Even the intro example about designing an aluminum part to be milled with a lathe as a simple first year college thing… no, we had a manufacturing class where we briefly used a lathe in junior year, but most of the stuff in college was academic. We were doing linear algebra and sizing HVAC systems, not designing for production.

Just imagine how much worse it would be if the graduate had an art history degree. I mean, it's fascinating but it doesn't tend to be relevant on the job.

The idea that university is job training just needs to go. The academic material may be relevant for work later on but it often isn't, and on the job there is way more to learn.

I agree - college is a filter - not a tech tree.

In engineering school you solve problems similar to industry - but its more the difficulty than the similarity.

New grads can handle the difficulty your job provides. If you train them - they should get the hang of it.

Industry leads academia in undergrad - not the other way around.

Industry knew that new grads needed 6-12 months of niche education (this is the general operation of Turbo Encabulators https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ac7G7xOG2Ag). It was in their budget. Now.... not so much.

When I started at my first job out of university in 1988 I was told it would be at least 6 months before my contribution to the business would be a net positive - which was probably an underestimate!

How is it a "correction" when the article explicitly quotes someone saying that hiring managers should focus more on willingness to learn?

Did you read the article?