Career Colleges Vs. School-To-School Career Analysis

In “Preparing for a Career”, Derek Bok, president of Harvard Law School and author, argues how universities, more specifically liberal arts colleges, should include training for a certain occupation with regular college classes to better prepare a student for the real world after college. Considering that Bok has earned his degrees at some of the most well-known universities like Stanford University and Harvard, he has a better understanding at what students are missing and what they need to be successful. However, on the other hand, not many professors and students see or agree with Bok’s point of view. They do not agree that students need the vocational training during their years in a liberal arts college, even though students need both; an education that helps them become critical thinkers and skilled communicators as well as skilled workers in a certain career. So why not help students with their career along with their regular core courses?

This report will provide the history of career technical education in the United States and relevance of legislative actions, laws, acts and policies beginning as early as the 18th century and continuing through current-day society. Chronologically documented, the primary focus is on the Carl D. Perkins Career Technical Education 2006, its origin, issues and effects of each amendment that led to important federal government legislations. For an understanding of the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education 2006 Act, an introduction section will provide information on amended acts, laws, and policies that led to the present act and career technical education. Other sections will discuss time periods of local and national legislation changes in the Carl D. Perkins Act, how they affect the present and future of career and technical education. A brief conclusion of the entire research to include summary findings and references.

Have you ever wondered why you couldn’t take a class at school that truly interests you, such as learning about the culinary arts or discovering the ins and outs of being an emergency medical technician? Vocational education is an option that is becoming increasingly popular for students seeking a wider variety of class choices. Sometimes, when people hear the words “vocational education,” a negative image pops into their minds. Many people believe that vocational education is primarily offered to non-college bound students, dropouts, or students with special needs. What people don’t realize is that vocational education can give students the opportunity to improve their employability skills, become informed about different career options, and learn helpful skills they can use throughout the rest of their lives even before going to college and being released into the real world. Therefore, I believe that vocational education should be offered to students.

Community colleges in the United States develop rapidly and have become a vital component of the postsecondary education delivery system. As of 2011-2012 school year, 45% of all undergraduate students were enrolled in public two-year colleges, approximately 8.3 million students (Knapp et al., 2012. Cited by AACC Fast Facts). And it seems that with globalization and Obama’s education agenda, the trend of growing enrollment in community colleges won’t change. A high school graduate who decides to pursue postsecondary education may face with a dilemma--whether enroll in a community college or a traditional four-year college. Even within a community college, a student may be faced with a choice—enroll in a vocational program and enter workforce after graduation with a vocational certification, or choose an academic program with an intention of transferring to four-year institutions.

One of our class readings stuck out to me. The reading was "The Return of Vocational High Schools: Career Path or Kiss of Death" by Allie Bidwell. In this she talks about career and technical schools, otherwise known as vocational schools. In the article, she mentions, "… it's not enough for students to get an education past high school- they also must have the skills needed for in-demand jobs"(Bidwell). This article relates to me deeply because last year I went to a career and technical school to further my education in the nursing world. At the end of the course, all of the students who took the class for the whole year had the opportunity to test to get their CNA license. I was fortunate enough to be able to get my license at the age of

Bok states, “According to one survey, 60 percent of Arts and Sciences professors do not even think that preparing for a job is a particularly important goal for undergraduates” (Derek Bok, 36). Bok is quite puzzled since about three-fourths of new college students presume preparing for a job is the key component of attending college. According to Bok, Liberal arts professors believe that once they integrate some aspect of a vocational program students will become more concentrated on learning the competent skills necessitated by the jobs. Bok also provides background information on vocational program in which he states that, “Since the average length of time people stay in their first job has shrunk dramatically, more and more employers want their employees to “hit the ground running” without having to receive costly training before the company” (Derek Bok, 39). Students are already being pressured by employers to have these skills needed for the job perfected by the time they graduate so the companies won’t spend resources on training. With the pressures employers place on the arriving college students they feel as if they have to choose a career and prepare for it as

Unlike the other forty-two states, the state of Virginia has not opted into the Common Career and Technical Core; however, Virginia does have its on set of standards for CTE programs. The programs implemented are designed to prepare students for “productive futures while meeting the commonwealth’s need for well-trained and industry certified technical workers” (VDOE CTE). Much like other states’ CTE programs, Virginia actively partners with businesses to design and provide high quality, dynamic programs capable of meeting current, emerging and projected labor market needs (VDEO CTE). Currently, CTE programs serve more than 550,00 students in grades 6-12 who can take advantage of 16 different career clusters, of which include Agriculture, Food & Natural Resources, Architecture & Construction, Business & Management, Education & Training, Finance, Health Science, Information Technology, Marketing, and much more. (VDOE CTE). These different clusters help students to design a rigorous and relevant plan of study to advance their career goals. As a whole, clusters seek to:

The mission of the Career Center is, “to design and deliver high-quality career services to UNT students and alumni through collaboration with campus, local, and global partnerships” (Career Center, 2014). This is supported by their vision statement, “Empowering students and alumni to identify and achieve individual goals for career success” (Career Center, 2014). The mission and vision statements both closely align with the Council for the Advancement of Higher Education (CAS, 2015), the National Association Colleges and Employers (NACE), and The University of North Texas (UNT). According to the UNT website, the mission of UNT is, “a major public research university deeply committed to advancing educational excellence and preparing students to become thoughtful, engaged citizens of the world” (Mission, 2015). The Career Center complements the mission of the institution by providing services that enable students to pursue

The school counselors, teachers, and district administrators are working together to address the college and career awareness goals with the counseling program at Open Air High School. The data reveals the students within the Career and Technical Education program, throughout the school, division, and state, who have passed the occupational competency assessments and earned credentials recognized by the National Occupational Competency Testing Institute (NOCTI) within the past three years. The data presented is descriptive statistics.

Parents, students, and employers still hold stereotypes about career and technical education (CTE). This Practice Application Brief presents strategies career and technical educators can use to present a new image of CTE as a viable strategy for education and work, including proactive approaches to enhancing the reputation of CTE programs, bringing parents up to date on labor market information, marketing CTE to the local community, and working with media to recognize exemplary programs and outstanding student achievements.

Attending college gives the student a considerable amount of knowledge before entering their career. Pursuing a bachelor’s degree usually takes four years for the average student. During these years, students are studying all aspects and information about their future career

Rojewski (2017) identified that traditional roles of secondary and postsecondary career and technical education are significantly challenged to keep pace with the 21st-century workplace. Rojewski suggests for career and technical education to remain relevant, leaders need to initiate a collective response to the changes that are taking place in today's workforce and workforce education. Those elements are career navigation, work ethic and innovation. The author also states that the connection between vocational content areas and between career and technical educators and academic educators need to be strengthened and better communicate with stakeholders. Rather than structuring curriculum with specific work skills as the end goal, Rojewski

Participants in this study will include 100 college students from ages 18–22 located in Houston, Texas. The area in Houston that will take part of this research is Cypress, which is more up north. This specific location has been chosen because of their well-known district, where they have many events, such as Career Fairs for college students who are beyond interested in career opportunities for the future. This district has also been chosen because of the diversity among the community and it will indicate a vast difference among students with divergent backgrounds and education, which could lead to significant results based on the purpose of this research. Career Fairs usually occur many times throughout a semester and sometimes in one

As identified by different studies; career planning is a crucial long term decision for the students. Institute selection is directly related to the information/ guidance provided by the guardians and parents. On the consumer side, university selection is the loophole and on the contrary side student attraction is the attention seeking problem.

Some have recently argued that a liberal education, as opposed to a vocational education, is a waste of time, money and effort because so much of these are spent on the pursuit of knowledge not at all relevant to the chosen major. As Bob Newman of Paradigm Media states, "We all know that career colleges and trade schools get a bad rep in the education industry. For many, they’re viewed as the “other option” or Plan B. What surprises me about these stereotypes is that the data available shows that career/trade school grads can make way more in the long run than students with a Bachelors or even Masters degree.” The common consensus is that college is a mere ticket to the corporate world of high pay, early retirement jobs. If this is