02-16-2015, 11:13 PM
I think it's a huge pity that we (at least here in the US) don't offer this kind of hands-on education any longer. But, it's our own fault.
When I was in High School (class of 82), my Dad, a multi-disciplinary engineer who was named on 10 patents (yeah, hard act to follow) absolutely blew a gasket when I told him I wanted to take auto shop. I'd have taken machine shop classes, but that had been dismantled ages ago. It was his opinion that shop was where the "intellectually lacking" students went because they weren't cut out for white-collar work.
So, now I taught myself the skills I didn't get in HS, and our auto mechanic (I get immensely frustrated working on cars -- it's as if they were specifically designed to be hard to work on) is Romanian.
When I was in High School (class of 82), my Dad, a multi-disciplinary engineer who was named on 10 patents (yeah, hard act to follow) absolutely blew a gasket when I told him I wanted to take auto shop. I'd have taken machine shop classes, but that had been dismantled ages ago. It was his opinion that shop was where the "intellectually lacking" students went because they weren't cut out for white-collar work.
So, now I taught myself the skills I didn't get in HS, and our auto mechanic (I get immensely frustrated working on cars -- it's as if they were specifically designed to be hard to work on) is Romanian.