An Ounce of Practice is worth a Ton of Theory .

Never heard it but get the gist and quite true on the saying.

If i were to have a graduate in front of me with cv and a lout that had dropped out of school but had actually done some work, guess which one i would choose.

Certain things a book cant teach you. In various industries over the decades the hiring of graduates and such like has always brought disaster, absolutely no idea what happens in the real world.

A recognised qualification will only get you an entry in the door, it has no bearing on how good you are except the ability to study.

Theres no substitute for on the job training, no books ever written can teach that.

There is a paper by Andrew H. van de Ven entitled:
Nothing Is Quite so Practical as a Good Theory.

True!

The first company I worked for had similar machinations over employing graduates for the first time as Jon describes. There were endless meetings and discussions about whether new graduates were going to be up to the job and capable of making a useful contribution. In the end they did employ two new graduates, and it worked out very well.

There are a couple of twists to the story. Both of the graduates they employed got starred firsts at Cambridge. And the main reason for the agonising was that up until then, all the technical employees, without exception, had a Ph.D and post-doc experience.

Regards,

Andrew

Some of the best new employees I've known have been career changers who have gone back to college. Real work experience + training + genuine hunger to work in the field.

Neil

Surely depends on what you want him or her to do. I wouldn't employ a school dropout to design a racing car, a space probe or to invent a new piece of medical equipment. Of course, if you're talking about a graduate with a micky mouse degree in babysitting or something similar rather than a proper engineering degree it would be a different matter.

Russell.

More the fool you, if you are to condemn a person because they make an effort to better themselves and get a degree you appear to see this as a tag of incompetence. I have experienced graduates who lack common sense and lack practical ability but I have seen equal quantities of none graduates the same

I don't condemn either, I look at all their qualities after all the graduate has demonstrated they have an ability to learn where as in your simple scenario your so called lout could have come across closed minded employers like you suggest therefore they keeps getting jobs they are incapable of doing and that maybe why they are looking for work.

As for no substitute for on the job training this entirely depends upon who is doing the training what usually happens with on the job training is "this is how its supposed to be done BUT I do it this way" and then the trainee becomes the trainer and he show the next person his way. So while I agree on the job training is a valuable part of the learning it rubbish to suggest its the only way.

Not a fool its common logic! What cant be taught is common sense and applying learnt stuff in to practice.

Just because they have spent 4 to 5 yrs at Uni dont mean they can do the job, they have never worked. Further to that no on the job training which at the end of the day is what they are employed to do, not drag the company down until competant at exorbitant rates, should it survive the blunders.

Maybe an easier way and appropriate to this forum is those that have studied books on a subject eg know all the speeds and feed rates etc, wonder why they have problems in practice.

Quite right Stub i have had a few career changes and qualifications in other unrelated fields, what a waste of five years that was. Just gained me an advantage at time over competitors.

On the job training depends upon the type of work and field. Certainly my last job there has never ever been any books written, just the odd snippet of information which is mostly incorrect! Taught by the last working person who in turn taught by his dad and decendants. Of which only three of us alive in the world, no books will ever be written its a guarded secret that will be taken to the grave. Alternative way of looking at it is we spent the time to learn the hard way on the job, theres no other way. What i learnt within 50 minutes would have taken literally 5 months to learn at college, now imagine time served a student would be dead before even started work. Old gaffer used to have a few sayings one being and quite fitting "a little knowledge is dangerous"

On the other hand eg computer related stuff since it involves on the job training whilst at college or uni, may be advantageous in certain fields.

To cap it all my daughter has a degree in a totally unrelated field. It gained her entry in to a massive global organisation, 4 months in already tipped for European management. The difference there she applied every day 'learnt' stuff, second nature to us that you dont need to go to school to learn.

> the premise that you do not need education is on very shaky ground

Absolutely true, but as a recent convert to home education, I have discovered there are many ways to skin that particular cat.

I am a firm believer that practical experience is as important as book learning. I had to go out and practice in the real world to even start to understand the realities of what the ecology I was taught meant. The worst botanists are the ones who understand how to use the books (keys) but have seen very few wuild plants. They find loads of rarities

As the saying goes give a man a fish, he eat for a day, teach him how to fish and he'll wipe out your cod stocks.

Neil

You can read as many theoretical books about sex as you want, get a degree in relationships and then become a world renowned sex therapist

...and you've never touched a member of the opposite sex (or the same sex !)

And you will be officially known as "A Government Expert" receiving 50k plus a year

Doesn't mean you really know anything about it though, does it

In my last career, I was a nurse, I was hospital trained, we worked on the wards, yes emptying bed pans, and all that, but also doing dressings, generally looking after the patients alloted to us, and maintaining the equipment. A number of years after I left nursing, I became a patient, the nursing students were being trained at the Polytech, and I ended up having to show my nurse how to manage my blood drip, she was a 3rd year student, and should have known what to do. There were a number of other problems they needed help with, that we when being trained on the job would have handled by the first year of training. Ian S C

once "worked" with doctors in training ( yr2 I think/remember ) having met first corpse..for disection...this experience caused arround 20-30 % to quit for different career...two years of hard study wasted...may be some sort of appitude/ attitude test should have been applied earlier ..

Sorry but it isn't an either or world...certainly not in engineering..I have a degree in engineering and still find practicle guys have an edge in certain areas..and they still come to me for basic trig...it takes all sorts...UNDERSTANDING the subject is the key..however you get there.

How do you differentiate between theory and practice? Is theory reading a 'paper' on "The science of metal fracture and its application in creating circular voids in steel" If you are in the factory and told "drill a hole using this twisty thing in that big electric machine" is that theory while practice is "copy what I do as I do it" or even "here's a machine shop see if you can guess how to make a hole".

In my case I got a degree, got an unrelated job associated with one hobby (not modelling), and having read a few copies of ME when I found the machine shop worked out how to use the kit for myself. Theory or practice?

Jon,

First, congratulations tto your daughter on getting started on a good career path. It's very difficult in today's climate whether you have a degree or not.

"Just because they have spent 4 to 5 yrs at Uni dont mean they can do the job, they have never worked. Further to that no on the job training"

I don't think you are familiar with modern engineering degrees. One reason for them now being 4 to 5 years is that the course includes a year workig in industry. In one of my previous jobs I took engineering students for their industrial year and I made sure that they got the necessary training. Perhaps yet more could be done. At the top engineering university in France they have about 2000 students but only 1000 are on campus.

The exams for engineering degrees do not just require the regurgitation of facts learned from books but the application of those facts to solve problems.

"Certainly my last job there has never ever been any books written, just the odd snippet of information which is mostly incorrect! Taught by the last working person who in turn taught by his dad and decendants. Of which only three of us alive in the world, no books will ever be written its a guarded secret that will be taken to the grave."

This seems to be a very selfish attitude. If your skills are really so exceptional why are you not making the effort to pass them on. Perhaps you could enlighten us? What are these skills?

Finally, if you really think theory is so useless, consider the following examples:

In the middle of the 19th centuary a mathematics professor, George Boole, developed a form of algebra for analysing logic, later known as Boolean algebra. It had no application at the time but without it we would not have been able to design computers.

More recently Albert Einstien developed the theory of relativity using only "thought experiments", no practical tests at all. Without this theory we would have no nuclear energy and no accurate GPS system.

Later quantum theory was formulated by a number of theoretical physicists. Without quantum theory there would be no modern electronics.

I could go on but I think the point is made that we need a balance. We need theoreticians, professional engineers, craftsmen, technicians, etc. Few theoreticians can do the work of craftsmen and vice versa.

Russell.

Brilliantly put Russell

and Jon surely you shot yourself in the foot with your comment

"To cap it all my daughter has a degree in a totally unrelated field. It gained her entry in to a massive global organisation, 4 months in already tipped for European management. The difference there she applied every day 'learnt' stuff, second nature to us that you don't need to go to school to learn."

if someone with a degree is tagged a waste of space then why did you let your daughter waste 4 or 5 years of her life studying for a degree and furthermore if she didn't need to go to school to learn then why did she waste so much time on education.

Fortunately for your daughter not everyone is so anti the graduate or alternatively no louts applied for the position or she would have had no chance.

I can also go along with the common sense approach as I dropped out of school with no formal qualifications and have had a reasonably successful career working my way up to managing director of a small but successful company but maybe I could have done better had I had an education at the outset who knows