History Repeats Itself in Education and Employment

Schools Must Prepare Their Students for College and Employment in the Trades 

Ben Vitale

In the 50s I benefited from certain trade related courses that were given while in junior high school. In the early 50s school courses such as wood shop, metal shop, and cooking for men were commonplace! The knowledge that I gained through taking the metal shop course in junior high school helped me to succeed at my first significant job, after I graduated! In junior high school, we were not allowed to actually operate the dangerous machinery, but we were taught how to operate machine equipment in great detail.

My first job in electronics also required me to operate machine shop equipment! Although I had never actually operated machine shop equipment, I was able to answer questions, and perform operations on this equipment immediately, without hesitation, because I was totally familiar with the operation of a metal lathe, drill press, and metal shear. I operated each piece of machine shop equipment without any problems, because of my total understanding of how each piece of machinery operated.

Trade related shop courses slowly disappeared from the school curriculum of most schools. For decades we were without trade-oriented classes. Most schools operated under the premise that all of the students will be going to college. This turned out to be a bad decision. 

 Unfortunately, employers started to include a four-year degree requirement on jobs that actually did not require a degree to perform. The underlying problem to the degree requirement, was that the material covered in college did not match the actual job requirements of most trade type jobs.

The fire dragon of underemployment scorched my behind quite by accident! One day while solving some electronic design problems on my computer, my actions were coincidentally seen by an Electrician that was doing major renovations to my house!  The electrician knew exactly what I was doing… I was amazed! I asked the electrician how he knew what I was doing and he said that he knew what I was doing on my computer, because he has a Bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering. My electrician couldn’t get a job in engineering so he settled for a job as an electrician, which coincidentally paid more money! Wow! Underemployment that worked out for the better! LOL!

Unfortunately, the material covered to attain a Bachelors degree does not usually coincide with the requirements for employment in many companies. Company management is currently making agreements with academia to train student to predefined criteria, so that they can qualify for employment at their particular company. This specific training concept is only in its infancy… Presently many companies such as such as Google and Apple are accepting applicant for employment on the basis of what a person can actually do, not on what the degree implies that you can do. Although I got my first job without a college degree, I never thought that I would see hiring practices revert back to the way they were in 1960. 

May I suggest looking over the courses offered in BOCES and adult education. In my case I received fantastic training in electronic technology via adult education. It seemed that a Navy electronics instructor retired and was bored to death sitting home, so he put together a two-semester electronic technology curriculum, for Adult Education… the same material that he presented in the Navy! Needless to say, this Adult Ed course is what pushed me into my first job! I did not need a Bachelor's degree!

Please leave a comment... No registration required! Please leave a comment... No registration required! Please leave a comment... No registration required! (Left click "Comments," below) *Our Thanks to Google/ Blogger for Hosting Our Site.