Harper Reed - My education wasn't actually teaching anything I needed to learn to get a job

Harper Reed, CTO of Obama 2012 made an interesting observation on the non-role and non-relevance that education often plays in non-preparing young people for the world of work. He said in an interview with Tech Crunch here:

"I realized about probably three-quarters of the way through my education that in terms of computers, I actually wasn’t learning anything I needed to learn to get a job later on. I did learn some coding concepts in college, but more importantly I figured out that I’m an experiential learner. I need to put my hands on things and really see them, and really chew on them. It was better to do it in a real context, where it mattered if I did it right. Like where there was money at stake. So, I did an internship in Iowa City, IA. I worked for a real company that was trying to make a profit. The company built ecommerce apps. As an intern I started learning web apps to build web pages. Given my way of learning, it was fascinating to see how the management dealt with me. I was a child. I asked questions like a child does. “Why is the sky blue?” They just said, “It’s just blue. Go with that.” I said, “No! Tell me why we’re doing it this way. What is this?” It was client services, so we were just doing it because the client wanted it done, with no thought behind it. But all the questions I asked gave me this opportunity to see how things worked and the value of asking things that seemed obvious to everyone else. It gave me a lot of hope. It really kicked off the career that I have now."

This reminds me of the Mark Twain quote:

“I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.”

Universities aren't serving the brightest

The Sunday Times of September 15 reported that students are critical of teaching standards. Sian Griffiths and Alastair McCall wrote:

"The results [of the national poll by the ST] highlight fears that academics at some universities may be more interested in their research than in their students."

Sir Chris Woodhead, professor of education at Buckingham University and a former chief inspector of schools, said:

"It does not surprise me that top universities are criticised by their students, because they are responding to the excessive emphasis that the government has put on the research they do. This policy needs to change if we are to do justice to the brightest young people."

Why Law School? Ctd, Lorin Stein

When all else fails, go to law school. A pretty standard drag and drop career move written into the cultural script. Even the editor of The Paris Review, Lorin Stein nearly took the route. That was until at the last moment his big literary break broke. It was explained in an interview with The Financial Times. It was said:

"In 1998, just at the point where he [Lorin Stein] was about to give up and go to law school, he got a call. Jonathan Galassi, FSG president and publisher, needed an assistant. He was in."

Why does everyone want to go to Law School? Ctd

Law school has about as much to do with being a lawyer as farting.
— Grad School Elitist (@GradElitism) August 13, 2013

The Cult of University, Ctd

I recently wrote an open word of warning to GCSE and A-Level students considering going to university. The message was simple: think for yourself. Engage your critical faculties and make an informed choice. Absolutely do not opt for university on the altogether and very vague notion that university is a ticket to prosperity. Because a degree absolutely is not.

Future Talent tweeted and posted the article on their Facebook and gave the following response:

The only point we disagree with is the statement - "A good apprenticeship is better than a poor degree..." In the growing market of apprenticeships, very often a good apprenticeship is just as strong as a good degree.

I actually agree with this and am a settled advocate of employer-led project learning which produces work ready graduates who are at symmetry with the market on both informational and skills terms.

Chris Dillow writing here also made an interested contribution to the debate and did so without meaning to, for he was actually writing about Jamie Oliver and free will in a post entitled, 'Limits To Agency.'' But his analysis applies readily to this topic. He said:

"There's not much agency involved when an Etonian goes to Oxford and thence to politics or the City: As Owen Jones rightly wrote, David Cameron is also "a prisoner of his background."

 And that's it. The middle-classes and socially aspirational often don't act with agency when they go to university. It is the duty of their background.

Dale J Stephens - University's Party Curriculum

Dale J Stephens quit college and started a movement to break the college as the default career path mind-set called UnCollege. He appeared in Wired Magazine (March/April 2013) and said of his university experience:

"Going to college is meant to be the culmination of 12 years of hard work, determination and study. You're told that if you get good grades, ace your tests and do lots of extracurriculars, you'll get into a good university. The reasoning seems solid when you're at secondary school - after all, everyone tells you that university graduates earn more and are less likely to be unemployed.  

I enrolled... However any idealism was quickly squashed. For the most part, people weren't there to learn - they were there to party, and hangovers permitting, learn something along the way. I started asking questions."

Specifically he asked:

"If the best experiences happen outside the classroom, why was I paying $42,000 to sit inside one?... Is it worth getting into serious debt just to get a degree? Will your degree even get you a job when 35% of grads in the UK are working in roles that don't require one?"

 Stephens then said:

"[College] Rewards conformity rather than independence, competition rather than collaboration, regurgitation rather than learning and theory rather than application."

The University Neurosis

Jeremy Paxman recently said on an episode of Newsnight, "The middle-classes are always going to want to go to university." A decision not to do a degree can be seen as the ultimate abomination, the total apostasy, the original sin. So deeply lodged is the university myth in popular psyche that it borders on a neurosis. However minds are changing among the young, and this can only be a good thing.

Harry Bird, 18, who recent sat his A-levels was featured in the Sunday Times in a story by the title, 'Boy Wonders.' The feature by the education correspondent Sian Groffiths, was on how more and more male teens are opting out of the default university pathway. Harry Bird said of his decision not to go to university:

"The education system is way too focused on going to university. My school never talked about doing an apprenticeship but I saw an advert, applied, and luckily I got through. My head of sixth form wanted me to go to university, but my economics teacher supported my decision.

Why would I want to go to saddle myself with £40,000 of debt? I'm working at Waitrose this summer and I'm alongside people who have degrees who are stacking shelves. What a waste of time that was for them. Now they're in loads of debt and struggling to pay it off."

Education's Skills Asymmetry, Ctd You need more than Microsoft Word

 

The above comes from a feature in Forbes Magazine which you can read in full here.

 

"Bring back Polytechnics" says Think-Tank

Lord Baker who was in the the Thatcher government welcomed calls for bringing back the Polytechnics that had been abolished by legislation in the 1990s. Lord Baker speaking to Eddie Mair on BBC Radio 4's PM show said that the move to remove Polytechnics from the UK's educational landscape was all down to "status".

He went on to say that there is a patent and latent need for traditional vocational training and for the skills that well trained technicians and tradespeople bring.

Read more in the Telegraph here and on the BBC here.

No Work Experience = No Job

The hard truth...

@rhulcareers No work experience = no job, you could end up as sad as this marshmallow... nationalworkexperiencecampaign.com/?utm_source=Tw… twitter.com/AllAboutCareer…
— AllAboutCareers (@AllAboutCareers) March 13, 2012

And as I said on the Huffington Post here: