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Why this blog?
Until this moment I have been forced to listen while media and politicians alike have told me "what Canadians think". In all that time they never once asked.
This is just the voice of an ordinary Canadian yelling back at the radio -
"You don't speak for me."
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Fortunately, not all millennials are complete losers.
For the past few years, I’ve had my dental work done at the university clinic. The last time I was there, I had a chat with my student. I jokingly asked her how come she wasn’t dressed all in black and protesting. She was rather bewildered by my question. Her answer was that she was busy with her studies though I’m sure that she has her opinions about what’s going on.
Then again, she’s quite level-headed and she’s a no-nonsense type. She’s one of the best students I’ve dealt with at the clinic and she’ll be a great dentist when she graduates next year.
Yeah, but you were dealing with a student in STEM. Unfortunately universities are overrun with the absolutely USELESS faculties where the weirdos congregate. Frankly, the useless faculties should be completely defunded or the tuitions should be tripled….and not eligible for student loans which would most certainly be defaulted on in any event.
Unfortunately, the system in STEM isn’t perfect. I’ve met quite a number of millennial twits in that field. Some are completely helpless without their smartphones rather than relying on the most important computer they’ll ever own, namely the one between their ears. Others are dumber and stupider than I ever was when I was their age some 40 years ago.
And, many of them won’t take the advice of a greybeard like me, doing so at their own risk. (Hey, kid, I got to be a greybeard because I not only took the advice of those older and wiser than me, I learned how to play the game and survive.)
Fortunately, there is a job market which will take many of them out of circulation, hopefully before they do any harm.
Sorry … but I have to ask … was she an Asian Dental Student, raised by a Tiger Mom ? My observational bias suggests she would have to be.
We know how this plays out if we don’t fix it – bad for me, but super-bad for you
Kewl. Because Millennials LOVE that movie Super-Bad. I believe it perfectly describes the typical Millennial’s “coming of age” … or rather “stunted age”. I too have had multiple Millennials rejoice in the fact that I am statistically more likely to die before them. They gleefully want to rid the world of conservatives, as if we won’t be replaced by maturing Millennials … yes SOME will inevitably mature. They gleefully want to rid the world of Christians, as if Islam is an improvement. They gleefully want to rid the world of homophobes, as if anyone really cares about the gay lifestyle. They gleefully want to rid the world of toxic masculinity, as if anyone would be left to protect them from harm. They want to rid the world of patriots, as if their imaginary Cuban paradise will be equal to the country we cultivated.
Sorry … but I have to ask … was she an Asian Dental Student, raised by a Tiger Mom ?
No, she’s Caucasian with a mixed European-aboriginal ancestry.
However, maybe her social background is similar to mine. Most people I knew who had at least one parent who was a tradesman had a similar attitude. I know I inherited that from my parents, both of whom were journeymen in their respective trades.
I know, for example, that all my father needed was a work order plus any applicable drawings or diagrams and he got down to business. He didn’t like a lot of horsing around and was interested in getting the job done and done properly.
I’m reminded of the time that I butted heads with the owner-moderator of a certain website. He put me in the penalty box, so to speak, because I wasn’t “contributing to the conversation” with my comments.
I think the issue was an exchange I had with a young millennial twerp. He was around 20 at the time, lived in the basement of his parents’ house, had little education past high school, and had no useful job skills to speak of.
This young kid told me that I, a big bad baby boomer, should be more “respectful” or “grateful” to the members of his generation because they are–wait for it!–paying my pension. My response was along the lines of “Yeah, right, kid,” and I could truthfully say that because I was living comfortably off my investments. I wasn’t drawing a government pension, nor did I need one.
The idea that one can survive using one’s own resources was completely over his head. He didn’t appear to grasp the fact that one can actually get a good education, earn money with it, and save or invest that cash over a period of years.
Nope, I was a baby boomer and he thought I was supposed to be beholden to him. Uh, no. First he would have to prove himself useful to society and then actually contribute something to it before anything he said to me would have had any validity.
I eventually signed off that website for good. Maybe the real world taught Mr. Genius a few valuable lessons since then.
No, it isn’t perfect…..but it is a hell of a lot better than the fools that waste their time and OUR money in idiotic faculties. Faculties whose ONLY purpose is deliberately to produce useless morons. I often laugh at the notion that post secondary education should be “free”. And in a way, I agree but only under one condition…..the tuition of those attending the useless faculties and pursuing worthless degrees should be at least tripled (and no student loans) and the tuition of those in the faculties whose purpose is to produce valuable and value added citizens should be free. That way we can burn up the cash of wealthy parents who send their kids to useless faculties and they can pay….forever…for the spawn they have put on the planet.
Raising tuition might not be such a good idea, given the fact that universities are primarily concerned with harvesting money. The ability to bring in the bucks determines whether one gets hired in the first place as well as whether one will be granted a place at the golden hog trough known as tenure.
Many post-secondary institutions will peddle any certification or credential if it means that it brings in money. The attitude is “if we don’t do it, then someone else will”, which explains why so many idiotic degree programs exist nowadays. If the administrators think there’s a market or demand for a particular field of study, they’ll make sure it’ll be offered.
Raising tuition will only encourage the poppycock.
If the administrators think there’s a market or demand for a particular field of study, they’ll make sure it’ll be offered.
That’s exactly how markets work, and it’s the ideal state. You just have to take all public funding out of the system and allow universities to succeed or fail on their own merits.
They’ll be playing video games or be in some sort of virtual reality world when the islamists burn down their parents house.
You just have to take all public funding out of the system and allow universities to succeed or fail on their own merits.
True, but many academics don’t think that way. They often act like they’re owed public money in order to do something.
I often butted heads with my Ph. D. supervisor over that point. He didn’t really care what he was investigating, so long as someone else paid for it. It was as if he thought he didn’t have to be accountable to anyone else for what he did and became indignant at the possibility that he might have to be.
I, on the other hand, paid almost all of my expenses while I was working on my degree. I, therefore, had a financial stake in whether I succeeded or failed as I was spending my own money.
I’ve often suggested that when one applies for research funding, one should first pay a deposit, much like one does when running for political office. That shows that one is serious about what’s being investigated and that one now has a personal investment in the results. Since many people live on a thin financial margin, that would be a significant commitment.
I made that suggestion on a newsgroup I once subscribed to, only to be lambasted by a newly-minted professor about that. Financial responsibility, it seemed, was beyond his grasp.
No wonder many academics are socialists. The money they usually spend on their research is often someone else’s.
EXACTLY right, Daniel Ream.
To use von Mises’s phrase, in an unhampered market this Peter Pan crap simply would not — could not — exist.
Get gubmit out of it directly via subsidy and indirectly via student loans.
I also believe in World Peace.
Environmental studies, women’s studies, queer studies, leisure studies, indigenous studies, black studies, ….. where’s the empirical in all this? The whole purpose is to move a students ideology from point A to point B not prepare you to be a productive member of society.
The universe no longer comes to universities.