When I was in school, I was always told “If you get a college degree you’ll on average make 500k more over the life time of your career regardless of what you get your degree in!”
Then as I finishing school, it was all about “If you get into tech you’ll make big bucks and always have jobs!”
Both of those have turned out not great for a lot of people.
Then whenever women say they’re struggling with money online, they get pointed to OF… which pays nothing to 99% of creators. Also very presumptive to suggest that, but we don’t even need to get into that.
So is there a field/career strategy that you feel like is currently being over pushed?
(My examples are USA, Nevada/Utah is where I grew up, if maybe it’s different in other parts of USA even.)
“Go to trade school” is my guess. I’ve even suggested it. I’m not sure it’s really being over pushed, but maybe it is. Easy answers to complex questions are a trope.
I’ve heard there’s an enormous demand for experienced tradespeople, but apprenticeships are pretty much full up…
Kind of a nobody-wins situation. Money to be made, just not by anyone on the ground floor.
I haven’t met any parents telling their kids to go into the trades aside from one dad who is already in the trades and knows the life.
Most of the parents of high/middle schoolers I speak to are pushing STEM and entrepreneurship. I coach this age group, and the parents still want their kid to go on to higher education. They just are more aggressive about it being a meaningful degree.
There is also more discussion of the cost of schools. A degree from a local school with in state tuition or a community college transfer is looked upon more favorably now. Frankly, a lot of the elite schools are bullshit and the general public is waking up to that now. The work a student is willing to put into learning is much more important than if the school has a high rank.
I have definitely heard parents encouraging kids to go into the trades. Could be a regional thing. Anecdotal either way.
I agree elite schools are bullshit for the vast majority. There are some PhD and medical programs that aren’t. But that’s a tiny percentage of students who would benefit.
Yeah, it is definitely dependent on region and lots of other factors. Plus, I fully admit it is a small sample size. But I just wanted to say my part because suggesting the trades certainly isn’t as universal as advising kids to go to college was a generation ago.
Also, I agree with the elite schools for grad programs. But so few kids get to that point and would have to get through undergrad (and likely crippling students loans) to even apply to for the good grad schools.
John Deere and a few others recently paid like 20m to build a diesel tech training center for my university that includes several large vehicle bays and a fuel development lab, with the expectation the students would work for their companies after graduation. It’s starting to look like these kids will be opening their own businesses and ending the cycle of ripping off farmers in the community.
As a former mechanic with lots of lovely health issues before even hitting 40, I really hope they do work for themselves so they can get out of the grunt work when they are my age and still earn from their experience
If Trump gets elected, and he mass deports millions of people, there will be a surge in construction demand.
There will be a surge in “nobody wants to work anymore”.
We could literally shut down the economy in defiance if we all got together and did something about it.
Pipe dream, though, tbh.
Trump may beat everyone to it. Bash on immigrants as he loves to since it brings out poor white folks, many of his financial backers are industries like service (hotels, restaurants, Ag) who are already understaffed because they’ve made the jobs so awful only truly desperate or illegal workers will stand them. He will seriously trigger “a day without immigrants” meanwhile upending prices through tariffs that will screw most Americans who are already living in debt and skipping basics. Unfortunately for America, there will not be another election if he wins this week.
It’s the new thing that parents want their kids to do. I feel like it’s going to backfire, lol
Agree. We need trades people but we also need jobs, re-shoring, affordable housing, affordable health care, affordable education, etc. to go along with. It could become another bubble like pharmacists and knowledge workers.
The longer I’m in the workforce the more I think David Graeber was right.
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I’m dreaming of an oversupply of trade workers. It’s too expensive right now to get any work done. Lots of scammers too.