Whether it is a conspiracy of the degreed to only hire degreed or not I don't know. I do know that it is nearly impossible to land an engineering job in a big company without one. Forget an engineering job, you can't even get an entry level technician job without a tech school degree.
38 years ago, after the typical father - teenage son argument about being a worthless kid, I ripped out a "technicians wanted" ad from the newspaper and walked into the Motorola plant and told them to hire me. I had a high school education with bad grades and had been kicked out of the local community college for GPA > 0. They handed me a 60 question test designed to find good techs, which I aced. I still work there. A few years after I started the test was deemed "discriminatory" since not enough minorities could pass it, so it was abolished and the mandantory degree was established.
There was a policy whereby a good technician that did engineering work (real product design stuff) could become an engineer. It took me 11 years but I did it. Engineer.....No Degree. Not many did this. A few years later the tables began to turn. The recession fueled the layoffs and guess who was high on the target list. I was relatively safe but two different bosses put it in writing on performance reviews...No Degree.....No More Promotions......EVER! The clincher..Motorola would pay for the college degree, AND let me leave early to go to school.
OK even a dumb blonde could figure this one out. I could sit in front of my computer taking data, or I could go to college. I had to get a C or better and finish my degree. At the age of 37 I entered college. Yes it was hard doing all that F^#(@in homework, but it was fun. Ath the age of 40 I had a BSCE (computer engineering) degree. So much fun that I reenlisted. Yes the big dumb blonde one got a MSEE degree too. I chased that one at a much slower pace. It took 6 years to get.
It was far easier to get a degree and actually understand all that math stuff after working with it for 20 years. It is also easier to be ahead of the young kids when you figure out that their prime reason for being there is the social scene. Yes I learned some useful things, and a ton of useless stuff.
38 years ago, after the typical father - teenage son argument about being a worthless kid, I ripped out a "technicians wanted" ad from the newspaper and walked into the Motorola plant and told them to hire me. I had a high school education with bad grades and had been kicked out of the local community college for GPA > 0. They handed me a 60 question test designed to find good techs, which I aced. I still work there. A few years after I started the test was deemed "discriminatory" since not enough minorities could pass it, so it was abolished and the mandantory degree was established.
There was a policy whereby a good technician that did engineering work (real product design stuff) could become an engineer. It took me 11 years but I did it. Engineer.....No Degree. Not many did this. A few years later the tables began to turn. The recession fueled the layoffs and guess who was high on the target list. I was relatively safe but two different bosses put it in writing on performance reviews...No Degree.....No More Promotions......EVER! The clincher..Motorola would pay for the college degree, AND let me leave early to go to school.
OK even a dumb blonde could figure this one out. I could sit in front of my computer taking data, or I could go to college. I had to get a C or better and finish my degree. At the age of 37 I entered college. Yes it was hard doing all that F^#(@in homework, but it was fun. Ath the age of 40 I had a BSCE (computer engineering) degree. So much fun that I reenlisted. Yes the big dumb blonde one got a MSEE degree too. I chased that one at a much slower pace. It took 6 years to get.
It was far easier to get a degree and actually understand all that math stuff after working with it for 20 years. It is also easier to be ahead of the young kids when you figure out that their prime reason for being there is the social scene. Yes I learned some useful things, and a ton of useless stuff.
That means, with such education and such results of education we are facing looong-looong crisis. Economics consists of each and every business. Businesses consists of people who don't think of goals, they think of right answers. Which answers are right? Ok, let's search in books... Let's search in Internet... Ok! According to this scientific research most of companies did that this way... Here is the right answer! 
Wait, how well that companies are doing now? Ah, they are in crisis! Why? Because of crisis around? Or may be they are in crisis exactly because of their decisions, their way of doing the business?
Ahh, they were doing everything right?
Ok, if they were doing everything right, but Chinese comrades who did it wrong won, may be we should do something "wrong" too?
Wait, how well that companies are doing now? Ah, they are in crisis! Why? Because of crisis around? Or may be they are in crisis exactly because of their decisions, their way of doing the business?
Ahh, they were doing everything right?
Ok, if they were doing everything right, but Chinese comrades who did it wrong won, may be we should do something "wrong" too?
It is not the conspiracy. It is called ignorance. When people learned some artificial answers on questions only those who know that "right" answers can answer them "properly".
Like, give please the Right Definition of Tube Sound, George!
I'm pretty sure you will fail, because you don't know what is written on Wiki page about Tube Sound. What is written there, is some opinions that are not shared by you and others who really build tube amps and know what the sound is about.
Do you call it conspiracy? Come on George, it is "Standard ignorance inherited by standard multiple choice education".
Occam's Razor - the simpler explanation is to be preferred. I call it groupthink.
I think it's too disorganized to be called a conspiracy. No one is sitting around a table plotting the offensive. Abraxalito's groupthink is more like it. And I think of it as a created economic class. Created by the degreed class as economic security.
Wavebourn, I wouldn't argue about your view of contemporary education, but do have a few comments about:
"Economics consists of each and every business." I advocate that theory of social interaction espoused by Comte and Nock, so I view economics as much bigger. (eg see my sig)
"Businesses consists of people who don't think of goals, they think of right answers." True enough here for a stereotype, but I want to fair and mention the many many companies who do have goals and seek to creatively achieve them.
"Ok, if they were doing everything right, but Chinese comrades who did it wrong won, may be we should do something "wrong" too?" I'm not sure of the meaning of "won" in this context. Working for $100 a month is winning? If so, place is the place for me to be. I've got no problem with that.
Wavebourn, I wouldn't argue about your view of contemporary education, but do have a few comments about:
"Economics consists of each and every business." I advocate that theory of social interaction espoused by Comte and Nock, so I view economics as much bigger. (eg see my sig)
"Businesses consists of people who don't think of goals, they think of right answers." True enough here for a stereotype, but I want to fair and mention the many many companies who do have goals and seek to creatively achieve them.
"Ok, if they were doing everything right, but Chinese comrades who did it wrong won, may be we should do something "wrong" too?" I'm not sure of the meaning of "won" in this context. Working for $100 a month is winning? If so, place is the place for me to be. I've got no problem with that.
It's pure CYA. Hiring at big companies goes through HR. If a degreed hire doesn't work out, HR takes less blame- hey, he has a credential!
The other aspect is sorting- most positions have hundreds of applicants. No one wants to spend days going through each CV in detail and interview every applicant. So, just as colleges have arbitrary GPA or SAT cutoffs. a credential filter knocks the applicant pool down while not (generally) reducing its quality. Fair? No, but in the words of the great philosopher Clint Eastwood, fair's got nothin' to do with it.
The other aspect is sorting- most positions have hundreds of applicants. No one wants to spend days going through each CV in detail and interview every applicant. So, just as colleges have arbitrary GPA or SAT cutoffs. a credential filter knocks the applicant pool down while not (generally) reducing its quality. Fair? No, but in the words of the great philosopher Clint Eastwood, fair's got nothin' to do with it.
A few years ago I found myself back at university doing a PhD. This involved assisting with running undergraduate labs. One of the things which annoyed me was students who measured some property of some circuit they had built, then ask me whether they had got the "right answer". I usually told them that if they had measured the right thing in the right way, then for them that was the right answer; for the better students I might also ask if they thought their result was reasonable. They didn't seem to understand that their circuit might give a different result for, say, gain than the student next to them on the bench.
I assume this is a consequence of multiple-choice tickbox 'education'. Don't understand anything, just tick the right answer.
I assume this is a consequence of multiple-choice tickbox 'education'. Don't understand anything, just tick the right answer.
While higher education is not a panacea we all certainly want individuals with the highest caliber education and skills before they engineer our airplanes, cars, bridges, etc or perform surgery on our hearts or brains.
Absolutely. The definition and process we call "education" in this country has a constellation of meanings and outcomes. If one peels back the onion on what it takes to acquire knowledge, skill and the talent to exploit them, it comes down to some pretty simple-ideas. (A) a capable and willing student. (B) a capable and willing teacher. (C) The time and resources to conduct a flow of capabilities from B to A. While not a teacher by profession, I've taught many classes and written books and articles to support those endeavors. My wife is a psychology department chair in a small college.
We have shared observations and experiences suggesting that capable and willing students are getting more difficult to come by. This seems to be an outcome of too little attention from capable and willing teachers before we embarked on an effort to share our knowledge and skills. Far too many come into classrooms late in life exceedingly deficient in communication and computational skills or even an honorable notion of why they are in that class. To walk out enlightened . . . or to acquire a good mark on a certificate that suggests they've really achieved something. Some are incapable of polite behaviors that honor fellow student's rights to exploit what the teacher has to offer.
The learning environment can be superbly crafted in many forms other than formal classroom-student-teacher forums. I was fortunate to have many opportunities along with capable and willing mentorship combined with uncountable opportunities to learn the arts and crafts of my trade. I bailed from college after they p$##%D me off . . . but my employers of the time (1965) were more interested in what I was willing to learn and deliver on than what pieces of paper I held. So I'll have to say that I'm retired from the school of hard knocks after 40+ years . . . but still learning.
When I've tried to explain (and by way of example demonstrate), the rudimentary features of a quality education to "educators" . . . I get blank stares. Where was the facility, the order, the curriculum, the priests of knowledge, the conferring of degree for having answered all the questions? When I point to the workshops, labs, engineering libraries, factory floors, teams of thoughtful individuals working in concert to achieve certain goals. I say my "degree" is thousands of satisfied customers who choose to fly our work-product with very low risk. They cannot imagine that one may achieve adequate and useful education in such "chaos".
I am in no way attempting to belittle those who have run the gauntlet of formal education and have emerged better for it. My wife is but one example of that recipe for success. I am only suggesting that given the right feed-stock of potential students and opportunities to learn and then put that knowledge into practice offers countless recipes for success.
Unfortunately, both quality feed-stock and opportunities for sharing of knowledge are shrinking. Due to new policies in effect, I cannot do business with my former employer as an "engineer" given that I do not hold that degree. This is spite of the fact that my badge called me "senior engineer" for over 20 years. However, I can offer services to my former colleagues as a "technical services specialist" . . . what ever that means. In any case, they are still writing checks against my invoices for a boat load more money than I was making while I was an employee . . . go figure.
The really successful teacher looks forward to seeing former students run out far ahead leaving the teacher in the dust. A teacher can only supply keys for the opening of doors. The saddest discovery about my post retirement consulting career is that my efforts only "plug some gaps" left when I retired. There was no charter for me to hand-down the torch to up-and-comers. There are no individuals interested in or looking forward to leaving ME in the dust. Opportunity for education in my alma mater has slowly faded away.
"While all fields involve learning as you go there are some where the initial skills to begin hands-on need to be superior."
Yup, but the feed-stock of fresh graduates flows from the same environment in which my wife struggles to produce capable and confident practitioners of the art. Disappointing? Scary? Sad? All the above? Take your pick.
Absolutely. The definition and process we call "education" in this country has a constellation of meanings and outcomes. If one peels back the onion on what it takes to acquire knowledge, skill and the talent to exploit them, it comes down to some pretty simple-ideas. (A) a capable and willing student. (B) a capable and willing teacher. (C) The time and resources to conduct a flow of capabilities from B to A. While not a teacher by profession, I've taught many classes and written books and articles to support those endeavors. My wife is a psychology department chair in a small college.
We have shared observations and experiences suggesting that capable and willing students are getting more difficult to come by. This seems to be an outcome of too little attention from capable and willing teachers before we embarked on an effort to share our knowledge and skills. Far too many come into classrooms late in life exceedingly deficient in communication and computational skills or even an honorable notion of why they are in that class. To walk out enlightened . . . or to acquire a good mark on a certificate that suggests they've really achieved something. Some are incapable of polite behaviors that honor fellow student's rights to exploit what the teacher has to offer.
The learning environment can be superbly crafted in many forms other than formal classroom-student-teacher forums. I was fortunate to have many opportunities along with capable and willing mentorship combined with uncountable opportunities to learn the arts and crafts of my trade. I bailed from college after they p$##%D me off . . . but my employers of the time (1965) were more interested in what I was willing to learn and deliver on than what pieces of paper I held. So I'll have to say that I'm retired from the school of hard knocks after 40+ years . . . but still learning.
When I've tried to explain (and by way of example demonstrate), the rudimentary features of a quality education to "educators" . . . I get blank stares. Where was the facility, the order, the curriculum, the priests of knowledge, the conferring of degree for having answered all the questions? When I point to the workshops, labs, engineering libraries, factory floors, teams of thoughtful individuals working in concert to achieve certain goals. I say my "degree" is thousands of satisfied customers who choose to fly our work-product with very low risk. They cannot imagine that one may achieve adequate and useful education in such "chaos".
I am in no way attempting to belittle those who have run the gauntlet of formal education and have emerged better for it. My wife is but one example of that recipe for success. I am only suggesting that given the right feed-stock of potential students and opportunities to learn and then put that knowledge into practice offers countless recipes for success.
Unfortunately, both quality feed-stock and opportunities for sharing of knowledge are shrinking. Due to new policies in effect, I cannot do business with my former employer as an "engineer" given that I do not hold that degree. This is spite of the fact that my badge called me "senior engineer" for over 20 years. However, I can offer services to my former colleagues as a "technical services specialist" . . . what ever that means. In any case, they are still writing checks against my invoices for a boat load more money than I was making while I was an employee . . . go figure.
The really successful teacher looks forward to seeing former students run out far ahead leaving the teacher in the dust. A teacher can only supply keys for the opening of doors. The saddest discovery about my post retirement consulting career is that my efforts only "plug some gaps" left when I retired. There was no charter for me to hand-down the torch to up-and-comers. There are no individuals interested in or looking forward to leaving ME in the dust. Opportunity for education in my alma mater has slowly faded away.
"While all fields involve learning as you go there are some where the initial skills to begin hands-on need to be superior."
Yup, but the feed-stock of fresh graduates flows from the same environment in which my wife struggles to produce capable and confident practitioners of the art. Disappointing? Scary? Sad? All the above? Take your pick.
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"Capable and confident"... The rest is right, huh?
What about "what kind of skills and knowledge do we teach"?
Do you teach to think, solving new unknown problems, or to select best matching already known answers to already known problems? This is the main question.
Education in this country is excellent in producing robots to support existing technologies. But when non-standard problems need to be solved INS and H1B visas always help. The last trend is even more cost-effective: outsourcing of problem solving to other countries.
I know what I am talking about. I was invited to work here when we were building Internet and services based on Internet technologies. Now we are not needed anymore because you produced enough of robots to support what we built.
What about "what kind of skills and knowledge do we teach"?
Do you teach to think, solving new unknown problems, or to select best matching already known answers to already known problems? This is the main question.
Education in this country is excellent in producing robots to support existing technologies. But when non-standard problems need to be solved INS and H1B visas always help. The last trend is even more cost-effective: outsourcing of problem solving to other countries.
I know what I am talking about. I was invited to work here when we were building Internet and services based on Internet technologies. Now we are not needed anymore because you produced enough of robots to support what we built.
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"Businesses consists of people who don't think of goals, they think of right answers." True enough here for a stereotype, but I want to fair and mention the many many companies who do have goals and seek to creatively achieve them.
Yes, and god bless them, they are the examples of individuals who are crafting ever more useful recipes for success. Very early on in my wife's formal education, she was getting some courses in "total quality management". She was being offered some exceedingly seductive ideas. Do the statistical processes, craft work instructions that describe the processes by which successes are achieved and yea verily, the work instructions are the path to eternal prosperity.
If you're baking nationally distributed cookies produced in dozens of facilities . . . yes, the processes need to be crafted, documented and then followed if one wishes to have the same product to be available from any store shelf on the planet. It was seductive to me in that coming from an a heavily regulated industry with long marriages to conformity, "yeah, cool." Then came ISO9000, the world wide manifestation of "say what you do, do what you say." became the touchstone of industrial purity.
I became involved later in dozens of incidents where work instructions poorly crafted, or poorly written or poorly understood cause the production of poor performance in product. The folks building the stuff KNEW there were deficiencies. But unlike days of old where you called the engineer down to red-line a process and expect a follow up revision in hours to days, the cost of correcting the documentation for a process had to be cost-benefit weighed against the option of driving on per the current instructions. Shucks, it was tested and blessed by government . . . no fault, no foul.
Our system of education suffered this calamity much earlier . . . by perhaps decades. There is so much value invested in the crafting of "the Word" by no-value added bureaucrats with fine titles and benefits to match, that even suggesting a better way will bring the gods of management and regulation down on your head.
". . . but I want to fair and mention the many many companies who do have goals and seek to creatively achieve them."
Yes! I had the great fortune to work for several such firms. They contributed greatly to what I became and I'd like to think their investment in me was well spent. It's that win-win thing that to few educators, students and practitioners alike understand or seek. You have to have experienced it to really have an appreciation for what it offers.
Ok, let's search in books... Let's search in Internet... Ok! According to this scientific research most of companies did that this way... Here is the right answer!
One's future depends on a grasp of the fundamentals of simple-ideas . . . ingredients that go into recipes for success (math, physics, communications). This is followed by a study of other recipes that have succeeded or failed (history of socio-economics). Then as a competent observer, see what tweaks can be made to offer a more competitive recipe. The individual who understands how all the simple-ideas work individually and with each other has a good chance of crafting an entirely new recipe. Call it creative thinking, critical thought, etc. etc. This cannot be "taught", only demonstrated. It is through this process of apprenticeship that the seeds are planted, sometimes take root and flourish. This environment is where competent observers thrive as participants in spontaneous order of a civilized free-market.
Yes, and god bless them, they are the examples of individuals who are crafting ever more useful recipes for success. Very early on in my wife's formal education, she was getting some courses in "total quality management". She was being offered some exceedingly seductive ideas. Do the statistical processes, craft work instructions that describe the processes by which successes are achieved and yea verily, the work instructions are the path to eternal prosperity.
If you're baking nationally distributed cookies produced in dozens of facilities . . . yes, the processes need to be crafted, documented and then followed if one wishes to have the same product to be available from any store shelf on the planet. It was seductive to me in that coming from an a heavily regulated industry with long marriages to conformity, "yeah, cool." Then came ISO9000, the world wide manifestation of "say what you do, do what you say." became the touchstone of industrial purity.
I became involved later in dozens of incidents where work instructions poorly crafted, or poorly written or poorly understood cause the production of poor performance in product. The folks building the stuff KNEW there were deficiencies. But unlike days of old where you called the engineer down to red-line a process and expect a follow up revision in hours to days, the cost of correcting the documentation for a process had to be cost-benefit weighed against the option of driving on per the current instructions. Shucks, it was tested and blessed by government . . . no fault, no foul.
Our system of education suffered this calamity much earlier . . . by perhaps decades. There is so much value invested in the crafting of "the Word" by no-value added bureaucrats with fine titles and benefits to match, that even suggesting a better way will bring the gods of management and regulation down on your head.
". . . but I want to fair and mention the many many companies who do have goals and seek to creatively achieve them."
Yes! I had the great fortune to work for several such firms. They contributed greatly to what I became and I'd like to think their investment in me was well spent. It's that win-win thing that to few educators, students and practitioners alike understand or seek. You have to have experienced it to really have an appreciation for what it offers.
Ok, let's search in books... Let's search in Internet... Ok! According to this scientific research most of companies did that this way... Here is the right answer!
One's future depends on a grasp of the fundamentals of simple-ideas . . . ingredients that go into recipes for success (math, physics, communications). This is followed by a study of other recipes that have succeeded or failed (history of socio-economics). Then as a competent observer, see what tweaks can be made to offer a more competitive recipe. The individual who understands how all the simple-ideas work individually and with each other has a good chance of crafting an entirely new recipe. Call it creative thinking, critical thought, etc. etc. This cannot be "taught", only demonstrated. It is through this process of apprenticeship that the seeds are planted, sometimes take root and flourish. This environment is where competent observers thrive as participants in spontaneous order of a civilized free-market.
Did I show this picture already?
No doubt both teams, who put rails, and who put poles, were educated, certified, and strictly followed instructions.
No doubt both teams, who put rails, and who put poles, were educated, certified, and strictly followed instructions.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
Let me disagree. It can be taught, it was taught, and it happens when students learn to solve problems concentrating on learning to find own, non-standard solutions to problems. But when they are taught to select right answers from presented multiple choices they don't learn to think and to create. They don't concentrate on problems and their solutions. They concentrate on searching for "right" answers, which in most of cases are suboptimal, and even wrong when used in wrong contexts, ever changing in the real world.
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re: TQM & ISO9000
The short response is "Been there, done that."
One multinational company I worked for even sent me away for a week for a TQM seminar. I find it all reasonably interesting, but consider it only a tool.
Success relies too much on dynamic action, not just static ink stamped for approval by six managers who all agree they'd be rich if only the dunderheads below them could only pull off some reading comprehension.
Now I suppose we're back to the what's-being-taught portion of the program...
The short response is "Been there, done that."
One multinational company I worked for even sent me away for a week for a TQM seminar. I find it all reasonably interesting, but consider it only a tool.
Success relies too much on dynamic action, not just static ink stamped for approval by six managers who all agree they'd be rich if only the dunderheads below them could only pull off some reading comprehension.
Now I suppose we're back to the what's-being-taught portion of the program...
That could very well have been the goal. Market share, to put it another way. And despite what was written or said, that superceded quality.
see below
Look at the poles and rails more closely. I think it likely that one crew chartered with installing a new line of poles to electrify a "diesel rail" did their job . . . right alongside a section of abandoned rail. The crew who will pull up the old rail, has probably has not (if ever), been chartered with that task. I've seen several similar "goofs" in the wild which has similar, rational explanations.
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