Unis and Jobs
Originally, universities were mainly aimed for the idealist pursuit of higher knowledge. You attended these grand old institutions to study such fields as theology, natural science, and the classics (Greek and Latin). In recent decades this has changed as people have begun attending unis in order heighten their chances of obtaining a viable career. Today, with the current mineral boom in Australia and shortage of skilled labourers, the tides have turned. It would appear you're better off doing an apprenticeships if you want to land a decent paying job:
Perth home builder Dale Alcock said his group of companies had taken on 200 apprentices in the past two years and estimated that more than half of them had not completed Year 12.
He said they wore company T-shirts with the slogan "I'd rather be cashing cheques than paying HECS".
Indeed. My HECS fee is currently around the 25k mark. Luckily, maths graduates are in high demand (so I keep telling myself anyway). The Economist, however, offers some promising news, for my area at least:
In a speech at Harvard University in 1943 Winston Churchill observed that “the empires of the future will be empires of the mind.” He might have added that the battles of the future will be battles for talent. To be sure, the old battles for natural resources are still with us. But they are being supplemented by new ones for talent—not just among companies but also among countries (which fret about the “balance of brains” as well as the “balance of power”).
The arrival of an aggressive new superpower—Google—has made it bloodier still. The company has assembled a formidable hiring machine to help it find the people it needs. It has also experimented with clever new recruiting tools, such as billboards featuring complicated mathematical problems. Other tech giants have responded by supercharging their own talent machines and suing people who suddenly leave.
But a large and growing number of businesses outside the tech industry — from consulting to hedge funds — also run on brainpower.
My old man laments about the fact that his qualifications (a diesel engineer via apprenticeship) were never recognised in Australia, consquently he had to do mainly labour work (though he did design stunt cars for a while). Nowadays, I'm not sure which work path would be the right one. Perhaps beer taster?
Perth home builder Dale Alcock said his group of companies had taken on 200 apprentices in the past two years and estimated that more than half of them had not completed Year 12.
He said they wore company T-shirts with the slogan "I'd rather be cashing cheques than paying HECS".
Indeed. My HECS fee is currently around the 25k mark. Luckily, maths graduates are in high demand (so I keep telling myself anyway). The Economist, however, offers some promising news, for my area at least:
In a speech at Harvard University in 1943 Winston Churchill observed that “the empires of the future will be empires of the mind.” He might have added that the battles of the future will be battles for talent. To be sure, the old battles for natural resources are still with us. But they are being supplemented by new ones for talent—not just among companies but also among countries (which fret about the “balance of brains” as well as the “balance of power”).
The arrival of an aggressive new superpower—Google—has made it bloodier still. The company has assembled a formidable hiring machine to help it find the people it needs. It has also experimented with clever new recruiting tools, such as billboards featuring complicated mathematical problems. Other tech giants have responded by supercharging their own talent machines and suing people who suddenly leave.
But a large and growing number of businesses outside the tech industry — from consulting to hedge funds — also run on brainpower.
My old man laments about the fact that his qualifications (a diesel engineer via apprenticeship) were never recognised in Australia, consquently he had to do mainly labour work (though he did design stunt cars for a while). Nowadays, I'm not sure which work path would be the right one. Perhaps beer taster?
posted by Engels at 2:52 pm
1 Comments:
Lucky for me...smartarse.
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