Cristina Alesci's Pathways In Technology

“What’s the key to success in the United States?”(Steinberg,2010), author Jacques Steinberg starts off his article “Plan B: Skip College” with a powerful question that has been asked by many Americans. Majority of Americans first thoughts would be higher education. The ideology that obtaining a degree is the best and sometimes only way to be successful in the American economy. This has been instilled in numerous children growing up. Steinberg states “perhaps no more than half of who began a four-year bachelor's degree program in the fall of 2006 will get that degree within six years according to the department of education”(Steinberg,2010). Students who tend to not excel in high school often take longer, or at times finish a higher education at all. These

Dual enrollment, four year universities, community colleges and trade schools. I’ve seen people with college educations that have terrible jobs and no real prospects, and I’ve seen people without degrees, or with technical certificates, that are wildly successful and happy with the choice they made. Yet we continue to see the disparities between those that have vocational training or a two or four year degree, and those that do not.

To me this program thought me many lesson above and beyond, challenges my knowledge skills, and developed my thinking globally. My experience in the program will be a life learn lesson because I never gave up no matter how tough it was sometimes. Because I always remember life is a journey that I walk through every day. Not so many people get such

He states, “Three-quarters of the 10 million students enrolled in America’s four-year colleges and universities will work as interns at least once before graduating … Between one-third and half will get no compensation for their efforts” (499 - 500). This evidence is relevant since it clearly supports the author’s claim that colleges allow unpaid internship. This may not necessarily imply that the colleges are bad, but this clearly shows the high occurrence of such cases. It shows the high number of students who do not get paid while working as interns. The information was taken from established research institutes, therefore the evidence is credible. The College Employment Research Institute conducts an annual survey of national employers seeking their intentions for hiring new college graduates ("College Employment Research Institute at Michigan State University"), while the Intern Bridge is the nation’s premier college recruiting, consulting and research firm (http://www.internbridge.com/). However, there was no information about the date when the statistic was taken or when the study was performed, and this made the evidence less sufficient. The evidence will be more sufficient if the date was mentioned and if it was current. Again, this evidence is addressed to students to present them with details about unpaid internship and be cautious when considering internship in their

AEQ: How does this report apply to me? At school, I see these program sign ups and I don’t really have much to comment on them. I found out about them after I already had a job at amazon, so take advantage of these opportunity’s slipped through my figures. However, the benefit of these programs would help me way better in school than what I can do at my job.

In her article “Not all College Majors Are Created Equal”, Singletary states that engineering major with relevant internship within the innovation industry results in higher chances of attracting a good job. Unemployment is higher among high school dropouts compared to 22.9%, which represents the rate of unemployment among post-secondary graduates. Therefore, rates of employment among college degree holders are much higher than the chances a high school diploma can fill at workplace because of the differences in skills.

“It's a great program and it’s open to anyone in the community,” Schein said. “It really teaches students how to prepare for crisis situations.”

Today, many computer programmers without college degrees get jobs by presenting examples of their work. With a little imagination, almost any corporation can come up with analogous work samples”(Murray 2). Although not everyone has the intellectual ability to do college work but that doesn’t make them not have the skills for a job. Twisting percentages in education would be a good idea for students who are not up to college level. In generally, many of college students drop out and clearly many of them get on campus without gaining the skills and knowledge in their freshman and sophomore years to succeed. Jobs and education aren’t always related. Education shouldn’t always be the reason for getting a well payed job but rather your skills, not everything you study in college is remembered and a research by Murray supports his point which states that, “About 10 percent to 20 percent of all 18-year-olds can absorb the material in your old liberal arts textbooks. For engineering and the hard sciences, the percentage is probably not as high as 10.” (Murray 1). In my community, most of the Americans say that the higher education system in the United States fell and didn’t provide students with good value for the money. In addition, even at times college presidents not only rated the quality of higher education lower than before, but also rated students lower as well. According to Adam, “About 60 percent said high schools

In a fourth year group, students are tracked as freshmen and throughout their senior year. Students have until the end of their fourth consecutive year to graduate. If not completed, an extension of one more addition year is given. The federal government provided a grant used to create the Youth Career Connect program at my school as a resourceful source of support. This initiative created by President Obama, tracks and support students for success in post-secondary education and a competitive workforce. This action inspires school districts, colleges, and the workforce to combine rigorous educational standards with work capabilities and talents in methods that increase training and distribute practical educational opportunities for scholars (Fact Sheet, 2013). President Obama designated my school one of the twenty-three schools to pilot this grant.

The society is constantly demanding for well-educated people to lead the future of the economy. Many argue that college is not socially worth the money because there are fellowships and opportunities that are more advantageous and beneficial for the community. For instance, Ben Wieder published an article on “Peter Thiel, a co-founder of PayPal”, describing that Thiel is interested in paying students $100,000 not to “attend college for two years and develop

The Bridges To Opportunity Initiative helps to ready low-income under skilled adult students to obtain workforce ready skills using community and technical colleges to achieve jobs with livable wages and an educational pathway. (Ford Foundation, n.d.) The Integrated Basic Education and Skills Training (I-Best) works with adults who want to better their basic educational skills to increase employability and the opportunity to advance their education in a career development direction. (Wachen, Jenkins, & Noy, 2011) There are seventy-five million Americans that do not have higher than a high school education or who have not attain a General Education Development/General Equivalent Diploma (GED) the I-Best programs focus on increasing education, gaining employable skills to earn a livable wages. (Wachen, Jenkins, & Noy, 2011) Breaking Through Initiative goal “is to promote the development of practices and policies that connect low-skilled adults (with reading and math skills testing below the eighth-grade level) with postsecondary occupational or technical education”. (Jobs for the Future, 2010)

Bernie Sanders argued “Why do we accept a situation where hundreds of thousands of qualified people are unable to go to college because their families don’t have enough money?” (FeelTheBern.org para. 2). There are many industries and careers I believe vocational training is a completely viable option for quickly and efficiently training professionals; but there is an unfortunate stigma against them due in part to the perceived necessity of a Bachelor’s degree from a “real” college. This focus on college as the key to success puts immense pressure on people whose talents are wasted because they just can’t afford

with their needs as well as adults to build computer skill that is useful for their work and development. The Advisory Panel on Access & Aging provides advice to leaders of many employee bodies and subsidiaries. AT&T is famous for its support in growing minority entrepreneurship. In 2006, AT&T Foundation connected with the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Milwaukee Public School in a program called PEOPLE (Pre-College Enrichment Opportunity Program for Learning Excellence) in an effort to fill the gap in advanced technology workers ethnicity, to provide financial support and mentorship to students from low income and of color to help their transition from high school to college and workforce. The purpose is to make sure that no talent should

Naomi tries and explain how college is a sorting process for talent or a way to babysit 18-year-olds is not very efficient. To counter Obama’s vision Naomi talks about how sometimes students get their degree and end up not even using it just as Mark Zuckerberg or the kids that Peter Thiel lured into taking one hundred thousand dollars. To stay out of college for two years and work instead on scientific and technological innovations. Thiel has called college “the default activity” that means that it’s time for a change on viewpoints on college undergraduate education being necessary. Naomi suggests ideas of apprenticeship, not just for shoemakers and plumbers but for white-collar jobs. Also Naomi asks if “students rather show their SAT scores to companies and then apply for training positions where they can then learn the skills they need to be successful?”.

Although access to education seems available everywhere in the United States, access to job related training programs in low-income communities seems to not offer many programs. Most underprivileged communities continue without job related training centers or because of income disparities denied equal access to workplace education training programs. Therefore, many people cannot get jobs that pay enough to lift them out of poverty and as a result lack the specialized occupational skills sought after by employers. In 2013, a full 46 percent of Baltimore County’s adults between ages 16 and 64 were either unemployed or out of the labor force altogether. By the same token, the unemployment rate was 11.4 percent among people twenty-five and older without job related skills, compared to 5.4 percent among those with job related skills. (Bureau Of Labor Statistics)