NBC/Today: Teens enter vocational school, come out with jobs, no debt

[OmahaBlueDog]

“People always make fun of vocational schools, but now they're like, ‘Oh man, I wish I went there,’” said Adams, now a junior at Pathfinder Regional Vocational Technical High School, where every recent graduate found a job upon graduating.

In Massachusetts, where the school is located, the average starting salary in manufacturing is about $45,000. “I can make as much money as someone going to college, coming straight out of high school, and I don't have to pay for college loans or anything like that,” Adams said.

Pathfinder is a beneficiary of a program called “Amp It Up,” a Massachusetts initiative to encourage students to explore careers in advanced manufacturing. Instead of offering dark and dusty shops full of woodworking or table saws, many vocational schools are now full of state-of-the art machines and computers that teach students code, programming and design skills.

That has made these schools wildly popular. “There is a waiting list for the shop right now for kids who want to get into it,” said Pathfinder’s principal, Mary Jane Rickson. “The machine shops are clamoring for people right now. They can’t expand because they don't have any highly skilled people.”

http://lifeinc.today.com/_news/2013/04/26/17928955-teens-enter-vocational-school-come-out-with-jobs-no-debt?lite

[NYC_SKP]

1. But he's missing the binge drinking and negligent sex and drugs that is common in college.

And a whole lot of stupid ass classes that students take because they haven't got a clue what they want to do with their lives but go to college right out of high school anyway....

tongue-in-cheek.

[JDPriestly]

2. But will these young people be able to adjust as the labor market changes with increasing

automation?

Higher education improves your ability to think critically and therefore your ability to learn new things.

The problem now is that so many young people have to choose whether to learn the practical skills they master in a technical school or the intellectual skills they learn in a university. We should offer all children, especially in junior high and high school, the opportunity to learn both.

A job now or the ability to find your way in the challenging world of the future? That should not be the choice.

Practical skills lose their market value as technology changes the job market. That's why I am a bit skeptical about this article.

I think that some liberal arts education is essential for everyone. I also think that some training in practical skills is essential. Kids should not specialize too soon. All kids need to learn how to fix things and how to make things.

[Awknid]

4. I completely agree!

[antigop]

5. +100 nt

[OmahaBlueDog]

6. Most of todays machining jobs are pretty technically demanding

From the article:

Instead of offering dark and dusty shops full of woodworking or table saws, many vocational schools are now full of state-of-the art machines and computers that teach students code, programming and design skills.

I've visited many CNC (Computer Numeric Controlled) machine shops. In some cases, the workers sitting at the machines have B.S. degrees in Engineering. That's how complex some of the programming of these machines has become. This is not the vo-tech of previous generations.

IMO, many of these kids will ultimately end up in collegiate during their careers to either formally study engineering, or (more commonly) to take managerial and business classes to manage workers. Some won't, and if you can make a career out of making bar stock into finely machined widgets, I think that's cool.

[JDPriestly]

8. In high school in the 1950s, I learned the skills that girls learned back then.

Typing, etc.

I used them professionally until computers came in. Now typing skills are pretty worthless. You can't earn much of a living with them.

I also learned a lot of other things, including how to read well, how government works, and other things that did not lead directly to a job. It's the other things I learned that permitted me to be flexible as new technologies came in and new skills were required.

Had I gone to secretarial school rather than college, I would have been at a great disadvantage when it came to adjusting to new technologies.

I got a teaching degree -- but never really used it to teach in public schools. But the understanding I gained about how we learn helped me as a mother and in life in general.

Understanding and analytical thinking are what kids will need in the future. A trade tech certificate does not mean you haven't learned those things, but the coursework doesn't teach you how to apply those skills outside your specific skill area. And that puts you at a disadvantage.

[Igel]

7. Sounds European.

In this case, a good thing.

A lot of college kids learn no more critical thinking in college than they did in high school. Esp. those that are attending low-tier colleges and aren't really college ready upon entering college.

We have too many college grads. The jobs aren't there that need those skills. If it's a hobby or for personal enrichment, great. But most kids go to college because they want a job or just want to extend adolescence. Many gain no practical skills in college, and then hit the job market with a degree but no skills.

We don't have enough two-year degrees. And this high school, like others offering Career and Technical Education classes, provides much of the equivalent of a traditional two-year degree.

It's completely possible to teach critical thinking and tech skills. Esp. since "critical thinking" as such doesn't exist. There are nice heuristics that are common to most kinds of critical thinking, but there are also field-specific kinds of approaches. And whatever your approach, without detailed knowledge self-proclaimed "critical thinking" is just so much dishwater.

[Throckmorton]

9. I managed to adapt just fine to technology changes,

I graduated from just such a school in 1980, after four years training to be an industrial electrician. Just because you attend such a school, does not automatically block you from moving forward into secondary education or learning new skills.

If anything, it taught me that I could truly master something at a young age. Just the opposite of what my Junior High School experience had taught me, that I was worthless, and doomed to fail.

Contrast that with my sister, who went to traditional four years of collge, and graduated with a liberal arts degree. She is a teacher and frequently likes to point out that it took me 10 years to earn a BSEE. It just seems to frost her that my yearly income is almost twice hers.