Running Bear's Coffee Shop July 2024

[chadbag]

Event and Tourism Management degree

Is this the same as Hospitality and Tourism? That's a legit degree. A friend of mine is a professor of that (he recently retired and works as a technology solutions manager but was in the field of "Hospitality and Tourism Management" and rose to a Dean level). I'm pretty sure its a graduate level type thing but you learn the ins and outs of managing things like Hotels and similar businesses in the hospitality and tourism industry. He told me all about it when he was in town a while ago (he was far away for a long while at a few different universities) and what the field of study is for.

Ethnomusicology Master's

LGBTQ Studies Minor

Body, Place, and Identity History Ph.D.

These are the real suspect ones from the list. The others --at least at a master's or higher level -- make sense as specializations in marketing or teaching or whatever but these above are the modern day basket weaving.

The high costs associated with a college education are suspect and the government pumping money into the system inflating those costs is stupid. But if someone has the means, the rigor of achieving a degree is an accomplishment. Going to a community college or state college at a reasonable cost basis, it would be an accomplishment for someone even in a trade to get a degree in something that enhanced their thinking and reasoning ability and background knowledge in some subject. It doesn't make sense to go into debt for it but if you can take night classes and pay your own way you'll be better off in the long run having learned some degree in tech or science or logic or whatever even if you work in a trade. It's because the rigor if thinking and the ability to work through the requirements should be hard and is an accomplishment once you do it. But taking out loans for that is stupid. And government pumping money into that is stupid.

I'd like a degree in music and one in military history. Not because I'd expect to work in those fields but because it makes me a better educated and well rounded individual to have made the effort to learn new things, and to have exercised my mind in a rigorous way. But I certainly am not taking out loans to do it nor turning to the government to fund it. It's on me.

 

[Smudge617]

If they were exploiting loopholes they wouldn't need to sell.

I didn't say the wealthy were geniuses.

 

[traiNscale]

what up coffee friends!

- airport is up and running summer peak is coming...
- cloudy sky (rain maybe later today)
- around 20 celcius
- tonight iam alone at home, just the supervisor (cat) and me. no football that means trainroom!

picture of today:

traffic. the big one in the back just starting!
btw thats my office view

 

[Bill Tidler Jr.]

Good morning! It's 72° in Tipton.

 

[Smudge617]

 

[santafewillie]

Is this the same as Hospitality and Tourism?

No, they have that one too, but I consider that one as more legitimate.

 

[NorthBrit]

Trains guys, Trains!!!
View attachment 193086

I like your picture better than mine.
Grandchildren put passengers on the train.

 

[NorthBrit]

what up coffee friends!

- airport is up and running summer peak is coming...
- cloudy sky (rain maybe later today)
- around 20 celcius
- tonight iam alone at home, just the supervisor (cat) and me. no football that means trainroom!

picture of today:

View attachment 193096

traffic. the big one in the back just starting!
btw thats my office view

Where my daughter used to work, her office windows overlooked the River Tyne. Morning and afternoon caused a pause in working as ferries and cruise ships passed by.

 

[NorthBrit]

Good morning all. A cloudy day; cooler than of late. Rain forecast this afternoon.
Flo. A coffee with cream and a blueberry muffin please.

Not a lot going on today, so hopefully see the train room. Ordered some Limited Edition freight wagons from Wessex Wagons/ Yeovil Railway Centre. (Not Affiliated. A happy customer).
The wagons are predominately of the South/South West of England. I do like them. My steam layout is set in the timeframe 1914 - 1919 therefore (somehow) the wagons make their way to Leeds Sovereign Street.

An old picture of 'Puddles at the End of the Line'.

Two or three members are not feeling 100%, myself included.
Thoughts, Prayers & Peace To All Who Require

 

[troyphoto]

Well, howdy there internet subjects.

I worked at a non-state supported school. So it was the student's well off parents, or scholarships, paying their way. However, a lot of state supported schools have had their budgets slashed since 2008 (hmmmm remember then?) One report I heard from the prez of LSU (If I recall correctly) is that it used to be like 30% student fees, 70% state support for the schools. Now it's flipped to about 80/20%

We spent waaaaay too many years telling people they HAD to have a college degree to get a foot in the door job.

For those who insist that maths be taught... I offer my daughter's story. She was attending a small no-name-anyone-ever-heard-of school in southern indiana as a psych major. Got a boyfriend (who was a dreamer, not a doer... mom and dad weren't happy with her choice) and he transferred to Purdue for Computer science.

So she transferred too.

Mitch, the prez of purdue, set tuition at if you take more than 4 credit hours a semester, you pay full time tuition for a full load. Not per credit hour. You pay as if you're taking a full time attendance load. Sneaky way to get more money. But it's legal here.

Daughter, because it's Purdue, has to take Algebra 2 for a psych degree. She maths as well as I do. Which is not well at all.

We paid for that fricking class SIX TIMES! Two of them were even through the local vocational school, in hopes the credits would transfer. Daughter called in tears.... the purdue faculty moonlit at the vocational college... she had the same professors in Algebra 2 there, that gave her a D at Purdue...

Gotta have ANY college degree to get a decent job, or be promoted out of the crap levels.... and you have to take math from professors who can only teach to people good at math.

Daughter eventually moved out of boyfriend's apt, quit Purdue, and soured on college. She works in a call center now. She might be able to get promoted without a degree. But the money we flushed down the drain because of MUST TAKE ALGEBRA 2 requirement is not trivial. No degree there. But no loans, either.

Give me the LGBTQ+ studies degrees any day. Or the Dance and Music majors. About half of my News Photography classes were pharmacy majors or Dance majors. The other half was PR majors (no one actually believes journalism will pay enough to pay off college loans). And most news outlets want a degree in communications of some sort.

 

[NYC_George]

We spent waaaaay too many years telling people they HAD to have a college degree to get a foot in the door job.

Troy when I was in high school we were told if you didn't attend college, you would have a life of hard work ahead of you. After I was discharged from the USMC in 1967 myself and the friend, I was in with both got a job with the Mount Kisco's 511 local laborers union. Which later turned into to Local 235 where half of my retirement money comes from. It was hard work but paid extremely well. Then I was told by my uncle that 4 railroad fireman's jobs were coming up in a few days and we both applied and got the jobs. No hard work there and no hard work a few years later when we both became railroad engineers. Pull the throttle out, put on the brakes and stay awake. The problem for me was you had to do this every day and every holiday for 12 hours. You were always there. You were a railroad engineer with little time for not much else. I asked the laborers union rep if I could come back, and he said I could. Now it was back to working hard but only 7 hours a day, 5 days a week. Did any of the working hard every day hurt me in any way. No. This is the reason I can hit the golf ball farther then my classmates who went to work for IBM.
Swal

 

[KriegslokBR52]

We spent waaaaay too many years telling people they HAD to have a college degree to get a foot in the door job.

Exactly

 

[troyphoto]

Swal:

Trades are an excellent way of making money, having a career, and taking care of a family.

I volunteered with a guy named Rupert. An Indiana native, who went away to the TV show where they maroon the contestants on a tropical island and see who survives.

Rupert runs a non-profit mentoring program for younger adults with felonies. Since the criminal justice system has a revolving door, and the "The Box" (do you have a felony, if se, we can push your application into the circular file and ignore you) kills any chance of a decent job or housing for most of them, Rupert teaches how to work from the neck down. He also teaches self-respect. Without it, they have no ability to learn a work ethic.

I witnessed a lot of good workers emerge from under Rupert's tutelage. And he's a guy who almost completed an RN degree in Nursing (down in Texas in the late 80s) despite having severe dyslexia. But then his grandparents got sick, and he moved home to care for them. After that he was bartending, working handyman jobs, and came close to jail a few times.

When one of his wait staff's kids decided to cuss out a teacher on day one of the semester to get expelled, Rupert asked the mom for permission to tutor her son. His idea of tutoring was "I've got a truck, a mower, shovels and rakes. Lets go find some work." Two weeks later, he had another "participant" who'd cussed out a teacher to get expelled. His program grew from there.

Here's part of series I wrote on them. Vids are private now, to give some of the participants some well earned privacy. But the stories are still there to be read.

06 Unwanted – Troy A. Hill

 

[santafewillie]

Good Morning All. Clear and 78°, almost hit the century mark here yesterday, I saw 99.5° for about an hour. NWS is still predicting thunder boomers for Friday and Saturday; we shall see.

Yesterday's trip to the ex-workplace was fun, reconnecting with a few old coworkers, most of whom have already retired. There were still five plant supervisors and a manager left there that I had worked with and two from the Accounting Department. All other attendees had left after I did. The guest of honor who was retiring broke my record of longevity with the company by 7 months, his 44 years beat my 43 years 5 months. Oh well! I held the record for 9 years since retiring. They had a nice catered buffet lunch from Olive Garden, no alcohol though!

I hope to get an early day's bit of work done in the yard this morning. Amazon delivered a third shade umbrella for the pool yesterday, to replace some of the shade lost due to downed trees. On Monday, I had cleared away and cut up some tree limbs that will allow me to mow a few hundred square feet of yard that I haven't been able to reach until now. Some of that is over the leach field from the septic tank, so that grass is still growing.

I had a little more productive day out in the train shed yesterday. I painted figures and I also selected a few vehicles to add to the Charlottesville shopping district scene that I worked on back in early May. They're all on the workbench right now, some disassembled, waiting for some dull coat, drivers and license plates.

This will not be all that I use, just enough now to keep busy.
One pickup truck is an older model that I got from Chet. It has no window glass in it.

I am going to "create" glass by drawing out some white glue over the openings.

Excess will be trimmed off after drying clear. This one will be a bit difficult because the body and frame are riveted to each other and I cannot remove the body. The front windshield with it's curves is going to be impossible to do as is; so the plan is to do the sides and back and position the truck facing away from the viewing aisle. I might ultimately move it to a body shop in a different town after I get more vehicles for here.

Tom O - Re: Celtics sale. I have only read that the sale is for inheritance and estate planning purposes only, not tax reasons. I may not have read the same info as you had. "Strike now while the iron is hot!" No better time to sell as just after you have won a championship.
Terry - Good luck with the trailer move. That part will be easy, it's getting UPS, USPS, FedEx and Amazon to find you afterward that will be the hardest part.
Chris - College textbooks ARE a big scam. Several years ago, a friend of ours (and her daughter) got kicked out of the local school-run bookstore when the person in front of them balked at the price that they wanted for a used textbook. Well, she happened to have that same book and offered to sell it to him at half the price the bookstore was asking. It was a price that was more than the bookstore was going to pay her for it as well! The deal was made outside!
I found out just before my second year in college, that the library was required to have multiple copies of all textbooks available for in-house check-out, for students in case none of the bookstores had them. I was able to avoid purchasing most of them from then on. Even though textbooks were supposedly required for many classes, they were rarely used in classes that I attended, with teacher lectures being the bulk of the material on tests. A teacher's aide was actually the one who told me about the library.
Mike -

I don't think a lot of people understand that there are some really decent paying jobs out there if you are willing to start at the bottom rung and claw your way up.

I resemble that statement! I understood that soon after I entered the workforce.

Everyone have a great Wednesday.

 

[TLOC]

Good morning from Wisconsin. High 80’s today feeling like mid 90’s. It’s not going to be a nice day.

The grass is lush and growing before the eyes but is very wet. The ground is squishy. I maybe able to cut grass on Wednesday before the next wave of rains comes through the area. If not I will hire the neighbor to cut while I am gone.

The pressure has mounted to get me to meet Terry, my sister and others on Maui instead of Pasadena. I knew this was going to happen. I have no desire to show up on Maui

Sorry but I have no sympathy for people hurt on a plane because they didn’t wear the seat belt while the sign is on saying wear them.

I’m watching the discussion here about college and I have a MBA from Northwestern and every penny spent earning it was more than worth it! I thought getting my undergraduate degrees from Marquette though was a joke. Glorified high school is what I thought it was. I hated high school. When I hired people I didn’t care if they had an undergraduate degree. I always felt if you graduated from college you understood how to work the system and the degree proved that. I was proof of that! HR looked at the degrees as desirable but it was not company policy and therefore not needed to be hired. I did the final interviews and didn’t lean on the degrees to hire except computer sciences. At the time I retired we had 9 staff in IT, 2 of the ladies there were finishing the degrees when we hired them as they both had stopped when they became pregnant in school. They were as good or better than those with the degrees. They started out making less but than those with degrees but caught up. They both left after like 10 years when the City had openings and the lure of tenured job security was a better option for them.

I have always felt high schools should concentrate on reading comprehension, basic math skills, finances and history. Let colleges drill down on specifics. Trade schools are under appreciated but will become more important as the baby boomers retire from the trades. I don’t believe a private or charter type school should receive state funds. Mom and dad struggled but paid for us to go to Catholic grade schools and my sister to a Catholic High School. They received no tax benefits and the schools received no state of federal funding. I know I received a better basic education

I will spend some time similar to yesterday in the train room. I will be adding graffiti to a couple of my own cars but I need to finish the roofs first. It will be shown more in the Continuous Weathering threads

 

[kbkchooch]

Good morning gang!

Beeeeeeautiful day out there today, high in the mid 80s under sunny skies. Traffic was very light on the commute this morning as I drove the "baby" truck to work today. Simple. fuel efficient comfortable little vehicle that I can still work on at home in the driveway. IF I want to.
I just can't understand why they won't build more just like it. Ok, it's not the fastest thing out there, but the ride is comfortable, handling is fair, the A/C is cold, what else do you need??

Think I might wax her later. Yes, I'll be rubbin my hands all over a 21 year old later!

 

[Boris]

Is this the same as Hospitality and Tourism? That's a legit degree

All of the degrees y'all speak of are legitimate college degrees offered in most Colleges and Universities. The problem with this type of degree is that the field it prepares you for does not generally generate sufficient income to pay for the education, let alone provide for a living.
Many of the more controversial fields actually "qualify" candidates for positions in Government, Academia, and Human Resources / Social Work.
People who major in these subjects,are not looking to qualify for a career, but have other motives.

Part of the problem is what we are and are not teaching our children at the PreK through 12 level. We begin by instilling fear....("Stranger Danger"), and Mistrust of parents and neighbors. We teach state mandated curriculum that is often pushed through by various lobbying organizations and make our kids feel inadequate, fearful and extremely sensitive. They do not know basic math, can barely read, and have trouble communicating.
Guidance Counseling leads these children toward a college degree, because vocational skills are for "the uncultured dummies".

My former neighbor's daughter, an average student in High school, spent four years in a college earning a degree in communications. She worked as a barista at Starbucks for about 38K a year, and lived at home. Eventually, Mom and Dad sold and moved to an age restricted community. Dhe's on her own, and barely able to cover her rent. Perhaps, she could get a better job in NYC where she could work in her field, but she's afraid to leave her sheltered local environment. So...she struggles.

The point of my comment is that we often blame the wrong people for our problems, and worry too much about what really doesn't amount to anything, while conveniently ignoring the elephant in the room.

 

[NYC_George]

1 pm golf today and that's almost every day. The whole upper deck of my layout is down. I'm going to keep the lower deck going. I guess I'll be here one more winter. Sell the house next year after everything gets in tip top shape.
Swal

 

[D&J RailRoad]

Ohhhh, yeah. Non-college workers run circles around the graduates. Similar to the common sense thing. It's all about familiarity with the topic at hand.
Another hot day in Verde Valley. I'll go back over to the Wyoming Division layout tomorrow and run a couple of the new Athearn SD70Ace units from Cheyanne to Ogden. I picked them up at Spring Creek in Descler, NE on the way out here.

 

[NorthBrit]

---- but she's afraid to leave her sheltered local environment. So...she struggles.

Reminds me of the cartoon picture of a dog lying on an upturned nail.

"Why doesn't the dog move?"
"'Cos the nail doesn't hurt much."