Me? In college again?

I have ranted about college many times. Most college programs simply waste too much time and money. But now I have found a college that interests me. I want to go to this college for several reasons:

1.  I need the piece of paper! 
2.  It lets me do my own work at my own speed (which means I don't have to waste a lot of time.
3. It is competency based--that is, I don't have to study anything that I can demonstrate I already know. 
4. Being competency based also means that I will have the opportunity to add to my knowledge in my chosen field, without a lot of unnecessary repetition of things I have learned already through 30 years of experience
5.  It is a non-profit program, with much more reasonable tuition and fees.
6. Like a buffet, it is "all you can" for one price, paid each six months. The harder I work, the less my education ends up costing me.
7. It is completely online, (except student teaching), so it can be done anywhere anytime. This fits my crazy night owl schedule, not to mention it allows me to work in those wee hours where I can get a lot done without interruption.
8. It is online! I love working on the computer.
9.  You are assigned a mentor to help guide you through, as needed.
10.  Although their enrollment folks follow up on your interest, they are helpful rather than pushy.
11.  The degree I earn will help open doors to departments of education in various third world countries, where I do training workshops for teachers of the deaf.
12. It is regionally accredited.
13. It is not a diploma mill, and the diplomas issued are respected.

I had no idea such a University existed. In fact, it bypasses practically all the rants that I have given about colleges.  I am quite excited. How is it possible?!

Now, I graduated from HS in 1972. That makes me OLD! So I cannot afford to waste a lot of time. I am actually looking forward to going to this college.

I have the same problem now as I did years ago: I don't have the funds for college, and I have no intention of going into debt.

I am praying for about $30 or $40,000 to drop out of the sky to allow me to finish my education. Can God do it? Yes he can!

Excellence

It has never been my ambition to be a good worker. It has always, rather, been my ambition to be an excellent worker. Now you cannot begin most jobs as an excellent worker, because it takes some time to learn the "culture" of the place you are working. It takes time to know the job well. So it is normal to start out as a good worker, or even just an okay worker. But the worker who doesn't progress from there? Well, that is the worker who works just for the paycheck, but has no passion for the job. My advice to people who hate their job? The first thing is, work harder! Often that will cure you of disliking a job. Of course if it is a job you hate just because you are not suited for it, then it is time to quit. It isn't fair to an employer to do just enough to get by. It doesn't say good things about you either. Be excellent or begone!

By the way, I remember years ago hearing that if I didn't get a college education I would end up in some dead end factory job. I have to tell you, I once had a factory job. I loved it. It was repetitive. All day long, I did the same thing over and over. I stacked up little blocks and put them on a pallet. That was it. How could I enjoy that? I made it a game. I tried to be the best I could at it. Indeed, it seems I was the best they had seen in that job for some time!

Meanwhile, since the work was so repetitive, and in a noisy environment, I spent my days thinking, praying, and singing at the top of my voice. No one could hear me; I wasn't bothering anyone. I loved that my brain was pretty free all those hours. It was my own to think about anything I liked. Once I got the hang of it, it took very little brain processing to do a good job. I kept stacking, and kept enjoying myself.

Now that job was less than ideal. It was hard work being on my feet all day. I was pretty tired and grubby when I got home. My clothes were filled with sawdust, and my hands with splinters. Sometimes we had unannounced overtime. It was cold in the factory in the winter, and hot in the summer. But I was still able to enjoy the job, even in the somewhat poor work conditions. Would I take that job again? You know, if I could make a living on it, I guess I might! But being a lot older now, I might not last a ten hour shift on my feet. Part time? Sure!

Bradenton Florida--my city of choice

Thinking on paper

I've spent a lot of years living outside of the country in big, dangerous cities. Now that I am back in the USA, I'm very happy to be here in Bradenton, FL. The only problem about living in a smaller town, is there are fewer opportunities for jobs. Add to that that I don't know many people in the work force here. Most of the people I know are retired missionaries. Tricky.

If nothing turns up here, I have two other options: move to a larger city, or start my own business. I don't really want to leave Bradenton. I love it here. And likewise, I don't especially want to start a business, because frankly, I'm winding down, not winding up my career!  As a missionary, practically speaking, I've had my own "business" for many years. I've been making decisions and employing others, and establishing a school for the deaf. I've taught workshops for teachers and others. I've been at the head, making lots of decisions. I loved it. But now I think I would rather let someone else take the lead, and just be a supporter of them.

Starting a business in the USA is tough. It means a lot of requirements; frankly, the USA has rules and licenses for everything you can imagine, not to mention the tax aspects of a small business. I'm just not sure I am up for that, even though I would obviously make more money than as someone else's employee.

Money has never been my focus. I make it a practice not to work for money--that is, money isn't my main goal in a job. I have to love the job too. I have to have passion for it. Nevertheless, I do want to make enough to live here comfortably. I say comfortably, not meaning in a style of extreme wealth. Middle class is all I'm looking for. I've spent a lot of years living in poverty, by choice, in order to do the mission work. It was a very stressful life. Now I'm 57 years old. I am tired of that kind of stress. I would just like to get a job that I can enjoy, that will enable me to stay in Bradenton.

Yesterday vs today; graduating in the early 70's

My generation was the generation in between. In the generation previous to mine, only very wealthy people went to college--which is to say, most people didn't, nor were they expected to go. In the succeeding generation pretty much everyone went, except the very poor or the very ignorant. My generation being between those two, was sort of half and half. Some of my generation went off to fight the war in Viet Nam, mostly via the draft. Others who were wealthy enough went to college, some to avoid the draft, and some actually wanting to get an education in their desired field. At this time, college made a lot more sense. The world was only just beginning to rocket through quick changes, and a degree was not obsolete before it was finished at that time.

The myriad of scholarships and financial aid available today was not available at that time. This is not to say that nothing was available, but let's just say it was way less than today. Because you could potentially avoid the draft by being in college, college began to look very attractive to people who would not otherwise have even considered going. If they were not wealthy enough, or the few shining stars that could get the limited scholarships available at the time, they would have to borrow money to go.

Those who didn't go to war, or go to college, got married, got a job and began their families. This was the norm and the expectation. College was completely optional.

As for me, most of my adult life, I have refused to get into debt. If I don't have the money, I don't spend it. If I put something on a charge card, it means I have money in the bank to cover it. At the end of the month, I pay it off. Once I lived for three years using a bicycle because I refused to get a car loan, even though it would have been within my reach to repay it. I have always worked. I have never gone on any kind of public assistance. (I do not blame those who must; sometimes there is little choice--but sometimes it is simply a question of poor choices, or refusal to work.)

For me, the idea of going to college was out of the question, at the end of my high school years. I came from a family of nine children. We were not wealthy. My father was a master sergeant in the Air Force. The expectation was that as soon as we finished HS, we would head out on our own. We were only too happy to do this, having been abused as children; we wanted out, and we wanted out fast. No one stayed in our house a minute longer than they had to.

The day after HS ended, I was moving into my apt., and completely supporting myself.  About five years passed, and I began to think about college. I moved to another city, and signed up at the Jr. College. The first semester I got straight A's, as I had planned. I marched into the counseling office with my report card, and left with a scholarship that would pay for all my books the second semester. I went the second semester, and that was it.

The whole time I was attending college, I worked a minimum wage job and just barely got by. Even though I was sharing an apt. with three other women (two sisters and a friend), we all found it difficult financially. I decided that I liked to eat more than I liked college, and dropped out after that semester. I also felt frankly, that although the degree would be nice, the classes were pretty much a waste of time. They were requiring me to memorize facts and spit them back out on tests--facts about things I was not passionate about, and things that had no practicality that I could see for my future life. (Okay, there was one exception: I took the typing class twice! It was the one practical class that has helped to this day, as I often spend hours on the computer.)

I did drop out of college, but I never dropped out of education. I like one of the sayings now written into various schools' creeds, that their purpose is to train their students to be "lifelong learners."  I am a lifelong learner.

After leaving college, on my own, I became fluent in two additional languages, Spanish, and Sign Language. When I say "on my own", I mean that I did not learn them from a course. I continued my usual voracious reading. When personal computers came along, I got one and learned how to use it effectively, becoming a minor "geek." I am constantly learning something new. I study. I research. I have a passion to learn. It has always been this way with me. The difference in college and self-directed learning is that one can afford to focus on the subjects about which one is passionate.

My job involved moving to a developing country. There I began a school for the deaf. There was no curriculum, so I had to create one. By that time, the internet was becoming an excellent resource. I researched constantly on methods of deaf education, on studies that had been done, on language acquisition, autism and a myriad of other issues that came up daily at the school.

The point is, I didn't stop learning, simply because I dropped out of college. I will match my knowledge against any college educated person. The only difference? I cannot get many jobs I am in every other way qualified for without a little piece of paper!

If I had gone to college after HS and gotten a degree, I would have graduated in 1976. That college degree would be totally obsolete right now!  Still, it would be both acceptable and required for many jobs!  Tell me, employer, would you really rather I had the 1976 degree, even without the life-long learning? Yet you would hire me if I did!

Requiring college for many jobs is simply out of date. Without a doubt, there are jobs where pre-training, aka college, is essential. But for so many more, just put it down as a requisite without reason, without thought. It's a given. Why? Well, it's "always" done that way. Funny that all those college educated people who set the requirements for hiring think so in-the-box!

If I ever begin a company. I will not fall into that trap. Knowledge, not college, will be the requisite, or at the least, the ability to learn the job well.

PS.  Just one additional ironic fact. I once took one of those tests that tells you what kind of job you are best suited for, and the result was? A college professor! Isn't life funny?!

Mentoring may be better

Mentoring is sometimes better than just hiring someone. It's like the difference between buying something off the shelf, and having something specially designed for you.

Let me give you an example. In a developing country, there is inevitable a shortage of teachers trained to work with the deaf. Usually it is a struggle just to cover the bare minimum of adequacy for teachers of the hearing children, much less something so complicated as teaching deaf children.

Nevertheless, a friend and I had determined that a school for the deaf was simply an essential. Where were we to get the teachers?

The fact is, we had few resources. It was our great blessing to not have the finances to hire certified teachers. At the time, we did not realize this, but in hindsight, I can only be glad it was that way.

First, the two of us began teaching. We had seven children to begin with. My co-worker did have some experience. She was fluent in Sign Language, but her teaching methods were quite limited. So from the beginning, I was mentoring her. Then, the group of students began to grow. We needed another teacher. Again, we had such limited funds, we had to hire someone who had not graduated from college. (This is common in many private schools in the country.) We trained her on the job. We had her watch us teach. Then we would put her to teaching and observe her, helping her along where she needed it. We schooled her in Sign Language, and her exposure to the signing of the children helped her develop her language skills quickly.

Each year additional teachers needed to be hired. Each year there was the need to train them both in Sign Language and in methods of teaching deaf children. All this was done on the job, because there was no other way to do it, financially.

Finally the year came that we were able to be officially recognized. The government was even going to help with some of the salaries--but only for "qualified" teachers. The well trained teachers, fluent in Sign Language, and skilled in teaching the deaf were not qualified. They would not pay them. Rather college graduates who had been certified to teach by passing a test had to be hired.

Every teacher we hired this way, was much more difficult to train. They had already ingrained in them that there was one way, and only one way to teach. It consisted of writing endless paragraphs on the board, explaining briefly, in a form the children could not possibly understand, and then having the children copy it down.

Day after day, the children were expected to copy, without the faintest understanding of what they were copying.

Mentoring teachers before they went to college was much more effective. These teachers went on to get their degrees, and will soon be taking the test for their certification, at which point they will be pronounced adequate to teach. In point of fact, they are probably the best teachers of the deaf in the entire country.

So what do you prefer?  Off the shelf, works for some things. But if you have something special, that needs to be done in special ways, you may want to consider mentoring. You can always add the college later, if it is needed.

What does a good employee look like?

If I were hiring someone, and didn't have a thousand laws or requirements governing the hire, what would I really look for in an employee? What qualities should he/she have?

Able to do the job, or be trained for the position
Flexible
Honest
Highly motivated
Hard working
Good communicator
Good sense of humor
Prompt
Reliable
Efficient
Reasonable
Dresses appropriately
Gets along well with others
Able to follow instructions
Able to balance home and work obligations appropriately

Depending on the position, there would be other qualities, such as:

Skilled leader
Able/willing to follow a skilled leader
Skilled in conflict resolution
Creative thinker
Able to work independently
Reasonably humble

Some people-types I would not want:

Whiners & complainers
Gossips
Lazy people (Unless a touch of laziness drives them to be more efficient!)
People who only see their job as a source of income, but don't love/believe in what they are doing
Dishonest people
Arrogant people
People who illegitimately skip work
Know-it-alls (who don't)

How do you find employees like this?  Probably more through word-of-mouth than through any application process.

Some of the qualities listed would even be illegal to ask about in an interview. For example, "Able to balance home and work obligations appropriately." I think this is an important quality, albeit one is not allowed to delve into a potential employee's personal home life.

When an employee has a horrible home life, work is affected. Likewise if the employee doesn't wisely balance their workload, their home-life suffers, and may even cause a divorce, which then affects their ability to focus on work.

Obviously the employer has an obligation to the employee not to cause family break-downs due to ridiculous amounts of overtime, poor compensation etc. Likewise the employee has an obligation to not be taking off work constantly to resolve family issues that should be taken care of during off hours, and to give a strong focus during work hours, on the work to be accomplished.

Changing the way you hire

I recently heard a podcast of 60 minutes that I just loved! It seems there is a guy, Peter Thiel, who is actually encouraging people to think twice about automatically (is there a word "lemmingly?") signing up for college!  How refreshing! The fact that he happens to be a millionaire means that some people will listen to him, that won't give a second thought to what an unknown like me says on a seldom read blog. 

What he is doing is a great start, but I would so like to ask Mr. Thiel one question. Are you requiring college in all the businesses you own or strongly influence, for positions that really don't need college? Or do you think that only entrepreneurs should be able to skip college? 

See, here's the thing: people who don't go to college can be paid less as employees, and yet maintain the same lifestyle as those who are college grads, and making more. Why? Because our budget doesn't have to include paying back college loans. So you can subtract the amount grads are paying monthly from our paychecks, and we won't feel the pinch. I'm not talking about people who know nothing. I'm talking about people who are just as able to do the job as your grads.

It seems to me, this would be a win-win situation. Employers' costs would go down, but employees would not have to downgrade the lifestyle associated with a particular type of job. Employers would also get the employee at a younger age--probably when their personal living costs were less, and they could actually be started at an even lower wage, as inexperienced workers to be trained. This is fair. It goes without saying that they should be given raises as time goes on and they become more valuable, having been fully trained in your company. To keep them at the lower wage, would of course be unfair.

Of course, this would mean that only non-college grads would have to be hired for certain positions. I don't mean just dishwashing. I mean positions where a non-graduate could do the job just as well, with the same in-house training  you give your graduate hires. It is only when businesses begin to hire non-grads that people will risk not going to college.

Am I suggesting that college is unnecessary for all kinds of jobs?  No. But I can tell you, as a person looking for a job, that I see plenty of jobs that I know, without a doubt, that I have the skills for, but would be denied on the basis of not having a degree. And the funny thing is that it can be a degree in basket weaving in many cases!

For jobs that require only basket-weaving degrees (no offense to real basket-weavers) training inevitably takes place on the job. If you hire a reasonably intelligent person who does not have a degree, the same training will take him/her to the same level.

A person who is a computer programmer would absolutely need to go to college, right?  Well, not necessarily. There are plenty of people who have learned programming on their own. Likewise there are many who have learned a myriad of skills on their own. It is true that these are highly motivated people. But when you require a degree, you just eliminated a source that guarantees highly motivated people!  Are those really the people you want to eliminate? What do you get then? People who have a degree, but maybe are not in love with that kind of work. Yes, some will be highly motivated. But often the high motivation is to get the piece of paper that will allow them to work, rather than the motivation to do a particular type of work.

Hiring non-grads will present some problems. It will require some new ways of thinking. How will we know who is qualified? I suggest there are plenty of methods that can be used to ascertain this. One of my favorites is hiring a person as a temp. You get to see how well they work, what they know about the particular kind of work, and even if they show up on time every day or not. 

Another thing you can do is write up a test. (It can be oral or written, actually.) If certain content knowledge is an absolute pre-requisite, test your candidates on it. You may find that some non-grads score higher than your grads.

Have people on your staff who are knowledgeable about the skills required, perhaps in a similar position, interview with the candidate. 

In short, the new issues that present themselves don't preclude hiring non-grads. They simply require a little creativity. Business as usual is bad business.

I have a lot more thoughts on this college thing that I won't delve deeply into right now. 

• What about mentoring as a substitute for college? Colleges use this kind of strategy sometimes with internships. Why not skip the college part and just go straight to the internships? 
• College tech careers often turn out people whose learning is already obsolete by the time they have graduated.
• Colleges are bad business. It seems to me that many of them are built on greed. They have left off the idea of really educating people. The fact that a college will charge you full price to even test out of a class is a great example of this fact.
• Why can't businesses just send people back to college for only the classes the employee needs, rather than things that do not pertain to their business? (Please don't give me the "go to college to be well-rounded" argument. You will see it isn't valid if you examine it a little more closely.)
• Learning is very important. College is just one way of learning. There are many, many other ways, some of which may be even better than college. 
• The college degree you require for your employees is horribly outdated just ten years down the line, and perhaps even five years, or two years, if your business is technology. Is it really necessary then? 
• Maybe someone needs to invent a test-out college, where you can go and be tested by experts, and get your degree once you prove you know the necessary content. It should be way less expensive, because the overhead would be minuscule compared to a normal college today. This kind of business could be used for employees as well, for upgrading their positions based on new studies or research they may have even done on their own time.
• I remember a former co-worker of mine. He was going to get fired for lacking one single college subject which would have completed his degree. While it is true he hadn't taken the subject, it was also true that he was teaching the subject at the time, in a local college. This didn't matter. He didn't have the degree, so he was not qualified. How to determine who is qualified needs to be re-examined from the top to the bottom. Business owners, it will save you money, and you will be less likely to hire inadequate employees.
• My brother-in-law, a programmer, told me of a new hire who could not program. When asked how he managed to get a degree, he simply said that he had cheated his way through college. And the company did not fire him, because it is such a hassle to fire people! Guess what. Lots of people are cheating their way through schools and colleges these days. 

Okay, I can see this is going to evolve into another post--why employers should consider non-grads. What's in it for them?

End of rant.

This blog has been sitting a while, because my focus was elsewhere than job hunting. I have been busy serving others freely. The time, will come, however, when I simply must have an income, and it will be this year.

Serving? Yep. No charge. I live in a retirement village for Christian missionaries. At 57, I'm one of the youngest, and therefore physically stronger than most. This year I have tried to be useful while getting to know many of my wonderful neighbors.

What have I done since last blog? Some things...helping a neighbor who just turned 100 and still lives alone, consulting for a deaf school in Santo Domingo via Skype, working on curriculum for that school, helping friends in the village with computer issues, or taking them to the store or doctors' appointments, researching on the internet (mostly about deaf education), taking a free online course...I cannot list everything!

And just now, I'm actually getting around to doing a little, very little bit of job hunting. I'm really too busy to do much!