Well as we all know, times are changing; especially in the sense of how university is related to getting (or not getting) a job.

Not sure how many people have heard of or watch Doc Zone on CBC, but I think everyone between 16 and 28 should tune into the episode on January 31st. I posted the preview link. I'm sure everyone has their own thoughts and opinions on the topic, but regardless, it seems like it will be very insightful

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdqD9C692_Y

http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=...ture=endscreen

That looks... thoroughly depressing.

I posted this same message in another thread, but I'll regurgitate my thoughts once again here:

University in itself is not about skill training towards a specific job. Most of the university graduates that I know are in some kind of graduate-professional school or working in specific industries that don't require education and really don't pay much either...like a waiter/waitress or call center type work.

Assuming you went into university for the right reasons, you went to help increase your knowledge about the world around you and become a more critical thinker. Most university programs don't lead to specific jobs and that's the way it always has been. If you wanted to obtain a job right away you should have gone to college for that because that's what many colleges specialize in - specific job skill training in very specific industries.

Don't take jobs, make jobs!


None of the groups the second video mentioned determine public policy, thought that was sort of funny.

I think college has an undeserved negative stigma, there are a lot of perfectly good jobs that come from college degrees, and if I was interesting in one of those, I would have went to college. I think one problem is that people come to university without knowing what they are going to do, and then when they get here they think they find what they are going to do, but really they just find their major, which is not the same thing.

We are also often told, "Do what you love" and told not to worry about money. However, if there were literally no jobs in the world for "what you love", then getting a degree wouldn't make you any closer to having that job. So even if you aren't worried about money you should still think about the demand, and if there is any. And if there is none, and you end up working in an unrelated field, then it sort of looks like you walked into it.

Baby boomers are to blame.

Originally Posted by Chris23

the only thing college teaches you is the handson skills needed to dump fries into the deepfryer, and ask if they want to supersize their meal. But being in first year, you must have a plethora of knowledge that far supersedes the rest of ours. i guess you are now going to tell me i should drop out of engineering here at mac in my final year and go to a college program for eng.. because we all know that college graduates in engineering programs can become professional engineers..... oh wait... NO THEY CANT

That's a bit different because engineering is a professional program...like nursing or medicine or pharmacy or optometry or anything else, it's university education that trains you for a specific profession.

I believe the poster was referring to non-professional programs...that would get you a BSc or BA or whatever.

Originally Posted by Chris23

the only thing college teaches you is the handson skills needed to dump fries into the deepfryer, and ask if they want to supersize their meal. But being in first year, you must have a plethora of knowledge that far supersedes the rest of ours. i guess you are now going to tell me i should drop out of engineering here at mac in my final year and go to a college program for eng.. because we all know that college graduates in engineering programs can become professional engineers..... oh wait... NO THEY CANT

That was exactly the mentality that was directed to me and my classmates back in high school, but I'm finding now that it couldn't be more wrong.

I came to university under the notion that it would lead to a better career than going to college or the trades; it's what all my teachers were telling me. However, I have friends who have graduated and I can name about 3 of 20 or so who actually have jobs (1 whose job is related to what he's studied)

A more common trend is that after university, students are attending college or going into the trades, something they could have done right out of highschool, all because they can't get jobs with just a degree.

I'm in my final year, so I'm gonna stick it out, but personally I regret going to University instead of the trades 100%

I'm lucky though: the summer job I managed to get 2 years ago has been leading me to the career I want. Unfortunately, I still need to get a bachelor of science for the CHANCE of getting a full time job, but it has nothing to do with chemistry at all so all the information I'm learning is pointless.

Some of those college 'engineering technology' programs aren't really considered a joke you know...you can make some pretty darn good money coming out of them.

For instance, I know for a fact that Ontario Hydro and other utilities pay electrical technologists higher than the engineers. Why, you ask? Engineers are considered part of 'management', thus don't get paid any overtime. Technologists are in the non-management category and are considered unionized...thus they get paid 1.5x of their set wage (which is usually somewhere in the line of $35-40 an hour). That's pretty amazing money imo.

Not to mention that most engineering jobs in Canada are not 'rocket science', thus anybody can do them. Why hire an expensive engineer when a company can hire a technologist for half the price?

Even for my own program that I'm in...these are skills that can be learned in college. There really is not a difference between radiography at a university vs a college...they both are going to give you the same work credentials.

OP, chances are you're a very smart person to have majored in Chemistry and to have come this far...it also takes a lot of guts to admit something that others are clearly biased about...Anyways I wish you the best of luck in the future. It's stated that people change careers 5-10 times in their lifetimes.

I think one of the huge barriers to college is the idea that people who go to college aren't "smart" enough for university. A large part of that is the way the high school system is set up. It starts off applied vs academic, and then splits into workplace, college, mixed and university prep. In grade 8 you're told that the kids with high marks (aka the "smart" kids) do academic and the kids with low marks ("dumb" kids) take applied. Then, kids who were in the applied stream are pushed to workplace courses (if they have really low marks), college (if they have decent marks) and maybe a few with really high marks in applied would take mixed courses. Kids who were in the academic stream take university and mixed courses almost exclusively.

One of the commercials on TV has an Asian daughter and mother talking about how glad they are that they "discovered college" as an alternative to university. They aren't Asian by accident...it plays into the stereotype about Asian parents putting a lot of pressure on their kids to do well and go to university, with anything less being considered a failure. The stereotype may be for Asian people, but that attitude is ubiquitous. People have a much easier time saying in theory that people who go to college aren't dumb (different but equal intelligence/ways of learning/whatever), but when it comes to whether or not they'd actually consider college, many people wouldn't.

I think you have to be pretty darn smart to take up trades...usually the people in that line of work are very handy and mechanically saavy. They aren't for the dumb at all imo.

There are only a couple programs at Mac that I can think of that lead directly to a job...and those are professional programs. Even a business degree I would label as fairly generic and no different to any other arts degree (accounting excluded) but I'm sure many would disagree with me here...

Originally Posted by mastercool

Some of those college 'engineering technology' programs aren't really considered a joke you know...you can make some pretty darn good money coming out of them.

For instance, I know for a fact that Ontario Hydro and other utilities pay electrical technologists higher than the engineers. Why, you ask? Engineers are considered part of 'management', thus don't get paid any overtime. Technologists are in the non-management category and are considered unionized...thus they get paid 1.5x of their set wage (which is usually somewhere in the line of $35-40 an hour). That's pretty amazing money imo.

Not to mention that most engineering jobs in Canada are not 'rocket science', thus anybody can do them. Why hire an expensive engineer when a company can hire a technologist for half the price?

Even for my own program that I'm in...these are skills that can be learned in college. There really is not a difference between radiography at a university vs a college...they both are going to give you the same work credentials.

OP, chances are you're a very smart person to have majored in Chemistry and to have come this far...it also takes a lot of guts to admit something that others are clearly biased about...Anyways I wish you the best of luck in the future. It's stated that people change careers 5-10 times in their lifetimes.

Question then. Why go to university then in your case if you can get the same work credentials from college, save time, and money?

Originally Posted by herBs

Question then. Why go to university then in your case if you can get the same work credentials from college, save time, and money?

I'm actually from out of province...the college in my home province has a 4 year wait-list just to get into said-program...if that wasn't the case I wouldn't even be at Mac

I just want to reiterate that I'm not trying to discourage anyone or "attack" university.
It takes a lot of hard work and dedication to get into university and to succeed.

I'm just hoping that everyone who reads this thread will tell their friends about the episode. The worst thing is to be mislead or expect an outcome that isn't a reality. If I had been informed earlier, I would have made a different choice, but since I wasn't, I'm modifying my current plan.

Awareness of the reality post-university will lessen the anger and feeling of betrayal if the promises we were told don't come true.