This post was made in reply to a comment about not having enough motivated students in the trade today in the "HVAC SCHOOLS?" Thread.
Walk into a high school today. Ask the students, "Who wants to be involved with HVACR?" If you get one or two hands, that is pretty good. If you get 3 or more, it is awesome. If you get 1 or none, I wouldn't be surprised.
I'll tell you how it works today in the life of a high school senior, beings that I graduated from HS 2 years ago. Your teachers, counselors, and in my case, parents, are all pushing you to get a 4-year degree. They want to see you go to some college, where you will live on a beautiful campus and take classes for 4 years and graduate. They pretty much don't care in what, so long as it is "something you want to do." Well, college reps go to the high schools to advertise what they offer. You have the basics... the various engineering and science disciplines, english, history, poli sci, business (Do you have ANY idea how many business majors there are in the world???) math, bio, chem, the list goes on and on and we have all heard of them.
HVACR is never mentioned. As a matter of fact, none of the trades are.
The biggest thing in high schools now is how high your SAT or ACT is. It is the number one worry factor among high school students. They spend hundreds of dollars taking those tests, then retaking them to get a higher score, then paying for seminars to improve them. Read the USA Today, where an article is written about how the SAT has changed its format to include a critical thinking section. It is a huge deal to people.
So we are prepping our high schoolers for college. The ones going to college are in a totaly different group than those who are not. The students who took ag or tech classes or carpentry in high school (assuming high schools even offer those classes anymore!) are looked down upon. They are not good enough to make it into college. They are not good enough to have the high ACT/SAT scores to get nice scholarships. They are ignored by their teachers and counselors as far as motivation. They are labeled "dumb." Teachers, counselors, and administrators consider them to be a "failure," because school districts keep track of their college placement as a rating, and it is MUCH more important than their vocational placement. Oh, and GOD FORBID that anybody graduates and goes straight into the work force, even if the company they work for offers their own training. After all, the mean income of a high school graduate with no post-secondary degree is only about $20,000/year.
Yes, it is a wonder why the trades are dieing. With no motivation from the school itself to pursue anything other than college, with so few colleges offering degrees in the trades, and with so much pressure not to be in that lower-class of students taking ag or tech classes, or entering the work force right after high school, it is a wonder there are any trade students at all. Even then, they have always been treated like they are worthless, no-nothing brats who have been trouble to the teachers, and bad marks on the administration.
Further, I know my theory is true. I have spoken with many students here at Ferris. People naturally ask each other why they picked it. Some students have said, "It was the only place that would accept me." When then asked what degree they are pursuing, the answer is always the same, "I don't know yet." These students genuinely had no idea what to do if they didn't go to college. Mom and dad, and their counselors at school, had provided that as the only option, and they don't know otherwise. They think that they are worthless to society if they don't go to college for something. Oh yeah, they graduate... with a degree they could care less about. Psychology is getting to be popular.
Even more proof... my home school district passed a bond issue for school improvement. It was time to expand. New classrooms were needed, and some buildings needed desperate remodeling. Nearly every building the district has will be updated, remodeled, and added on to... except the ag building. Welding, horticulture, farming, agribusiness, and some automotive, doesn't get a dime. Oh, and the ag building is the one that needs the improvements the most. Nothing has been done to the facility in over 40 years. With all of the code violations of not keeping it up-to-date with new safety standards and new tools and machinery, it is a wonder the state hasn't shut it down. Of course, they probably don't care enough to even step into it, either.
Next, if a high-school student tells their counselor that they haven't been accepted to college yet and don't know what to do, the counselor suggests the military. I have nothing against the military whatsoever; On the contrary, God Bless those brave men who are fighting for our Country. My point is that trade schools are nowhere near the top of the list as far as options after high school.
Finally, those people that DO have an image of HVACR don't have a good one, typically. HVACR to most people is the furnace in the basement or air conditioner sitting outside. It isn't the means by which grocery stores can operate, ice cream machines are a reality, medicine can be produced, blood can be transfused, factories can process, data centers can calculate without burning up, I could go on and on and on. Nobody notices this industry until their air conditioning doesn't start in the late spring, and then they get a bad image of us when we can't show up right that very minute because everyone else's on the block quit, too.
I am very fortuate. I have found the beautiful campus, full-blown university that offers HVACR. It offers a 4-year engineering degree in HVACR. It offers the 2-year technical degree. However, I also realize that I am very, very weird. I knew I wanted to design commercial HVACR systems since I was a freshman in high school. I wanted to be in this trade, with the architectural papers designing systems for big buildings. I would have traveled anywhere in the country to get that degree, but most of your high-school seniors have no idea what HVACR really is, let alone travel 14 hours, like me, to find out.
So this leaves us with the question... "What do we do about it?" The answer is: I don't know. How do you convince high schoolers that being a HVACR tech, requiring only 2 years of post-secondary education, is better than getting a 4-year degree when everybody else is telling them otherwise? How do you convince a senior that the gorgeous college campus with more women and beer than the dinky little unsightly tech school down the road isn't as good of an option? The only suggestion that I can come up with is to visit the high schools much like the colleges do and try to recruit for local tech schools in the area, and explain what HVACR really is. Still, even if this is done, there are a lot of other things you must contend with.
So I throw this Dowadudda-sized essay out onto HVAC-Talk, subject to your questions, suggestions, and utter rebuking... to better understand why as an industry we are short, and to show the scale to which this problem exists. It certainly cannot be corrected overnight, and certainly would take the effort of many to resolve.
So... what do y'all think???
Walk into a high school today. Ask the students, "Who wants to be involved with HVACR?" If you get one or two hands, that is pretty good. If you get 3 or more, it is awesome. If you get 1 or none, I wouldn't be surprised.
I'll tell you how it works today in the life of a high school senior, beings that I graduated from HS 2 years ago. Your teachers, counselors, and in my case, parents, are all pushing you to get a 4-year degree. They want to see you go to some college, where you will live on a beautiful campus and take classes for 4 years and graduate. They pretty much don't care in what, so long as it is "something you want to do." Well, college reps go to the high schools to advertise what they offer. You have the basics... the various engineering and science disciplines, english, history, poli sci, business (Do you have ANY idea how many business majors there are in the world???) math, bio, chem, the list goes on and on and we have all heard of them.
HVACR is never mentioned. As a matter of fact, none of the trades are.
The biggest thing in high schools now is how high your SAT or ACT is. It is the number one worry factor among high school students. They spend hundreds of dollars taking those tests, then retaking them to get a higher score, then paying for seminars to improve them. Read the USA Today, where an article is written about how the SAT has changed its format to include a critical thinking section. It is a huge deal to people.
So we are prepping our high schoolers for college. The ones going to college are in a totaly different group than those who are not. The students who took ag or tech classes or carpentry in high school (assuming high schools even offer those classes anymore!) are looked down upon. They are not good enough to make it into college. They are not good enough to have the high ACT/SAT scores to get nice scholarships. They are ignored by their teachers and counselors as far as motivation. They are labeled "dumb." Teachers, counselors, and administrators consider them to be a "failure," because school districts keep track of their college placement as a rating, and it is MUCH more important than their vocational placement. Oh, and GOD FORBID that anybody graduates and goes straight into the work force, even if the company they work for offers their own training. After all, the mean income of a high school graduate with no post-secondary degree is only about $20,000/year.
Yes, it is a wonder why the trades are dieing. With no motivation from the school itself to pursue anything other than college, with so few colleges offering degrees in the trades, and with so much pressure not to be in that lower-class of students taking ag or tech classes, or entering the work force right after high school, it is a wonder there are any trade students at all. Even then, they have always been treated like they are worthless, no-nothing brats who have been trouble to the teachers, and bad marks on the administration.
Further, I know my theory is true. I have spoken with many students here at Ferris. People naturally ask each other why they picked it. Some students have said, "It was the only place that would accept me." When then asked what degree they are pursuing, the answer is always the same, "I don't know yet." These students genuinely had no idea what to do if they didn't go to college. Mom and dad, and their counselors at school, had provided that as the only option, and they don't know otherwise. They think that they are worthless to society if they don't go to college for something. Oh yeah, they graduate... with a degree they could care less about. Psychology is getting to be popular.
Even more proof... my home school district passed a bond issue for school improvement. It was time to expand. New classrooms were needed, and some buildings needed desperate remodeling. Nearly every building the district has will be updated, remodeled, and added on to... except the ag building. Welding, horticulture, farming, agribusiness, and some automotive, doesn't get a dime. Oh, and the ag building is the one that needs the improvements the most. Nothing has been done to the facility in over 40 years. With all of the code violations of not keeping it up-to-date with new safety standards and new tools and machinery, it is a wonder the state hasn't shut it down. Of course, they probably don't care enough to even step into it, either.
Next, if a high-school student tells their counselor that they haven't been accepted to college yet and don't know what to do, the counselor suggests the military. I have nothing against the military whatsoever; On the contrary, God Bless those brave men who are fighting for our Country. My point is that trade schools are nowhere near the top of the list as far as options after high school.
Finally, those people that DO have an image of HVACR don't have a good one, typically. HVACR to most people is the furnace in the basement or air conditioner sitting outside. It isn't the means by which grocery stores can operate, ice cream machines are a reality, medicine can be produced, blood can be transfused, factories can process, data centers can calculate without burning up, I could go on and on and on. Nobody notices this industry until their air conditioning doesn't start in the late spring, and then they get a bad image of us when we can't show up right that very minute because everyone else's on the block quit, too.
I am very fortuate. I have found the beautiful campus, full-blown university that offers HVACR. It offers a 4-year engineering degree in HVACR. It offers the 2-year technical degree. However, I also realize that I am very, very weird. I knew I wanted to design commercial HVACR systems since I was a freshman in high school. I wanted to be in this trade, with the architectural papers designing systems for big buildings. I would have traveled anywhere in the country to get that degree, but most of your high-school seniors have no idea what HVACR really is, let alone travel 14 hours, like me, to find out.
So this leaves us with the question... "What do we do about it?" The answer is: I don't know. How do you convince high schoolers that being a HVACR tech, requiring only 2 years of post-secondary education, is better than getting a 4-year degree when everybody else is telling them otherwise? How do you convince a senior that the gorgeous college campus with more women and beer than the dinky little unsightly tech school down the road isn't as good of an option? The only suggestion that I can come up with is to visit the high schools much like the colleges do and try to recruit for local tech schools in the area, and explain what HVACR really is. Still, even if this is done, there are a lot of other things you must contend with.
So I throw this Dowadudda-sized essay out onto HVAC-Talk, subject to your questions, suggestions, and utter rebuking... to better understand why as an industry we are short, and to show the scale to which this problem exists. It certainly cannot be corrected overnight, and certainly would take the effort of many to resolve.
So... what do y'all think???
