The conventional career track of high school, to the glorified credentialing programs we now call colleges, to a narrow sector of the workforce that one has ostensibly been prepared for has never seemed like a good one for all people. It raises a barrier to entry for many jobs, forces life-altering choices on people without the perspective to properly consider them, and places a largely arbitrary clock on when one should educate oneself. With many predicting the death of entry-level corporate jobs, combined with the chronic indecision of college students about what to study, and the general nihilism of recent grads about their colleges’ worth, perhaps it is time to reconsider that career track’s broad applicability.
Conventional wisdom says that high school students should, almost by default, attend college after graduating. While not bad advice, this assumes that learning theory before—or even instead of—the hands-on practical knowledge of a given field is best, that young adults with little life experience are prepared to decide what they want to do for a living, and that there is a discernible hierarchy of which kinds of work are best.
In The Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle points out that someone with strictly practical knowledge knows more than one with strictly theoretical knowledge, for all the theoretical knowledge in the world is useless if you do not know how to apply it. Knowledge of particulars, Aristotle contends, is useful by itself—even if one is ignorant of the theory behind it. As Jeremiah Johnson wrote in August, otherwise gifted staffers of the Department of Government Efficiency fell flat on their faces: They knew the general theory behind their assignment—slash and burn—but did not know enough particulars about the government for said theory to be useful. Therefore they fired irreplaceable people, made spurious claims about how much money they saved, failed to come to close their original projection of $2 trillion saved, and caused general chaos without accomplishing much of anything.
DOGE’s mistakes are fairly easy to see. Yet we make the same mistakes in the way we prioritize knowledge. We tell people with a vague interest in business or engineering to invest in related degrees—often very expensive degrees—before they know anything about those subjects. This often forecloses the opportunity to get acquainted with the practical on the ground knowledge of the field. And I would argue that it is often these experiences that drive an interest in theoretical knowledge and facilitate one’s ability to understand it.
For example, someone with a background in civil engineering but no practical experience in civil construction may know that concrete for a particular application should be poured at a four slump, but they do not know what a four slump looks and feels like. The slump test is essentially a test of the product’s viscosity—if it is too thin or too thick, the final result will be compromised. A wealth of variables affect slump. Some are precise and easier to control such as the ratio of water to cement. But most are far looser such as time, temperature, and the angularity of the aggregate—literally, the sharpness of the edges of the rocks in it. You might learn about those variables from a textbook. But they can really only be fully considered by sight and feel.
To be sure, there are some fields where the two types of knowledge are intertwined, like health care where the holders of theoretical knowledge—doctors, nurses, and others—are also practitioners of it. In these fields, college offers both theoretical and practical knowledge. However, in other fields like architecture, business, and consulting, those in charge of crafting theoretical plans are only directing the practical implementation, not performing it.
Not only does having a library of experiences make one better understand the theories they work with, but it also facilitates one’s ability to learn them in the first place. For example, as a trainee fireman, I learned about how air flow affects fire behavior, but the concept was difficult to grasp because I had never seen it in action. On my first day, we arrived at a fire in a basement and could see flames billowing out of the windows. As another company made for the basement, my boss told me that we would head toward the attic, but I hadn’t the slightest clue why. It was a two-and-a-half story apartment building with a storefront on the first floor and apartments above. Why the attic? Why not the first or second floors? Sure enough, by the time we reached the attic, it was engulfed in flames. After we put out the fire, I asked my boss how he knew it would skip the first and second floors before reaching the attic. He explained that since it was a balloon frame structure, the fire traveled rapidly until it reached the roof and, being trapped, began to build heat in the attic—rather than following the stairwells which were broken up by floors and landings. I had learned about this during training—but I did not fully understand it until I saw it in action.
It is also the case that we often do not always know enough about ourselves to choose a career path when convention dictates that we do so. For my part, I graduated college wholly disillusioned. I had not the slightest idea of who I was or what I “wanted to do with my life.” I joined the laborers’ union and began pouring concrete, digging holes, and demolishing things. Later, I joined my hometown fire department in Cleveland, Ohio. I continue to learn a lot about life and people and the human condition performing jobs that do not require a degree. I find fulfillment and meaning in work every day, and I find myself growing in curiosity and interest. I gave myself a chance to learn about who I was by following my interests as opposed to the conventional career track.
Had I merely taken a job I was ostensibly prepared for that did not interest me, I would have extinguished those subtle flames of curiosity that I did not yet understand. I would have missed out on experiences, skills, and knowledge that have made me more well-rounded, simply for the foolish pretense that convention is always best. None of this is to say that blue-collar work specifically facilitates growth; just that I believe that interests should trump convention when both are being considered.
When we arbitrarily prize specific lines of work that require a college degree based on their perceived societal value, we push lost kids who do not yet know who they are towards them. We tell them to forget about their interests unless those interests happen to align with society’s perception of worthy careers. But I believe that following those interests, wherever they may lead, is the most likely path to a fulfilling life.
I do not blame parents for their discomfort with the idea of allowing their kids to take menial jobs when they have the means to keep them from such toil. It makes sense if you’re talking about a dangerous and low-skilled job like the coal miners of yesteryear. But it makes less sense if you’re talking about a skilled trade with a good salary, like a pipefitter or electrician. It is also the case that giving your child a good life includes allowing them to stumble and struggle and trip over themselves as they muddle through. It is not in saving them from suffering but in allowing them to learn from it.
I am not breaking ground to suggest that a life well-lived includes more than material success. But it can still seem like a novel thing to argue that kids are better served when the conveyor belt to college and beyond is treated as an option, not as the default. We are not wrong to want a middle-class lifestyle. But it is a mistake to blindly follow the conventional track to it, without intention. If one’s genuine interests are directing them toward this track, then by all means, they should follow it. But if not, perhaps they should follow the interests that they do have and see where they lead. I think they will be all the more satisfied with their lives if they do.
If your kids do not know what to do when they graduate high school or even college, let them muddle through. Send them to the military, or a union hall, or a diner, or an autobody shop, or a nursery, or one of a million places where they can make a living and learn about the world by participating in it. This does not foreclose higher education; it allows them to better learn who they are before deciding what they want to do. Perhaps working as a bricklayer will feed an interest in architecture. Perhaps working in a nursery will lead to an interest in biology. Perhaps these experiences will simply make them doctors and lawyers who are far more worldly than their peers. Perhaps they will simply find work that is interesting and fulfilling. There is no less honor in laying brick than there is in the average office job. We live in a world of theoretical and practical knowledge, with the boundary between the two growing more difficult to cross. I think the next era will belong to those who transcend it.
