The Education vs Employment Myth - Getting an Education

There are lots of studies that show the direct correlation to the level of education a person receives and their income after they leave college. These figures have fueled the myth that you can't get a good job unless you have an education. Therefore, people have drawn these obvious conclusions:

• If you go to college it will guarantee you a great job.
• Any cost required to get a college degree is worth it.
• No one can go to college without scholarships or loans.
• I'm not a genius, so I need loans to go to college.
• College education should be free to everyone, especially minorities.
• If you don't go to college you will always be poor.

While there is a little bit of truth in each of these points, they are mostly wrong.

• Going to college will not guarantee you a good job. We all know many people who graduate with a degree, but then can never find a job in their field and end up working at a position that doesn't even require a degree.
• If you think that any cost for college is worth it, you don't understand basic economics. If you have $50,000 - $100,000 in college debt, paying this off is nearly equal to buying a new home, but it can prevent you from qualifying for a home loan. You can have payments of $300 - $800 per month for the next 20 years. The payments are higher if you pay it off sooner. Incurring $100,000 in debt to obtain a $20,000 - $50,000 job is not a wise financial move.
• Anyone can go to college without scholarships or loans. Having a degree from State Universities or most community colleges is as good as a degree from Harvard or Yale to qualify for a job for most people. Attending a cheaper college and working an outside job will put most people through school.
• You don't need to be a genius to get a scholarship. There are millions of dollars of scholarships that go unclaimed every year. We all know about Rhodes Scholars, Football and Basketball Scholarships, as well as Academic Scholarships, but there are hundreds more that don't require an IQ of 200 or the physic of Wolverine.
• The site, Scholarships.com, lists many, many scholarships that nearly anyone can qualify for. There are:
• Community Service Scholarships
• Legacy Scholarships
• First in Family Scholarships
• Military Scholarships
• Scholarships for Average Students
• Scholarships for Men
• Scholarships for Moms
• Even Weird Scholarships
• There are also grants available for a variety of students for a variety of qualifications.
• There is a cost for everything. Everyone used to understand the phrase, "There ain't no free lunch." Now we have college kids, most of whom have never earned and paid for anything in their lives, clamoring that a college education should be free and that all existing college loans and debts should be forgiven.
• There are some occupations that require additional education at a university or specialty school to "know your stuff". These include; doctors, architects, attorneys and some other professionals. But programmers, entrepreneurs, managers, and most manufacturing positions do not have appropriate courses in most universities. These people need to find the information and teach themselves in order to succeed.

So, getting a job is not as dependent on getting a college degree as it is on having the desire and ability to work hard.

Photo courtesy of:
http://www.bcrwealth.com/blog/educating-our-children

The Education vs Employment Myth - Getting a Job

Having a good job is not so much a factor or your level of education as it is your desire to work hard and succeed.

Example:

In 2009, at the height of the last recession, my company needed to hire a new receptionist. The job was not difficult, it entailed being able to take calls on multiple phone lines, schedule appointments for carpet cleaning, give general pricing about products, and refer any difficult questions to an estimator. 

We placed an ad on Craig's List that ran for about a week and received about 150 applications. 

1. First step was to throw out anyone who had not stayed at their previous jobs for more than a year to find stable applicants. This left about 75 applicants.
2. Then we tossed those who were obviously over or under qualified, i.e., high level managers, those with Master's Degrees, those who had just graduated from high school or had only had one other job. These people would never be happy with this position. This narrowed the field to about 35 applicants.
3. Next,we culled out those who obviously didn't possess the personality traits or skills sets needed for the position. i.e., plumbers, bill collectors, bouncers, dog walkers, baby-sitters, etc. This left us with 15 applicants. 
4. (I am not making this up, the numbers kept shrinking by half.)
5. We then called and invited the 15 people to come for an interview. Only 5 showed up.
6. Out of the 5, we chose the most likely candidate, called and hired her. She was to start the next day. She never showed up.
7. We then called the next best qualified applicant, hired her to start the next day. She came, started the job, but left for lunch and never returned.
8. We finally called the 3rd best candidate who came, was marvelous, and worked for 18 months until she got married and moved out of state.

Now, what did I learn from this? At the time when our nation was experiencing some of the highest unemployment rates in our history, it was really hard to hire someone who would work. It seemed that no one wanted to work.

This experience continued to manifest itself with our other technicians. Approximately half of our 6 -- 10 permanent employees had been there for 4 - 8 years. The other half continually rotated out every 4 - 6 months. They were either arrested, to drunk or high to show up, or just simply disappeared. There weren't more than one or two who were fired for not being able to do the job. 

So, if you are looking for a job, the most important things are; 

• To be willing to be on time, 
• Work hard, and
• Do what you're told with a smile.

Photo courtesy of:

http://www.ericaontheedge.com/finding-a-job-when-youre-over-50/

Barley, Bears, and Bathrooms

First, Barley. 

There are no more than a handful of history minded individuals that have any idea who Trofim Lysenko was. Yes, that was his real name and it is a scary photo.

He was a Russian scientist born in 1898. He quickly gained recognition and was promoted to director of the Institute of Genetics within the USSR's Academy of Sciences in his early 40's. He was a rock star in the scientific community of the Soviet Union and a favorite of Josef Stalin, the Soviet leader.

What was his secret to success? He came up with a "new theory" of genetics. He laid aside the proven theories of Gregor Johann Mendel of how plants pass on genetic traits to their offspring in favor of his own ideas.

Lysenko believed that he could change the genetic code of plants to the point he could make peas grow outside in the Siberian winter or change barley into wheat. His ideas flew in the face of decades of peer-reviews and hundreds of scientific papers on the subject. But, since he was the pet of Stalin, the man who was personally responsible for the deaths of over 20 million of his own people, he was able to have any criticism of his work classified as heresy, forbidden, and punishable by prison or death.

It took 40 years, the complete collapse of Russian agriculture, and the continued starvation of the Russian people, before the country was able to admit that he was absolutely wrong. With the country starving in the early 1960's, and Russia forced to purchase half of the wheat needed to feed their people from the United States, he was "retired" to a farm outside Moscow.

For a long time, any mistaken idea not based on science or research, was known as "Lysenkoism".


Second, Bears.

In 2006, Al Gore released a film called, "An Inconvenient Truth". This documentary claimed that 2500 climate scientist had signed on supporting this concept that man was destroying the earth with the creation so carbon dioxide and that within a few short decades, global warming would destroy mankind.

Governments, celebrities, and the media grabbed on to this concept as the greatest dramatic news story of the ages. Recycling became vogue, polluters were vilified, and the world was rocked back on its heels.

Now, 10 years later, even as the media continues to pound home the veracity of his prophecies, half of the original scientist who "signed on" as supporters have recanted. We can also document that most of his predictions have failed to come to pass.

1. Temperatures have remained consistent or lowered around the world.

2. Both poles are still covered with ice.

3. Polar bears and other arctic life still thrive.

4. The past 5 years have seen the lowest number of hurricanes and violent storms ever.

5. Climate change researchers have continually been discovered manipulating data to support their desired outcomes.


There were 2 good things that resulted from Gore's alarmist statements:

1. We have become more conscious of conserving, recycling, and striving to preserve the earth.

2. Al Gore has made hundreds of millions of dollars from the "carbon selling exchanges" he created just before he released the film.

But still, it is Lysenkoism, cronyism, and profiteering.


Lastly, Bathrooms.

I don't know if you see the pattern here? Barley, bears, and now bathrooms.

The newest craze to hit the world is the de-gentrification of mankind or the "transgender con". I don't know exactly who pulled this piece of feces out of the toilet, but they are bent on convincing everyone that "some people are born with penises and some people are born with vaginas, but everyone chooses whether they are a man or a woman."

It is odd that the "gender assignists" are adamant that a person should be able to choose their gender, but they then classify gender by the desire to do tasks that have been assigned to genders by society for millennia. In other words;

1. If you like pink, 
2. Are not aggressive, 
3. And like to dress-up, 
4. You are a female. 

1. If you like blue, 
2. Love to break things, 
3. And don't care whether your clothes match, 
4. You are a male.

I like pink and blue, I love to break things and then fix them, I hate aggression and confrontation, and I don't really care what I wear, as long as it is comfortable. That makes me . . . ? It makes me, David. I can always tell what my gender is when I use the bathroom or shower.

Contrary to intellectual manipulation, gender is not based on what you like to do. Gender is connected with your biological sex. It defines what you do as a provider, mentor, and parent in a home. The reason gender is under attack is because of the desire to crush the family. If Progressives can destroy gender, they have obliterated the family. That is their ultimate goal.

This effort to re-define the human race has:

1. No empirical data to study, 
2. No collaborated research, and
3. No peer reviewed studies. 

It is a social experiment being pushed on the world by well-meaning, but mistaken activists.

This is a train-wreck in the making. It is already confusing many people, even the ones they are trying to help. We now have gender for a day people; they are one day male, the next day female, and vice versa.

Some are even trying to sue their co-workers if they fail to address them by their gender preference of the day.

There have always been people who are confused.
There have always been people with genuine biological issues.
There have always been people with social issues that make integration difficult.
There have always been too many people who are critical, abusive, and degrading of others.

These are all problems that need to be addressed individually and not legislated nationally. Destroying the family will only aggravate these issues.

Let's stop this crazy Lysenkoism experiment before we regret it.