Re: OT: Air travel & conspiracy theories

On Sat, 02 Sep 2006 18:52:17 +0100, Kim Andrews <somerat@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

You are assuming that those who don't go to university will be
failing, rather than making a choice? I don't think that's ever been a
blanket truth, and see no reason why it should be so in the future.
Some of us simply choose not to go the University route, and I find
the assumption that this must equal failure a bit insulting... in a
"I'm not really insulted at all but making a point" sort of way. ;o)

Kim, I can appreciate why you feel the way you do, but I think at the
same time you have to remember that when you chose not to go to
university, you were not choosing not to be one of _50%_ (does that
make sense) - in other words, this is not _quite_ comparing like with
like. I think looking just at today's situation, Ray does have some
sort of point in that there didn't seem to be any cohesive plan for
the "other" 50%. I suspect - though I don't know for sure - that there
were more routes to success two or three decades ago, other than going
to university (yeah, yeah, it depends what you mean by success) than
there are now.

When I went to America for a year in the 70s, I met a woman from
London who told me she had gone to work in an office, bringing with
her several years of experience and office skills. But they had been
very dubious about taking her on at first, because she didn't have a
degree. This in spite of the fact that she said many of her colleagues
at about the same level couldn't spell to save their lives (not even
in American...) and seemed to her to be generally less well-educated
than she was.

lff
.

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