Society/Culture Should a trade apprenticeship be valued as highly as a university degree ?

[skilts]

Australia: one of the few places in the world where to be called, 'an intellectual' is intended as a calculated insult.

 

[Chief]

Australia: one of the few places in the world where to be called, 'an intellectual' is intended as a calculated insult.

Happens anywhere the ruling class don’t want there bullshit called out by people who have even a fraction of a clue.

 

[Snake_Baker]

Hi guys interested in your thoughts as I find it puzzling that society still doesn't place the same prestigious value on a trade qualification that they do on a degree.

To me they are different but equal.

Thoughts ?

I'd say the trade is more valuable in most instances.

 

[FireKrakouer]

Im a lawyer and my sparky mates earn more than me.

So I dont get it.

Law degrees are the cubic zirconias of qualifications. Jump on tinder, every single mum aged 25-35 has one. They must hand the MFers out in cornflakes boxes now or something?

It's never too late to get a STEM or tradie qualification. Help design and build the world, instead of complicating it.

 

[Malifice]

Law degrees are the cubic zirconias of qualifications. Jump on tinder, every single mum aged 25-35 has one. They must hand the MFers out in cornflakes boxes now or something?

I miss those days.

Now I'm mid 40's and I get the divorcees with kids and crazy anti-vaxx 'life coaches' that no-one will marry because they're insane.

I need to move overseas again where a foreign accent is worth a 10 year reduction in dating age.

 

[Evolved1]

I miss those days.

Now I'm mid 40's and I get the divorcees with kids and crazy anti-vaxx 'life coaches' that no-one will marry because they're insane.

I need to move overseas again where a foreign accent is worth a 10 year reduction in dating age.

In some poorer Asian countries, white skin and a fat wallet halves your age and adds a foot to your height.

 

[Jibroni]

Apprentices wages are pretty ordinary, particularly in the building industry.

 

[Evolved1]

Apprentices wages are pretty ordinary, particularly in the building industry.

Apprentices are paid to learn while university students pay to learn. I presume employment outcomes are better for apprentices too.

 

[Malifice]

In some poorer Asian countries, white skin and a fat wallet halves your age and adds a foot to your height.

Not the only thing it adds a foot too.

Not a fan. Im into more of a European type. But I digress.

 

[Seeds]

Prestige, respect and most importantly seen as just as good an option for kids once they leave school.

Cos they arent as good.

 

[FireKrakouer]

I miss those days.

Now I'm mid 40's and I get the divorcees with kids and crazy anti-vaxx 'life coaches' that no-one will marry because they're insane.

I need to move overseas again where a foreign accent is worth a 10 year reduction in dating age.

A divorcee with kids ain't necessarily a bad thing. That's what you get in the dating pool once 30+, nevermind 40+. We've all made dumb decisions by then, no need to go all sex-tourist overseas.

 

[FireKrakouer]

Apprentices are paid to learn while university students pay to learn. I presume employment outcomes are better for apprentices too.

Apprentices get up at 5am in winter to go crawl through freezing mud for half the minimum wage. Having completed a commerce degree and an electrician apprenticeship, I would personally prefer to see funding shunted to the latter.

I know some degrees (medicine, veterinarian etc) are extremely difficult, but anyone who has set foot on a uni campus knows that many of them wake up at midday and take it pretty easy.

 

[Present Not Past]

An apprenticeship is only as good as the tradesman. s**t Tradie=s**t apprentice=turns up late (if ever), does a s**t job and overcharges you.
A degree on the other hand is usually a professionally recognised education delivered by experts in your chosen field of study.

 

[FireKrakouer]

An apprenticeship is only as good as the tradesman. sh*t Tradie=sh*t apprentice=turns up late (if ever), does a sh*t job and overcharges you.
A degree on the other hand is usually a professionally recognised education delivered by experts in your chosen field of study.

Tradies had to prove their worth via exams and work ethic. Uni grads are only required to pass the former, which in some degrees you "pass" exams at 40%

There are still plenty of dumb or dodgy tradies out there. In Victoria, sparkies need to pass 3 exams that are conducted by an organisation independent of their trade school. You need at least a yr10 understanding of maths: trigonometry etc. It's easy stuff compared to what engineering students go through, but you still need to know your shyt.

 

[Seeds]

Apprentices get up at 5am in winter to go crawl through freezing mud for half the minimum wage. Having completed a commerce degree and an electrician apprenticeship, I would personally prefer to see funding shunted to the latter.

I know some degrees (medicine, veterinarian etc) are extremely difficult, but anyone who has set foot on a uni campus knows that many of them wake up at midday and take it pretty easy.

Yes but they arent getting paid to go to uni unlike an apprentice who gets paid. In fact uni students pay to go to uni. Get the difference? Ones a job. The other is an expenditure.

ps. I worked far harder at uni then i do now. You also forget most uni students are working a seperate job on top of their studying.

 

[FireKrakouer]

Yes but they arent getting paid to go to uni unlike an apprentice who gets paid. In fact uni students pay to go to uni. Get the difference? Ones a job. The other is an expenditure.

ps. I worked far harder at uni then i do now. You also forget most uni students are working a seperate job on top of their studying.

Yup and I imagine that this is what lead to the current stereotype that tradies are lower class, as attending uni was for privileged kids who didn't need an immediate wage. My trade school cost was about $600 a semester from memory, whilst the commerce degree was 5 to 10 fold this cost. Perhaps we need free degrees in fields that benefit society such as STEM.

 

[Seeds]

Yup and I imagine that this is what lead to the current stereotype that tradies are lower class, as attending uni was for privileged kids who didn't need an immediate wage. My trade school cost was about $600 a semester from memory, whilst the commerce degree was 5 to 10 fold this cost. Perhaps we need free degrees in fields that benefit society such as STEM.

There is indeed a privlege advantage with unis. There are the kids who live at home off their parents wealth and just rock up to class at midday and then there are the kids at uni who also work 20 hours a week unskilled work to pay rent and bills whilst living in a 4 person share house. When you have 20 hours less a week to study it puts you at a major disadvantage.

 

[Sweet Jesus]

Yes but they arent getting paid to go to uni unlike an apprentice who gets paid. In fact uni students pay to go to uni. Get the difference? Ones a job. The other is an expenditure.

ps. I worked far harder at uni then i do now.

Harder than.

 

[parsons nose]

These things tend to go in cycles. In the 80’s an apprenticeship was valued. Apprenticeships, became stigmatised after Bob Hawkes clever country speech. All and sundry gravitated towards Universities whether they were suited to academia or not. And the Universities for commercial reasons were happy to accommodate.
There has been a recent trend back towards the trade sectors, where folks are beginning to realize the return on investment is greater- there is a qualifier here (licensed trades have far more currency). Sadly, this doesn’t necessary translate into better quality tradies. Meanwhile, the white collar class is being worked to the bone. The status of a being a professional comes at a very high price.

 

[Balls In]

Law degrees are the cubic zirconias of qualifications. Jump on tinder, every single mum aged 25-35 has one. They must hand the MFers out in cornflakes boxes now or something?

It's never too late to get a STEM or tradie qualification. Help design and build the world, instead of complicating it.

You actually need to be smart to turn a decent coin out of law. Probably the top 5% or so. Mostly its infested by career students who strut around campus taking 10 years to complete a degree while the stem students crank it out in engineering or medicine. Psychology, Socialism and Journalism students are the same.

 

[Scotland]

Different stigmas in play.

If you did a trade, then historically the stigmas were that you weren't smart enough to go to uni, or were smart enough but didn't have enough money. My grandad did a trade back in the 1930s because it wasn't a financial option to move to the city and go to uni even though he was offered a place. My dad to uni in the 1960s for free. I went to uni in the 2000s and it cost me tens of thousands and they let you in if you don't even pass high school.

Do many people go into trades for the hell of it? I can't imagine too many people want to get up at 5am and star off doing donkey work for $5/hr just to 'find themselves' which is how many treat university now. If you want to be a plumber, sparky, boilermaker etc. do a trade. If you want to be a doctor, lawyer, engineer etc. go to uni. And there are a bunch of people in the middle who go to uni to study things that don't directly lead to jobs. People want to study what they want, not what society says is needed. That's a mindset shift from the old days of university 'prestige'.

The bar for employment has also been set higher these days. I remember speaking to a guy in IT who would've been 40 when I was 25 so 50 now that said their policy was that if you didn't have a degree you wouldn't even get a look in, whereas he himself never went to uni. The old start in the mail room and work your way up thing is a relic, or to start in the mail room you need a bachelors degree anyway.

 

[00Stinger]

Depends what degree you are talking

There are a lot of bullshit degrees that really qualify you for nothing. Look at a lot of the arts degrees, why any one would waste their money on them has me stumped. However having a medical, engineering or law degree would be pretty value I would have thought

I've got a finance degree which has served me well, although I wish I knew without a CPA/CA on top your options are extremely limited before I started uni. But if I had my time again I reckon I would have done an electrical apprenticeship and worked for myself.

The one thing that a trade has going for it that most uni degrees don't is the work is always going to be there. Maybe there would be as much demand so wages might take a hit but the work will. People are always going to need their electricity hooked up, their pipes fixed or someone to build a house to live in. But if the IT technology changes or a new program that automates a lot of financial reporting are the IT specialists and accountants going to be needed?

Lots of jobs gained from uni degrees long term are at risk from being lost from changes in technology, automation or easy outsourced overseas to cut costs. You cant do that to an electrician or carpenter

 

[Frank Bunn]

You actually need to be smart to turn a decent coin out of law. Probably the top 5% or so. Mostly its infested by career students who strut around campus taking 10 years to complete a degree while the stem students crank it out in engineering or medicine. Psychology, Socialism and Journalism students are the same.

The next 20% can probably make a living from government paid jobs like public service, legal aid, aboriginal legal services etc. The next set of duffers end up at one of the ombudsmen departments in highly qualified call centre roles.

 

[cartwright]

Well, this govt doesn’t think so...

 

[Noidenous]

The lowest apprenticeship is zounds more important than an 'X Studies' degree.