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pearljammer on 11 April 2009
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Kasz216 said:
pearljammer said:
Kasz216 said:
pearljammer said:
Kasz216 said:
pearljammer said:
TheRealMafoo said:
pearljammer said:

Just one last post...

I would agree with your second suggestion. I'm not overly familiar with the US education system, but here in Canada it is at a provincial level. It'd probably be even more effective at a regional level.

 

In 1953 the US started running education at the federal level. Before that it was run either at the state level, or more localized. It was considered a state issue, so each state did it a little differently.

Education was a lot better back then. Today, in the sate I live in, we collect about 20k per student enrolled. I am not against that huge sum of money, but think of the education that could buy if you had a more efficient system to spend it in. The top private schools don't cost that much.

The problem with that comparison is that the top private schools still don't have the high needs that public schools have, especially in inner-city schools.

@donathos: I wouldn't bother. Anyone claiming to know that "Most of the jobs that require the same amount of education are really a lot harder" without teaching before simply has no idea what they're talking about in this regard.

Most classrooms that are innercity share the issues that you have said, but usually to a much lesser extreme. Even taking away from all of that, just dealing with the academics alone is a difficult task. Teaching to 35 fourteen year olds (in one class, about 150 in total), each having completely different learning abilities, attitudes, priorities, and support at home as well as at school is an incredibly difficult thing to do. I'll admit, I'm not the greatest at it yet, it takes times, there are several changes the teacher needs to make about themselves as well. A jobs' difficultly cannot purely be measured upon the 'meatiness' of the material you are dealing with.

So, Kasz, I ask you again. What, exactly, makes microbiologists' job 'harder' or more 'tough' than a teachers? What qualifies you to make such a judgment?

My response to both questions is:

  1. I have no idea which is harder; and
  2. I'm not, as I haven't been a microbiologist at any point in my life

 

The college work alone is much harder... most people... even with college degrees could not get through the bachelors program for microbiology... let alone harder the latter programs.

Less people are qualified to be them.

 

Ok, so the amount of study and cognitive ability may need to be greater in order to study microbiology, I'll give you that. But how does that necessarily encompass the entire job? I don't suppose you mean to say that whatever program is more difficult to make it through in university will always be the harder job? That'd be a gross oversimplification.

Again, does that necessarily make it the harder job? What kind of education would you need to become a CEO of a Fortune 500 company? Compare that to the education of a microbiologist. Is it simple enough to say that it's easier to study one program than the other so one job is more difficult?

Many things play into the difficulty of a job. Not just the core content of what your job may consist of.

It does make it a harder job though. 

Less people could be microbiologists.

The less people that can do something... the harder the job it is.

I mean... if only one person in the world was qualfied to become a quantum engineer who built stuff out of Quantum particles...

His job would be the hardest in the world... even if for him it was as easy as tieing his shoes.

There are other factors sure.... but if the base requirmenets in one category outweigh another by a substnatial amount... it's a lot harder to do it just based on the fact that not as many people can.

2nd bold: That's the key factor here. The Fortune 500 CEO need only but a lowly Business degree (joking) which I'm sure we can all agree is easier to accomplish than earning one in microbiology. It's these other factors that make the CEO's job potenially more difficult than the microbiologists. Don't get me wrong, I don't think that difficulty is completely related to the amount of stress it puts on the worker. So many things factor in here, and are based on opinion, that I would think it immeasurable.

1st bold: I don't think it's as simple as a hierarchical list based on difficulty of obtaining a college degree.

edit: I think I can see a slight difference in how we are approaching this question: You see it as 'Which job is harder?'. I see it as 'Which job is harder on you?'. Personally, I see no difference between the two but I can certainly understand where you're coming from.

So in otherwords you think it's harder being a factory worker then say an accountant or teacher.

 

Not necessarily. I said it was more complicated than that. There are things more trying than physical activity. But, again, it all depends on the person.

I simply think that it is naive to think that one can base the difficulty of a job on the education required alone.