WOW! This is a great conversation and I am late to the game.

Bumpin touched on something, but I want to add to it. My parent's generation had a "I fix it" attitude more than my generation. We as a society evolved to a "throw it away" society, some of that driven by product cost. My dad got an education in component electronics that helps him a lot! I wish I understood the things he knows on that space. To give an example in the late 70's and much of the 80's/90's my dad made a side business out of fixing VCRs. People invested in those machines and as such, they were willing to invest in routine service (new belts, cleaning, lubrication, sounds like a car but these were VCRs). Or at minimum, if it broke, take it to be fixed. You had all sorts of repair services from cars, electronics, shoes and much more! Today, your flat panel TV dies and is out of warranty, time to replace it. And heck, sometimes that is the blessing someone wants "Oh no, my 30" TV died, shucks, look at this 60" deal". Tech is also moving to motivate you NOT to fix things in some cases.

Where I work, an old timer in our product engineering team told me it is hard to find people. You used to interview a person and they had a list of interesting and applicable things they did at home. As he said "people who f*** with S***". Today, you interview someone and their only knowledge is what they got in college or at a previous job. People used to learn, innovate, FIX things. But now that population is shrinking.

And electrical gremlins can be a pain! I just spent 2.5 weeks finding one with my 2003 Silverado. Long story short EVERYTHING was checking out. I knew I lacked spark, could not find the "why". Such as all sensors were reading, using a test lamp for checking power and ground at the coils indicated I was good. Out of desperation last Tuesday, I jumped the ground circuit for the coils to ground and the truck STARTED! Disconnect my jumper and it died. Found that the ground wire for the coils was connected by only a thread under the truck. That was an annoying week and a half trying to read shop manual data, checking PCM readings, looking on the internet and still no clue. I will NEVER forget this journey.

I was raised with a heavy DIY attitude. As such, I have done all my own work on my vehicles and do things some of my friends won't touch. But I also am limited by a variety of things, as we all are.

I have often said, if you don't do your own wrench work, build a relationship with a mechanic. If you trust that mechanic and they do good work, they may not have the cheapest bill, but ultimately they are saving you in the long run by being trust worthy and doing quality work and diagnostics. The trade of being a mechanic is a little bit of everything, plumbing, electrical, mechanical knowledge and now, technology.

One note to remember, the U.S. government has a "right to repair act" that is to prevent any business from permitting you the owner from repairing their product. Helps if more people exercise that right.

 

Gentlemen, I wholeheartedly agree with you all. I would like to add one more element to this conversation. Speaking to a few honest mechanics around these woods. They all insist that if they hired or worked with a competent electronics tech. And took the time to properly diagnose and fix, an electrical problem. Which would be somewhat costly. Their customers would not pay for the fix. They would rather go buy a new car.
No wonder people are so poor around here! A $1000 or $1500 fix would solve the problem and send you down the road. But they would rather pay $45000 for a new car. Just stay in debt.
People are insane!

 

Like most of the things going on in this country, many of the schools don't have any shop classes anymore.
The local car club I belong to gave a $1K scholarship last year but this year no one is going on to be a Mechanic. this is a lost art.
I am from the Boomer group and back in 2007 when things weren't good (no jobs), my group was under employed and when we all finally retired the companies that we worked at were caught off guard and now they can't fill spots for jobs.
Plus the work ethic is pretty low folks just quit and move on.
I do have some shops in the town I live in that do great work and can fix some of the older cars too. Sometimes they even ask me with the vintage cars if I knew anything about an old engine issue. Sometimes I can give them some advice.

 

TBH it's not just around you - it's most of the country. Credit is so readily available that many families stretch themsleves thin on whatever they can afford the monthly payment on to look as wealthy as they can. Meanwhile retirement accounts on average are at abysmally low levels for a population that has a very low % of people with a pension.

I agree. Not that Im a big celebrity follower, but Mike Rowe (dirty jobs host) had a good perspective on that: 'we spent an entire generation telling kids they had to go to college to be successful. We closed down vocational trades in schools due to this mindset which basically told this generation that these careers arent even an option for you.'

I can personally attest to that mindset- I know many people that felt pushed into college even though it clearly wasnt for them. They generally got useless degrees, often in fields they were uninterested in or worse - in fields with no actual jobs. Now they're stuck with a worthless piece of paper and a huge bill.


More along the mindset of your comment Id quoted above - Dana White had a really good persepctive on that relative to raising kids today - if your kid is even the slightest bit savage (a hungry go - getter), they'll absolutely crush most of their peers in success. Most kids these days have had an easy life - things handed to them on a platter. Goes back to the whole adage of tough times create tough people.

 

Never watched the show, but I see the truth in that statement! I have a friend (known him since before grade school, grew up on the same street) who started to get an associates after high school that he planned to get a bachelor's then a master's.... He was two classes from his associate's and STOPPED. He saw the career path he was going to school for did not actually require it, he had another path to it. Plus, his dad kept pushing "to get anywhere you MUST have a college education". He decided he wanted to prove his dad wrong and he succeeded.
I started my associates and had a different friend try to talk me into quitting since I was in an entry level job for my career (which I started that job while I was a senior in high school). As he put it "people go to college to get their foot in the door, you are past that, why waste your time". I started my college course while I was still in High School. I told him "I started this, I am more than half way, I want to finish at least my associates because then no one can take it from me". And I did just that. I have also gotten some certifications in my career path along the way. Glad I did NOT listen to my friend and finished, as some hiring managers I have ran into will NOT hire someone without some form of post high school education. I got my associates at a local community college, paid in cash, zero education debt!

The bottom line is there are multiple ways to get a good paying job.
- Self study/certifications
- Colleges (including local community colleges, does not mean you have to break the bank)
- Vocational/Trade Schools
- Apprenticeships

I am sure I am missing others. But any time you decide to spend money for a job/career, make sure the cost justifies what you will make starting the career and justify the increases through the career.

 

Totally (very dated) personal opinion, but I do feel like quite a few of my peers from my HS class didnt have the faintest idea what they wanted to do when they graduated. So they used college as a way to kick the can on making any choice / to buy a few more years of fun before they have to get a real job. It was less of an active decision and more of a passive "this is the easiest next step".

Part of that was probably fueled to an extent by peer pressure (everyone is going there, so I should too). The other part was fueled heavily by free flowing loans (I can live for free for 4 more years and not have to worry about paying for it until Im making big money).


Among several things I think should be taught in high school to prepare for the real world is some kind of career guidance / career resources / advice: what kind of jobs are out there, what do they pay, what does the demand / outlook look like, what are the educational requirements, etc etc. We had absolutely none of that. Certainly some of that responsibility lays with the parent, but some kids have older parents that are way out of touch with the current job market (as they'd been in the same job for 30 years) and some kids have no parental guidance at all.

I get that it's tough to do that in an unbiased / fact based way - but if the intent of school is to help prepare young people for a successful life, I really think there should be a lot more focus on getting them pointed in the right direction rather than just booting them out the backdoor to figure it out on their own.

 

I knew people like that. I knew one started college and dropped out quickly feeling "it is not for him". At the time it seemed like a questionable decision. But looking back, he probably made the best choice ever! He initially thought he knew what he wanted to do, he then jumped directly into college after HS, did not make it a full semester and hit the eject button. He had extremely little investment and realized "this is not for me". I am not sure if it was the career he thought he wanted that was not for him OR college education. Doesn't matter. He picked up a good job, worked it for years and found a few steps up and eventually into a management position. He is doing well for himself now around 20 years later.
I know another guy who's parents were paying his way through the same community college I went to. He goofed off all day and cut classes. When his grades came in his parents discontinued funding and he dropped out. I honestly lost touch with him and no idea where he landed these days. For all I know, he is doing great (he at least got a full time job out of college).


I was lucky, my school did not spend a TON of time on these "real world" facts, but they did spend just enough.... Or perhaps select teachers chose to spend the time. But your point is valid! My 8th grade pre-algebra teacher had us spend a week on stuff that I still remember. Simple things like how to balance a check book. Looking through the classifieds of the paper to find a job we are interested in, take that pay and start forming a budget for a home, vehicle and having us get information from our parents on monthly bills for a home. Using this to create a very basic idea of how to figure out living on our own. I remember going through that and asking myself "how in the world do my parents afford one much less TWO cars". I found one answer, cheap deals because I have driven a lot of inexpensive and nice 10 year old cars with 100k miles with little to no issues.
Somewhere else I recall time in school briefly touching on the topic when looking at a career, check the cost of education, length and payment of the loan and what the STARTING/ENTRY pay for the job is and ask "can I afford to pay the loan back AND have what I need to live on that starting pay when I begin my new career". All very brief items, but they stuck with me.

These are NOT difficult topics but it still helps to have a parent, guardian or school introduce them.

 

Wow, that's pretty awesome, especially that early on! Unfortunately they had zero of that in my school. For the mandated / core classes at mine, it truly felt like the focus was entirely on how many kids they could successfully cram through the state mandated testing. If it wasnt on the test, it wasnt important.