beyondfantasy3 113M
2003 posts
6/19/2014 5:04 am
What happens next


Something has to force the people in the US to wake up on many things.
From Health Care to Fixing the Roads to Supporting Vocational and Technical Training programs.
Maybe the next generation of will wake up from the Degree delusion and actually take up programs where they learn a skill.
Degree's are fine if they are in a 'SPECIFIC" field, that one actually plans and follow thorough with devoting themselves.
But many of the Graduates from the past 30 yrs have worthless degree.

The woman who is the head of youtube, said she graduated and did not know what to do, and found out her degree was not worth much. She enrolled in a Technical program and got a certificate, and by the skills she learned there, she networked her way up. They probably acknowledged the degree, but the degree had nothing to do with the skill that actually go her working in the field of technology.

Read the story... it might save some families 10's of thousands of dollars, chasing the degree delusions. Realize there are only so many sit down push paper and make decision jobs, and everybody is not going to get one of them.

But with a skill, you can create and certainly you can find work which you actually do something and contribute to create something.

beyondfantasy3 113M
4740 posts
6/20/2014 4:56 am

Thank you for engaging the subject: I'm speaking on the broad spectrum everyone is not going to go to University. Therefore it may be more functional for some to seek vocation and technical skills.
They may later want to enhance their knowledge base, but at least they have working skills which affords them to pursue stability.
We have this idea of "the top", that is quite subjective. I prefer to think in terms of 'being functional, and being qualified with skills to be a contributor".
The 'subjective top" people speak about, is generally sitting in an office with the power of authority over other or some system. Even a team can only have so many leaders, and everyone can't be a leader.

We've allowed the media to push this image that success is wearing a suit, giving orders and such. We have this image of people never getting their hands dirty and suddenly they are paid to be able to buy a mega sized house with many things.

We need to move away from the media delusions and look at the world as a whole. While western society fantasize about high pay for "talking", what we have resulted to become is a society with collusive policy, corruption that is engaged through political non speak, ( talking a lot and saying or committing to nothing). The result is a system of 'crashed companies", "looted industries", and a landscape where nothing is made with quality. Laborers are dis-respected.
unfortunate as it is, many in a wide variety of positions engage in 'cover your butt policy, more so than take an actions and get a function completed.

I'm all for those who choose SPECIFIC fields and pursuit the highest level of study IF they plan to stick to that field.

Our problem with society is, its not education for the sake of education that people pursue. They pursue degree TOO OFTEN for the sake of status.
People will tell you in less than 25 seconds of talking what their degree is. which is pointless, no one cares, the matter is 'what can you do" and are you effective in doing it.

At 60 yrs of age, I've seen many many people who speak of their degree and have major problem making decisions and then many have made such disastrous decisions which have resulted into massive losses, job losses for other and stagnation and regressive programming. I work in an environment where most people have degrees, what I see is constant "gridlock", thing deteriorating, and people tripping as to whether a "comma" is in the right place on a simple memo.

What did we see when the economic crash of 2008 hit, we saw all these economist saying they did not know what to do and they did not see it coming, yet, the everyday working people saw it coming long before the end results hit. We say these traders who were hired behind their degree, stand up and say they did not understand the commodities they were pushing and trading. I've seen incompetence in the legal field, the medical fields and many many field where people stand upon their titles, yet something is lacking.
Still we need people to be educated in these professions, but we need them to have a high level of integrity, and not just pursuits of "ego and material status based dignity", which is fictitious.

The world will always function based on the labor put in.. It has always been brought down by the "executive levels and their self enrichment schemes", which resulted to destroy companies which had long history of growth that suddenly met with downfall. there was no reason for Sears and JC Penny to have met the fate they are facing, nor for IBM and Xerox to have lost the edge in the core fields they pioneered. Ford and Chevy being blown nearly in the dust when they dominated and populated America with the Automobile and set a standard of what vehicles could be, yet they met gridlock and downfall, and the only profiteers were brokers, traders, attorneys, banks and executives. Result, GM faced bankruptcy and today, they have practically Re-called much of what they produced.

The media and its depictions of how people live, what is valued and how its valued is and has been a very challenging thing. People even pushing their kids into field the kid has no interest, but its the status thing the family has designated for them. people today can't even make simple human relations for first measuring people based on degree labels. It's almost like a wild gluttonous madhouse based on not much more than ego and materialism.

But still, don't get me wrong, I believe in 'continually learning', but I don't aspire that the only venue to do so is via University. I would like to see credibility restored to the vocations and technical certificate areas.