Barriers to Entry

Proposal: greatly increase the number and dispersion of apprenticeship and internship opportunities for high school and college students. And greatly increase the prominence of career planning and guidance counseling in high schools and colleges.

Why: young people are not receiving enough help in exploring and choosing a career path. And, they need more job-specific skills, work experience, and social capital to be able to break into careers that they desire.

Who benefits: Young poor people who grew up in depressed urban or rural labor markets who are simply not exposed to a wide variety of career choices. I would put myself in this camp; growing up in a poor rural area, I just didn't really understand what kind of jobs a person could do. Teacher...doctor...nurse...cop...shop owner...construction worker...that's about it. Because those were the grown ups I saw everyday. Oh, and lawyers, cause I watched Matlock and Law & Order.

The other camp that benefits are kids pursuing a liberal arts education. Despite all my misgivings, I still believe that a liberal arts education is a good thing for a person to do. It helps make them a well-rounded person and gives them some moral and aesthetic foundation on which to build a life. And, you know...reading and writing...those are sometimes somewhat useful.

But that shouldn't be an excuse for ignoring the fact that, when you graduate, you're gonna have to get a real, grown up job. Because a lot of us spent 4 years learning about, you know...philosophy and religion (my two majors)...or whatever, you get out and go, "shit...what do I do now?"

At that point, I wasn't really qualified for any "good" jobs. It felt to me like the only paths available to me at that point were low-skilled, entry-level clerical jobs (sit-at-a-desk types of jobs), or graduate school. And that's because I didn't really have any useful, marketable skills to speak of, nor did I have any real connections in other types of industries. The funny thing was how shocked I was by this...i don't know what I was thinking. Did I really think the world was desperate for B.A.'s in philosophy? Eh, I was young...and dumb...and full of cum.

It would have been nice if there were some sort of formal apprenticeships available in, like, carpentry or engine repair or farming or, you know...something involving not-sitting-at-a-desk-all-fucking-day. I probably wouldn't have actually DONE that, mind you...I kind of like sitting...but it would have been nice to have the option. I'm guessing there are a good number of us humanities/social science kids who, after college, would probably find more fulfillment in some sort of trade than in other traditional paths to "success." That is, until our knees and hands succumbed to arthritis...at that point, we'd probably wish we were behind a desk.

So, for the benefit of the poor kid who doesn't understand what an accountant is, and for the benefit of the rich kid who wants to make cabinets or fix cars but doesn't know how to go about learning that, and for the benefit of any average fuck who just doesn't understand, like, what a doctor or lawyer actually does on a day-to-day basis...we need more internships and apprenticeships.