[GPSCC-chat] student's feedback

Sun May 27 20:12:03 PDT 2012

Dear Jim:

       He invited feedback.  Below please see my reactions, which you 
can forward to him.

       Thanks, Spencer

##############################

Hi, Ben:

       Jim asked for your comments, and I appreciate you sharing with us 
your thoughts.  You invited reactions to your comments, so I will offer 
some.

             1.  I believe the primary benefit of more eduction is that 
it gives one more flexibility.  People with more education tend to have 
more flexibility in how they spend their time.  It's difficult but not 
impossible to become a college professor without a PhD.  It's difficult 
but not impossible to become a high level manager in many organizations 
without a masters in business or public administration.  I have a friend 
with a PhD in chemical engineering and experience with lithography in 
the manufacture of computer chips, who decided he didn't want to do that 
any more.  He sought and found a job as a statistician in biotech.  I 
have a BS in Aerospace Engineering and a PhD in Statistics.

             2.  There is a strong relationship between education and 
unemployment and income.  The Wikipedia article on "Educational 
attainment in the United States" cites research indicating that in 2009, 
14.6% of high school dropouts were unemployed vs. 2.4% of people with a 
doctorate or a professional degree (doctor or lawyer), and the median 
weekly earnings were $454 for dropouts and $1,530 for people with 
doctorates and professional degrees.  Moreover, the spread in income has 
increased over the past 40 years, as noted in the Wikipedia article on 
"Income inequality in the United States".  From these numbers, one could 
program a spreadsheet to compare a person's net worth each year over, 
say, the next 50 years as a function of your education level and how 
much debt you took at what interest rate to obtain more education.

             3.  The opportunities for lower skilled jobs are declining 
all the time, with more work being done by robots.  The future belongs 
to people who will (a) create the technology of tomorrow
and (b) drive the political processes that determine if our future will 
look more like the egalitarian societies of Scandinavia or the poverty 
of Africa.  Currently, the commercial media is driving us towards the 
latter, but it doesn't need to be that way.

             4.  The runaway inflation in the cost of a college 
education is a major scandal of our time, driving by laws written to 
benefit major campaign contributors, including the banks, and concealed 
by the mainstream commercial media, who would lose advertising if they 
exposed too much of it.  For more information, see a brochure created by 
Occupy San José and San José State Students for Quality Education 
(http://occupy.pbworks.com/w/file/54050104/StudentDebt2.pdf) or another 
brochure inviting people to "Move Your Money" from a major bank 
(http://occupy.pbworks.com/w/file/54050421/MoveYourMoney2012-05-27.pdf) 
or "Gateway Problems in US Politics & Economics" at 
"http://occupy.pbworks.com/w/page/52167684/Gateway%20Problems".

       I hope you find these comments interesting and useful.

       Thanks for coming to our meeting last week.  I hope to see you 
again.

       Best Wishes,
       Spencer Graves

On 5/26/2012 9:53 PM, Jim Doyle wrote:
> Hi Jim,
>
> Yes, the assignment is for a class called into to environmental 
> studies, and we are supposed to attend some sort of civic event with 
> some ties of some sort to the environmental movement or green thinking.
>
>
>
> We are going to be writing a short paper on our experience at our 
> event, what type of things we heard, what we learned, and the general 
> vibe that we got from the experience, (was it easy to get involved, 
> was it easy to follow or would it require months of prior 
> attendance... etc).
>
>
>
> Student loans in today's society I think are a very interesting topic 
> because the more difficult they are to pay off, the less likely it is 
> that people of lower socioeconomic classes will go to college. In 
> America today, the culture tells us that going to college will make us 
> successful, and that people who don't go to college are wasting their 
> lives.
>
>
>
> However, I see this as somewhat of a misguided belief. Although 
> college can definitely be a very educational and interesting 
> experience, today's business world does not react as it used to when 
> shown college degrees. Due to the enormous amount of people receiving 
> college degrees, graduate degrees are starting to become the only way 
> to ensure a job.
>
>
>
> Sadly, if everyone goes to college in our society, a vast majority of 
> those people will not put the skills learned in college to good use. 
> As terrible as it sounds, someone does need to do the manuel labor, 
> service jobs, etc.
>
>
>
> I am not one to say who these people should be, but in the end, the 
> amount of money spent on college tuition will not be worth it for many 
> people because they will end up with a very similar job to what they 
> would have had without a degree.
>
>
>
> So, returning to your first question, on the outside, an increase in 
> interest in student loans does seem bad, but in the end, I truly 
> believe that it will help people to realize that college is not really 
> so useful anymore, even if the interest rates were low on student 
> loans, people still spend decades paying off loans amounting to 
> thousands of dollars.
>
>
>
> As a college student, I probably come across as incredibly pretentious 
> and ignorant saying all these things, but I still think that they are 
> important points to think about. I hope they don't come across as too 
> obnoxious.
>
>
>
> Anyway, I really enjoyed the meeting on Thursday. I think that you all 
> have countless great ideas and concepts that could definitely do our 
> country some good. I also have a few suggestions of things that the 
> Santa Clara Green Party could do to become more successful in raising 
> money and winning votes.
>
>
>
> A few friends and I are starting a business called UbookSwap. It's an 
> online book swap website for college students to save money instead of 
> going through the school bookstore. this is the website... 
> www.ubookswap.com <http://www.ubookswap.com/>.
>
>
>
> As you can see, the website is quite elementary and not very pretty. 
> However, we recently paid a graphic design student at Santa Clara 
> University just 250 dollars to improve the design of the site. I 
> attached a few of the pictures,  I am not sure if they are in the 
> correct format for you to open but it's worth a try.
>
>
>
> She made it looks 500 times better, so if you would like, I could put 
> you into contact with her or another student that could make your 
> website look more enticing and exciting. I think the 250 dollars would 
> definitely be very well invested money, as a good image can't do 
> anyone any harm.
>
>
>
> Also, I really like all the content on the brochure that you handed 
> out to us, my only comment is that some people might think that the 
> cover looks a tiny bit outdated. This is barely a problem, just 
> something that I noticed.
>
>
>
> Anyway,
>
> I would appreciate any feedback on anything I have said, I wish you 
> all the success in the world.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Ben
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> sosfbay-discuss mailing list
> sosfbay-discuss at cagreens.org
> http://lists.cagreens.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sosfbay-discuss
>
>

-- 
Spencer Graves, PE, PhD
President and Chief Technology Officer
Structure Inspection and Monitoring, Inc.
751 Emerson Ct.
San José, CA 95126
ph:  408-655-4567
web:  www.structuremonitoring.com