<p>[Revalorizing</a> the Trades - The Chronicle Review - The Chronicle of Higher Education](<a href=“http://chronicle.com/article/Revalorizing-the-Trades/124130/]Revalorizing”>http://chronicle.com/article/Revalorizing-the-Trades/124130/)</p>
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<p>What a pretentious fool Camille Paglia is. Her cartoonish vision of what education is like at so-called “elite schools” bears no resemblance whatsoever to my son’s experience, or to the experience of anyone else I’m familiar with.</p>
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<p>God forbid there will be copies of her :eek: Oops, my bad. Never heard of the University of the Arts. Must be one of 'em non-elite schools. /sarcasm.</p>
<p>I don’t listen to anything Paglia says. </p>
<p>D knows someone who attends that school, btw.</p>
<p>Seems like there are a lot of prestigious degree holders with menial or no jobs these days. In fact there’s an entire thread here devoted to it.</p>
<p>So does anyone want to address the content of the article or just continue to attack the author?</p>
<p>Content? What content?</p>
<p>If we want to talk about trades, how about discussing the latest report by Manpower, Inc.? That one. Or this:</p>
<p>[Construction</a> Trades and Related Workers](<a href=“http://www.bls.gov/oco/oco1009.htm]Construction”>http://www.bls.gov/oco/oco1009.htm)</p>
<p>When the author holds her own education as superior to the one students recieve today, it’s entirely fair to consider the author herself. “Broad perspective” and “profound erudite” are not phrases that spring to mind when I consider this author.</p>
<p>As for the article, am I to take seriously an author who takes journalism majors to task for being unfit for today’s economic realities while promoting the “ceramicists, weavers…” that are lucky enough to be in her immediate sphere? </p>
<p>I agree with her points about the trades. As is her signature style, she is unable to make a valid point without basking in her own loving glow.</p>
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<p>While my 20-something college grads/seniors are low on the ladder, at least there’s a ladder. And when I ask them updates on their rural h.s. classmates who never went to college, they report their working-class friends live at home on couches, UNmarried with children or divorced, juggling Walmart and other $10/hr, no-insurance, 35-hr/week jobs with their underemployed parents at nearby malls. Best off are those who went military. It’s not a pretty or easy picture in blue collar land, either. </p>
<p>Maybe their working-class friends should bring home rafia from the Walmart crafts section and start basketweaving in Puglia’s classes and get their Zen on. Oh but they can’t; no daycare at the trade colleges.</p>
<p>I just don’t see how it serves anyone to belittle college graduates in a terrible economy by writing lyrically about the options their working-class agemates enjoy. I realize my report here is merely anecdotal from my own kids’ friends, not based on broad data.</p>
<p>Paying3tuitions,
I agree that romanticizing the trades is not helpful either. In our town, we are lucky enough to have the oil industry. There is a trade school that is collectively paid for by oil companies that need skilled workers. They start out rather low paid but once they complete their on the job training, it’s good paying work with benefits.</p>
<p>However, it’s also physically demanding and dangerous. One of my cousins is an underwater welder. He makes a very good living doing work he enjoys but, again, the wear and tear on his body has made his body far older than his actual age and the work conditions are risky. Just like in the military.</p>
<p>I can understand doing work that one enjoys, makes a person proud or just pays the bills across all sorts of colors of collars but why the “zen” line and the degregation of other lines of work? She’s hardly a working-class hero herself.</p>
<p>I dunno. Son at Harvard says a gazillion kids who go there intending to major in physics or chemistry end up bailing to the ubiquitous government (aka poly sci) major very quickly. This was not so long ago a ticket to Wall Street or Consulting if the gpa was reasonable and you had a beating heart in an interview. Not so nowadays.</p>