Quote:
Originally Posted by bizaro86
The attitude that it is the low performers who should go into trades is the problem. I'm a university educated professional (P.Eng) and have huge respect for the trades. Those are often good, stable jobs held by smart people who make important decisions and do interesting work. In a previous job I worked with an instrumentation tech who was smarter than me and made more money than me. But I had way more social standing within the company and in society in general as a professional. Which is stupid.
We need more tradespeople way more than we need graduates of many different university programs.
If trades weren't looked down upon by so many they would be considered a more viable career choice for young people. Maybe then we'd have the high end manufacturing reputation of Germany.
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To be clear. My point was that people have different skills. If your aren't excelling in one area you shouldn't be forced into it. I don't think that anyone who doesn't do well in the narrow academic fields you learn in school is lesser or even less intelligent.
I agree 100% that Germany's attitude towards trades is far superior. And yes, they do divert people who are not excelling at the purely academic aspects of schooling into trade programs. They however get diverted into "vocational schooling". It's actually takes considerable effort to stay in the German academic stream, and spots in universities are relatively limited.