My husband was a machinist for about 6 years then went back to school to become a mechanical engineer. As you can imagine he is an extremely good mechanical engineer.
Nobody doubted his intelligence when he was a machinist because he was obviously smart. People in our generation experimented more with our life path more than kids these days. My husband was not unusual. He was a Berkeley dropout and his machinist best friend was a law school dropout. It makes me sad sometimes that kids these days don't experiment more. It is freeing to realize that you can make your way in life no matter what.
When my husband was a machinist he worked with a mechanical engineer on a project and realized he understood how to design better than the engineer. At the time I was still in school so we decided I would finish school first and then he would go back to school.
> It makes me sad sometimes that kids these days don't experiment more. It is freeing to realize that you can make your way in life no matter what.
Kids don't experiment more because a generation or two ago, all one needed was a high school diploma to be employable; now one needs a college degree. Saddled with student loan payments, who can be free to experiment? And wages haven't kept up with cost of living increases, either. So I would have been able to support myself as a server in a restaurant back then, but now I'd probably have to juggle two jobs to make ends meet.
Wow - so many negative reviews! This must be the most controversial thing I have posted!
In general you are right that blue collar wages have not kept pace with the cost of living. This is particularly true in the SF bay area. I have often thought that the poor livability in the bay area is not sustainable. I used to live in a neighborhood with only a few engineers. Now everyone seems to be an engineer. Having said that - there are far more livable places to live!
As for college education - I do support free college education but with caveats. I am shocked by the number of people who think college needs to be expensive. For instance, you can get a degree from Berkeley by going two years to a community college and the final two years at Berkeley even today. When you don't have much money, that is a great option.
I am also here to tell you that you can have a great career with a degree from a state college. My husband and I worked our way through school and the state colleges are very flexible with working students where universities are not. With my degree I was at some of the greatest companies in the world including Apple, IBM, Xerox in their heyday. I also worked at 4 successful startups.
Even in your generation this is possible. My son got a liberal arts degree in 2008 which was the worst possible year to get a liberal arts degree. He discovered that that the curriculum from Stanford and ITT India were on line. So he studied on his own to get a college-equivalent education and worked in tech for a couple of years. Then he decided he wanted a computer science masters degree. He took the prerequisites from community colleges and applied and was accepted to graduate school. His expenses ended up being small enough that he paid half through his savings and the other half he was able to pay back within a year of graduation.
I can understand that this route is not possible in all fields such as medicine. But an interesting life is still possible.
This sounds more like the usual practice of categorizing people and putting them in boxes they can't escape out of. If he really has better design skills than the engineer then why did he have to go back to school? Why couldn't he just get a job as a mechanical engineer right away?
I agree with you. I wasn't going to say this because it seemed too much outside the original discussion.
School seems to have 3 roles: to gain skills, to certify skills, and to join a professional network.
In today's world more and more skills can be gained without school. We can join professional networks outside of college. I am starting to see we can certify outside of college. Therefore do we need college at all?
Nobody doubted his intelligence when he was a machinist because he was obviously smart. People in our generation experimented more with our life path more than kids these days. My husband was not unusual. He was a Berkeley dropout and his machinist best friend was a law school dropout. It makes me sad sometimes that kids these days don't experiment more. It is freeing to realize that you can make your way in life no matter what.
When my husband was a machinist he worked with a mechanical engineer on a project and realized he understood how to design better than the engineer. At the time I was still in school so we decided I would finish school first and then he would go back to school.