The College Education Scam
Instapundit notes a couple of Jerry Pournelle articles on the subject.
I continue to think this is all very much on the money, as I mentioned here.
Alas, I don’t see much being done to change it, and I’ve all but resolved myself to going to grad school some time in the next few years, even though it’s, for the most part, stupid and unnecessary for anything I do or want to do except impress people in HR departments, most of whom I will never meet.
Such is life.
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6 comments
Dean, some schools have started offering post-graduate online programs. Evil Rob is looking into one from our alma mater that is entirely online except for one extended weekend seminar (good because we’re two states away.)
Given what you’ve said about your experiences, I’d look around to see if you could manage that. It’s cheaper and more suited to your form of learning, I’d bet.
Oh yeah. At this point the only thing I’d accept is an all-online or mostly-online program; there’s absolutely nothing I need to do that requires me to slog all the way to a brick and mortar location on a regular basis to learn.
"impress people in HR departments"
Heh. Anecdote - some years back, after several silly problems with HR, my boss got the CEO to agree that HR would not control adverts, submitted resumes, or just about anything else. The final factor? We needed a tech for our operating system, and the ad HR put in the paper required two years experience with said OS - which had only been marketed for two months. Made us look like complete idiots, and got zero responses: the ad my boss wrote asked for experience in related areas, preferably but not necessarily previous versions of the OS, and got thirty replies in two days.
Earlier, at another company, I could get no real response why "Personnel", which implied people, was changed to "Human Resources", which sounds like mass-manufactured slaves. This at a company which retained a sign installed in the Twenties over the back door proclaiming it the "Fellow Worker’s Entrance" and had a "Fellow Worker’s Cafeteria", both of which amused me (hey, I was 20 and it was the early SIxties).
Forgot to mention in the anecdote: HR also had a reuirement for a four-year college degree, my boss required High School.
HR = ignorant women with control issues.
A good HR organization can be very helpful (yes, such things do exist, although they’re rarer than they should be) but HR should NOT be the ones deciding on employee qualifications. Line managers are responsible for employee performance, and line managers should be the ones deciding on qualifications. Anyone trying to manage in an organization with an overweening HR group should consider finding another job for the sake of his own self-respect.
Some thoughts on recruiting and qualifcations in my post hunting the five-pound butterfly.
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