and career future.
Funding. Starting at community colleges and then transferring to a university is a bargain. Scholarships are a big help but knowing which ones to apply for is tricky. Student loans should be used sparingly.
Expenses and attitude. While at college find cheaper living places rather than deluxe apartments. Think of college as a job.
True but it depends on the career field and how much higher education is required. College is not the same as voc-tech certification programs, such as for RN or dental hygienist or respiratory therapist.
Most College degree programs are not ‘tech specific’. As such, employees go into a wide variety of business fields within the organization that hires them. Hiring a BA in Business and putting them in a position for a Theoretical Physicist is not a way for either the company or the individual to succeed, by the same token hiring the Theoretical Phusicist to an accountant’s position is equally a failure.
