Is College or Post Secondary Career Training Still Relevant?

VIDEO INDEX:
00:00 - Intro
00:22 - College vs The Internet
01:22 - Successful College Dropouts
03:31 - Free Education Resources like Open Courseware
05:09 - Why College ? 4 Reasons
06:30 - 1. Learning
09:24 - 2. Working as a Team
10:16 - 3. Low Risk Application of Academic Concepts
11:40 - 4. Networking
12:34 - More than just college
13:16 - Topic Conclusion
14:02 - Supporter Thank Yous
14:27 - Helping The Channel
14:40 - My Other Channels
15:24 - Conclusion

Join the Facebook group to connect with me and other viewers!

Want to help the channel? Start a Member subscription or give a one time tip!

or contribute via Venmo!

Follow me on Facebook!

Follow me on Twitter!

Catch my longer interviews and wrap-ups in audio form on my podcast!

[silviopoggi]

For what it’s worth, I am a huge proponent of community college as the starting point for the journey into higher education. I too was a so-so high school student that joined the service after graduation and, after being discharged, only went to my local community college because the Veteran’s Administration was offering a monthly stipend to attend college.

This allowed me to continue working and experience a taste of college at a reasonable price. Lo and behold, I loved the whole learning experience, somehow found myself on the Dean’s list, eventually completed my two years and transferred to the California State college system for my degree. It did take a bit longer than 4 years, but I entered the state system much better prepared and with a heightened degree of confidence. Again, at a reasonable price. One other advantage I found was that the community college classes were generally smaller than what I experienced after my transfer.

[kubev]

By the way, I really hope high schools are adapting to these changes in how people can educate themselves. I don't think high school does nearly enough to prepare people for adult life, not to mention the fact that they leave the majority of students who graduate lacking in skills that'll actually land them decent jobs right out of high school.

[teknerd]

It seems like the free sources you mention would be very valuable for those considering the entrepreneurial route without accruing financial debt. Even if an individual isn't interested in entrepreneurship, a taste of what a field may entail can be had from those free courseware sites. I really wish those resources were available thirty years ago.

[kubev]

4:55 - I have to say, I've been considering going back to college to learn some new things, and I was kind of shocked that the first math you deal with in some curriculums is Calculus. I may actually have to check out Khan Academy, as I've always been horrible at any math course beginning with pre-Algebra with the exception of Geometry. I was taking Trig in my Junior year in high school, and the teacher couldn't even do most of the problems correctly. For my Senior year, I took the easy route and took Accounting I for my math credit. After all, if the teacher couldn't even do the math, then how the hell was I supposed to deal with it?

That said, I was working with Excel a while back at work, and I realized that I needed to make an equation to solve for another cell, and I had this epiphany and finally kind of understood the point of Algebra in a sense, which really increased my desire to want to learn it. I'd finally uncovered something that made me understand what solving for whatever part of an equation in a problem was doing. Previously, I think I just felt as though you were shuffling a bunch of stuff without any real reason. I feel as though one of the most valuable things you can learn as part of learning ANYTHING is HOW IT'S USED, and I don't think I ever got that sort of information about Algebra or Trig in school.

[joemontana]

Thanks Lon! Really honored that my question to you led to a weekly wrap-up topic! I also am a college grad (Electrical Engineer, not a pro football player lol) and you brought a lot of really good points that resonated with me. My college experience sounds a lot like what you described. On the other hand, I'm starting to look at the costs of college for my kids and I wonder how we'll be able to afford all those benefits!

[ncohafmuta]

I dropped out of college after year 1 after spending all my time in the computer labs learning sun hw, solaris, linux and C programming (never went to class). The lack of education never hindered me in 25 years of IT; the built-up experience over time and doing certs on my own was good enough. It's not a path for everybody. On a side note, the MIT OpenCourseWare channel is good stuff

[meandmyEV]

My son is a high school senior so we have spent a lot of time discussing this in the past year or so. He and a lot of his nerdy friends are graduating high school with some basic to intermediate JavaScript skills. If they want to be programmers (like me), I would recommend either community college or even a full stack developer boot camp instead of college. Community college is a good option for those that want some of the benefits you mention in this video and they aren’t 100% sure what direction they want to go. That said, if they are really sure they want to be programmers, they could probably just get a couple of certifications and apply for junior developer positions right out of high school. A lot of companies are so desperate for developers that they will pretty much hire anyone that can fog a mirror and know some basic programming concepts.

[jacobharvey]

This has definitely been a topic of conversation in my house over the last few years. My spouse and I got decent educations and don’t have mountains of debt. But, especially I, was lucky (I did a year of community college and then went to UConn before tuitions went super crazy). But you could also draw a straight line between costs for my dad, my uncle, other family members, and then my cousins and I who all went around the same time… up, up, UP! Feels like each decade things go up exponentially. It’s a very complicated topic. Some professions require it, some you would be fine with just getting some higher education to offset gaps from earlier education… It would be nice if there were lots of options, depending on your career path, that were given equal standing.

And the one of the huge, tangential benefits of college is the social aspect. I’m not talking about parties and hooking up with people. I’m referencing the simple act of meeting people from all walks of life, getting out of the bubble of your hometown. Even cities can be insular if you barely leave your neighborhood or have a close minded family. The amount of anecdotal stories I’ve heard of people becoming more culturally aware, or less bigoted, because they actually interacted with other people is difficult to ignore. There are other ways to foster that. But not everyone can travel a lot either (though it could be cheaper that colleges these days). And as I get older I’m noticing more communities that actively try to prevent interaction. College has always been good for that. It would just be nice if it also didn’t cost you an arm and a leg to get that experience.

[arangelrb]

dependes on the area I dont want my doctor learning whiout supervision, however if you are and artist or and enterpeneur its ok

[sephatu]

Yes. More than ever. Education and degrees have been the best way for majority of people. Especially people that aren't geniuses or have the safety net from a well off family.
It's one of the metric for recruiters see to weed off the thousands of applicants.
Anything that makes you stand out will be an advantage including a degree and what university it's from.

But I think a better question is if it's worth it? Which I agree that tuition has never been more expensive. And from trends this will sadly continue. But I don't think all of these bootcamps or online courses could ever really replace the experience, the learning environment and relationships/connections as you say.

[_Digitalguy]

As a university teacher, who, like you, is now teaching (for over a decade already) in the same university where he studied over 20 years ago, I find this topic very interesting. I think that the cost factor in the US changes things. Here in Europe, where the goverment pays for the vast majority of the cost, university is almost a no brainer. That does not mean it's perfect.
We have always had sort of 2 camps, the pure academics, who barely have any hands-on experience, and the people who were called to teach after a career in their field. Being in the second category, I consider the second camp can provide much higher added value to students, but unfortunately university is still based a lot on "pure research" where you can become a professor without having ever done any real work in your field...These people are often disconnected from the real world and teach what they research and not necessarily things that are useful to the students's future career.
As for online learning, while it's a important resource, it's also a tricky one. I can see this in my field, finance. You have tons of instructional videos on youtube, including by the mentioned Kahn Academy, given by people who either don't understand the subject or have no ability to make it understood, or both...
And learners cannot always tell the difference... Sometimes comments can help but even there, there are all sorts of trolls and ignorant people who think they are experts because, again, they watched other videos about the subject...
Unfortunately quality control, especially of free content, is an issue... (to be fair, we have some bad teachers in universities too, but there is still a higher degree of control)
Some universities, including mine, are now using online platforms like Coursera, to teach classes, but the truth is we only do a "samples" there, not specialized stuff, mainly as a way to promote the universitiy and attract people to our local trainings... (especially post-graduate ones, which are not paid by the government but by attendants)

[oldtwinsna]

Here's the catch 22 - for many career paths the only viable way to work for yourself is to first work for someone else so you focus exclusively on gaining technical experience while receiving a steady wage and not have to fear if/when the next client contract comes up. So to get hired, you have to compete against other people. Now if you have a trust fund to dip into because you are independently wealthy, then this may not be an issue for you and you can nosedive straight into startups not fearing about day to day bills, because even if you fail then oh well, you still got your house, car, and everything else. But most folks are not of that category. So to get hired, you have to compete with others. Not saying college degree is the only way to compete but it does go a long way and something that is achievable. I get that post-secondary can be expensive but there are ways to mitigate that too, such as taking community college courses, finding accelerated programs, or joining the military.

[JeffWaynee]

I have a BA in European history, and while it never got me a job in history, it did show that I was driven, and helped me get many other jobs over the years.

[arthurwatts]

IME, getting an undergrad degree was a case of being able to jump through whatever hoops a lecturer put in front of me. It came as no surprise that employers often focused on GPA simply because it MAY be an indicator that the applicant put in more effort than the average student - the exception is people with an extensive work history who just needed to get the piece of paper, but that has become rarer than it was back in the 90s. I've worked with some very bright cookies and the one thing they had in common was intellectual curiosity - sounds obvious, but life has a tendency to push that initial enthusiasm into the background.

[waltermitty]

Lon, I think the only way to master any worthwhile career fields is the old way: hard work, discipline, in-person education in the presence of a professor and other students, and strict evaluation and grading. Simply viewing videos and taking online courses without testing and grading just doesn't cut it.

[scottlinux]

The cost of higher education in the US is unfortunately a huge factor for many as well.

[NicRankin]

One of the things you learn in post-secondary education is where to find the information you need and you learn it in the first year.

[artisanpixel]

The problem when I took some classes at a college, was that my skills were better than the teacher's skills there.. so I wasn't learning anything. It became a pointless experience for me because it was a waste of money, so I left.

[jameter]

I would emphasize that the skills and knowledge evaluation process could (and perhaps should) be separated more from the learning process. As you pointed out, different approaches to learning can be accommodated that way. A very much more complicated problem for me was designing a curriculum to take students with varying backgrounds and abilities that resulted in uniformly acceptable outcomes.

[lchase]

College is still required...to work for someone else. It's a question of liability and a credential from an authorized accredited organization decreases the liability for a hiring organization. Also the money and the system in the US will always allow the education system to hold power. The education system in the US is focused on credentialization and designed to exclude, not to include.