NBC/Today: Teens enter vocational school, come out with jobs, no debt

[Throckmorton]

9. I managed to adapt just fine to technology changes,

I graduated from just such a school in 1980, after four years training to be an industrial electrician. Just because you attend such a school, does not automatically block you from moving forward into secondary education or learning new skills.

If anything, it taught me that I could truly master something at a young age. Just the opposite of what my Junior High School experience had taught me, that I was worthless, and doomed to fail.

Contrast that with my sister, who went to traditional four years of collge, and graduated with a liberal arts degree. She is a teacher and frequently likes to point out that it took me 10 years to earn a BSEE. It just seems to frost her that my yearly income is almost twice hers.