When I went to high school, I and others labored under the impression that "shop" and "vocational technical" courses were for students who could not handle the advanced placement courses that my friends and I took. I earned a year of college credit for those but now I wish I had taken shop and/or vo-tech because I think they would have made me a better engineer. I learned later that the Henry Ford Trade School combined hands-on shop work with classroom instruction, and the graduates earned higher wages than most college graduates at the time when not many people went to college. (Even Ford himself never finished high school although, when I first read his book, I thought he had a degree in chemical engineering due to discussions of absorption and recovery of solvents.)

I did learn enough (on my own) to change an electrical socket without electrocuting myself, and replace a garbage disposal, but I have also watched plumbers work in my house and I realize that they could have done the latter job in perhaps a quarter of the time. I just paid one $100 an hour for a job I was reluctant to handle by myself. The trades need a lot more attention and respect.