FEATURED STORY: Around the Capital Region, technical and trade programs in high schools, in community colleges such as Cosumnes River, American River, Sac City and Sierra, and in stand-alone entities such as UTI, are flourishing.
You may have been told that a well-rounded four-year degree was essential for success. Or maybe your wise elders advised you to skip college and learn to code. Today, the buzz is all about the trades and the shortage of skilled vocational workers.
My husband is a tradesperson, so I have a front-row seat to the lifestyle and how it contrasts with white-collar work. The lack of student debt alone is enviable. He completed a five-year paid apprenticeship that included school and, upon graduating, received a hefty raise. Nice. There’s also no shortage of work at the moment, plus overtime pay through his union, which negotiates regular wage increases.
That said, his job isn’t for everyone. It’s physically demanding and requires brutal hours, often nights and weekends. The projects are high-stakes and high-stress. But it suits him because he never wanted to work in an office. He would have ended up where he is regardless of the hype.
My point: Every industry has ups and downs, and careers aren’t one-size-fits-all. We should be careful in how we advise young people searching for that “golden ticket” career. If recent history is any indication, no one knows how the cards will fall. What we do know is that in any field, the least skilled are the first to go — so we might as well do something we’re good at. A diverse workforce benefits us all.
– Dakota Morlan, managing editor
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Recommendations From Our Staff
Judy: I hope some of you got a glimpse of the Northern Lights last night. Due to a strong magnetic field, they were visible in 48 states on Tuesday, including Northern California. I rushed outside when I started seeing photos from my town on social media. The best way to see the Northern Lights, believe it or not, is through your cell phone’s camera. What might not be visible to the naked eye can be seen through the camera’s lens. There’s a chance they may be visible again tonight.
Jennifer: I was in Brooklyn recently for the International Association of Culinary Professionals conference, where I got a food writing award. While there, I took a fellow attendee’s recommendation to visit Archestratus Books + Food, a cookbook-focused bookstore in Greenpoint that also sells the owner’s home-baked cookies. I picked up a book I’ve been wanting to read, “Slippery Beast: A True Crime Natural History, with Eels,” which tells the fascinating and convoluted story of eels’ evolution and humans’ pursuit of them. For those looking for a cookbook store closer to home, San Francisco has an even better one: Omnivore Books.
Odds and Ends
Get to know Crocker Art Museum Director Agustín Arteaga in our November issue, where we also explore print’s resurgence, a technical skill renaissance and more. Read it today on your computer, phone or tablet.
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