roadrunner681
Expert
i would take you up on that if i was closer, and didn't have my foot in the door at crown forklift right now, sounds like a one hell of a good job to me. being 21 anyone that is willing to offer training im up for.
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Be sure to read this post! Beware of scammers. https://www.indianagunowners.com/threads/classifieds-new-online-payment-guidelines-rules-paypal-venmo-zelle-etc.511734/
No Jobs? Mike Rowe's Lament
- Thread starter mrjarrell
- Start date
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I'm not trying to pooh on vocational school, though it seems you're wanting to pooh on college. I think both are good options if you do the due diligence when choosing a career.
I used to work in a vocational field, and I've spent a good deal of time unemployed while in that field. Sometimes the world just changes under you. So, go to college, don't go to college, I'm not universally advocating either. Just have a plan.
I decided to change careers, ironically as a Software Engineer. That meant going to university. The dot.com bubble was hard times for sure. Outsourcing made it worse for awhile, but it wasn't the end of US programming jobs that you read about in the news. The industry has been pretty strong for the last decade and booming for the last few years. It seems all the "outsourcing" fears created a shortage of CS grads. We're having a tough time finding qualified Software Engineers. It's a tight market.
I have no regrets working hard and paying for my education. I love what I do, I work for a great company, I'm happy with the compensation. That's the point. When deciding on changing careers after 20 years in a vocation, the advice I finally took was essentially this. "Find something that you can make money doing that you'd do for free if you didn't HAVE to earn a living." Maybe you need some vocational training, maybe you need a college degree, maybe you need no training at all.
My advice isn't so much of a plan. Plans are good, but as we've seen in recent economy nothing is foolproof. I try to advocate to the younger crowds that they need to focus on learning. Learn as many principles, skills, techniques, etc. that you can regardless of the field, industry, or job you are doing. Truly LEARN them....meaning not just how to apply them, but why and when. Look at everything as a learning experience. This gives you the ability to be versatile and ultimately that is what's going to keep you employable regardless of the economy. Then it's just a matter of knowing how to market yourself and skills/knowledge you've acquired to prospective employers should you need new employment.
Example: most people tend to look at menial jobs such as grocery bagger as dead end and not all that valuable. However, taking on such a job with the outlook such as I describe will enable you to learn incredibly important skills that can apply to a variety of fields throughout your life. You learn things such as positive customer service skills; how to effectively communicate with a variety of people under good and bad conditions. This skill alone will take you a long way in any career path.
The place I work used to be called Delco. It was when I hired on in '90. It's GMCH LLC now. Poop!
I think the "pooh"ing is more about HAVING to go to college. Not EVERYONE has to go to college. And a lot of people look down on the trades.
Yet...
Trade-school grads in hot demand for manufacturing jobs - Mar. 14, 2012
Nine months in trade school. Job guaranteed. | Money - Home
All they HAVE to do is learn skills that are valuable to employers. It would serve them best in the long run to learn skills that can apply across industries/fields. None of those skills will inherently help them get the job. They will also have to learn how to sell themselves to the employer; convince the company that their skills will benefit the company.
Most people lack in one of these two necessary areas. They either don't have the skills the employer wants/needs, or they don't know how to market their individual skills and correlate how they will benefit their potential employer in order to get the job.
Making both the skillset itself and the ability to market it (demonstrate how it benefits the company) necessary knowledge for getting and keeping employment.
Most people lack in one of these two necessary areas. They either don't have the skills the employer wants/needs, or they don't know how to market their individual skills and correlate how they will benefit their potential employer in order to get the job.
Making both the skillset itself and the ability to market it (demonstrate how it benefits the company) necessary knowledge for getting and keeping employment.
I went to a small county school, fewer than 100 in my graduating class. In the late 70's, I was on the college prep track, but I fought against my guidance counselor to take classes in a declining industrial ed program. We had a complete wood shop, metal shop, auto mechanic shop, welding room and electrics lab. My counselor advised me that I needed to be "well-rounded" in academics if I wanted to make it in college. I told her I knew that, but most days the only thing that even got me to school was my shop classes.
My intended college degree was industrial tech, but I soon saw the writing on the wall and switched to Biology education, then to straight clinical and field Biology. I went back to my old high school some years later to find that the auto shop had been converted into a large weight-training and work-out room for the athletes, the welding room was a storage room, and they had sold the car lift and all of the metal and wood-working machines. For one industrial arts class, students took pre-cut wood pieces and glued them together to build little model houses and buildings.
When I entered the working world in the mid 80's, jobs were then very hard to find too. In my somewhat eclectic career path after college, I spent some years doing farm work, building maintenance, remodeling carpentry, plumbing, roofing, and landscaping work before graduating to a job doing engineering and materials quality control work on some of the larger buildings in Indy. Those things had little to do with my college degree and more to do with my solid industrial ed foundation from high school.
I eventually ended up in a science field related to my Biology degree, but one of my strengths has always been my practical and mechanical skills (and not being afraid to work hard and get my hands dirty) that I bring to an otherwise clinical and academic environment. It turns out that my guidance counselor was half-right. I needed to be well-rounded, just not in the things she would have had me doing. And to think that none of the students that have graduated from my old high school since the early 90's even get to make that choice is just sad.
My intended college degree was industrial tech, but I soon saw the writing on the wall and switched to Biology education, then to straight clinical and field Biology. I went back to my old high school some years later to find that the auto shop had been converted into a large weight-training and work-out room for the athletes, the welding room was a storage room, and they had sold the car lift and all of the metal and wood-working machines. For one industrial arts class, students took pre-cut wood pieces and glued them together to build little model houses and buildings.
When I entered the working world in the mid 80's, jobs were then very hard to find too. In my somewhat eclectic career path after college, I spent some years doing farm work, building maintenance, remodeling carpentry, plumbing, roofing, and landscaping work before graduating to a job doing engineering and materials quality control work on some of the larger buildings in Indy. Those things had little to do with my college degree and more to do with my solid industrial ed foundation from high school.
I eventually ended up in a science field related to my Biology degree, but one of my strengths has always been my practical and mechanical skills (and not being afraid to work hard and get my hands dirty) that I bring to an otherwise clinical and academic environment. It turns out that my guidance counselor was half-right. I needed to be well-rounded, just not in the things she would have had me doing. And to think that none of the students that have graduated from my old high school since the early 90's even get to make that choice is just sad.
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One of the big problems I see with college is that too many people have unrealistic expectations when they choose to attend. Far too many are expecting to be prepared for a specific career or job, and with some rare exceptions, that just doesn't happen.
College should be about education and personal development more so than career-specific training. Being exposed to a lot of ideas and ultimately learning how to learn new things, and hopefully how to teach yourself, are the key things to take away from college.
College should be about education and personal development more so than career-specific training. Being exposed to a lot of ideas and ultimately learning how to learn new things, and hopefully how to teach yourself, are the key things to take away from college.
Every (recent - in the last decade or so) course I've ever taken when I ask the questions why & when; all I get is, don't bother worrying about it, just learn how was the lecturer's response.
To this day I am sometimes uncertain when or why I should apply certain theories or approaches to various problems. It seems "critical thinking" is just a buzzword these days and has never really been taught.
I have been fortunate in my career in that Bell Labs took a chance hiring me with no degree and being self-taught in electronics. I never said "No" to any request and volunteered to learn new skills and took on projects I had no experience with and I was rewarded with being given regular raises/promotions and sent to various technical classes paid for by the company. I started as a menial electronic assembler on contract and worked my way up to Senior Electronic Technician and later got hired as a Technical Staff Member. I lasted 20 years until there was no longer a "Bell Labs" (or any place doing R&D here) anymore.
I haven't found a company in the last decade willing to even meet me halfway on experience & training. They want people who know it ALL (or at least think they do) now. At least I was able to train myself in computer tech as a UNIX admin and it pays well.
Everything is circumstantial. We can talk about specific instances all day long to no end, but without having the accurate feedback from those on the other side of the aisle, all we have is speculation.
Not all teachers teach the same. Not all teachers like what they do or are good at it. Schools have budgets to abide by. Does that play a role in the quality of teacher they get? Perhaps. There's just so many aspect which could contribute to any one instance it's difficult to apply to an overall context.
I think I was fortunate in that as I was going through school I was catching the "back end" of teachers who valued truth, hard work, and critical thinking. Thinking back, I can remember having some teachers who did not but what I learned from the rest seemed to stick more. I can see where it is likely/possible the demographics have shifted today and those teachers are either few and far between, or kids are more prone to believing what the other teachers are telling them based on their parental guidance.
Ok...I tried to Wade through this but the tiny font on my phone is making me blind.
If you want to understand the fix we're in go watch Mike Rowe on TedTalks...in his monologue he speaks of our society's loss of repect for our skilled workers ....or work itself. We're so buffaloed by degreed dipsticks that we've forgotten the knowledge attained by experience on the job.
I can tell you from 25 years in mechanical maintenance that most of the "Engineers " we hire don't have any practical experience.
Most are right out of college and I doubt they could put a chain back on a bicycle . We need to get back to the old 'do it yourself ' ethic of the '50s.
Maybe we'd see a rise in the pride of workmanship in this country.
If you want to understand the fix we're in go watch Mike Rowe on TedTalks...in his monologue he speaks of our society's loss of repect for our skilled workers ....or work itself. We're so buffaloed by degreed dipsticks that we've forgotten the knowledge attained by experience on the job.
I can tell you from 25 years in mechanical maintenance that most of the "Engineers " we hire don't have any practical experience.
Most are right out of college and I doubt they could put a chain back on a bicycle . We need to get back to the old 'do it yourself ' ethic of the '50s.
Maybe we'd see a rise in the pride of workmanship in this country.
I know where you are coming from.
I have an associates in electronics from ITT...no BS classes.
After hiring in at my current employer back in 85, the guys with 4 year electronics degrees were considered to be the better employees, but most of them didnt even know the color code or what 1000pf meant. meanwhile, I was troubleshooting circles around them but was the slowest to advance cause I "just had a tech school degree."
When people complain about no jobs most are complaining that there are no jobs that pay high wages and expect little or nothing from you.
In this thread-
Durn kids these days are lazy and stupid. Oh, and they need to get off my lawn!
I think some key factors are being glossed over here.
One is pay for these fields. Lots of these companies are crying not because they can't find certain workers, it's because they can't find these workers who will work for next to nothing. Why would I learn a trade to earn a nickel more than minimum? They don't pay like they used to.
It even affects white collar. They've been complaining there's no engineers for years now. There's thousands out there underemployed or unemployed. Why do they complain there's not enough? So they can fill the positions with H1B visas for a fraction of the cost.
Bottom line is if there aren't enough of what you want, you'll have to pay more to attract qualified candidates. Supply and demand in it's simplest form.
Durn kids these days are lazy and stupid. Oh, and they need to get off my lawn!
I think some key factors are being glossed over here.
One is pay for these fields. Lots of these companies are crying not because they can't find certain workers, it's because they can't find these workers who will work for next to nothing. Why would I learn a trade to earn a nickel more than minimum? They don't pay like they used to.
It even affects white collar. They've been complaining there's no engineers for years now. There's thousands out there underemployed or unemployed. Why do they complain there's not enough? So they can fill the positions with H1B visas for a fraction of the cost.
Bottom line is if there aren't enough of what you want, you'll have to pay more to attract qualified candidates. Supply and demand in it's simplest form.
I work in a steel mill. And they pay a lot better than minimum. And still can't find craftsmen.
hornadylnl
Shooter
- Nov 19, 2008
- 21,505
- 63
Hacks aren't hard to find. Craftsmen on the other hand...
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