I have a university degree. When I started my career it opened doors for me. Without it, those doors would have been much more difficult to get through and the career trajectory opportunities in the large companies I initially worked for would have most certainly been a lot flatter. But from the beginning I understood that these were the rules of the game, as set up by these companies. The logic in the construction of these rules was simple: given two equal candidates, albeit one has a university degree in the applicable field and one does not, the former “should” be the better candidate. I never agreed with this logic but I did understand the rules of the game board on which I was playing.
It appears that many in the assorted ‘Occupy’ protests never understood these rules. Nor do they appear to understand the basic principles of Supply & Demand. To these folks, someone with a Master’s degree in social work should be more employable and make more money in Toronto than someone else with a Bachelor’s degree in Geophysics working in Fort McMurray. There are so many fallacies & flaws in the assumptions behind such thinking but logic & basic economics are likely not strong points on the CVs of the Occupy Blank full-timers.
I recall taking a marketing course while at university. Almost all of the attendees were Commerce students unlike me. It seemed a mickey mouse course and I found it humorous that many students were majoring in it. On one occasion the Prof. brought in a bigwig from 7 Eleven to talk about their management trainee program which involved potential commerce Grads (marketing majors) starting on the end of a mop and working their way upward. The prof, obviously a realist, seemed to enjoy the reaction from the smug elite undergrads that considered such a career path beneath them. That moment should have been a clue as to what one could expect within such a discipline. The Artsies weren’t even that lucky. As with most problems in society, the monopoly education system can be blamed but the important question is what are people doing about it besides shrugging?
The entire system from K to Grad schools needs to be competed out of existence with market-based systems as the current leviathan is un-reformable.
When the concept of the University was created it was where those who had a desire for knowledge and for discussion could go. It was like a Finishing School, it wasn’t a guarantee of a job. If you wanted a job you went into an apprenticeship program. Who told these characters that getting an often exotic university degree should be a guaranteed ticket to an immediate high paying job.
“The logic in the construction of these rules was simple: given two equal candidates, albeit one has a university degree in the applicable field and one does not, the former “should” be the better candidate. I never agreed with this logic but I did understand the rules of the game board on which I was playing.”
Written like a true liberal arts major. Your statement makes no sense at all if the job candidate is a graduate engineer. I guarantee you that the performance and engineering knowledge of a candidate with no college level schooling and who hasn’t had the math is easily predestined to be significantly inferrior to the candidate with even the most mediocre engineering degree.
I know, you would rather have open-heart surgery done by the great and sexy receptionist english major than by a credentialed heart surgeon.
The problem with liberal arts majors is they think everyone else had the same pseudo-university experience they had.
Robert, there’s really no gain to be had from speculating on the alleged mental processes of the Occupy The Media “protesters”. Its a bought-and-paid-for clique of professional agitators plus clueless Useful Idiots(tm) to flesh out the numbers.
Their entire purpose is to give the DemocRat Media something to focus their cameras on other than the spectacle of the DemocRat Party falling apart like a rotten log. Spending any time on their “demands” or other verbiage they spew is giving them more credibility than they deserve.