This is a good point, a lot of people do end up going to college for the sake of it when they are young and either drop out and end up in something they don’t actually care about.
Someone with a good trade could do very well the next few years
I think he’s going to have to have a good chat with employers then, because it seems like you can’t even get a pretty low skilled clerical position without a degree.
I agree with hi but let’s not pretend this isn’t a desperate bid to get people into the trades because we need something like 60,000 houses a year for ourselves and refugees etc AND for the last ten years Simon’s party has failed abysmally on housing
See a lot of people here commenting about the “college experience” or “college life”. Which I’m sure many people realise is just partying and getting drunk with your friends and going out on the town.
Why is it people, not just young people, but nearly everyone in this country are so desperate to go drinking to the point of complete torpor? It’s not healthy, it’s certainly not cheap, and it stunts people’s education, assuming that’s something they’re even trying to do while at college.
I completely agree that the stigma around not having a college education is damaging, and unhealthy for many students at the ages of 16-18 thinking about what to do after school. But if college is to be utilised as it is supposed to – then people need to hold themselves accountable for how stupidly they act while at college. Saying that they don’t know what they want to do as a career is no excuse for fucking yourself up on alcohol, drugs and meaningless outings. And blowing away all your money on it too.
A lot of people even by the age of 25-26 still don’t know what they want to do as a career, those that went to college or didn’t. Lord knows, I barely do (I am 26, and went to engineering college). This is obviously a multi-variate issue, and it is true that the culture of snobbery around third level is there, and is not a good thing.
Students need to be made aware of the many other choices and routes to careers there are out there, but they should also be shown better how to actually conduct themselves in the world – real life skills like taxes, finances, basics of loans and applying for government schemes, all of that would help immensely.
Girlfriend dropped out of college, now works in a law firm. Cousin did a PLC, is now nursing in the UK. All for normalising options outside the usual Leaving Cert rat race. Does nothing but stress students out.
That’s how the system is set up.
Teachers/guidance counselors almost force students to make a CAO. The toxicity around having to attend college right after you get out of school is something else, students who just get normal jobs are seen as unambitious losers.
Even when you do get your job employers treat you like shit, you’re treated as disposable. We can get anyone to do your job type shit.
I feel like this whole “culture of snobbery “ is over egged by those who would rather not have us fund third level education at all. FG would love a future where they can shrink third level education in favour of cheaper to run fas courses . Children of politicians will attend college whereas working class children will have their options limited .
I’ve final exams starting Monday for a Business degree I’m not sure I ever really wanted.
I just knew I needed to get a degree and I didn’t want to flop into Arts for the sake of getting a degree, I thought I’d get something a bit more employable..It’s been a waste of time, I’ve never opened a book and either scrapped exams or failed and scrapped the repeat(s).
I’ve been helping (read: doing) my sisters philosophy essays, I’ve done better in those than in exams that I actually attended lecturers for!
I don’t know what I’ll go at – construction trades weren’t for me – tried the electrician route hated that.I’d chance trim carpentry because my uncle does it and we get along, plus I’ve helped him out and enjoyed it.
Paramedic recruitment is on the go.
Don’t fancy the guards.
Prison Service is a good shout.
I also like cooking so I might chance my arm in a kitchen when I’m finished these bastard exams.
I wonder how many people are in the same boat as me?
Worse yet how many are stuck in adjoining career they hate because they just fell into the next step which is and has always been – ‘well you’ve worked hard for that degree so you’d better use it’
I have completed an apprenticeship and a degree in a related area subsequently. Personally I would love the opportunity to sit down with the minister to actually spell out what is required to really change this and I will give you a one pointer for free , don’t leave Solas near it if you want it done in a reasonable time frame.
1. There are tonnes more jobs that would benefit from more avenues to enter it than college only . There are loads of jobs where a hybrid model of 3 days on the job and 2 days in college each week would result in better employees and training.
2. Most if not all apprenticeships in this country suddenly end when you get your cert after completing it. This model is incorrect and terrible for all involved. You need direct accessible routes onwards to degrees , masters and PhDs available to the right candidates. I know carpenters in Germany who had direct routes to a master’s in building physics and are now completing PhDs around thermal modelling. This is how you get more people taking apprenticeships show them you have options to take them as far as they want to go. I did a degree that was directly related to my trade qualification and only got 1 module covered from a 4 year degree, that is not right on any level.
3. Have a plan for apprenticeships if there is another downturn . The amount of guys I know who had a few months or a year left to complete and had to leave their apprenticeship with no qualifications as the arse fell out of the industry and Solas took years to come up with a plan for them .
There’s an awful lot of Ironic snobbery towards the Arts and arts degrees in this thread.
I done one, ended up happily teaching and my band recently got signed. None of that would have been possible without honing my craft and doing the degree which led to greater confidence and meeting like minded people.
And I’ll say this: The Murder Capital, Bi Curious. Maria Kelly, Erica Cody, Thumper and Fontaine’s D.C would have ceased to existed without an arts degree and the extensive doors that they can offer.
Doing a trade is brilliant
But………………
The construction industry is very prone to boom/bust cycles and people need consistency.
We need rational house price growth over 2 percent P.A and an end to wreckless speculation in property. Again this could be pie in the sky for ireland
I know when I was leaving school in 2012 you would have meetings with a guidance counsellor and would always be college talk and never anything about the trades, this county is suffer from a shortage due to young adults being pushed into college when many might have been better off being directed towards a trade.
Something does need to change and start letting these kids know it’s okay to pursue a career that doesn’t involve you attending a course that’s already over saturated with let’s be real here average or uninterested students to fields that they think is the handy choice. The amount of people I work with that have degrees and not even working in the field they graduated from, it’s pointless.
Politicians have been making this point for many years, but they keep sending their own kids to university.
I’m in huge favour of ending the insistence on going to college straight out of school. I was so badly burned out from spending most of my life in full-time education I had a complete meltdown in my mid-20s. We should encourage people to take a year or two off, go travel, work part-time, maybe study part-time, apprentice at so-called “low skill jobs” that we’re in dire need of now, and see what the rest of the world has to offer outside of constant school and academia.
Obviously we’ll need to change society as well to provide jobs and courses to fit that ideal. Little steps. Warping the CAO is a good start.
This is very true , when I was in secondary it was all go to college , if you can’t get in with your leaving go do a plc for two years so that you can go do 4 more years in college.
I took the advice and went straight from my leaving to DIT to do electrical engineering, but hated it by second year ,.dropped out and after a year or two of floating doing nothing working in a shop I picked up a trade , 4th year apprentice sparks now and I love every second of it.
Of you tell everyone to get a desk job , who’s going to build the desks ? Supply and demand market on my wages is looking great as the older lads start to retire and my generation has been pushed for college for everything. FFG or who ever is in power really needs to up the funding for SOLAS if there is any hope in pumping out trades people , the waiting time for college sections of the course is a joke , even before COVID added to the list
Harris is a bollix.
I’ve fucked up a load of times in life but nothing was like the level of abuse I got from my family when I dropped out of college and didn’t go to University. It’s so frustrating and never goes away, the sooner it’s gone the better.
Third Level Education at this very moment is not worth the cost and is blowing money away.
1. Cost of accommodation is on par to professional accommodation but often has reduced amenities and quality.
2. Fees are some of the most expensive in Europe.
3. Most lecture staff are on precarious contract meaning they struggle financially which impacts the quality of teaching.
4. Most lectures provide no practical or meaningful purpose beyond discussion within the lecture.
Just to touch on point 3. Most lecturers are part-time short term contracts. Meaning some lecture staff have to renew their contracts every single year. This makes career stability and progression difficult.
Further, most lecture staff are also researchers. However, they are paid to teach not research, yet research is used to acquire a full-time position. Therefore they will often sacrifice hours paid for preparing teaching material so that they can conduct scientific research in the hope to publish research to attain a higher chance of securing fulltime employment.
Think of this, a non-permanent full hour contract lecturer makes 35 grand a year, that’s someone with a PhD making only 35 grand a year!, yet if they manage to get a permanent position they immediately get 55 grand a year, a 20 grand bump… This discourages universities from employing permanent lecture staff and also encourages them to offload some of the work on unpaid PhD students.
Therefore, you could be paying thousands of euros to attend a course that could be taught by non-permanent low-paid workers or worst, unpaid workers who are struggling to pay bills while also having to work practically a second unpaid job to do research in the hopes they can get a publication accepted to increase their chance of employability.
Instead of hiring permanent teaching staff, universities are building unnecessary buildings they can advertise to international students as being “high tech”, hiring more admin staff to run projects that only involves and is participated by the smallest minority of students that often come from upper-class families so to win some bullshit award and increase alumni donations, or to introduce some random woke initiative no one asked for or needs but will cost the university hundreds of thousands in expenses while taking money away from departments and library resources because it’s more marketable..
Ireland needs to move to vocational training similar to Germany, learning in class and working closely with companies to keep the curriculum up to date.
I think there is also a lot of ‘reverse snobbery’ in Ireland. People say you’ve notions if you do something academic or such.
Always thought it insane that a 17 yr old could know what they want for their future, many of these kids cant even vote yet we expect them to just know whats best for their future?
The ‘culture of snobbery’ comes directly from the fact that exhorbitant fees have to be paid. If Daddy is rich you can go to 3rd Level – if not, well you get the idea.
It takes over 5 years now to get a level 6 if you want to be a plumber/ electrician. You can get a level 8 in half the time.
It’s interesting that Harris dropped out in first year to go into politics, yet he never corrects people when they say he has a degree in journalism. If you’re talking about ending snobbery, maybe you start with yourself and say “actually, I didn’t get a degree and I still think I’m doing a good job. Degrees aren’t necessary for many jobs.”
Its true that this idea that third level is an extension of education rather than a dedicated way to get into a career needs to stop. The course I took should have absolutely been a trade and didn’t require a degree and 3 years of theory. All the jobs I wanted required practical hands on skills that you don’t learn by reading books. Barely anyone who finished the course got work, yet people who had left school, done apprenticeships or even a skilled certification were able to get in even if they were in a tangential field simply because they knew how to use their hands.
And it also leads to grade inflation. As if we don’t have enough inflation as it is in this country, but then employers are looking for a masters now rather than bachelors degrees and even the paper you worked for 3-4 years to earn is as useful as toilet paper to some people. Education loses all value when its just another step and not a real choice and career path.
Most degrees aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on.
Not that the education was wasted, but because of saturation.
We used to go to college to get a leg up, now it’s just to keep up.
If you need something just to stay on par, it’s not really worth anything.
I don’t know how there can be snobbery when so many people have the same college degree from Irish colleges that deal with students in conveyor belt possess( mass produced qualified) , because it became the new leaving cert even Trinity won’t guarantee you a job at the end of term.
The saturation of people with college degrees has made the degree itself worth a lot less compared to 20 years ago, it’s the reason why Ireland probably has the highest educated unemployed.
I don’t believe everyone is owed a higher level education, and I do believe that the looking down on trades is absolutely moronic considering I would say trades men make way more money due to the decline in apprentices, because college is advertised as the only way to live a affluent life when it’s just not true there are plenty of options over wastes money and time going to college.
I was told by my school counsellor to take whatever course I was offered, even if I didn’t like it. Worst decision I ever made tbh, left me depressed and suicidal.
28 comments
This is a good point, a lot of people do end up going to college for the sake of it when they are young and either drop out and end up in something they don’t actually care about.
Someone with a good trade could do very well the next few years
I think he’s going to have to have a good chat with employers then, because it seems like you can’t even get a pretty low skilled clerical position without a degree.
I agree with hi but let’s not pretend this isn’t a desperate bid to get people into the trades because we need something like 60,000 houses a year for ourselves and refugees etc AND for the last ten years Simon’s party has failed abysmally on housing
See a lot of people here commenting about the “college experience” or “college life”. Which I’m sure many people realise is just partying and getting drunk with your friends and going out on the town.
Why is it people, not just young people, but nearly everyone in this country are so desperate to go drinking to the point of complete torpor? It’s not healthy, it’s certainly not cheap, and it stunts people’s education, assuming that’s something they’re even trying to do while at college.
I completely agree that the stigma around not having a college education is damaging, and unhealthy for many students at the ages of 16-18 thinking about what to do after school. But if college is to be utilised as it is supposed to – then people need to hold themselves accountable for how stupidly they act while at college. Saying that they don’t know what they want to do as a career is no excuse for fucking yourself up on alcohol, drugs and meaningless outings. And blowing away all your money on it too.
A lot of people even by the age of 25-26 still don’t know what they want to do as a career, those that went to college or didn’t. Lord knows, I barely do (I am 26, and went to engineering college). This is obviously a multi-variate issue, and it is true that the culture of snobbery around third level is there, and is not a good thing.
Students need to be made aware of the many other choices and routes to careers there are out there, but they should also be shown better how to actually conduct themselves in the world – real life skills like taxes, finances, basics of loans and applying for government schemes, all of that would help immensely.
Girlfriend dropped out of college, now works in a law firm. Cousin did a PLC, is now nursing in the UK. All for normalising options outside the usual Leaving Cert rat race. Does nothing but stress students out.
That’s how the system is set up.
Teachers/guidance counselors almost force students to make a CAO. The toxicity around having to attend college right after you get out of school is something else, students who just get normal jobs are seen as unambitious losers.
Even when you do get your job employers treat you like shit, you’re treated as disposable. We can get anyone to do your job type shit.
I feel like this whole “culture of snobbery “ is over egged by those who would rather not have us fund third level education at all. FG would love a future where they can shrink third level education in favour of cheaper to run fas courses . Children of politicians will attend college whereas working class children will have their options limited .
I’ve final exams starting Monday for a Business degree I’m not sure I ever really wanted.
I just knew I needed to get a degree and I didn’t want to flop into Arts for the sake of getting a degree, I thought I’d get something a bit more employable..It’s been a waste of time, I’ve never opened a book and either scrapped exams or failed and scrapped the repeat(s).
I’ve been helping (read: doing) my sisters philosophy essays, I’ve done better in those than in exams that I actually attended lecturers for!
I don’t know what I’ll go at – construction trades weren’t for me – tried the electrician route hated that.I’d chance trim carpentry because my uncle does it and we get along, plus I’ve helped him out and enjoyed it.
Paramedic recruitment is on the go.
Don’t fancy the guards.
Prison Service is a good shout.
I also like cooking so I might chance my arm in a kitchen when I’m finished these bastard exams.
I wonder how many people are in the same boat as me?
Worse yet how many are stuck in adjoining career they hate because they just fell into the next step which is and has always been – ‘well you’ve worked hard for that degree so you’d better use it’
I have completed an apprenticeship and a degree in a related area subsequently. Personally I would love the opportunity to sit down with the minister to actually spell out what is required to really change this and I will give you a one pointer for free , don’t leave Solas near it if you want it done in a reasonable time frame.
1. There are tonnes more jobs that would benefit from more avenues to enter it than college only . There are loads of jobs where a hybrid model of 3 days on the job and 2 days in college each week would result in better employees and training.
2. Most if not all apprenticeships in this country suddenly end when you get your cert after completing it. This model is incorrect and terrible for all involved. You need direct accessible routes onwards to degrees , masters and PhDs available to the right candidates. I know carpenters in Germany who had direct routes to a master’s in building physics and are now completing PhDs around thermal modelling. This is how you get more people taking apprenticeships show them you have options to take them as far as they want to go. I did a degree that was directly related to my trade qualification and only got 1 module covered from a 4 year degree, that is not right on any level.
3. Have a plan for apprenticeships if there is another downturn . The amount of guys I know who had a few months or a year left to complete and had to leave their apprenticeship with no qualifications as the arse fell out of the industry and Solas took years to come up with a plan for them .
There’s an awful lot of Ironic snobbery towards the Arts and arts degrees in this thread.
I done one, ended up happily teaching and my band recently got signed. None of that would have been possible without honing my craft and doing the degree which led to greater confidence and meeting like minded people.
And I’ll say this: The Murder Capital, Bi Curious. Maria Kelly, Erica Cody, Thumper and Fontaine’s D.C would have ceased to existed without an arts degree and the extensive doors that they can offer.
Doing a trade is brilliant
But………………
The construction industry is very prone to boom/bust cycles and people need consistency.
We need rational house price growth over 2 percent P.A and an end to wreckless speculation in property. Again this could be pie in the sky for ireland
I know when I was leaving school in 2012 you would have meetings with a guidance counsellor and would always be college talk and never anything about the trades, this county is suffer from a shortage due to young adults being pushed into college when many might have been better off being directed towards a trade.
Something does need to change and start letting these kids know it’s okay to pursue a career that doesn’t involve you attending a course that’s already over saturated with let’s be real here average or uninterested students to fields that they think is the handy choice. The amount of people I work with that have degrees and not even working in the field they graduated from, it’s pointless.
Politicians have been making this point for many years, but they keep sending their own kids to university.
I’m in huge favour of ending the insistence on going to college straight out of school. I was so badly burned out from spending most of my life in full-time education I had a complete meltdown in my mid-20s. We should encourage people to take a year or two off, go travel, work part-time, maybe study part-time, apprentice at so-called “low skill jobs” that we’re in dire need of now, and see what the rest of the world has to offer outside of constant school and academia.
Obviously we’ll need to change society as well to provide jobs and courses to fit that ideal. Little steps. Warping the CAO is a good start.
This is very true , when I was in secondary it was all go to college , if you can’t get in with your leaving go do a plc for two years so that you can go do 4 more years in college.
I took the advice and went straight from my leaving to DIT to do electrical engineering, but hated it by second year ,.dropped out and after a year or two of floating doing nothing working in a shop I picked up a trade , 4th year apprentice sparks now and I love every second of it.
Of you tell everyone to get a desk job , who’s going to build the desks ? Supply and demand market on my wages is looking great as the older lads start to retire and my generation has been pushed for college for everything. FFG or who ever is in power really needs to up the funding for SOLAS if there is any hope in pumping out trades people , the waiting time for college sections of the course is a joke , even before COVID added to the list
Harris is a bollix.
I’ve fucked up a load of times in life but nothing was like the level of abuse I got from my family when I dropped out of college and didn’t go to University. It’s so frustrating and never goes away, the sooner it’s gone the better.
Third Level Education at this very moment is not worth the cost and is blowing money away.
1. Cost of accommodation is on par to professional accommodation but often has reduced amenities and quality.
2. Fees are some of the most expensive in Europe.
3. Most lecture staff are on precarious contract meaning they struggle financially which impacts the quality of teaching.
4. Most lectures provide no practical or meaningful purpose beyond discussion within the lecture.
Just to touch on point 3. Most lecturers are part-time short term contracts. Meaning some lecture staff have to renew their contracts every single year. This makes career stability and progression difficult.
Further, most lecture staff are also researchers. However, they are paid to teach not research, yet research is used to acquire a full-time position. Therefore they will often sacrifice hours paid for preparing teaching material so that they can conduct scientific research in the hope to publish research to attain a higher chance of securing fulltime employment.
Think of this, a non-permanent full hour contract lecturer makes 35 grand a year, that’s someone with a PhD making only 35 grand a year!, yet if they manage to get a permanent position they immediately get 55 grand a year, a 20 grand bump… This discourages universities from employing permanent lecture staff and also encourages them to offload some of the work on unpaid PhD students.
Therefore, you could be paying thousands of euros to attend a course that could be taught by non-permanent low-paid workers or worst, unpaid workers who are struggling to pay bills while also having to work practically a second unpaid job to do research in the hopes they can get a publication accepted to increase their chance of employability.
Instead of hiring permanent teaching staff, universities are building unnecessary buildings they can advertise to international students as being “high tech”, hiring more admin staff to run projects that only involves and is participated by the smallest minority of students that often come from upper-class families so to win some bullshit award and increase alumni donations, or to introduce some random woke initiative no one asked for or needs but will cost the university hundreds of thousands in expenses while taking money away from departments and library resources because it’s more marketable..
Ireland needs to move to vocational training similar to Germany, learning in class and working closely with companies to keep the curriculum up to date.
I think there is also a lot of ‘reverse snobbery’ in Ireland. People say you’ve notions if you do something academic or such.
Always thought it insane that a 17 yr old could know what they want for their future, many of these kids cant even vote yet we expect them to just know whats best for their future?
The ‘culture of snobbery’ comes directly from the fact that exhorbitant fees have to be paid. If Daddy is rich you can go to 3rd Level – if not, well you get the idea.
It takes over 5 years now to get a level 6 if you want to be a plumber/ electrician. You can get a level 8 in half the time.
It’s interesting that Harris dropped out in first year to go into politics, yet he never corrects people when they say he has a degree in journalism. If you’re talking about ending snobbery, maybe you start with yourself and say “actually, I didn’t get a degree and I still think I’m doing a good job. Degrees aren’t necessary for many jobs.”
Its true that this idea that third level is an extension of education rather than a dedicated way to get into a career needs to stop. The course I took should have absolutely been a trade and didn’t require a degree and 3 years of theory. All the jobs I wanted required practical hands on skills that you don’t learn by reading books. Barely anyone who finished the course got work, yet people who had left school, done apprenticeships or even a skilled certification were able to get in even if they were in a tangential field simply because they knew how to use their hands.
And it also leads to grade inflation. As if we don’t have enough inflation as it is in this country, but then employers are looking for a masters now rather than bachelors degrees and even the paper you worked for 3-4 years to earn is as useful as toilet paper to some people. Education loses all value when its just another step and not a real choice and career path.
Most degrees aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on.
Not that the education was wasted, but because of saturation.
We used to go to college to get a leg up, now it’s just to keep up.
If you need something just to stay on par, it’s not really worth anything.
I don’t know how there can be snobbery when so many people have the same college degree from Irish colleges that deal with students in conveyor belt possess( mass produced qualified) , because it became the new leaving cert even Trinity won’t guarantee you a job at the end of term.
The saturation of people with college degrees has made the degree itself worth a lot less compared to 20 years ago, it’s the reason why Ireland probably has the highest educated unemployed.
I don’t believe everyone is owed a higher level education, and I do believe that the looking down on trades is absolutely moronic considering I would say trades men make way more money due to the decline in apprentices, because college is advertised as the only way to live a affluent life when it’s just not true there are plenty of options over wastes money and time going to college.
I was told by my school counsellor to take whatever course I was offered, even if I didn’t like it. Worst decision I ever made tbh, left me depressed and suicidal.