[vitaminj]

Yes agree completely. I've long been in favour of bringing back the apprenticeship system for professionals (in conjunction with tertiary education) - well at least for engineering.

In Australia, we used to have this - as an engineering cadet, you worked for a company while going to uni as well. Not only can you directly apply what you learn at work, but there is also a motivational factor for learning (seeing as you have a practical context for the theory).

A personal anecdote - I remember learning about generators and power transformers and thinking what the hell do these things even look like? It wasn't until I graduated that I actually saw them in action. I still feel that if I was actually working on them then, I'd certainly have had more incentive / motivation to learn. As it was, I had to go back and re-learn everything on the job. I've spoken to many other engineers and graduates since, and most have agreed and had similar experiences.

Universities were traditionally a feeder system for research and academia (and learning for the sake of learning), but these days it has become a prerequisite for industry. Clearly there is some misalignment between the needs of industry and academia.

[aswanson]

That was one of my primary gripes with my engineering education; a degree in a pragmatic field should have some relation to what is going on in the field currently. I can certainly appreciate theory and abstraction, but was completely shocked upon entering practice that most of what I learned was inapplicable and impractical.