June 1, 2010
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bnbhuntsville recap May 25
@FilmLadd did not come to bnb last week because he is a doucebag. @FatherPhoenix and @jeepcat did drop by around 1830ish because they were in town and are not douchebags. We haven’t heard from @russellcrosswy since his rookie attendance.
For reasons that I cannot divulge here, I will NOT be in attendance June 1st. I know that this will be a big blow to the group as I have made every B n’ B since my debut, but I WILL be back the following week.
Speaking of June 8, you are all invited to attend B n’ B for a very special presentation. @jtrigsby will be giving a presentation to writers interested in writing for a hyper-local news site. Beats include Night LIfe, Restaurant Reviews, Entertainment and Politics. There will be revenue share from three different categories: page views, content generation and ad sales.
If you’ve ever wanted to be a journalist, get paid for what you write or just plain think that you can do a better job than the competition *cough*@hsvtimes then you don’t want to miss this meeting, nor does your writer friend who has similar aspirations.
The two main topics for discussion this week at B n’ B were finales and college education.This week was a meandering week. I think it was after 1730 before @strages arrived. @strages, @jtrigsby and I were discussing TV show finales. Their conversation focused on the conclusion of Lost and the season finale of House. The general consensus was that finales always leave too many questions unanswered.
The other topic that came up was the value of a college education. @strages was of the opinion that college costs too much money and that he didn’t think that there was enough valued to justify the price. He argued in favor of apprenticeships. @shagerty made the point that universities were an institution that the British devised to keep the Indians in check. I asked my standard trick question: “What is the primary purpose of a university?”
The discussion of universities being a tool of governmental control and college vs. apprenticeship make for great blog fodder.
See you in the blogosphere!
Here’s a great article that more succinctly says what I was trying to say about college tuition.
Comments (6)
Oooh, yeah, College vs apprenticeship will make an awesome topic! Wish I could get in on it…
Basically, I agree with both premises in concept – university education IS now completely over-priced and ridiculously expensive, but I think it’s due to basic supply-and-demand. That’s where the problem arises, I believe and it’s also here that it ties into the idea of apprenticeships.
With demand ever-increasing (rightly or wrongly, and I think the pressure and expectation to go straight to college after high school is wrong and part of the problem) it’s only natural to expect the cost to increase – make the people who really want to go, go – but at the same time it begins to foster elitism, a generation of the permanently indebted and a division in society. Especially for the education that you receive at college, and the structure of a basic degree, the value is rapidly decreasing, which is only amplified with the difficulty of college graduates landing stable full-time jobs after their studies are completed.
Now, this can sometimes be the fault of the graduate – taking a degree in a narrow, indirect subject unrelated to the field they want to work in – but other times it is the composition of the job market. There are jobs out there, but current studies and training are not equipping graduates for those positions and so we end up in the position of plenty of jobs, plenty of graduates but no means to join the two together.
A College Degree has been raised up onto such a pedestal that society assumes that if you do not have a college education you are somewhat of a failure, which is wrong, bigoted and a recipe for disaster. There have been plenty of instances where some of the most successful people on the planet right now do not have a college education.
This is where apprenticeships come in. They form a credible, useful alternative to college education and is something that more people should take advantage of. Particularly in industries such as construction, utilities, and other industries that require dexterous use of hands and physical labor, apprenticeships are by far the best way to learn and gain experience on-the-job. There are so many intangibles that you can learn on the ground then can ever be taught in a classroom.
Ultimately, though, money is king and as long as universities pull in millions of dollars in research grants and funds, the push to give everyone a college degree – even if it ends up not being worth the paper it’s printed on – will continue.
@cmdr_keen - You’ve raised a lot of great points here. Too bad we’re not already doing the podcast. I’ll see about answering your comment either here or with a post, but don’t hold your breath.
You might think about spreading the word via Facebook to get more people involved. That should up the discussion.
Interesting. : ) Avoid burying your lede, though. I had to get to the bottom to figure out what your topic even was. Also, try to add some new information rather than just ask a question. Give some data to get people’s brains going and spike any “nuh-uh/uh-huh” arguments among your commenters.
And if you were writing for a local audience, you should add some thoughts/local relevance to the issue.
Sorry, I know free advice is worth what you pay for it. :p
@SecretNeverTold - I appreciate all of the help that I can get.
I agree with your lede comment and maybe you’re right in this case too; however, the point of this post was to get syndicated at beerandbloghuntsville.com. The point of this post was to re-cap the conversation that happened at bnb. Maybe the post would work better if I flipped the last two paragraphs to the top of the post. Granted, I was trying to get a reaction and was in a bit of a hurry when I wrote this, but I’ll keep the tip in mind for next week’s recap.
If you go to my main page or scroll down the bnb site, you’ll see that I used a cut on this post. The reason for this is that Xanga is very retarded and even using Yahoo Pipes. As such, it was a way to get a link back to Xanga so people could comment.
It is my plan to further expand on the topic of college education and make it its own column.
Localization is a great idea! I didn’t think of that, but it wouldn’t be difficult to add UAH to the mix.
I agree with @strages. Here is another great (and somewhat harrowing) article on the subject: No one needs you, Class of 2010
@Tanya - That was depressing. The best part of the article was the subtle insertion of Obamacare. The same kids that voted for it will get to bear the burden that further kills jobs.
Way to go class of 2010.