On the surface this makes sense. My trade is writing and editing, and I can understand the logic that someone with four years of English-related school would know more than someone without it. But here's the problem with that: It doesn't seem to much matter what kind of degree you have.
Most job listings will say something like: "B.A. or B.S. required, preferably in English or related field of study." The clear implication is that a B.A. in basket weaving would get you in the door, but 10+ years of experience in the exact field they need help with is irrelevant.
Someone fresh out of college probably knows some things I don't about grammar, I'll admit. But invariably they want someone who will be able to step in and do a job with the least amount of ramp-up time, and there are really two components to any job:
- The technical knowledge
- All the other stuff
So maybe I have a chip on my shoulder. Maybe the idea that a 22-year-old has a chance at a job I don't, as if my 15+ years of experience don't count for anything, has my panties in a bunch. So why don't I go back to college and finish? Three reasons:
- Money
- Time
- I hate school
This is really all about school vs. apprenticeship. Who do you want rewiring your home, someone just out of a trade school or someone fresh out of an apprenticeship program in which he learned by doing? The grad may know some rules the apprentice doesn't, but the apprentice will know why the rules exist.
I have worked hard over the past decade to educate myself and become the best writer I can. I'm lucky to have found a job in my chosen field (trade), and I applaud the people who took a chance on a guy without a college degree. But I'm sad to say that they're the exception to the rule. Companies and society both seem to think that school is the only path to knowledge, and that's really sad to me.
-Doug
3 comments:
Yupperdoo. Chip on the shoulder. But you get jobs anyway.
Two things stand out to me. The first is that you say you like learning things you can apply immediately. A lot of learners are like that and there is no reason education--I like your contrast with apprenticeship--can't be managed that way. Of course, it often is not.
On the other hand, your interest is politics has no plausible immediate use at all, but here you are. You keep up on events, you think about them, you make useful analytical distinctions about them. And for what? Hmm. Maybe there's another element at work here.
The second thing that stands out is your account of what might as well be called "educational profiling." I thought about "class wars," but that means so many other things. The people at the intake valve of these businesses are some of the most risk-averse people you will find anywhere. They puzzle about how they can justify the hiring choices they make. Choosing someone with "the right credentials" is safe. Choosing someone whose skills are precisely what the job requires will be safe too, eventually. Until then, it's risky.
The best work I have done is for organizations that hired me for one thing and then discovered I could do other things too. Personnel decisions don't seem to be so risk-averse when you are re-deploying people you already know.
But it's nasty at the front door, isn't it.
Terrible that a post that pivots on questions of grammar should end its last sentence with a question terminated by a period. But I can't find a way to get back in and change it, so it's better just to admit the guilt.
Eh. Blogs aren't supposed to be the places where we do the perfect writing, just where we share thoughts and flesh out ideas. I'll never pick on your typos if you forgive me mine.
You're right about everything you said, of course. But what I should have said, if I didn't, is that everyone learns some things because they want to. I certainly didn't mean to imply that I don't find anything interesting without an application.
But I really do have an application for politics. It began during the Bush years, when I really feared for the country, so that pulled me in.
Something I didn't put in the post, but have said many times over the past couple years, is that employers these days have the luxury of finding the EXACT fit for any job. If they need someone with a Masters in dog behavior, with 12 years experience, who can juggle, they can find him within a 20-mile radius.
Friends of mine said, after CC went under, that I would need to look for jobs outside of my comfort zone. That would be great advice if any company had been willing to hire someone who didn't have every single attribute they wanted. But at that time, and it's still true today, companies have their pick.
Again, I really am grateful that I found a company willing to give me a job, but if I'm being honest, it was because they needed the really unusual set of experience I had. In this case, the exact match of skills won out over a degree, but that was a pretty rare thing.
-Doug
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