I probably should have stuck with my last post that said I was disengaging from this thread but the pile on that began yesterday after @Fred13 replied requires some redress. I eat, sleep and live Academia for a living when Im not helping guests, cleaning out spaces, rebuilding Bearpath Lodging or helping my Kids or Grand-kids and have for 26 years serving Profs and Students in a Liberal Arts University that is in the top schools in the nation and world.
When I say serve, I mean serve cause there are few people lower in the pecking order than I. That said, I proudly ply my trades to advance educational excellence and especially enjoy my interaction with our international student who are also serving our campus's needs in work study programs year round with me. I have observed first hand the noble efforts of my employer to propel disadvantaged students from around the world that have not had the same access to a grade A education pie that most of their classmates have. More than one have nearly killed themselves trying to achieve the same education and employment goals as their more educated, more affluent contenders for the gold rings offered the few at the end of 4 years of toil.
I find that I relate best, enjoy and communicate most with the international and students from US inner cities, I suspect because they are more like I am than their classmates that drive far nicer vehicles than our Professors and go to Switzwerland for spring break. I come from a tiny poor school that had very few resources in a rural area where trades and farming were norms not PHDS or MD's (actually we had one MD, Doc Hoke, he delivered 90% of the kids that went to my school). Madison had no museums or zoos, just antiques and cows. Almost nobody didnt have a job cause you would starve and freeze trying to live off welfare but very few earned 1/2 of what the people in the nice school districts in upstate NY earned.
If it hadn't been for our BOCES and other Vocational schools, most from here and a significant population of NY would have never had a chance to leave the family farm or escape poverty if they were one of the few that tried to live off a welfare check and free Cheese and Butter tubs. It has been Trades not college that have brought many of my classmates to the place where we could never have been accepted if we were not there to fix their toilets or repair the electrical outlet that supplies power to the NMR. None of us would ever be in the position to touch a million dollar piece of scientific equipment unless I was filling it with L2N which is a bit riskier than most PHD's want anything to do with.
Please don't be mistaken, I am not bitter at all about this experience, as I said when I started this diatribe, I am a proud and very employable and very employed professional Technician and skilled tradesman. If it hadn't been the fact that those in charge of half the worlds power and financial base weren't as helpless at cleaning up behind themselves or repairing their broken FTIR, Maldi ToV or Wobulator Fluctuator Indicator, me and 14 out of the 29 people in my 10th grade high school class would be milking cows today. Nothing wrong with milking cows but it pays pretty poorly and most of the family farms were bought by rich downstaters that work or attend school were I work so they might not have even had that to fall back on!!!!.
My PHD bosses wouldn't consider the trades me and my buddies ply for them for their kids, your kids, or the ones trapped in terrible school districts an none-employment zones in our inner cities or rural America. Only the best education and the finest job after will do and that starts with paying about $75,000 a year to them to start your education. It moves up 20K the 5th year and if you go on after that, the sky's the limit (100K a year or more), just keep borrowing or come from wealth. They have to be careful they dont find out that folks with that Bachelors and even Masters might not pay enough to pay their student loans from entry level Professional Positions. Its especially depressing when a Tenure track Prof with a PHD that may not actually get the job finds out the plumber who just unplugged his toilet is making more than he is!!!!
Does any of that sound like something we should try to convince the masses of young minds is their only answer or bust? I think not, that said, I don't know a single unemployed Electrician, Carpenter, Plumber or Electronics Technician (my primary), I cant say the same about too many college grads that are forced to live with their parents.
One lasts parting thought before I say toodles and head off to work and check out some noisemakers (Scientific equipment) If your septic tank is plugged, you likely wont ask how its going to be fixed and dont care so much how much its going to cost before you want to know how long its going to take to get schnits moving again in your house and you will pay anything to make that happen! So, after my long "Feelings" instead of facts and figures from college institutions that serve their own interests more than yours or mine, I wish everyone here an awesome day. Be well, JR
