Silicon Valley lessons--decline of the West?

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The decline and fall of college graduates

The reason that the U. S. has lost its technical edge is primarily that knowing your future job may wind up being handed over to a foreign programmer, designer or engineer there is little incentive to go to college. Many college graduates wind up working at places like WalMart, retail stores, etc. because these jobs are still here. Those with Ph.D.'s who are sufficiently specialized can't even get these jobs if the demand for their specialty declines. At least fast food, restaurant, repair, trades, and constuction can't be exported. Most students going to college would have more lifetime income, especially after paying for college, just going to train in a paying apprenticeship program to learn things like plumbing, electrical work, etc. These jobs can't be exported.

We produce far more college graduates overall than we have jobs that actually need a college degree, but we have a shortage of tradesmen. Nearly all my extended family is white college graduates, but only four of the nine (including in-laws) close family college graduates have primarily done professional level work for their careers. Only three have made more than a nephew who is an electrician.

In the computer programmiing area, businesses and government are both starting to realize that the best technical help are not in-house programmers and analysts but technically sophistocated specialists in their fields who really understand requirements and know enough programming to contract work out. Having written 250,000 lines of code over little more than a decade, incidental to one job I have come to think of programming as boring clerical work which doesn't inspire people.

Posted by: ramunno   Posted on: 04/12/05 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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