Needed now and next decade: Electricians, roofers, plumbers

[Igel]

34. Agreed.

But if you get a 4-year-degree you should have some sort of common background and familiarity with more than just your specific field.

When you get your plumber's credentials you've already gone through a low-level of that. It should continue at higher levels, because that's the layer of society that's going to expect to have a louder voice in setting policy because they'll know better. Policy is always a compromise, and those citizens need to know enough to be able to talk to other stakeholders in reaching a compromise.

If you only know chemistry, then it's harder to understand the concerns of somebody who only knows sociology, but they have to agree since things like EPA and FDA rules will be imposed on both, as will other regulations put out by those trained in social sciences. Nobody's just going to say, "I'll blindly agree to whatever you say if you blindly accept that you know absolutely nothing about what I do and follow my dictates."

This is all the more important when you get kids from different backgrounds. Otherwise you get what I hear constantly now--"We'll govern ourselves, leave us alone, I'm different from you, we have nothing in common, you can't understand me." And in any society, prominence isn't going to be given to having the majority learn to deal with a dozen small subcultures but having the subcultures cope with the majority.