The trades have been a good bet for the last 30 years and look to be so for the next while. Sure, no one knows with dead certainty but the odds that we are going to need tradespeople, nurses, doctors etc vastly outweighs the odds we’ll need someone with a major in critical literature.
https://redsealrecruiting.com/salaries/welder-salaries-information/
Median is 83K. Throw on a combo and you’re golden. I have a friend who moved from welding to underwater welding and is laughing. Loves the job, never sweats about work, has all the OT he wants if he ever wants it etc. Not a brutal job, just requires attention and care.
We have libraries for this.
The notion that we should pay tens of thousands of dollars for everyone to go and get an arts degree and then be basically unemployable is a ridiculous one though. (Remember, OSAPs are just pure grants, there’s no repayment, it’s just a gift.)
Ford seems to be arguing for not taking any courses that aren’t directly beneficial to some economic purpose
I mean, if you read the article, it’s pretty clear the students understand he’s talking about programs as a whole. Heck, most economically viable majors require you to take courses to become a well rounded person.
I agree that people should expand their horizons but asking us to subsidize that, when there are a hundred open online courses freely available is a little silly. (And if you read my original comment, the notion that I’m helping pay for kids to watch movies in class because they refuse to do so as homework? Just gross.) Heck, my mom just finished a comparative religion course via Stanford online and had a blast.
Money is a limited resource. While there are many fascinating courses, and heck, I could spend a lifetime learning if someone was willing to pay the bill, if you’re asking society to pay for you to learn things, society is willing to do that as an investment in the future. While medieval history is fascinating, that’s not a great investment for the rest of us.
my non-tech uni courses were most beneficial to my overall capabilities in my tech job
Yes but I imagine, y’know, getting the tech skills, was pretty fundamental to getting the tech job. If you’d applied saying “I don’t know a thing about tech BUT I am a well rounded person” they would have laughed you out the door.
Maybe depends on the trade. I know a good few older plumbers, welders etc who at this point, don’t bother leaving home for anything under several thousand dollars (much to a friend’s vexation while trying to reno.) You don’t want to be a roofer for 30 years though.
ACH, should have clarified. In my head, not giving money to America is the important thing. Should’ve articulated that.
Probably not put super well but the basic idea is fairly reasonable. I graduated with folks who majored in stuff they really enjoyed (critical lit, history, philosophy) and then had a rude awakening when it turned there weren’t many businesses with a burning need for someone who could explain the significance of the battle of Hastings.
From the other side, I have a buddy who teaches a film course. According to him, if he assigns a movie as homework, only a quarter of the students will actually watch it. So he started failing kids. Well, the institution did not like that so now he legitimately shows movies in class for a huge chunk of his class time. I love movies and film fests but I feel less than ideal about subsidising a course on them and feel downright annoyed to subsidize kids sitting and watching fucking movies in class time.
Like I say, I don’t hate Ford’s basic thrust here.
I was wondering about that. All the Israel memes dropped off right after the election. Seems a little early for the midterms but hey, I’m not the one helping the fascists win.
In both the US and the UK women account for more than 50% of Reddit users.
That is a twist I did not see coming.
After trying temu as an amazon replace me for cheap cords etc, maybe none? I’ve literally returned more than 3/4 of what I’ve got from them and now I’m back to suspicious of very low price Chinese merch.
I guess I have to reexamine my thoughts on ai.
Yeah, I was thinking something like having Anakin as Bondi yelling the Dow is up but didn’t love it without a good shot to put Bondi in and two panels didn’t feel right.
Honestly, this one makes me want to learn to make crappy animated gifs just to do the who sequence with Bondi as Anakin etc.
I get it but damn, a good friend who lives on the other side of the country phoned a few months ago and we just shot the shit for an hour. It was as surprising as it was amazing.
Oh, absolutely. I’m thinking in terms of future administrations and such. (Assuming free and fair elections actually happen.)
Oh, absolutely, I’m thinking in terms of future administrations and such. (Assuming free and fair elections actually happen.)
Absolutely important to keep boycotting, even if things go back to “normal” if only to show that this stupidity has real world costs.
My new favourite short joke…
You hear about the non binary prospector? Found gold in them/their hills!
Good to know, thanks!
Oooooh, I oughta do that soon.
That’s a wild take. I’m pretty confident of most of the successful folks I know, that’s pretty untrue. The ones who work for the magnificent 7 knew no one in there beforehand. My engineering friends didn’t have connections, they had really good degrees and work ethics.
And good coders aren’t hungry for work. They might have a harder time finding quarter million salaries these days but that’s a pretty good baseline.
Edit: Oh, for the lawyers, maybe sort of? There’s a lot of networking etc to try to find a firm with a good partner track etc but that happens midway through law school, and your competence is essential.