Bloomberg To HS Grads: Be a Plumber

An anonymous reader writes "This being college graduation season, the insights provided by commencement speakers should be familiar by now: find work in a field you're passionate about, don't underestimate your own abilities, aim high, learn to communicate and collaborate with others, give something back to your community. Billionaire Mike Bloomberg, whose current job is Mayor of New York City, evidently decided to break the mold by advising less academically adept youngsters to consider a career in plumbing. High wages, constant demand, no offshore competition. 'Compare a plumber to going to Harvard College — being a plumber, actually for the average person, probably would be a better deal'. Ouch! And hey, like a lawyer, a plumber can always dabble in politics."

Comments

Not actually a bad idea.

[GlennC]

As much as we need competent programmers, DBAs, network administrators, etc., we also need plumbers, carpenters and electricians. Not everyone has the talent or desire for college, and I think we as a society ought to recognize that. Of course, that means less income for colleges and bankers providing student loans, so I'm not surprised that this is being billed as a radical idea.

Re:Not actually a bad idea.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not everyone has the talent or desire for college

This right here is what needs to stop: just because you're a plumber, or a carpenter, or an electrician, doesn't mean you're dumb. Likewise, going to college doesn't mean you're smart.

People need to stop looking down on blue collar jobs, and stop treating "going to college" as the highest honor they can bestow upon on themselves. There are way, way, way too many people going to college and doing pointless and ultimately useless degrees. Hell, there are way too many people going to college and doing things like CS degrees who couldn't code their way out of a paper bag.

We need to get back to the idea that learning blue collar work is just as socially acceptable as white collar. We need to get away from the idea that you must go to college and get a degree or you're a "failure". We should bring back real apprenticeships; for blue and white collar workers.

Re:Not actually a bad idea.

[gstovall]

:) With only a few exceptions, the best software designers I've worked have degrees in engineering, physics, or mathematics. It drives the people with C.S. degrees nuts. :)

Re:Not actually a bad idea.

[bonehead]

Heh... I spent 3 1/2 years at a 2 year business school studying programming. Yeah, I partied a bit more than I probably should have. Never did bother to finish up those last 3 classes and get my degree, since I found a good job, which was the goal I had in mind in the first place.

Since then I've had a mostly successful career in IT. I say "mostly" because things got pretty rough these past few years during the recession, but I'm back on track now and making more than I ever have. During my career, I haven't used *one single thing* that I learned in college. Everything I've done that I actually got paid for has been self-taught. In fact, in my current role as a Linux sysadmin for a very large ISP, I spend all day working with things that didn't even exist until I had been out of college for a good 7 years. Even the coding I do, and I do plenty, doesn't benefit much from my programming classes. Aside from bash scripts, everything I write is OO, and that was only just starting to be talked about when I was in school. C++ didn't start getting taken seriously until several years after I was done.

Never, not even once, in over 25 years, has my lack of a college degree even been mentioned in a job interview.

College is valuable (potentially) in only 3 ways:
    1.) To get your foot in the door for that first job. IMHO, getting that first job without a degree may be a lot of work, but far less work (and far cheaper) than a degree.
    2.) To prove to people of a certain mindset that you "can play the game". It's proof that you can jump through hoops, even when they're ridiculous.
    3.) The social aspect. This is the most valuable part. You have 4 years to start building your "network".

It has nothing to do with showing that you can do a job, because college does NOT prepare you to do "real world" work. For the most part, it doesn't even teach you useful skills. Maybe a few "general concepts" that you can apply, but that's about it.

Know what you want to do, and plan accordingly

[Nidi62]

If you love working on cars and want to be a mechanic, you don't go to college for engineering, you go to trade school and get certified. If you want to work on planes, you go get your A&P, you don't get a degree in aeronautical engineering. We need people to fix our cars, unclog our pipes, weld stuff, etc. These jobs aren't glamorous, but they are stable, pay much better than you think, and can be obtained by attending a much cheaper trade school than going to a university. I currently work part-time doing unskilled labor, and one guy I work with, after only being there 7 years, makes over 70k a year working no more overtime than many salaried employees. When he tops out in 3 more years he will probably be making close to, if not more than $100k. And this is in a job that requires no more than a high school diploma.

Re:Skils || Trades == Jobs

[KernelMuncher]

A friend of the family was somewhat distraught when her son skipped college after HS and took a welding job. He was living the redneck life with a big pickup, wore a hardhat to work every day, etc. The years go by and this man goes from being an apprentice to a master welder. Then he decided to form his own welding crew with some coworkers from jobs he'd had from various jobs. Now the guy who everybody said was taking the wrong path owns his own business and makes absolutely gobs of $$. True story.

Re:Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

Which highlights another good reason to be a plumber. Everyone understands why the job is necessary but nobody wants to do it. Which is pretty much the exact opposite of IT.

Re:You might think your plumber makes big bucks

[SerpentMage]

Did you read his comments? He was not saying that everybody becomes a plumber, but that those who are not as academically adept should. I think he is right. If you don't have the grades and you seek a higher education job then most likely you will get a crap job with a big loan, with bs money. However, you could become an awesome plumber and that work cannot be outsourced. It is not a bad idea IMO! The trades are rated too low in America. Guess where trade skills are rately highely? Oh yeah GERMANY! Guess which economy is doing really well? Oh yeah GERMANY...

Re:Really?

[Pecisk]

"Which highlights another good reason to be a plumber. Everyone understands why the job is necessary but nobody wants to do it. Which is pretty much the exact opposite of IT."

Not exactly true. I am about to finish my very late (in age of 33) BSc in CS. Guess how many students (in percentage) choose to learn high level sysadmining or hardware engineering? Yeah, maybe 10% to each (or even less). Sysadmins sometimes have it worst than plumbers. In result, there are very few of them. Hardware engineering is fun, but also much harder than software engineering.