The U.S. Department of Labor’s National Apprenticeship Week runs through November 17, and it provides an excellent way to recognize the benefits of apprenticeship and how it is helping so many Americans build solid, satisfying careers.
According to economists, not every young person is right for college, and the option to build a career in the trades may be just the answer for many millennials.
It’s true that many high schools and families continue to push students to attend traditional universities and earn four-year degrees, but with the demand for workers in the construction and other trades continually increasing, some views are changing with regard to what a young person should do after high school.
Like many people in their early twenties, Emily Williams wanted a better future for herself and her family. She’d studied Criminal Justice at Wayne County Community College in Michigan and had worked in the concrete-casting industry, but she struggled financially and wanted something more.
If you scan the shelves of your favorite bookstore or search the internet for literature related to the current state of the university, the quality of college education, or the student loan dilemma, you will find publications with titles that may make you rethink your current view of higher education, including:
Let’s say you go to college, get a degree, and get a good job making a decent living— that’s the best case scenario right? You are now on your way to living the American Dream, but wait, are you?
A September Wall Street Journal/NBC News survey shows more Americans believe a four-year college degree is not worth the cost.
It’s not a secret anymore. The U.S. needs more construction workers. Not only that, but the young men and women coming out of high school and college might be exactly the people to fill this economic gap.
Are you an artist? Do you make art? Do other people tell you you are artistic?
Do you get excited when you get new materials to work with, or better yet, when you find new materials and use them to create a piece of art?
An artist is someone who looks at the world differently, someone who sees the possibility for making and building everywhere and at all times.
Much of the work that is currently available to millennials takes place in the digital world, it is unreal, it is disembodied, and it does not engage the senses, which means the results of this kind of work are rarely seen. This separation between the work one does and the results of that work, the separation between action and consequence, results in this type of work leaving those who do it unsatisfied.
