Pavel Nunez
English 1101
Dr Carrie Hall
9/18/18
Well the question I must answer is “ Do you think that students should reintroduce vocational skills to prepare students for opportunities outside of white collar professions? Why or Why not?
Well based on seeing what vocational skills are, I think that we should reintroduce vocational skills  to prepare students for working outside the white collar professions because not all students will be able to benefit from going to an extra 4 year of college because they have to able to do college level work based on the major they are trying to get into, and in the long run some don’t make it to their last year of college  and that causes a lot of problems for that person, like student loans, wasted time,wasted,money etc. Also on the article “Why We Desperately Need to Bring Back Vocational Training in Schools” it states that” The manufacturing sector is growing and modernizing, creating a wealth of challenging, well-paying, highly skilled jobs for those with the skills to do them. The demise of vocational education at the high school level has bred a skills shortage in manufacturing today. ” (Wyman, Nicholas. “Why We Desperately Need To Bring Back Vocational Training In Schools.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 7 Oct. 2016, www.forbes.com/sites/nicholaswyman/2015/09/01/why-we-desperately-need-to-bring-back-vocational-training-in-schools/#d87bb3d87add.) This is basically saying that a lot jobs that’s based on vocational skills are in high demand and there is a shortage of workers in that area because of the lack of vocational skills being introduced in schools. Also it states “Many of the jobs in manufacturing are attainable through apprenticeships, on-the-job training, and vocational programs offered at community colleges. They don’t require expensive, four-year degrees for which many students are not suited”, what this is trying to say is that learn vocational skills and programs are more economical for students because its cheaper, you can get training on your job, and this method is actually easier than doing college for a whole 4 years which can be very time consuming, expensive and overall might not even get you the job that you want to work as.
Now on my own life experience, I have an uncle who works as a construction worker and he never went to college. He served an apprenticeship for a few months right after he went out of high school, while my father on the other hand went to college for 4 years, My dad was in debt while my uncle wasn’t and was working right away. Now my Uncle makes more than my dad despite not going to college and this is telling me that college isn’t mandatory to get a good job and live life. Also I worked one time when I was in Dominican Republic, I had to pave a road going to my grandparents house so the cars won’t have to get stuck in all the dirt from all the heavy rain that occurs almost every week in the tropical conditions. It was a lot of work but Me and my friend were able to do it by putting a lot of pebbles and rocks to cover the dirt and overtime the rocks and pebbles will fill in the space so there would be traction for the cars to go over and move along easier. Working a  blue collar job is more like a choice because everyone is different..some might not like working outside or staying in an office all day, It totally depends on the person. In Crawfords words “A mans whose need are limited will find the least noxious livelihood and work in in a subsistence mode, and indeed the experience of early capitalism when many producers worked at home on a piece rate-basis”( pg 21). I agree with this statement because its saying that everyone works in their level that is needed in order to live and get by in life. Another quote from Crawford that stands out is(pg 22) “Much of the jobs in the future rhetoric sorrounding the eagerness to end shop class and get every warm body into college,thence into the cubicle implicity assumes we are heading to a post industrial economy in which everyone will deal only in abstractions”. It’s basically saying that we are heading to a time that everybody will work a job that requires dealing with ideas or concept and that jobs now require people to go to college. But personally I disagree with the part that says we are heading towards a post industrial economy because we still industries in America in order to go through everyday things in life, such as cars to get around because we need people to build these cars. We need homes so we could provide people with shelter and people make these homes. We need planes to travel around in the air and people make theses. You get the point but we still need a lot of industries to help make our daily lives easier but without these industries, life would be hard and complicated without people working in the Industries. This is one of the reasons why we need to bring back vocational skills in school so we could prepare students in case they don’t want to go to college and not follow a White Collar Profession. The last quote on (pg 24) says “By all means go to college. In fact, approach college in the spirit of craftsmanship, going deep into liberal arts and sciences. In the summers, learn a manual trade” . This quote is saying that you should go to college and approach it as a way to create things and in the summer learn manual trades. I disagree with this quote because college is not for everyone to learn. But also instead of learning manual trade in the summer why not learn it during the years your suppose to being college to get ahead of yourself in order for yourself to get a job and be a functioning part of society working for the Industry that are blue collar job based.
