Comments on: Credentialism

By: When in doubt, plug « In Mala Fide

When in doubt, plug « In Mala Fide — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 16:03:35 +0000

[...] laments the rise of credentialism in our increasingly feminized world: Unfortunately, our society is becoming more and more obsessed with standardized credentials, even [...]

By: Bhetti

Bhetti — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 11:26:39 +0000

I like this thought on the matter: http://defaultuserblog.wordpress.com/2009/09/02/the-real-beta-revolution/#comment-180

By: Niko

Niko — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 04:20:03 +0000

Emarel

I paid off a license tester (cost him a thousand bucks) and the kid was driving for two years before the tester was busted and all licenses provided through him were revoked.

By: jz

jz — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 23:58:34 +0000

@nova above,
I agree with your thesis, that a labor market flooded with degree-holding women (and men) drive down incomes. However, you clearly don’t understand the market and incomes for doctors. There is a shortage (not “a dime a dozen”) of physician labor in the US. Despite this, our incomes are tethered to congress via MedPac. They set rates for Medicare, and the insurance companies follow their lead. Reimbursement is not connected, in any way, to the labor market, with the exception of a few hospital-based labor shortages (ex. pediatric surgery, trauma surgery, hospital-based neurosurgery, etc.)

I know I’m quibbling here, but your comment was so off.

By: Tarl

Tarl — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 14:08:45 +0000

The one person who actually was concerned about the fact that my grades as an undergrad were mediocre (3.1 GPA) was the HR lady. I hope it isn’t a big factor.

That’s amazing. In my experience, they may care about gpa if you’re interviewing for your first job, but after that, nobody cares what your gpa was or even where you went to school or (in many cases) what your major was. I remember at my first job they verified that I actually had the degrees I claimed, but that was it.

By: emarel

emarel — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 13:13:31 +0000

Niko, any way that the system could be, how to say it, circumvented, to allow this young man to get his heavy vehicle license?

It may technically be cheating, but fuck the system. Ultimately, many men will either fuck the system by circumventing the rules, or work actively to destroy it.

Personally I would prefer the latter .

By: codebuster

codebuster — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 05:13:53 +0000

And as an inevitable extension of this credentialism, what about regulationism and an assortment of nanny-state initiatives that should be of nobody’s business but the individual (cycle helmets, seatbelts come to mind).

By: Niko

Niko — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 04:58:19 +0000

Post of the year. Great observations.

I know of a poor bugger who is only functionally literate. His father owns a truck and he has been driving it since he was sixteen. He is as professional at heavy vehicle driving as it is possible.

He has tried sitting for his heavy vehicle license and has failed, owing to his inability to deduce the deliberately confusing syntax in the written test (this is in Australia, don’t know how it goes in the US).

I sat the test with him to try and help him get over the line. I passed but I can tell you I have nowhere near the driving ability of this young man nor would I remotely trust myself behind a heavy rig.

Alas the young man had to give up his dreams due to credentialism despite being more qualified for the job than 99.9% of the population.

By: novaseeker

novaseeker — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 04:32:14 +0000

Nova, is the push for women’s representative parity in STEM limited to academia or is it trying to be forced upon the private sector too?

EW –

For now the main push is in the academy. But in the private sector what seems to be happening is to try to place female supervisors (better with people skills, dontcha know?) over male engineers. That is a recipe for a big “F*** YOU!” after a time, if you ask me.

By: Kevin K

Kevin K — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 03:43:19 +0000

Also, I think there needs to be a general “health studies” degree that’s like 2 years. After the 2 years you can apply to go to medical school, dental school, dental hygenist school, nursing school or the 25-zillion other jobs in a hospital that need some dinky little certification. These jobs pay well and aren’t really all that demanding. Most people aren’t aware they even exist.