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Life challenges and joys for women

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College or Vocational Education
Daily writing prompt
If you could make your pet understand one thing, what would it be?
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College or Vocational Education

Reminders of Summer

Hot Pretzels and cotton candy Feet all wet and sandy Sunshine’s rays Ocean mists and sprays Teachers no longer teach Hot and sandy beach Collecting different shells Ocean tides and swells Castles and sand caves Surfers riding ocean waves I own the rights to this poem it is not to be produced or copied in…

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Cat Poem

You frolic and play Like a lion hunting your prey Pouncing around all day Those big green eyes that stare and in them I can see you care The cute button nose on your face The pitter patter of your paws as you race That motor that hums and purrs The cute little body that…

kimsenecal's avatar by kimsenecal

Freedom

What does freedom mean to you? Can you imagine going through every day of your life and not having freedom? Freedom means the ability to do things without the sense of control over you all the time. It means having choices as to what you can do and when you can do them. Freedom means…

kimsenecal's avatar by kimsenecal

about

I’m a fifty something woman who raised two boys and is enjoying the second half of my life. I was a stay-at-home mom for years and I’m now discovering a different side to life. I enjoyed being there for my kids even though the days were hectic I will always cherish them. I’m currently exploring my creative side after working in human services and education for a bit. I hope to make writing a full-time side business in some way. Writing has always been a passion of mine and I would love to make a living doing it. Blogging has allowed me to follow a passion of mine and share my experiences with others. I hope to share with others what I know about child development and parenting.

College or Vocational Education

Which should you choose for your children? Should they get a college education or a vocational education? Hands on vocational experience that will take them directly into the job market or a college degree that depending on what they study may not allow them to get a job in a field they studied.

Sure, any kind of education is good but, what is the best path for your family and for your child. What does your child want to do? Can you afford a college education? Are there jobs in the field in which they are studying? These are all questions to ask yourself when you are making a decision as to what type of education your child should have. Does your child like to learn by doing hands on work or prefer work that is not hands on. It’s all an individual choice as to what works best for your family. I have a degree and it is still tough to find a job in this economy unless I get advanced education or want to work in high stress, low pay positions that are high turnover rate.

Choose wisely so that you are not later regretting the choices that you have made about the degree you have chosen. Take the time to sit down and think about the day-to-day activities you will be doing. You also want to think about the time and expense each type of education will take.

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One response to “College or Vocational Education”

  1. David Avatar
    David

    From my experience, having a university degree and also practical training courses in the electrical engineering / software engineering area, and a long career in IT, I think there are several questions to consider.

    Firstly, and this may sound strange, but how important is a good income to you?  In one of my early jobs, I was was building IT systems for a vehicle assembly company, and their offices were on the same site as the factory.  Through a friend in HR, I got to meet and share lunch with a couple of people from the factory rather than with the IT team I worked with.  One guy in particular, Ian, taught me some interesting lessons.  Ian was intelligent, with a degree from the university of life, and we had many wide-ranging, intelligent discussions on many topics over lunch.  in his spare time, a surf-lifesaving instructor, ham radio enthusiast talking in morse with friends all around the world at night, and had a private pilot’s licence.  He also had never left home, staying to look after his mother, and eventually inheriting the house.  He needed very little money so worked as a fork truck driver delivering supplies around the factory.  No overtime, no politics, no dress code, no need to be running at 110%.  He had enough money for his needs and enough free time for his real interests.  To him that was a win.  To my IT colleagues he  was a loser, but their lunchtime conversation was limited to last weekend’s sport and how drunk they got of Friday night – boring!

    Secondly do you want to do a job or work your way out of doing it?  Trades, and related physical jobs usually suit people who want to do that.  My father was a draughtsman and worked his way up to being a professional gas engineer.  He ran the drawing office and stilled a little bit of hands on drawing, and was responsible for designing gas reticulation systems for new suburbs.  He made a comment that what he liked was that he could choose how hands on to be.

    In the IT industry, I have seen some people come out of practical tertiary qualifications stayed as expert developers, because that is what they liked, and some who moved on to higher level system design or project management, doing only limited coding because they enjoyed both the detail and the wider picture.  What I also found was that it was the ones who were typically not well suited to the focus of the job who moved on to become the managers, with varying degrees of success.  More recently, I have also seen people come out of very theoretical “client experience designer” tertiary programmes grossly overvaluing their theory and unable to adapt to the real world.  Unfortunately that fit in well with the people who have come in off a theoretical “Business management” degree with the same ignorance is bliss mentality.  But they are the ones who climb the ladder fastest – scary!

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