A college degree in today’s world is like gold. It is one of the only ways one can get a decent job and is seen as a necessity in most countries, not just the United States . But , there are some jobs that one can still get without one. Jobs like waitressing, railroad workers, and most factory jobs can still be obtained without one in most cases. But, most people see these people as mindless, uneducated fools. Mike Rose shows how he thinks far differently on the subject in his article, “Blue-Collar Brilliance” from the book, “They Say I Say” by Gerald Graff, Cathy Birkenstien, and Russel Durst. His opinion is that blue-collar workers have much more ingenuity and heart then the world gives them. When the general population thinks of these blue-collar workers, most would visualize a high school dropout or someone who did not go to college for a number of possible reasons. Mike Rose sees them in a whole new light that could change the views of many on the ability of the middle class worker. He says he first learned of the ways that they work and adapt to their specific working environment came to him from watching his mother, Rosie, work in her restaurant (244). From then on he has spent a good portion of his life studying the thought process involved in this particular type of work (249). His article shows many examples of the working class getting it done with determination, hard work, and experience. Throughout reading Rose’s’ article it became apparent that the hardships the working class go through, the work ethic and experience they develop through these hardships along with the ability to solve problems, and the all around composure in the workplace give them the name Blue –Collar Brilliance. My father was a... ... middle of paper ... ...more cost efficient and healthier. All through what he learned simply by going to work everyday with the mentality that the work needed to be done. Rose’s uncle saw the workplace almost as his own type of classroom. In conclusion Mike Rose made many fantastic points in his article Blue-Collar Brilliance that has changed my mind on how I will view the working class as a whole for the rest of my life. I used to see most of them as simple minded and maybe even mindless workers that just come in get their paychecks and then leave. But I now have a new found respect for the hardships they go through, the aggressive work ethics that they have, and their ability to see the work place as their own class room that they can learn and better themselves in. The blue-collar society is a staple in the business world and will continue to be brilliant for a long time to come
A college Degree used to be an extraordinary accolade but now its just another thing that we need in order to be successful, at this points its nothing more than a paperweight to some. Mike Rose states, “Intelligence is closely associated with formal education—the type of schooling a person has, how much and how long—and most people seem to move comfortably from that notion to a belief that work requiring less schooling requires less intelligence” (Mike Rose 276). In other words the author of Blue-Collar Brilliance, Mike Rose, believes that blue-collar jobs require intelligence as well. I agree that those who work blue-collar jobs need to be intelligent, a point that needs emphasizing since so many people believe that those who work blue-collar jobs aren't intelligent and that why they have them. Although I also believe that
Braaksma says "As frustrating as the work can be, the most stressful thing about blue-collar life is knowing your job could disappear overnight. Issues like downsizing and overseas relocation had always seemed distant to me until my co-workers at one factory told me that the unit I was working in would be shut down within six months and moved to Mexico, where people would work for 60 cents an hour"(Braaksma, 2005).The regret Braaksma felt knowing he would be heading back to college and classrooms while others spend their working years in the factory and he only spends his summer break there. Workers made good wages yet was encouraged by many of his coworkers to continue with his studies so he can do better for himself
If more people went to college, and less went the vocational route, jobs will take a momentous hit. Today, companies will not even touch an application that does not include a Bachelor’s Degree; even if the Bachelor’s Degree has nothing to do with the job being applied for. Attention is not given to whether the hopeful applicant qualifies for the job; all that matters is that the applicant has a Bachelor’s degree. Murray best sums up the American job market when he says, “Employers do not value what the student learned, just that the student has a degree” (Murray). However, if less people obtain a Bachelor’s Degree, employers will be forced to base applicants on their skills, and abilities. Furthermore, important vocational jobs that lie vacant will be filled. Good electricians, carpenters, and construction workers will always be in
Why does our society think people who have blue-collared jobs don't need intelligent to work there job? Thats a lie according to Rose:
He claims to relate his mother’s quick and effective decisions, customer interactions, memorisation and problem solving, and his uncle, Joe’s, learning, planning and management skills to that of a white-collar worker. “Preposterous”, some might argue. “You cannot possibly compare waiters and conductors with boffins.” However, the dichotomy between the blue-collars and white-collars are subtle. Regardless of Rose’s claim that blue-collar workers are more efficient and carry a broader skill set, there exists no comparison between the two categories. Granted, the social biases about one’s occupation are irrational; however, blue-collars cannot substitute white-collar workers merely because of their “diverse intelligence”. Given Rose’s experiences, he has colluded blue-collar intelligence with white-collar intelligence. Id Est, he believes that social discrimination against blue-collar workers is fallacious from his observations; thus, their skills are the analogous to white-collar workers. In sum, blue-collar workers are intelligent and important in their respective and applicable fields, and white-collars in theirs’; drawing comparisons between them are like comparing apples and
To work is to solve problems. To solve problems is to learn. To learn is to become intelligent. However, those who work, who solve problems, who learn are considered less intelligent because of their work. Blue collar jobs are frowned upon because of the misconception that they require no intelligence. Blue collar workers learn to work smart by working; they learn to make every move count. The work requires both brain and body.
Job growth is at an all-time low, and it is because of the pay that Americans have to have in order to survive in the United States. The largest companies in the United States are finding that there are workers that are just as qualified in other countries that do not require as much pay. The article Vanishing Jobs says, “Nationally, layoffs are eliminating jobs far beyond blue-collar workers... in the ever shrinking manufacturing sector” (Katel). This quote interprets the idea that business will do anything to make a greater profit through cutting costs. Most politicians say that the issue behind job loss in the United States is because of lack of education. This to some point is true; however, the evidence provides the information to conclude that the degree holders are mostly the ones losing their jobs because of the higher wage that is obtained by the degre...
Blue Collar workers today are looked down upon by most of society. People think that if you have a blue collar job you aren’t smart and not successful. But in my opinion, blue collar workers are the backbone of our society, and deserve the same amount of respect as white collar workers. “Blue Collar Brilliance by Mike Rose” explains how blue collar workers are very smart and use a lot of brainpower to get their jobs done. Both his Uncle and mother were blue collar workers and that’s where he got his inspiration to stand up for blue collar workers around the world. He gives us examples of how his own family members were blue collar workers and how they were smart and how they excelled at their jobs. He uses his own experiences to show us that blue collar workers are in fact smart, able to adapt to many different situations, and deserve respect.
In the article, “Blue-Collar Brilliance” by Mike Rose, he begins with an anecdote of his mother working her blue-collar job at a diner as a waitress. Rose vividly describes her common day that is packed with a constant array of tedious tasks she has to accomplish to make her living. The authors goal appears to be making the reader appreciate the hard work of blue-collar workers because society places a stereotype on them as being less intelligent than someone with more schooling or even a white-collar job: “Our cultural iconography promotes the muscled arm, sleeve rolled tight against biceps, but no brightness behind the eye, no inmate that links hand and brain” (282). I agree with Rose’s conclusion that if we continue to place a stigma on
Mike Rose’s article “Blue-Collar Brilliance” talks about people judging other people’s intelligence based on their jobs. Mike Rose explains in his article that people with blue collar jobs are just as intelligent as people with white collar jobs because they both use critical thinking and multi task while they are working. The standard of their jobs might be different because of their different ways of learning. People who are considered professionals or white collared individuals learn by studying or reading reports where blue collared individuals learn by performing a task. They learn faster ways to perform the task after they have done it multiple times. I believe that Rose’s thinking is very effective as it tells us that we should not judge
Through the various types of texts I went through, Mike Rose’s article on “Blue-Collar Brilliance” was the one that I felt I could personally relate to. I grew up in a family where manual labor was the key to a good income. Out of my entire family, I was the only one who graduated high school and went to college, therefore I grew up realizing that people didn’t necessarily need a college education to be considered “smart”. My father has been one of the smartest people in my family, I could explain my calculus homework to him and he would be able to quickly grasp at all the equations and concepts, even though he dropped out of high school as a freshmen in Mexico. In the fall of 2015, I had decided to skip a semester of college to find job opportunities outside of the education field. Starting off with high hopes, I quickly came to realize that job opportunities were hard to find. I came to have a lot
College is the place where people go to retain the necessary training for a job that requires specific skills, which results in earning a higher pay check. In today’s world, employers are scouting out for individuals with the proper dexterities to fill the shoes for that specific job. Blanche D. Blank, the author of “A Question of Degree," argues that possessing a degree of higher education isn’t the only way to have a very successful life. This statement is highly argumentative, due to the fact that college graduates still out-earn people without degrees. Obtaining a college degree is one of the best things someone can do for themselves, when it comes to looking for a stable job. There is also so much more to college than just receiving a
Despite this, there continue to be incidents where middle class people are devastated when unable to achieve the so-called American Dream. Of course, the social expectations of a society are generally set by the previous generation and cause the newer generation to feel guilt when they cannot meet them. In order to avoid this feeling of guilt and insufficiency, people are willing to give up their unique hopes and goals; thus creating a people that are cohesively identical. Students in today’s universities are amazingly bright and creative, yet change their majors to those society has placed honor on, such as medicine, law, and engineering. The amount of innovation and invention
The more educated and diverse a society is, the better society’s job market is served. This social economic separation of class is both good and bad for society. Many workers at the lower levels of employment are both pleased and displeased with many aspects of work. Though this fact also holds true with most any job at any level, pay scale often compensates for endurance of a particular job type. The security of a person’s job is also an issue that in today’s economic times forces one to be prepared for change.
Most people can find a job in their field, but the amount of people who can not find a job in their field is increasing. “Unequal outcomes from college have always been a fact of life, but there is evidence that the dispersion of outcomes has increased” (Haltom). If a person ha a lower income job, it is not always because they did not have a college education. “1 percent of taxi drivers and roughly 3 percent of bank tellers had a college degree” (Haltom). This shows that even though some people have a college education, they could not find jobs in their field and had to take jobs that they less likely wanted. Haltom also says, “as many as 120,000 of the nations 1.7 million 2012 graduates who wanted to work elsewhere took jobs as waiters, salespeople, cashiers, and the like” (Haltom). More and more people with a college education can not find jobs in their field.