S\o amazing jobs chassidish men do without education

jkl

Thu, Apr 08 2021, 10:24 am

Blessing1 wrote:

DH runs a large company which requires many different skills. He took many training classes and he needed to learn a new language. He keeps taking new classes and courses and you wouldn't believe he didn't go to college or get a proper English education. My father is a child psychologist. He went to college at night for afew years to earn a degree. He was in his 30's at the time. It's never too late. Many many chassidish men take classes and courses for their jobs. If you have a gemara kup you can do anything.

All of this is nice and dandy, but you're overlooking the environment it creates and its fallout. Instead of handing our kids all the tools that they need for life, we are withholding critical ones. We then force them to take on a very heavy load during their 20s to overcome all the obstacles they face.

They start off life settling into married life, having children and trying to figure out the financial logistics in life. And then we add to that all the extra years of either studying and learning English, earning degrees and the like. These young men have got to be there for their wife, for their children, earn a parnossoh and do their studying/training so they can have a decent future. BH, there are many smart and talented individuals who do all that and come out ahead. But there are so many more who break from this load, or are unable to even go down this path. They often stay stuck, unable to move ahead.

Is there something wrong with them. Absolutely not. They're normal, healthy young guys that are facing obstacles that shouldn't be there, and weren't blessed with the enormous skills needed to overcome them. They are the norm. It's those who overcome it, who are not. BH there is a strong showing for people being able to overcome it, but using them as the measure of our setup is just wrong. They have great accomplishments DESPITE all the obstacles in place. But we shouldn't be using them as the yardstick to continue our troublesome system. We should be looking at all the others and see how we are literally handicapping them at a critical point in their lives.

We are literally using the minority outliers as examples, and implying that there must be something inherently wrong with the average guy who can't climb out of the hole we've created for them. The attitude among us is to congratulate and pat on the back those who've made it, and hype them up as the average situation, all the while sweeping everyone else under the rug. We are great at pretending that problems don't exist.

So congratulations to those who made it. And to the others, you must all be weak and lacking talent because you're not able to put in 16+ hours of day of work, because you're not able to figure out married life, parnossoh, children and an education all at once. Basically, you're at fault for not being a superman.

butterfly2

Thu, Apr 08 2021, 10:40 am

Yes a better education would’ve made things easier but it is definitely not the way people in the NYT make it out to be. If they have the attitude to fail, then they will.
My husband went to a cheder that provided a minimum English education.
Instead of being angry and resentful, he looked into career options and decided to take a course in a specialty field.
The interesting thing was that most of the other students had college degrees that they weren’t even using and the only outcome was student loans...
He is currently still at his first job and is earning way more than what you earn at many jobs that need a degree after around 3.5 yrs on the job.
Somehow he is ahead of the college educated colleagues in his workplace...
He isn’t a crazy genius or anything- just a yeshiva student with a gemara kup...

Last edited by butterfly2 on Mon, Jun 07 2021, 8:19 am; edited 1 time in total

monkeymamma

Thu, Apr 08 2021, 10:41 am

SixOfWands wrote:

Try again. In the US, you need to have a college degree in accounting to take the CPA exam. There are a small number of jobs in accounting that don't require a CPA, but the salary tops out well below CPA salaries.

Satmar Yeshiva in KJ is accredited and the boys can get a bachelors degree. Pretty sure many of the chasidishe yeshivas are accredited as well so the boys do graduate with college degrees.

There is also TTI/COPE accounting program where they can learn accounting if that is what they are interested in learning. There are other subjects available as well-- https://testingandtraining.com.....gram/

SixOfWands

Thu, Apr 08 2021, 10:43 am

freilich wrote:

Never mind, they also don't find themselves with college bills in the 30's. I wonder why no one mentions that.

While chasidish men, are at a disadvantage in regards to secular subjects, and most don't even have rudimentary English skills, they can make up by taking courses, and learning on the job. On the other hand, spending 4 years at college, and learning so much stuff that isn't related to the subject matter, you want to really focus on, is a waste of time, energy, and money.

I have a friend who graduated college, and sends her kids there as well. Brilliant person, she always tells me "useless knowledge ".

Its a completely different world view. IMNSHO, there's no such thing as "useless knowledge." Hashem created our world with so many varied and wonderful things to learn. None of it is "worthless."

After all, we wouldn't tell an engineer who learns Torah in the evening that the learning is "worthless" because it has nothing to do with engineering, would we?

If you're a NY resident, you can attend community college for $5000 a year, and a 4-year school for $7000 a year. Total college education $24,000. The average college graduate earns $26,000 more a year than the average high school graduate. It thus pays for itself in a year.

sky

Thu, Apr 08 2021, 10:50 am

monkeymamma wrote:

This is true many yeshivish places do this too. It’s easy, quick and pretty cheap to get a bachelor after many Yeshiva programs.
For girls also. For example I got my degree in 1 tr after seminary for the fraction of the cost of college.

My brother is a CPA and spent very little time in a college after Yeshiva and was still able to get a job at one of the big 4 accounting firms fairly easily.

Last edited by sky on Thu, Apr 08 2021, 10:53 am; edited 2 times in total

monkeymamma

Thu, Apr 08 2021, 10:52 am

SixOfWands wrote:

Can you explain why learning things like Shakespeare is important? Or why Aristotle is more significant than Talmud (which teaches ethics btw)?

I will also add that there are many talented chasidishe musicians, singers and chefs all without taking music or cooking classes in yeshiva so clearly there was no need for the entire yeshiva to waste time on that either. If you have the talent for something then its up to your family to nurture it, not the school.

monkeymamma

Thu, Apr 08 2021, 10:55 am

sky wrote:

I dont believe the chasidishe girls go to seminary (and some girls schools dont even offer a high school diploma) so its different for girls than boys. In this sense, the girls have a disadvantage if they graduate from a school that doesnt offer a high school diploma and/or dont learn chumash or rashi either. They certainly wouldnt be able to graduate college in a year as they have no college credits from high school or seminary which you presumably had.

I will also say that the chasidishe boys are very capable of getting their drivers license and knowing and understanding the rules of the road. The girls otoh dont even get that so they are again at a disadvantage. Just pointing out the differences.

sky

Thu, Apr 08 2021, 10:58 am

monkeymamma wrote:

That is true. But I find many chassidish girls stop working once they have kids - or a few (sorry to stereotype). While yeshivish women often keep working.

#BestBubby

Thu, Apr 08 2021, 11:21 am

gande wrote:

Wow! Why does not having an education mean you have no brains??? I graduated with honors but I would never in my life be able to fix a pipe or use a screwdriver. My husband does those things. Yes most jobs require training and chasidish men are bright from all the Gemara they learn and end up working hard and excelling in their field. Most careers require training in that specific area so no use of all the general education. We use chassidish accountant plumber morgage broker and more and we have been thrilled with their dedication and expertise. And for your info. My chassidish husband is a BCBA (board certified behavior specialist) and he went to a yeshiva that one of the worst with secular education. He has a bachelors, masters, and post masters degree. Yes, I helped him with the writing, grammar and spelling, his post masters was a lot of videos so it was easier for him, and he failed the licensing test twice but he worked hard and prevailed. He is amazing at what he does, and makes a nice six figure income.

Wow! Kudos to your husband for persevering and you for helping him.

As an aside, many non-jews in college hire people to write there term papers and essays for them.

There are flourishing businesses ONLINE for these services.

So being a college grad does not necessarily mean one has good writing skills, knows proper grammar
and spelling, etc.

gande

Thu, Apr 08 2021, 11:32 am

SixOfWands wrote:

Knowlege doesnt hurt, that is true but you can get tons of knowlege for free on the internet these days if you are interested in learning. We are discussing the correlating of education and parnassa. I think community college is a waste of 4 years of not earning money and still not being able to practice anything. Many, many, people who go to community college don't end up with a lucrative career.
My husband did an accelerated program where all the coursework was related to the field he was interested in. It didn't cost much more than community college and he was able to work meanwhile so we have no student debt. Education focused on career goals is what brings parnassa not wasting your time sitting in college all day.

butterfly2

Thu, Apr 08 2021, 11:32 am

monkeymamma wrote:

Chasidish girls marry at 19-20 so if they were to go to seminary and college, they pretty much wouldn’t be bringing in a penny the first few years and in the chasidish community a lot of the woman dont want to work after a few years so the time and money is not worth the investment.
It is also not as accepted for parents to have to support the couple so they are on their own financially and they can’t just rely on parental support like many litvish couples do until the wife completes her degree while her husband is in kollel. (There are def chasidish people that aupport their young couples if they have the means to do so but its not taken for granted that they will)

monkeymamma

Thu, Apr 08 2021, 11:35 am

moonstone wrote:

Are there many chassidish doctors and scientists? I'm sincerely curious, haven't really heard of any.

I know someone who graduated satmar and is a dr today but he is also otd. The point is that it is doable. But what kind of sacrifice would a chasidishe man (who wishes to remain chasidish) have to make in order to be a dr? Its several years of schooling plus residency, would they do this if it would mean not getting married and having kids (which is a bigger value in the chasidishe community than being a dr)?

mommy3b2c

Thu, Apr 08 2021, 11:50 am

clowny wrote:

We once had this conversation in our family that turned into a very heated argument.
The fact is that most very successful businesses are owned by chassidshe guys coming out of yeshiva, where the only thing they learned was 1-2 hours a day of English classes that consisted of simple math and spelling. Most got married at age 18-20 and obviously had zero education.
I don’t see the ones who have a good education and/or college degree etc. doing any better than the typical chassidish guy that I described above.

So you took an accurate poll of all jews and of the successful businesses the largest percentage were owned by chassidish men?

Of course that’s not true. And if it was there’d be no way for you to know because you never took a poll.