During the last few months of my junior year at high school we were all sent down to the guidance counsellor’s office to talk about our future, because sixteen and seventeen year old’s are noted and renowned for the wise plans they make for the rest of their lives. They were asking a group of people who unironically thought wrist cuffs and Blue October were the height of cool what they’d like to do for a living. I’m sure a lot of rock solid planning went on in the guidance counsellor’s office.
Mostly I think this was a system to vet kids – to find out which ones were college bound and therefore worth focusing on, and which future assembly line workers the teachers could safely ignore. My grades were good so I had a plethora of options (McUniversities) available to me. The counsellor repeated to the point of inanity that if I only worked harder, only took some extra courses, I could up my grades and make it into the *gasp* top tier schools! Of course top tier essentially means most expensive so instead I spent that summer finding out which school was highest ranked in which also happened to be the cheapest. I thought I was being smart by getting the most bang for my buck. Like many men of my generation I was an idiot and didn’t fully comprehend the sheer waste that is modern university; though to be all Millenial and put the blame on someone else, nobody really told me the truth about them.
Literally the only real reason left for men to go to university
A guy who still is a good friend of mine, whom I’m giving the pseudonym Andy, got a different reception in the counsellor’s office. Andy was a farm kid whose mom had split when he was six. He was abrasive, not academically intelligent but smart in every other respect. Andy was not a stunningly handsome dude, so he did not have a single girlfriend in his three years of high school even though there was enough trash in mini-skirts to be picked up. In short, Andy was a high school loser. His grades sucked and he knew he wasn’t college bound. He did however, have an actual plan unlike most of our class, many of whom at this very moment are turning into real world losers (see: me). He asked the counsellor about trades. The counsellor, who had spent nearly a half hour with me trying to convince me to bust my ass to get into McGill, opened a drawer in her desk and shoved a few pamphlets into Andy’s hands before showing him the door.
Thankfully Andy was liked by Mr. C, arguably the best teacher in our school. Mr. C asked us all in class what our plans were, showing polite interest in us university kids and real interest in the kids who said military or RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police). Andy said he wanted to work a trade but the counsellor didn’t help him out. Mr. C asked if Andy wanted to meet a guy who ran his own plumbing company. Andy said yes and spent that summer working for the plumbing company. His grade 12 year he continued to work Saturdays on the boss’s skeleton crew and even days when school was off. While most of us high school ‘winners’ were barely making 400 CAD a month working cashier or fast food jobs in anticipation of the tens of thousands of dollars of debt we’d all soon be taking on (spending most of our earnings on stupid crap), Andy saved nearly six grand.
“I like can’t wait to get my degree or whatever so I’ll totally never have to waitress again”
By the time the September after high school graduation rolled around Andy could have paid a huge chunk of his student debt before he took one step through the front doors of the university. Instead he went full time to the plumbing company, which sent him away to trade school (no charge) and today he makes nearly 30 bucks an hour. He is only 22. My mom, a nurse who went to university and has worked in her field since she was 21, barely makes 40. My dad, a small business owner, is subject to the whims of the economy. Andy suffers no such worry because, no matter how terrible times get, someone always needs their toilet fixed.
While most of my class are going to be struggling with their student debt until they’re thoroughly middle aged (and probably longer), Andy need only save up six months salary to attend most schools debt free. And being a single guy with no baby mommas to leech off him or crippling vices like drinking, drugs or gambling, all Andy’s earnings are 100% pure gravy. He bought a small house which is nearly paid off, and his grandma died last year and left him her house (probably from guilt over her daughter abandoning him, or so the ‘stupid’ Andy confided to me) so now that small house is being rented out for additional income.
22 years old. Making roughly 55,000 a year, with guaranteed raises as he goes to school and gains more qualifications and certificates – which the company also pays for. Owns two houses, getting nearly 1200 in rent from one of them a month. That’s Andy the loser.
Trades. If you’re going to work, trades. Trades trades trades. You want to get a university degree? Fine – just get a trade first.
I did it the opposite way, wasted my time in university like a lot of young men today are doing and will do in the future. No, education in and of itself is not a bad thing and the ideal society would try to educate its population to the highest level possible. But we don’t live in ideal societies. University is far too expensive to pursue just to round out your life experience. You are not guaranteed a job with any degree. And even if its costs were reasonable the universities of today are almost anti-education. Indoctrination toward politically correct liberal ideals in non-STEM courses is rife. Courses are pathetically simple and hardly challenging to the intellect. It’s quite easy to not go to a single class and still graduate with high grades; I’d know. So much for ‘education’.
The only real redeeming factor of university is the bevy of sex one could have with girls freshly emancipated from the tyranny of mommy and daddy. In fact, the sheer buffet of classless, easy women eager to prove their independence by letting you use them for sex is the pretty much the only reason any man should be attending universities nowadays – unless you’re going to a top tier school to make contacts. Yet as the west becomes poorer and poorer and the boomer wealth fades even sex with Freshwomen, that sole redeeming factor, will dry up as mommies and daddies can’t afford to send their princesses en masse to slutty boot camp.
Pictured: Your daughter’s education
The stigma against trades in the popular conscience is bizarre and unwarranted. Plumbers and carpenters are portrayed as losers; fat, balding weirdo’s who don’t know how to pull up their pants and are probably drunk on the job – though to be fair, there are a lot of blue collar workers who work while messed up on something (though it’s not like that isn’t the case in every single job). Maybe that cliché was bang on once upon a time but nowadays you can find all sorts of smart, classy sumbitches working in trades, from university grads to body builders. Men go where the money is, and increasingly a lot of the money is in trades.
Of course, there are a few real concerns that you need to ponder about trades should you choose to enter them:
It Is Not Glamorous
This I think is where most of the social stigma comes from. We in the west live still live in a society which values above all else status from both money AND what you do for work. For all the money that Andy earns, his job is literally shitty. He deals with other people’s excrement for a living. Plus all those other fun things people flush down the toilet – condoms, tampons, chicken bones etc. You may not want to become a plumber if you have any sort of faith in humanity. What you find in a septic tank will forever destroy all notions of human nobility in your mind. Tradesmen do not get the glitz of a musician or artist, even though less then 5% of those two groups are capable of even feeding themselves for a living while nearly every working tradesmen can put supper on the table for a big family without worry. You’re not going to be waltzing around the club impressing chicks by dropping the fact that you work in HVAC for a living. Of course, if you’re actually telling chicks you are trying to ONS what you do for work you’re kind of doing it wrong in the first place.
You probably shouldn’t peacock your profession in the club either
On the plus side, the main core of people who actually care about how glamorous someone’s job is tend to be female and usually reside within the 12-21 year old range. Their opinions don’t matter since they’re losers once their sex appeal wears off (which is unnaturally fast for today’s gals) and for the most part they usually change their snooty attitude pretty quick once they get out into the real world. You can physically see jealous lust in the eyes of chicks who wouldn’t give Andy the time of day back in high school when they learn that he owns two houses, pool and hot tub included on his main pad, and pulls down more money in one year then they will earn in three – and that’s if they manage to keep their job. In Andy’s town there’s not a lot of glamorous men with glamorous jobs which can pay the bills, and he’s been getting a lot of overtures from younger girls who couldn’t afford to go to university and are stuck being secretaries and waitresses. Poverty truly is the great equalizer.
It’s Dirty And Dangerous Work
I’m working on getting my electricians certification’s. I could earn more as a plumber but I didn’t want to spend most of my day working in filth. Turns out you pretty much do no matter what you do your trade in. I’ve had to wriggle into crawlspaces with two feet of height, full of rats and mould and all other sorts of rot just to splice a wire together. A guy I worked with straight up got attacked by a feral cat when he poked his head into an attic. Even the most well kept of lived in buildings accumulate certain amounts of filth in their nooks and crannies, and guess where the majority of tradesmen spend their time working?
Note how I said the most well kept; working in trades, you quickly begin to think that either most people are slobs, or that you only work in the houses and buildings of slobs. Recently we went to work on houses on an Indian Reservation. The power had shorted out in one. We went down to the basement to see what was wrong and the smell practically knocked us out. It turned out that their toilet had stopped working a few months before hand, so they had the genius idea of tearing it out so they could poop directly down the pipes Muslim style. The accumulated excrement had shorted out the wiring.
Just once I’d like to go work in a nice basement like this
There’s no real plus side to this part of trades. There’s always a chance that working as a roofer parts of it are rotted and you could fall through. There’s always the chance that, even if you’re doing a relatively clean job like working on a construction site, a cinder block could tip and tumble onto you, or some idiot could accidentally flip on the breaker while you’re wiring, or a million other things. Trades are not comfy – there’s a reason you’re making killer dough working them.
It’s A Manly Profession
And by manly, I mean people are pissed off and yelling most of the day. A slight exaggeration, sure, but you have to develop some thick skin pretty quick working in trades. There’s no shortage of things that you can do wrong and no shortage of people who will immediately point out what an idiot you are for doing it wrong. Especially as a young guy, the maxim that shit flows down hill is in full effect. Much like in the trenches, any and everything is said without consideration on the job site. If you can’t handle ribbing about your sexuality, your race, your religion or simply cannot listen to comprehensive, personal knowledge of your mother’s genitals from numerous men – including your boss, if you screw up big enough – then working in a trades environment will be torturous for you.
On the plus side, most men are good about leaving their problems at the job site. You aren’t going to have a lot of sissy boys or idiots working intimately with you. Every site and company tends to have a certain number of goats (hopefully not you) but these idiots are usually shuffled off to the side doing dummy work where they can’t do too much harm to your real work efforts. And if they’re exceptionally bad they’re usually hounded off the crew pretty quick. Shoddy work hurts the reputation of the crew, which hurts everyone working for it – bad rep means no contracts means no pay. There are anti-discrimination, please-hold-my-hand-government type laws someone could attempt to hide behind (at least here in Canada) but anyone who tried that would soon find themselves completely ostracised in the company or on the site; only the most masochistic person would endure the bile of dozens of men who think that this person is trying to ruin their meal ticket.
It’s Long And Hard Work
Tradesmen don’t spend 8 hours a day in a comfy climate controlled office, sitting down at their desk slowly typing out an e-mail while keeping Return Of Kings tabbed until their boss walks away. You’re out in the elements come rain, snow or shine. Depending on where you live and what trade you work you could be spending several hours a day just driving to and from the job site. Unlike those lazy road crews which chop up half of the country’s main highways and then go on a three month smoke break, if a necessary task isn’t completed when the bell rings you can’t always just shut down and go home; 12-14 hours days are not uncommon. You’re moving, stretching, bending all the time, climbing and balancing and hanging off things to do your work. Even if you’re in reasonable shape it can be exhausting. Again, there’s a reason why you’re being paid so well. You earn your pay cheque.
Obligatory sexy picture dealing with the article’s theme
In Conclusion
Trades can be difficult work at times but they’re hardly the loser occupations as portrayed in the media. Quite the opposite; I know more losers with an undergraduate or Masters degree then ones with certificates in things like welding or water treatment. And a trade is nearly guaranteed to give one a stable job for life, something which has been taken for granted by many people for a long time and which is steadily becoming rarer.
Unlike the overly glorified, assembly line like work done in offices you cannot just fire competent trades people and replace them with low tier, unskilled immigrants. It’s one thing to lay off people who push buttons and move paper so you can replace them with someone who does the job 40% less effectively for 40% of the pay; if the toilets aren’t flushing properly and the heat only comes on half blast, that affects the boss. If a newly constructed building is falling apart only five years after it’s constructed, that affects the boss’s safety – not to mention his pocket book. And when it comes to the bosses comfort, money and safety, no expense shall be spared. You should be the one receiving that expense.
We’re quickly nearing a point where the majority of work can (and probably will) be done by computers and automated processes. To eliminate humans in trades would require a revolution in robotics technology that is likely still centuries away. At least for the 21st century the world still needs competent plumbers, carpenters, welders, and the other occupations that build and keep society running. Ignore the stigmas. Get in one, learn it and work hard. You’ll be set for life.
Read More: The Advantage Of Being A Late Bloomer
The most important thing is to have skills that can feed you. Masters degree doesn’t guarantee that you will earn any skills. On the other hand, you might learn to build musical instruments or assemble motorcycles and you have a valuable knowledge that could be a beginning of successful business some day. And you actually produce something, not only take share in chain of profit.
The international terrorist bankers like want you to go to university so they can fleece you of all your money. They are crooks and whilst many degrees lead to dead end jobs, most trades do not.
In majority of countries in the world there is actually state sponsored education. So it’s pretty much relaxed affair. In USA, education is very expensive, but on the other hand, arguably the best education in the world. So whoever want’s to invest in it – well, it’s his own investment.
Probably the best advice on education: Don’t go to college just because, go only if you have a specific profession in mind that requires higher education.
Ex. marine biologist, surgeon, engineer,etc.
Bullshit. American education is to learning what mcdonalda is to food, fast crap full of empty calories.p
>In majority of countries in the world there is actually state sponsored education.<
You misspelled “indoctrination”.
quote: “In USA, education is very expensive, but on the other hand, arguably the best education in the world.”
If any “higher education” institution has “gender studies” or anything like it, then these schools are not insitutions of higher learning at all. What is passing for knowledge these days is a fucking joke.
Just a few articles back on ROK one poster was mentioning how he was speaking with some skag who had a degree in latin American studies, but she could not speak spanish or portuguese, yet she has a degree on her wall from a accredited school.
Likewise i have a friend of mine and he majored in German, but does not speak one word of it. Yet he has the degree.
So I really question now if American universities and colleges are still the best.
Well, being born is also indoctrination, i guess we should not be making kids.
You are too idealist
Well, it has already been evaluated, and in world’s top universities, American ones dominate the list, as well as some other world’s prominent.
While it’s certainly too simplified to just call all formal education indoctrination, there is a difference between what your parents want for you and the agenda of tax-funded government teachers who have no relationship to you.
Psychology has long time ago discovered that family and particularly father, is transferring society’s norms, ideology and morals to the child, stronger than any institution of the state. Also, later in life, adults and youngsters are much more eager to question what they were taught in schools than what they were taught in their family.
On the other hand, family will much more focus on working ethics, social bonds, family and religious values, but many of these constitute important aspects of many current ideologies – conservatism, liberalism, etc…
Yes, I don’t think schools alone can’t ruin a person if it has a healthy family that counters the ideas there – but that’s not always the case.
In my case, for example: My mother *is* a teacher and my father is a loser who can’t serve as a role model by any standard. They were also both leftists, and of course they’re divorced.
So in my past, the state institutions had quite a bit of a hold on me.
It’s a global issue. China and India are no better with their McDegrees.
Apex fallacy
A fellow McGill grad who regrets it! Nice work and great advice.
McMaster, here. A literal McDegree.
LOL really?
i was planning on transferring there this fall
A few positive things about my university life. Living in Montreal was a blast, and inspired me to learn French, travel ect… Most of the students there are competitive and hard working and it taught me to have high standards. Thirdly, a university degree is key to getting visas for many countries. It made living in Japan, China (currently Thailand) and soon Singapore far easier.
I can agree to this, because I went to uni (University of Manitoba) I got a $8,000 government scholarship to go to Eastern Europe for a semester(this money went along way). Best time of my life, I got to travel to many countries with total babes, which eventually led me to the ROK, education can definitely can make you more marketable as a person having an undergrad, and if your like me and plan to go to other places in the world, it definitely helps, show me one person who has opportunities to go abroad who is a plumber. The problem is that most students (I study business) go to school just to get the degree and leave, the real value in university is exploiting every opportunity they give you outside the classroom, 2 of my buddies who I went to Hungary with got another 6k to go down to Mexico for another exchange.
Don’t get me wrong, McMaster’s world class – it’s just that world class don’t mean what it used to.
I’m a mechanical fitter. I currently work for an aerospace manufacturer. I have options for long term contracts abroad (up to 3 years) all over europe. Living expenses on contracts under 3 years amount to 2100 euro’s a month ON TOP of my wage which is not far shy of 3000 euro’s a month take home on minimum hours (35 a week…. hardly any). After the tax mans had all his bites, not far shy of 5000 euro a month is not bad for a guy with almost no qualifications. By not bad…. i mean comparable to a fairly experienced doctor working 70 hours a week…. so fucking ace considering i sit in a pool most of the day. If i do the bare contracted minimum, working in the UK, i take home 2040 sterling a month. Which is easily over 10 grand a year more than your average recent graduate takes home in the UK. There are 19 year olds earning this wage at my place.
Get a license to work on live aircraft? 33 sterling an hour MINIMUM basic rate.
Some of my friends who work as tradesmen in industry are working on oil or wind farms or rigs and pulling in 70+ thousand a year sterling easily. Which is insane.
Degree= waste of time. Get the right trade and you’ll earn more, better job satisfaction, more travel and infinitely more stability.
Its worth mentioning if i’d bothered to finish school and get the grades i should have gotten, there was plenty of university offers for chemistry with a 4th year masters added on e.t.c…..
Turned them down because i didnt fancy the debt (student debt is no where near as bad here as usa) and i didnt fancy being a test tube technician for the rest of my days on 25 grand a year….
Okay, first off, I have no problem with trades. My old man was a welder and a mechanic, his brothers are all in the trades. My moms family was pretty much the same thing, two college graduates, but the rest were trades. Many on both sides were Navy or Marines.
Every single one told their kids (plumbers, electricians, carpenters, masons, welders, et al.) to not go into the trades. No exceptions. They told their kids to pick up a (useful) degree.
Trades are not respected by the moneyed elite. That factory owner could care less if you’re a master machinist with thousands of hours of skill that can make parts more accurately than a robot. The general contractor doesn’t give a crap as long as t looks good. Who cares if you’re a master carpenter that can do it without being babysat all day? They don’t give a crap (no pun intended) about plumbers or any other trade, as log as the paperwork is signed and they pass inspection.
You’re getting consistently less money and respect from the general populace as well. You see, in their zeal to paint unions as the fucking devil, Republicans unintentionally maligned every tradesmen. This is, despite the fact, that trade unions do serve a good purpose. They train people, far more effectively than colleges ever could, about the job. Why do you think masons (especially apprentices) take courses regularly? It isn’t for shits and giggles Francis.
Finally, even regular people don’t view trades as important. In a Walmart world, who gives a fuck? Replace it. They have no idea how important trades can be, and only think they are too costly.
My family saw the writing on the wall in the 70’s. They turned all but 3 kids into college graduates in the fields of science, math, marketing, et al. No art students or liberal arts majors. The three that didn’t listen now make (average) of $20k less or worse.
The moral of the story isn’t to avoid college. The moral of the story is to pick a good school, good program, at a decent price. While you’re there, bang every party slut you can.
Well its all supply and demand. I do work for a couple plumbers both of whom pull down over 100k, which is more than most the people they do work for.
There’s some truth to what you said.
I made the mistake of working at a company which the father had handed over to his son; the punk decided to “manage” it by paying for a MBA for himself and his buddy out of the company pocket, and then staffing the central hub with a bunch of womanly sycophants.
Wound up losing the job a week before my three months, because my supervisor was a skinny-necked dweeb who wanted to play golf with the cool kids, and developed an issue with me because I’m not good at hiding my intelligence, and I’m confident.
Nobody in the shop had a problem with me – I got along well with most of them. It was the white-collar wieners who only look at the bottom line, and who are easily intimidated, who you have to worry about.
I work with a lot of tradesmen, construction management, and I learned very quickly about the other sort of intelligence that isn’t valued by education today. With all my formal education and multiple degrees I had no clue what was being discussed or communicate myself effectively. I felt like the dumbest fucker in the room and the only thing that saved me was my willingness to admit that I was ignorant and ask for help. That’s one thing that separates a tradesman from many office workers. A tradesman doesn’t hold it against you if you admit to ignorance over something, after all, you don’t know what you don’t know.
In the 70s, college degrees didn’t cost an arm and a leg and a college degree was a ticket to a better job. That’s not true any more. Not even Bluto Blutarski, with his seven years of college, could have run up $100,000 in debt.
While what you’re saying about the perception of tradesmen is generally true, that doesn’t change the fact that when Mr. White Collar Social Climber needs a plumber or electrician, he becomes your bitch.
“Oh, you think my price is too high for a blue collar slob with no college degree? Fine. Call someone else ( who’s going to quote you the same price give or take 5%). it’s either that or go without electricity or running water if you don’t like it, big shot. Bwahahahahah!”
If you’re smart enough to learn a trade, you’re smart enough to work for yourself. Problem solved.
There’s a generational perception gap that you’re not accounting for. Boomer-aged parents want their kids to go to university because that WAS the recipe for success. That is no longer the case outside of a few STEM fields.
I could be biased because the friends I have who are tradesmen all are either shop stewards or independent contractors, of course. Still, what I’m seeing in these arguments is that many guys here are preoccupied with other people’s opinions about the trades. Who cares? Opinions don’t add inches to your dick or dollars to your account, and the day that I see anyone with less than a doctoral-level education who has more purchase power than a modestly successful contractor, I *might* change my opinion.
Also, it’s fairly feminine to allow anxiety about social status judgement to affect your bottom line. Food for thought. There’s a lot of status anxiety in the counterarguments here. Very unmanly.
Couldn’t agree more! Most of the plumbers in my area are priced out of this world. Makes me think that perhaps they’ve colluded to keep their prices relatively fixed.
But I’ve been jack-assing aroung plumbing for 15 years and I’ve finally become just as skilled as they. I like it actually. The money I save by doing my own plumbing is crazy, just plain crazy. Just goes to show you, there’s good money in plumbing, and it and other trades are an easy way to get into business for yourself.
Save up your money, start buying rental properties, and BOOM, in twenty years you’re a multimillionaire. It really is that easy.
I don’t think they collude so much as are really that booked. Anytime I want something done that isn’t an emergency, I can’t get anybody out here within 3 weeks.
Hey it could always be worse. You could be this guy.
2/10 would not rape
2/10?!!? WTF?!!?
barely 1/10. Like him I have very high standards …..on the internet
fake tits, meh
Well trades are generally regarded as working class professions, whereas professions associated with degrees (as opposed to the jobs many graduates end up with) are generally regarded as middle class. Given the feminine primacy of our society and the associated social status-seeking that engenders, it’s no real surprise to see how trades are looked down upon by people such as the school counsellor.
From my own high school recollections I seem to recall teachers pouring scorn on ending up working at McDonalds, which seemed to achieve little more than to convince many of my year to idle on benefits or go on the fiddle rather than sully themselves with working at the likes of McDonalds. Well done them teachers I guess, their lesson stuck. If only they realised what it was they were actually teaching.
whats the difference between middle class and working class in this day and age?
To be honest the main problem is that a lot of working class people have managed to convince themselves that they’re middle class because they’ve got a mortgage, when in fact they’re anything but.
Outstanding article and one that should be read by anyone considering going to college. Young people are often bombarded with the message that they’ve got to go to college if they want to be successful (which is total rubbish!), yet how many of them are ever presented with the case for NOT going to college? Most of us hear only one side of the equation.
College is good for some (especially if it’s a degree in one of the ‘hard’ sciences), but the vast majority, according to Charles Murray, shouldn’t even be there. Learning a trade will, in most cases, prove to be far more lucrative than having a ‘soft’ science degree, lifetime college debt, and working at Starbucks.
I wanted to learn a trade but i was a sissy, and it was hard to do carpentering and bjj and i crashed psychically a few times. But now i really really regret that i didn’t finished learning it.
Excellent and well written article, which makes numerous valid points. If OP is in his early 20s, he is well ahead of the curve. I am also from Canada and fell for the Uni BS (9 years worth, including post graduate work). I’m proud of my accomplishments, but certainly would have gone a different route in hindsight (or if I was guided better by the disinterested males orbiting my life while I was a teenager / young adult).
solid advice perhaps, particularly with regard to it being a) manly and b) a pretty much guaranteed way of getting a solid income, but I still think this should be less general advice for men as a whole and more about discouraging people not to go university for the sake of it, which is what socialist governments have encouraged all kids to do for the last twenty years or so, with dire consequences for standards and employability more generally. It remains the fact that it is people who go to university, and get employed in the professions etc who will have the most influence in society. As there is already a trend away from men attending university I don’t think encouraging this further is necessarily a good idea. What is great about the article though is the idea of re-valuing upwards manly professions that end up being scorned by a female-focussed society. Lets improve the status of the trades; lets get more really able men into university where they can claw back the influence they should never have lost, and work to get rid of both useless university subjects (we can start with gender studies) and useless jobs as well (we could start with diversity officers maybe)
a trade is great IF you enjoy it, only doing it for the money won’t work, it’s not forgiving enough. Also, it can lead to self employment at a fraction of the cost of setting up a legal/dental/pharmaceutical practice. You also get the balls to invest in property because you’ve seen it all and a bit of damp or light refurb on a sale property won’t have you running for cover, like some people/pussies. Number one thing, again, you HAVE to enjoy your trade or those cold mornings on a building site with no heating, windows, doors and all that dust, noise and chaos will mess you up! Oh, no girls either unlike in the office.
Three years ago, I dropped out of college for a semester to take a
break and just chill and make a little bit of money to support myself. I
lived in Amherst at the time and being brown, male, and not SWPL
enough, couldn’t get hired at places like the Black Sheep. The only job I
could land in that oppressive job market was at Subway. One of my
coworkers was a high school senior attending vocational school to become
an electrician.
Despite making the “rational” decision to pursue a journalism degree
at Umass, I eventually moved back home around the time the stock market
crashed to find no job openings at the few newspapers that are left. The
few writing jobs left were in special interest publications geared
towards a female audience.
My old coworker, on the other hand, got a nice paying job as an
electrician right out of high school. The last I heard from him he
started working at Western Mass Electric making $50K a year. If only I
had taken CAD or carpentry instead of calculus, I wouldn’t put myself
tens of thousands of dollars in debt to pursue a liberal arts degree
that would put me in direct competition with the glut of under employed
and over educated people out there with their bachelors and masters.
My story has a happy ending. I went blue collar and opened an
alterations shop. I make any where from $20 to $100 an hour fixing
clothes. It may not be masculine or prestigious, but I get to flirt with
women all day and they pay me expand the waistline of their skirts,
because of the fat accumulates on their asses from sitting in office
chairs all day writing about dresses.
Dr Giggles,
Execellent post. I am in the same ship as you were post college bust, pre blue collar biz redemptive route. Would you be willing to share your experiences and tips on how to enter the alterations niche? I see a voracious demand for it in the bustling city I have moved to and I want to get out of the dead end oilfiled job I am. If you care to indulge a curious info seeker than please email me at: [email protected] Thanks.
I think the HS counselors did the only thing they knew how to do…..push kids into college because it’s what they did (or what society wanted).
The usual line that I heard from any counselor was “work smarter not harder” if you seemed like you wanted to go into any kind of trade….they usually would discourage it.
It was a real shame when you started to see high schools promote the hell out of college and could really care less about any apprenticeship programs.
Who cares about debts when the economy is going into a fullblown crash within 5-10 years?
Knowing how to actually get shit done in the physical world would be very important to surviving a full-blown economic meltdown, probably second only to befriending a lot of other people who know how to get shit done. Knowing how to repair small engines, how to mend clothes, how to repair damaged electrical circuits, how to weld metal, how to maintain and shoot a rifle… these are the kinds of skills that allowed people in Sarajevo to survive being blockaded for an entire year during the Bosnian war 20 years ago.
In a modern-day SHTF scenario, once the city water and electricity stops, once the rule of law fails, the highly-esteemed lawyers and architects will have little choice but to climb aboard the cattle train cars to the FEMA camps. Maybe they’ll get three squares a day until the situation improves, or maybe they’ll be gassed. Bottom line, they will be utterly helpless; at the mercy of complete strangers under extreme stress.
One big exception to white-collar helplessness would be doctors and nurses.
Yeah, of course i agree with you that basic survival-skills and a large network of people with special skills is needed more than Libelar Arts-majors.
Just making a point that debts really is the last thing to worry about in the future.
“We’re quickly nearing a point where the majority of work can (and probably will) be done by computers and automated processes.”
In which case, the best trade is obviously the maintenance and support of computer systems. Bonus: It’s mostly indoor work, and the pay is even higher than in manual-labor trades.
I’m hooking up with a girl now that is at the local university with a double major in theatre and communications. She is an intelligent girl and good looking but a dreadful decision maker. She wants to go to Hollywood and make it as a writer/actress. When I confront her on the fact that she stands less than a 1% chance of ever succeeding and is wasting her time in college with degrees that will get her nowhere she says she doesn’t care. I’m all about being ambtious but at least have a realistic backup plan. She is gonna waste her life in some menial task and not realize it until it is too late. This is so common it’s almost depressing how illogical most American women are.
If she is pretty and intelligent AND wants to go to Hollywood, I am afraid that you are definitively going to lose her to the first “I´ll get you an audition” asshole.
We aren’t in any kind of relationship. And both of us know that. I’m pretty sure she has only been with Jewish men so she’ll do fine in Hollywood with that standard. I just think it is a prime example of societal pressure of leading someone down a path that is not in their best interest. Or even society’s either since I am pretty sure she will never amount to anything and will likely waste her best years instead of having a family.
The problem with trade jobs is that the elites who run America want to import a swarm of immigrants for the express purpose of driving down your wages.
It’s better to take work that is less easily replaceable: the more skilled/specialized your labor the better.
Also the robotics revolution is coming.
In my country, a good tradie can earn six figures with lots of available work all year round (espic’ since we have a housing boom). Getting into an apprentiship young, will ensure he gets the skills and qualifications to really do well, even if he did badly in high school. Most are doing so much better than those that went to college, and it’s not usual for some blokes to be retired in their 40’s. Since college has become a big business, most degrees are useless and get you nothing more than a job in an office, shop or bar. If your lucky, that is..
My husband has a master’s degree but works in construction. Since he is in a Union, we still have awesome insurance not available to most Americans. We have a large family and I stay home. A couple years ago he was laying pipe and a ditch collapsed on him nearly killing him. Many broken bones, months in a wheelchair, and months of rehab later, he returned to work, in the same job doing the same thing. He is working outside in 6 inches of snow today, in the freezing cold. My husband is my hero. There is something sexy about knowing your man is willing to risk his life for his family even though I am always afraid he will get hurt again. He says it would kill him to work inside at a desk all day. I’m encouraging my sons to become skilled in a trade.
Ancient Chinese courtesans used to grow one finger nail very long to show their contempt for manual labor. That’s the modern college graduate for you, subsisting off welfare and Mommy and Daddy until the teat runs dry, refusing to do the “menial” jobs that would be beneath them. I have a degree and have seen the corporate side (the US military is extremely corporate these days), but I wouldn’t trade a cubicle job for tripping pipe on oil rigs. Not only do I earn three times what I would at an office job, I actually produce something LOL
Currently trying to convince my very intelligent 17 yo brother to become a certified diesel mechanic before he goes to college.
becoming a marine engineer pays 4x more, once school’s done. Tugboat engineers start around $500 a day. Also food for thought.
That last picture is a dude?
I think that’s the joke
Hey Billy, what is a better college for pure sciences, Dawson or Vanier ( assuming you still live in the Montreal area)?
Great article. It is true, it is a wise man that has a good plan and a better back up plan. Learning a trade is just common sense…..but common sense isn’t common. It’s instant money. Hard worked money….which is the best kind.
Terrific article. One thing the author left out that universities are good for is engineering degrees, with one of those you can travel and work in almost any place on earth and make serious money doing it.
Nothing wrong with skilled physical labour. Good for the body, and if you’re self employed then you’re nobody’s corporate white collar bitch.
Trades are a very poor choice unless a person is just not able to hack it in a more rigorous training program. Want to work with your hand that bad, become a dentist or a surgeon. Want a ticket that everyone performing the job must have, become an engineer or an accountant. The wage mentioned in this article is ok for the guy’s age but it’s not much above a basic living wage in my view. Certainly nothing worth breaking your back for. Part of the problem, I think, stems from the short time perspective of many guys. With trades, you get earning coin fast but do you really want to be grubbing up 20 or 30 years down the road? The ‘own the company line’ is crap because I’ll see your own the toilet maintenance company and raise you a ‘become a partner in a law firm’. Translation for the non academically inclined, you can parlay anything into the self employed arena so it’s a moot point. Don’t sell yourself short. If you are naturally inclined or love the activity, go for it. But if you are inclined to more intellectually challenging, more financially rewarding pursuits, for the most part, you need to degree up.
Where the drinks give you gas and the Bundys kick ass. The nudie bar!
The thing is, most men will never be a partner in a law firm. Is called capitalism, a few at the top, the rest get the crumbs, if any. If you are doing money now in your 20s and invest it right in the stock market (which requires lots of brain power), especially risky 3rd world countries bonds an stocks, you could retire early with the money you made with those trades that women despise so much. How much money a man needs really? More than 1 million? With life in places like Thailand being pretty good if you get 2000 USD a month, why do you need to enslave yourself?
True but its the same for all jobs. Most plumbers will not go on to start Roto-Rooter or invent and/or patent some new tool that winds up in every plumbers toolbox. Hell most of them won’t even end up owning the company or being self employed. That’s because most people are not ambitious. I see it around my own office in spades. Most people just don’t care once they (and often the spouse) start pulling a family income of 150-250k and it becomes ‘what’s the point of risking burn out when we have more than enough already?’. Not my vantage point but I understand it.
Great point about enslavement. That’s to be avoided no matter what path a person takes.
With an income of 250k per year I would retire in six years top. How much can you spend knowing that in some months you could be laughing at tourists from your beach bar in Koh Samet? (I am not putting here the name of my favorite island, it is a secret, Koh Samet will do).
Sound fucking boring to me, I want to work.
You can get 6 Mb Internet Wifi in your island house and work from there. Also, the big ass city of Bangkok is only two hours away.
I like the way you think.
WHat are some ideas so I could live and work in Thailand from online??? I’m ears.
You are forgetting that there is career progression in the trades. If you are an electrician you will start pulling wire. As you get experience, if you are ambitious you will become a foreman, an estimator, a project planner,a sight superintendent, a maintenance manager, an electrical contractor, etc etc.
I started (as a third career) as an electrician. I am now an “instrumentation and control technician. I made 150k last year. you have to be ambitious to move ahead – like in any other career.
Advice to the author of this article. Go to night school and take all the extra training you can. A fire alarm certification is very useful. Take PLC courses, motor control, estimating, communications wiring, business courses, a masters ticket, etc. Look at it as a career, not just a job, and work for the day when repairing housing on Indian reservations is not what you want to be doing. Own the company that hires the guys who are pulling the wire.
Good on you, always nice to see a hardworking man rake in solid coin!
There is progression opportunity in almost every career path. From junior accountant to CFO, from engineer in training to project manager. I’m not saying a guy can’t make good money in trades but you have to compare average to average or, better still, median to median. Within occupation wages are highly dependent on the job sub-type, experience, locale, conditions, industry, etc and one thing tradesmen have that white collars don’t have as much is the chance to work somewhere hellish for a dramatic pay bump, such as the Bakken.
Accountants, etc. have to work in offices filled with constantly whining women and broads hoping some poor guy tells them a dirty joke so they can sue and retire rich. Working in an office is literal hell at times. Toilets are more pleasant than office ladies.
I’m an accountant who works in an office with whiny women and it’s really not that bad. The whining can be entertaining sometimes.
Some guys are no better. Try working everyday in the elements with a bunch of whining men whose capacity for intellectual rigour extends as far as last weekend’s football scores. You’ll be beating a path for that warm office and cute secretary in no time.
Trades are good. I think it’s part of the cultural imperative/rights of passage that all men learn some kind of craft. It’s not a sustainable gig for the long term for most. Either your brain or body turns to mush after years of labour and the repetitive strain of the same ole, same old.
“Translation for the non academically inclined, you can parlay anything into the self employed arena so it’s a moot point. But if you are inclined to more intellectually challenging, more financially rewarding pursuits, for the most part, you need to degree up.”
It’s not a moot point, because all the time you’re wasting to chase useless degrees and becoming indoctrinated through exposure to liberal circles will make you less qualified in starting and driving a business to success.
“But if you are inclined to more intellectually challenging, more
financially rewarding pursuits, for the most part, you need to degree
up.”
Bullshit. Why is it that many of the world’s leading Alpha Male billionaires never finished college, some never finished high school? I know some very wealthy guys, and what they made their money at, had, in almost every case, nothing to do with what they did or not go to ‘school’ for.
”become a partner in a law firm’.” sure, what the world really needs, more fucking lawyers. I guess you have not read the statistics that show most ‘law graduates’ these days can’t even get an unpaid internship at a law firm. Your barrista has a law degree, so does the guy flipping your burger.
I’ve been in both white collar and blue collar jobs, and I’ll take the blue collar every time. A lifetime spent doing real work vs having to spend 5 more seconds with some suited ‘tards who think they are all that and a bag of chips. A no brainer.
Now I run my own business, and I try and avoid hiring anyone who seems to have a lot of ‘academic qualifications’ without real world experience. I’d rather have a Grade 9 dropout who wants to work hard and shows up every day, I can train them to do the job.
Your post seems a bit hostile and there are many flaws in it. The first is with the billionaires claim and survivor bias in that sample. The other is the assumption that education and experience is a one or the other but not both situation.
I think we agree the idea is not to undertake useless training no matter what the discipline. Trades are rarely useless but degrees are often useless but that is easily solved by taking a useful degree.
I’ve too have done both blue collar and white collar and I’ll take white collar every time. I don’t ever want to work at a level where I am tasked with training someone having a grade 12 education let alone a dropout.
A well thought out article — a couple of additional thoughts; The average guy will probably change careers / jobs average of 9 times in his life — maybe more.
Starting in a trade as a young guy isnt a bad idea. You can learn and earn a lot and it will help a lot in discovering your “niche” in the world — that area where you really shine. I started out of high school in a trade as an auto mechanic and now I work in the corporate world with lots of stuff in between. “Trades” will make an old man out of you fast. Its all good to be raking in cash when you are young and healthy but when you hit your fifties its a whole ‘nuther ballgame. I had a friend right out of high school that worked as a carpenter apprectice and dude had so many toys you wouldnt believe it. Boats, dirt bikes, brand new shotguns, rifles, fishing rods you name it. Basically ten years later dudes skin looked like leather from working in the sun and his knees were shot and he was broke and out of work.
Moral of the story;
Get in where you fit in. See what you like doing in life. These days just be thankful you even have a job doing fucking anything.
And whatever you do — be the fucking best at it.
Eww, you don’t want a manly job that’s fulfilling and reliably makes you good money when you can work in a risk-averse office where you get bitched around by ignorant man-hating fat women at the risk of being randomly laid-off all day… (Your guidance counselor’s typical attitude and marketing pitch.)
As Eminem said: Will the real Shady please stand up, and put one of those fingers on each hand up…
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ielV-rVOlDI/T-J3rRH1u4I/AAAAAAAAAJM/ioyCe_ktOzU/s1600/Mr.+Rogers.png
The ultimate alpha male works at Goldman Sachs or launches his own hedge fund. Those are the most competitive arenas on earth.
Wall Street was a B— and I’m glad I started my career there!
After 7 years active duty, I started in construction management a couple years ago. A couple months in, I was visiting job sites with a college graduate project manager (I had a Bachelor’s as well) in Chicago watching one of our sprinkler fitters, and I mentioned I felt bad at the shitty conditions of working out in the cold.
The PM mentioned that I shouldn’t feel TOO bad – the fitter made more per hour than either of us, and his work day ended an hour and a half before ours. Besides that, I realized that the fitter made more per hour than my doctorate-holding pharmacist fiancé!
Granted, that’s Chicago union pay for you, but still…it opened my eyes a bit to getting a good job in the trades.
If I could do my time again I’d have done an apprenticeship. As it is I’ve wound up in the trades and a nice little earner it is too.
Wish I had known this 20 years ago. Too soon old, too late smart.
106k in student loans, a master’s in a STEM field, and I quit it all 2 years out of grad school to work as a deckhand on an oil tanker.
Many of my former friends from university are still in the field, still living paycheck to paycheck, making 35k/yr teaching at state colleges, . I haven’t made less than 6 figures since my 3rd year of working on boats.
Yet, it’s difficult to find American men who want to work in the maritime industry. Most of the young guys are from the southern states, marginally educated, yet we start them at 50k/yr with full benefits, working 2 weeks on the boat, 2 weeks home. By the time they’ve worked 2 years with us, they can advance into a job that pays 95k/yr for 12 hour days. At 21, these boys own houses, boats, cars, toys, etc, paid in cash. In 3-5 years, the ambitious ones will become engineers or tugboat captains, where jobs pay $700+ a day.
FWIW, my friends who are in the trades mostly became independent contractors or union workers- and of the carpenters, ironworkers, boilermakers, electricians and millwrights, not a one of them makes less than 100k/yr working 50-60 hours a week doing something they mostly enjoy.
Any information you can give on getting into the maritime industry position(s) you mentioned? I’d fit the bill and be more than willing to put in hard time for serious money.
I am not so sure about the job security aspect of the trades. Sure, there may not be robotics around to do the job – yet. But there are foreign trade workers happy to do the job for less and “temporary” foreign worker programs”, where the on-paper goal is to fill un-fillable jobs, but where government/business interests will do whatever they can to circumvent the rules
Excellent advice in my opinion.
One additional reason trades are good would be that they are less regulated than many of the high-profile academic jobs such as law and medicine.
More Working Class Hero crap. In every civilization, there has always been a class structure. For a reason, innovators, visionaries, planners are rarely made in physical work or the trades.
I always here about the guys who make six figures in the trades. Well why don’t we all go into the trades then? Because we can’t. These guys serve a purpose, a purpose that wouldn’t exist without a middle class or professional class.
Who needs a high priced electrician for an empty office building? This very thing happened to a cousin.
What demand will there be for diesel mechanics? When consumer goods demand slumps.
Ad infinitum..
This high pay being pumped into plumbers- sorry most residential plumbing is easy to get, its mainly goverment regulation that keeps up demand- and the like is just a way to invert the natural order.
Lumpenprole tradesmen never challange the system, they buy into the real estate market, flow cash to the mindless cult of sports, white knight up and marry a bitch, pay into the divorce culture, et al.
So make money like the good old boys of yore, but don’t ask why society crumbled around you.
You typically need more tradesmen than skilled office workers. Tradesmen are what you need to grow your economy before you can employ skilled office workers. Plumbers may be small business owners, but other trades like maintenance technician, millwright, fitter and turner or boiler maker are things you do for huge manufacturing companies. You need more people taking things out of the ground and turning them into useful and/or pretty items than you need people with white shirts and ties telling you about how to invest your money or why as an ugly person you shouldn’t hit on female coworkers.
I’ve always regretted not getting some kind of trade, but I was never good with my hands (fucking terrible is probably the more accurate term) and more suited to pen pushing. For someone who’s hit their 40’s how do you suggest making a transition, or learning at least the basics?
Go buy yourself a cheap arc-welder and try to weld two pieces of mild steal together. The whole exercise could cost less that $100. And you’ll own an arc welder. Or go to Radioshack and ask if they have any “project kits”. I spent a couple of months as a maintenance electrician and what I did to expensive factory electronics isn’t much different from stuff you do with things you can buy from Radioshack. It’s just a matter of scale and the threat of lawsuits if you burn a $15000 PLC.
When I was in my 20’s I got an offer to learn the profession of house painting by a master craftsman. I has too much ego and fear to do it, and I have never stopped regretting it.
I don’t care if a guy decides to become a mathematician or a historian, learn at least one trade.
So glad to hear others saying college is worthless. This whole time, I thought it was just my shit university being the root of this feeling. Such a damn waste of time. I learn, but I’m not getting enough out of college for what I’m putting in. I only have another year and a half left, and I am no where near ready for the business world. How am I supposed to be competitive??
Hey, I’m 23 and about to go learn a trade of sorts: seamanship. The US Department of Labor’s Labor Ready program has all sorts of degree programs they offer to people under 24 FOR FREE. Being a mariner on tugboats and the such you start off at $150-250 a day, two weeks at sea, two weeks off, with more pay the higher up in rank you go (OS-Ordinary Seaman is the starter level) which can also mean longer trips from home, but whatever, the cash is good and plenty.
Other good trades are HVAC, go for being a service guy rather than installer, more consistent and higher paying work. Electricians make tons of green too and you don’t have to get your hands covered in shit, a little more dangerous though if you fuck up.
i wil lcome to work but if any moron think i am going to dealing with a bunch of racist bs is going to get his jaw broke i’ll get another job
What would you say the median income in the trades is???
My guess- $55,000-$75,000 USD
College is not for everyone. That is a fact. However, it does not mean that getting a college degree is a waste of time. It can be very valuable to one’s education. Getting a college degree in the WRONG subject (i.e. Women’s Studies, Econ, History etc.) is the core issue. My undergraduate degree was worthless. My MBA has paid for itself in spades. Business did not make sense to me with respect to how all the parts (e.g. Marketing, Sales, Finance, Ops, Accounting etc.) work together until grad school. It got me a great job and continues to be value-add. An MBA from a good school is still something that can still differentiates oneself from others in the general workforce.
There is an arrogance today about Trade jobs that is just plain wrong. As I said, college is not for everyone and for those who fall into that category, Trade jobs are a great alternative. I believe that if I was 18 and had no opportunity for college, I would sprint to Tech school and learn about IT infrastructure, writing “code” in order to develop tech-based products and/or services. The world is only going to get more connected and will rely upon people who understand how to use technology to create, build and enhance things.
Fully agree, but I would add the caveat that if you take on a trade job and do well, especially like ‘Andy’, you can save up enough money to put toward starting or investing in other businesses. With the work ethic you’ll have from the trade job, you should have no problem doing well in other arenas, giving you that societal status that some may deem important (it’s not, unless your company’s reputation rest on it and even then it’s about how you carry yourself as a boss).
There is one degree that not matter how bad things get, someone will always need you…accounting.
I used to work in an an accounting office as an analyst and I wanted to slice my wrists. 90% females who complained about anything and everything all day long. If a problem was fixed, they complained about something else. It was hellish. Got out of the field due to this.
I caught the Internet/Routing and Switching wave in ’94 and have been riding it since; no degree and a six figure salary. If you love what you do and are good at it, you’re going to make bank or, at least, good bank for that profession*.
[*Unless, of course, you’re in a Union, then you’re lynched to whatever some idiot tells you you’re going to make so then you’re utterly screwed. Ergo, no union for me thank you. I can negotiate for myself, thanks!]
Germany has a very good apprenticeship culture for high schoolers, all paid by their government and companies. While you finish high school, you are also completing your apprenticeship.
Not to be a total stormfronter or anything, but the contempt that arose for manual labor, the military, and much else from the end of WWII to the present has a lot to do with the rising power of Jews, who have always held manual labor in contempt, have long been an urban people, and who have a lot of axes to grind with their fellow immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe who worked often in trades as they were going to college and striking it rich. As a friend’s Jewish wife put it, “When I was in Israel it struck me, even the garbagemen are Jewish!?!”
Anyway, this same group has a lot to do with the student loan regime, the mentality of HS counselors, and the education profession generally. They have a distinctive world view and have done a lot to change the broader American world view, which used to view the trades with less disrespect.
That all said I went to college, studied philosophy, and went to law school. But I think that path is not for most people, and I’m struck by how little real learning occurs at most large state universities, which function chiefly to give the appearance of respectability and culture to people who obtain very little of it during their college years. The racket is thankfully ending, but let’s call out who had a lot to do with this major cultural shift.
That kind of Andy’s mindset is one of the reasons that lead Spain to the ruin. Easy money at yours 17 or college? The answer of course was easy money, who needs to study if you can have a car, a flat and a child years after? Then when the country crashed there weren’t any job left for those monkey’s brains. So what they do? Back to school. And the point is that the best universities in Spain are public even if your American brain cannot believe it.
I finished college at 23, after two years learning German I got a job in the automotive industry in Germany and at my 24 I’m doing 64k a year. All the money that my country spent in my studies are right know freaking wasted.
But hey, I’m just another Spanish joe not even banging under average pussy.
Very true on the point where women who make poor wages really have no issues at all with a potential husband in the trades.
Or daughters of tradesman. Many of the actual stay at home mom’s I’ve met have a husband in the trades. And then pop out their babies and go on with life.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for presenting such a cogent argument in favour of the trades. My eldest son has a great, stable job in packing/shipping, but there’s a lot of pressure on my younger children to go to university when they’re old enough. My husband and I are strongly encouraging them all to consider the trades, and this is exactly the sort of not-a-lecture-from-mom that might make an impact.
This is actually a halfway-reasonable article. That said, while the down-and-dirty trades are sexy for a younger man, remember that you’ll inevitably end up as an out-of-shape old plumber. My hubby understands that no matter what, I’ll always find is lawyer paycheck sexy, lol.
~Desiree
What’s the relationship you are saying that the Indian Reservation and the Muslim style.It has no point.Indian is a race while the Muslim is a group of people practising Islam
My father was a tradesman for 40 years, and I could never envision him having done anything else. He was a union steamfitter, as was my grandpa, and he worked his ass off. Even when he had days off, he still worked – on the lawn, his garden or his boat. He died very suddenly this year, but it’s really how he would have wanted to go. He would have hated being told he couldn’t do the things he wanted to do.
When I was in high school, my dad once asked he to cash his paycheck for him as I was going to the bank to cash mine anyways. In one week, he made 4x what I made in two. Granted, I only worked 30 hours a week at a grocery store back then.
The minute I saw mention of Canada I immediately threw away everything mentioned before.
The problem here is the fracturing of higher education’s mission. A university degree isn’t supposed to be job training. Universities used to be elite institutions where one could attain knowledge for its own sake–for the purpose of being a better-rounded individual. It opened students’ eyes to the world around them and gave them a well-rounded curriculum, which prepared the learner for a life of work as a valued member of the community–not studying anything specific unless they were entering highly specialized, cutting-edge fields. Trade schools, manual-labor colleges (which arose in the early 19th century onwards) and apprenticeships taught job skills. Many from the university came back after the grand tour and entered the family business–whatever it was. The graduates had demonstrated that they had the ability to learn and returned as more complete men–ready to help enrich the community.
I’m not intersted in any of the trades. electrical, IT, plumbing, yada yada. I’m not interested in physical labor.