The South Tech Blog - An Introduction

In my capacity as an admissions representative for South Tech I spend a lot of time talking to teenagers about their futures and career options. As you might guess, this is not the easiest thing to do! What typical American teen wants to sit down and have any kind of in-depth conversation about salaries, education requirements, work environments, and so on? I know I wasn’t looking to have that conversation when I was in high school…all I wanted to talk to anyone about was college. Where I would be going, what I would be studying, and how to pay for all of it were the questions I wanted answered. Of course, I didn’t realize how many different answers there might be.

In every classroom I visit I ask students the same question, “How many of you are planning on going to college?” and inevitably, regardless of which south St. Louis county high school I am in, at least 99% of the students will raise their hand.  Many of those will also state confidently that they have already chosen a college major. Do many of them know how much their education will cost, how they are going to cover that cost, or how much debt they may incur after graduating with a bachelor’s degree? Well, that’s another matter all together.

As a nation, we endorse the idea that a college education is an important, and necessary, first step toward a successful career. But with a growing number of students leaving college without a degree and an even larger number finishing only to find that the careers they have focused on just don’t have jobs available, I believe it’s time for us to start thinking about all the other options young people can explore when they consider occupations.

A recent story on CBS nightly news highlighted an important issue facing the American labor force: the lack of qualified people for highly skilled jobs. It can be seen here CBS Nightly News. There are more and more highly skilled jobs left unfilled because fewer and fewer people consider applying for them…and even if they wanted to, they just don’t have the education, skills, or experience required.

Before I risk being misunderstood, you should know I am an absolute, no argument, get as much as you can, never stop learning, advocate for education. I also believe that a technical education can be just as valuable as one steeped in academia. Beyond the benefits these skilled fields provide our national workforce (and the fact that our infrastructure is completely dependent on many of these occupations), students who engage in them have a lot to gain as well. With this blog, I hope to highlight the numerous ways that technical education supports academic pursuits, enhances critical thinking skills, and encourages career exploration. I also want to call attention to how important it is for kids to have an opportunity to do this before college, whether that is through classes at South Tech, electives at their own school, job shadowing, internships, or any other chance they may have to engage in career related activities. 

After five years of undergrad, four different colleges, two changes in major, and a whopping $20,000 still in student loan debt, which is small by today’s standards (I finished that first degree in 1994!), I know I wish I could have begun my academic pursuits with a better understanding of what I wanted to do. I’ll bet there are a lot of us who share this kind of hindsight.