The Hospitality Management Anecdote
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I use this anecdote from my own life quite often but do not have it anywhere to reference it, so I am adding it here as I feel that it is one of those really important stories that highlights "the cost of list opportunity" that can happen with university.
When I was about twenty I took a job working the overnight shift at a hotel. This was a great job because it was steady, paid a small premium (maybe one dollar per hour) over the normal desk clerk job because the shift was completely alone (ergo I was the overnight manager technically), it required doing the accounting and it was overnight. But in reality it was normally the quietest of the available shifts but it did require slightly more expertise than, say, the morning shift where you did no accounting and nealry always had someone there to assist with things.
I took the job purely as a way to pay the bills and loved that it left me free to do other things during the day, which I leveraged at first to be a struggling, but working, musician and later to start working IT short term jobs as they became available while paying the bills with something steady at night. It was not a career, it was just a job.
At the same time, I had many friends attending the local college (right across the street) who were studying hospitality management. Their goals, quite often, were to become hotel managers and felt that going to college was their path to that career. It takes, roughly, four years to get a degree in hospitality management if you attend full time and do not miss any classes. Those truly ambitious could speed that up and commonly it takes a little longer. But four years is common.
I did not do this alone, my roommate at the time was @AndyW and he worked at the same hotel that I did doing the opposite night's audit (we had some non-overnight shifts to fill in the gaps.) This is a handy way to work with a roommate because you often get twice the house because you work opposite shifts so overlap relatively little.
It took about eighteen months working at the hotel before both @AndyW and I were offered assistant manager positions. Just one and a half years. We both turned the offer down because the hotel was not a career for us but truly just a job until we made a break into IT (or music, we had a techno band!) We discussed it and knew that if we took the full manager position that we would start to feel locked in and making the jump to IT would involve too much pay cut and we likely would not do it. It worked out great for us, but my point is elsewhere.
The point here is that getting an entry point position in a hotel was easy. Hotels often struggle to fill these positions and turnover is high. From day one at the hotel we both had "overnight manager" to put on our resumes. Not very impressive, but not "desk clerk" either. In eighteen months, had we chosen, we were already being offered full time, day time, assistant manager jobs for the chain which is second in command to the general manager. My estimation is that without relocating I could have been in the position to be offered a general manager position in about two more years and if I had been willing to relocate anywhere for the position a bit less. That's all an assumption, but I was on the path to general manager very quickly. And had no college background to show for it.
My point here is that while this was happening, my friends who had their sights set on a career in hospitality were in college paying to be taught how to do the job I was already doing. Because they were done with their sophomore year, I was already at the full manager level. Chances are, I could have had my own hotel before they would have graduated.
And I did not start working in a hotel until I was twenty. Had hospitality management been a career goal I could easily have started doing some hotel work when I was sixteen, maybe younger and been a desk clerk the day I graduated high school and had even more jump on the people attending college. Coaching someone interested in hotels as a career from age fifteen, I could see someone being a general manager by twenty one with a solid background ready to propel them forward from there very quickly - a solid foundation.
The degree to which I had a head start over the college kids was amazing. I stumbled, entirely by accident, into their career goal before they had prepared themselves for their career start. And instead of paying money to a college and going into debt, I was making a respectable, if low, income during that time. I lived a comfortable life and enjoyed by job and used the free time that it gave me to train myself in another career field. I managed to build three careers (hospitality, musician and IT) all while skipping college and all of them past the point of the expectations of a college graduate's starting point - all while having misstepped as a late teen and getting a late start on my career path. Had I had any focus or had planned at all before being an adult I could have been much, much farther ahead still.
This is simply an anecdote, but an important one. So often college students, college grads or parents of students love to claim that there is no path into a field except through a college. And sometimes (doctors, lawyers, teachers in some states, pharmacists, etc.) this is true because of government regulations, but for most careers it is not true. It is repeated so much and so commonly accepted that people think it is acceptable to repeat. But examples exist over and over in many fields where alternatives don't just exist but are often very easy to execute - mostly because so few people bother to take advantage of them.
Hospitality management is a dramatic example where four year college grads are often looking to get the same entry level jobs as high school grads. The common belief is that only those with degrees get those jobs, but this is not true. Sure, those with degrees get top pick, normally, but those without degrees can, in theory, start picking many years earlier and build a career more quickly and be very far ahead.
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What a load of rubbish.
The very idea that hard work and effort can outweigh a degree is insulting and is typical of someone who clearly never went to college. I shall shake my fist you! the sheer level of ignorance that only a non-degree individual can have
Seen the above attitude quite a bit, I then sit back and revel at how happy I am to be debt free, doing what I love and have a path to where I want to go that is not dependant on a piece of paper.
Really helpful write-up, I guess if anyone else needs convincing just google "Is college worth it"
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I had a kid come into my retail job the other day who said he was going to be going to college for networking/IT. I think I might have possibly offended the mother some when I told him that a college degree in IT was, in essence, a waste of time and to go for business if he wanted to go to college and be in IT. I explained how academic IT training was often well behind the current curve and even a lot of the foundation stuff they teach you isn't really relevant. I told him if he wanted to learn, build a lab and start playing. I could tell this was a kid who wanted to "get into IT" but really had no clue how to proceed. I know most of the stuff I told him will go unheeded, but if he does indeed get into IT, he might look back and see that this retail tech actually knew what he was talking about. I also encouraged him to start building an online presence and to get his name out there.
The point, though, about how you "need" college to be successful in $career_field_of_choice is generally ludicrous. Unless, like @scottalanmiller said, you are going for accounting, law, medicine or education, you generally can do just as well or BETTER without a degree than with one.
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I've met many people who feel that getting a degree is more important than having a job. This is a big thing that has to be considered. I've managed to get parents to actually say it: that they would rather their children be homeless, jobless graduates than rich, successful non-grads. People really suffer from not understanding goals.
It comes from, I believe, a form of compression in the brain. People hear "you need a degree to...." so their brain removes all of the context, logic, foundation, etc. and condenses this to "you need a degree." Much how when Microsoft told us to use RAID 5 in the 1990s they explained when and why and gave details to explain when this would change. But people didn't retain all of that foundational information and logic and condensed the recommendation to "use RAID 5." This creates all kinds of problems, especially when the factors that make RAID 5 or college make sense.
In the 1960s, if you wanted to become a programmer, college was the only way to get access to a computer. In the 1950s, if you wanted to be a rocket scientist, college was the only way to get access to the necessary labs and gear. But that stuff has changed.
By the 2000s, not only was college not the only way to get access to IT knowledge and gear, it was actually the worst place to get it. But people forgot why college was important and just retained the incorrect rote knowledge hoping that they wouldn't have to think critically.
High schools have taught us to memorize "facts" that we hope turn out to be correct rather than to understand the logic and be able to reconstruct the reasoning on our own.
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I went to a small college in upstate NY. Thankfully it was part of the SUNY system so between being in-state and living at home expenses were minimal. I was part of their IT/Networking programming. What a waste of time... I ended up teaching or tutoring most classes (behind many professor's backs as they didn't generally approve). My grades weren't the greatest, mostly because I was bored in 99% of classes, including the non-technical ones. The only two classes that I was glad I attended were Anthropology and Human Evolution 2 (got a pass from the intro course after speaking with the professor) and Economics, both were very interesting experiences that exposed me to a lot of information I wouldn't have sought out myself.
Was the expense worth those two classes? No not at all, could I have gotten the same knowledge and experience interning at a business? Yep probably a lot more, would have made some better business contacts as well. If I could go back would I do it the same? Nope, would have gone right to work.
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As a parent of an almost able to head to college teenager. This is a discussion we have had for years in our house. College is not a necessary thing. You can teach yourself and work towards your goal.
Now I do know that @Mike-Ralston is pretty lucky in that he has been able to intern for NTG for a few years now and is getting valuable work experience even if this isn't the field he decides to land in. Most high school students at the age of 17 are still having fun and have no responsibilities. Mike will be able to honestly say he has worked in a true IT environment and has worked in Enterprise level IT environments before he turned 17.
But if teens were taught that they should take initiative from the beginning more would be productive members of society before they hit 18 and not waiting for College to hand them a job at the end (which we all know doesn't happen) and if they have no real experience in their field they aren't going to get a job anyway. I have spoken to so many College Grads that have no job experience at all (never worked) and went to college for their dream job, that there are no jobs in, and spent $80K to do it.
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@Minion-Queen said:
I have spoken to so many College Grads that have no job experience at all (never worked) and went to college for their dream job, that there are no jobs in, and spent $80K to do it.
Who then, likely, lack the experience and skills necessary to excel even at very basic jobs like hotels, restaurants or whatever. There are so many jobs out there for people who can't land their rare, dream job but people who blow all of their youth dreaming of that dream job rather than preparing to be a good worker are at a major disadvantage. I started working on a farm as a kid and in a business the moment I could at sixteen and have worked solidly, without a break, ever since. I had tons of just basic "work" experience before graduating high school. I learned far more from working at restaurants, nursing homes, hotels, grocery stores, etc. than I ever did in school. People who go to college instead of working skip all of that learning.
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Yes they do. They also lack basic real world communication skills as well. Despite what schools want you to believe. You will not be working with people your own age with shared life experience once you leave school
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@Minion-Queen said:
Yes they do. They also lack basic real world communication skills as well. Despite what schools want you to believe. You will not be working with people your own age with shared life experience once you leave school
.As Paul Graham pointed out in "Hackers and Painters", schools prepare students to be treated as criminals and to operate like "The Lord of the Flies" without insight and supervision and then dumps them, without any warning, into a word where behaving like you are in school is completely unacceptable.
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Many people mention, since we home school, the shared life experience thing. Because to people working in small towns often everyone did go to the same school and share a lot of that experience. But the moment I hit professional work environments I learned that I had a shared life experience with no one. No one else grew up on a farm, no one else went to a public high school, no one else did.... much of anything that I did even though I did what everyone in Upstate NY did - or so we were led to believe.
I worked with people who grew up all over the world, traveled, homeschooled, private schooled, government schooled, went to university, didn't go to university, you name it. The experiences were so varied that it gave lots of good perspective but the one thing that never existed was the massive "shared life experience" thing that people like to promote so strongly.
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As a former homeschooler we got questioned on Socialization all the time. Because a homeschooler obviously wasn't providing proper socializing outlets. Umm yeah right. Because going out in public and not being rude to the cashier and carrying on conversations with random adults isn't socializing apparently.
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I am convinced that one could get an arguably better education on YouTube than at college, with the proper level of self-motivation. As with the availability of computers themselves, hi-tech equipment in general, and all of that, the ease of access to limitless information is unparalleled. It's mind-blowing, when you actually sit and think about it. When I was in high school (not that long ago, in all reality), we didn't have cell phones, let alone smart phones. The "internet", aka "cyberspace" was something you read about it Popular Science, and our computer lab had Apple II-GS desktops. You had to know how to use a card catalog, an atlas, and a phone book. Today, in stark contrast, we carry a handheld device that has instant access to the entire compendium of human knowledge, spanning the spectrum of recorded history (which we use to argue with strangers and look at cat pictures). I don't think college was ever the necessity it has been drummed-up to be, but anymore, the "college or bust" mantra is little more than job security for the edu-crats. Of course, all of this is not to say that I want doctors to be "YouTube grads", so please understand the context, as explained in the OP.
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@art_of_shred said:
When I was in high school (not that long ago, in all reality), we didn't have cell phones....
Well, it actually was VERY long ago, old man. But if you remember, I actually did have a cell phone!!
But I was the only one.
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@art_of_shred said:
The "internet", aka "cyberspace" was something you read about it Popular Science.....
Popular Science was the one that constantly called it the "Information Superhighway". OMG I can't believe that kids today have never heard that term. It was so common back then.
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Oh I feel so young reading these comments...
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@art_of_shred said:
...and our computer lab had Apple II-GS desktops.
Not primarily, only one of two. The bulk of the lab (except for the CAD classes) were Apple IIe, not GS, until our senior year when they put in the black and white Macs. We never used the Macs because we were done with classes by that point but that last year they existed. I only know or remember this because I had to write my senior thesis in that lab and I remember doing it on a Mac. That was at the end of the year so maybe they put the Macs in during the winter break and not at the beginning of the year. There were no networks then, except for the printer connections, so revamping the lab could be done basically overnight.
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This discussion reminds me of the Higher Education Bubble hypothesis, interesting read.
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@art_of_shred said:
I don't think college was ever the necessity it has been drummed-up to be.....
I think that it used to be more of a barrier to fewer jobs, if that makes sense. Jobs that today are not barred by college (scientist, non-civil engineer, programmer) used to be effectively college-only. But most jobs (even teaching) had zero college requirements and going to college would have seemed crazy. So I think that those programs for which college was designed were more controlled by it, but the vast majority of people would never have considered college.
Today, very few careers are really governed by college (nearly all through government regulation and not economic reasons) but the majority of people go to college anyway.
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...and by "cell phone" you mean "bag phone". Not exactly the same thing, and I don't recall it having Google Earth, either. I don't think I stepped foot in the computer lab during my senior year, unless that was when I took Keyboarding, but I think that was Junior year. I remember using a GS for that class. Ah yes, the Information Super-highway...
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Minion-Queen said:
I have spoken to so many College Grads that have no job experience at all (never worked) and went to college for their dream job, that there are no jobs in, and spent $80K to do it.
Who then, likely, lack the experience and skills necessary to excel even at very basic jobs like hotels, restaurants or whatever. There are so many jobs out there for people who can't land their rare, dream job but people who blow all of their youth dreaming of that dream job rather than preparing to be a good worker are at a major disadvantage. I started working on a farm as a kid and in a business the moment I could at sixteen and have worked solidly, without a break, ever since. I had tons of just basic "work" experience before graduating high school. I learned far more from working at restaurants, nursing homes, hotels, grocery stores, etc. than I ever did in school. People who go to college instead of working skip all of that learning.
The other issue is that college doesn't teach you a lot of lessons that you will learn FOR A GUARANTEE at that job at the grocery store, in retail, etc. Basic customer service skills, basic human interaction skills, even basics like making change, all can be learned at pretty much any entry level job, and it's amazing how the principles you learn from those skills carry over into a more professional environment. The fundamental lessons you learn are crucial for success in a professional environment, but often can't really be learned in that environment. So many people bypass all these crucial skills because these jobs are "beneath them" and then wonder why people who did those jobs are getting ahead and taking the jobs they worked for years at college to get. I've said to many people for years that someone who knows their ****, doesn't have the piece of paper and is willing to work hard will always get farther ahead in their career than the person who thinks that having a piece of paper with their name on it and some degree is a free-ride ticket. That's basically what kids are told in schools nowadays, is that college is a free-ride ticket. You get the degree, the rest will take care of itself, and it's just not true.
