dtucker300 Loc: Vista, CA

https://www.prageru.com/video/trading-up-our-case-for-trade-schools?utm_source=Iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=campaign_3007820
Short Documentaries ⋅ October 13, 2021 ⋅
Are universities the only ticket to a meaningful and financially rewarding career? Or is there another way? Opportunities in the trades are plentiful and profitable—setting young people up for rapid success compared to expensive and time-consuming college degrees. PragerU’s latest short documentary, Trading Up, informs people about the valuable benefits of a career in the trades and the great pride trade specialists derive from their work—despite our current culture’s narrative that “everyone must attend a university.”

woodguru

I agree with trade schools, PragerU would need a really hard look and regulation

RobertX8Y

I think I'd have benefitted from going to a trade school when I was 15 or 16. However, I wouldn't give up my college experience.

Way back in about the 1930s or 1940s, there were some professional people who took time off to work at manual labor. They did this to give themselves a more rounded experience.

There should have been a way to do both: attend trade school and attend college, and to be proficient in both ways, having trade skills and having the kind of cultural knowledge and experiences that often come in college.

At age 15 or 16, though (in the late 1960s), I didn't know those kinds of options, or maybe my parents would have discouraged them; and I had enough to do just to stay afloat in the standard high school experience. I did know one guy who was in both a trade school ("vo tech") and our regular high school, during our senior year. I thought it was very unusual.

Several years later, contrary to my normal "educated" track, I did work in 3 or 4 non-educated jobs, including one full year working as a bench hand in a small factory, with a time clock and minimum wage. Most of the time it was rather boring in that factory, and I don't think I learned much there, but I like being able to say I did it. That wasn't a real trade, but it was down-to-earth work, not abstractions. It was a lot simpler than farm work (which I had also done).

Unlike most people I've met, I don't mind time clocks for work. But when one is in a job that has creative thinking, the time clock (if any) should be silent, so as not to distract.