Why can't it be both depending on the job?

I wanted to be a PhD chemist, which is not a field that comes with a pre-determined job attached to it. I got my degree and learned lots of theory and practical knowledge.

While I agree that four year universities should focus on a holistic education, there's nothing wrong with someone deciding "I want to be an X", where X = plumber, electrician, welder, EMT, RN, etc., and they only go to school long enough for that. Personally, the broadening experience I obtained in undergrad and grad school means more to me than just the job skills I learned, but for others who just want a job, let them have it.

Not everyone is meant for 4-year college. If they don't want it, they won't go for it. Bad in the long run? Maybe. But that's their choice. That's why 4-year colleges exist as well as vocational schools and community colleges.

Shamelessly taken from Penn and Teller's Bullshit video-game violence episode:

Penn: Next time you feel like worrying about fake violent video games, try a little Gedanken experiment: imagine that video games were invented 100 years before football. Picture school video game teams and uniforms and hot-ass cheerleaders with big, bouncing pom-poms. Now imagine after 100 years of extracurricular video game fun, football is invented and introduced to schools. Thousands of kids get real, no kidding, no fantasy, no make-believe broken knees, legs, ankles, cervical trauma, heatstroke, and concussions! [Throughout Penn's injury list, the crowd quiets, eventually becoming totally silent.] ...What would parents do? From 1931 to 2007, 665 kids died... from injuries they suffered playing football. This is not video game violence - this is real violence done to real children by other real children, all encouraged by schools and society. Every parent worries about his or her kids; every adult worries about all children, but you need to pick what you think is worth worrying about.

I'm not necessarily picking on high-school football, but to do this for 20-some odd years seems like purposely shortening your life. To para-phrase Penn, decide on your priorities. I'll stick to running, cycling, and weightlifting for my health benefits.

Good for you. I work at a community college, and many of students there have never had good study habits, so guess where they learn them? And yes I have had students admit to my face that they didn't ever have to study in high school.

If you perform well in my class and miss a few days, I don't mind. If you are sliding into a guaranteed F and never attend class, my duty is to withdraw you from the class for excessive absences. Regardless of the school's official policy, many professors still treat attendance in their own way. I make it clear in my syllabus how I treat attendance. Make sure to do your homework about each professor before you sign up for their class.

I agree that students should be accountable for their grades, but even if they fail, the school has to pay the state back for financial aid. By withdrawing students who fail to attend, the school does not have to repay the state for the financial aid. Our community college had to pay back a great deal of money to the state a few years ago before mandatory attendance as instilled because a large number of students took financial aid and ran with the money. Since this college struggles to get funds (including state funds), it needs every penny it can get to serve the students who are doing the work. We've discussed ways of taking attendance involving classroom "clicker" technology, and I see the RFID system to be a similar fix.

I hate taking attendance too (granted I don't have 300 student lectures), but for 40 person classes, it isn't that difficult; just one more hoop. In the end, I can keep tabs on students and warn them that they will lose financial aid if they stop coming to class. For students who don't understand that it costs money to educate them, this is a way to show them their responsibility (before they fail), instead of just letting them fail and be bitter about higher education for the rest of their lives. Whether or not they attend, failing means paying *again* to re-take the class. And semester hours aren't cheap.

Don't many newer jobs require some form of college degree? It seems that many students who never needed a degree (or AA certificate) now require one, and with the down-turned economy, more students than ever are pouring into college. We have to be accountable somehow. Is RFID the right answer? We'll see, but until then, attendance checking is a necessary evil.

"Life, which you so nobly serve, comes from destruction, disorder and chaos. Now take this empty glass. Here it is: peaceful, serene, boring. But if it is destroyed...

[Pushes the glass off the table. It shatter on the floor, and several small machines come out to clean it up]

...Look at all these little things! So busy now! Notice how each one is useful. A lovely ballet ensues, so full of form and color. Now, think about all those people that created them. Technicians, engineers, hundreds of people, who will be able to feed their children tonight, so those children can grow up big and strong and have little teeny children of their own, and so on and so forth. Thus, adding to the great chain of life."

Well, the closer we can get to finding an island of stability, the better.

In Civilization 1, Darwin's Voyage was a Wonder of the World that gave you two immediate science advances. So yeah, I'd say they included it.

No, they'd change Am to BankofAmericium before that, and then make Barium become Bm so that they could have Ba.

That's a general and/or fictional substance. Did you mean:

a) Adamantium: Wolverine's metallic skeletal covering (fictional)

b) Adamantite: A metal found in the Outlands in World of Warcraft. (fictional)

c) Adamantane: A big hydrocarbon known for its interesting diamond-like structure. (real)

Here's an amusing speculation: maybe when they worked for the film companies, they got sick of losing case after frivolous case (looks bad on their record). The lawyers might even have smarted up and thought to themselves that they could stick it to the film companies as a bit of sweet revenge (granted they get paid either way, but I like to think they went into law with a least a shred of dignity and morality).

We'd have to change the whole phrase then, in order to be chronologically accurate.

"Chicken for dinner, eh? How is it?"

"Tastes like dino."