Degrees etc

[Jeros]

I guess this is a mini rant but:

Is it just more or does it generate some real animosity from the older generation whne you mention you are going to do a degree.

Even more when getting onto the subject of how much (a lucky few) graduates can make out of uni.

Maybe its the fact that there are more opportunities available to young people.

But its hard to get pyshced up for exams or studying or wot not when you contantly given the impression that you should be in some dead end job earning bugger all and work your way to the top.

Bugger them i say, i work hard, and when i get out of uni what i end up getting as a salary i will have earnt.

 

[Damini]

What are you planning to study?

 

[Jeros]

Well i was going to compuer science but alas i dont have the maths skills needed, thinking of geology at the moment but im not sure.

 

[Chilly]

people doing worthwhile degrees is obviously a good thing. I suspect (and also share the view) that a lot of older people feel that everyone is doing bullshit degrees for no other reason than to spend 3 years fucking about (I know people who did useless subjects that they had no interest in so they could party).

I've got a degree in CS, shame you didnt quite get onto it - its a good course.

Fuck the old timers, you are doing a useful degree.

 

[Wazzerphuk]

I used to be able to get jobs before I went to uni, I got a first and now I can't get a look in.

 

[old.user4556]

Just some thoughts (rants?) about your rant.

University isn't what it used to be; there are courses for everything now. It seems that everyone has a degree in something.

Even if you qualify with a first in <insert course>, that does not guarantee you a job. Infact, you might find yourself having to cut your nose off to spite your face and take a lower paid job just to get your foot on the ladder whilst looking for that magical role. That's what I had to do when I left uni, working in administration processing people's mortgage applications before I moved on eventually.

I know people that have gone to uni and done very well for themselves. I know people that didn't go to uni and have done very well for themselves.

Conversley, I know people that got first class honours and simply couldn't get jobs (no experience) and have low paid office jobs, and I know people that have good degrees and have very good jobs now.

However, those in the good and well paid jobs did law, teaching, medicine, dentistry or engineering of some flavour.

Go figure.

Give yourself the maximum amount of opportunity in life; get a degree, it can't harm you.

 

[old.user4556]

I suspect (and also share the view) that a lot of older people feel that everyone is doing bullshit degrees for no other reason than to spend 3 years fucking about (I know people who did useless subjects that they had no interest in so they could party).

I hadn't seen this post by the time I posted, but yes I agree; there are a lot of people at uni for the fuck about getting useless degrees.

Btw Jeros: are you foreign or English as second language?

 

[Jeros]

I hadn't seen this post by the time I posted, but yes I agree; there are a lot of people at uni for the fuck about getting useless degrees.

Btw Jeros: are you foreign or English as second language?

nope im english...

if your refering to my spelling and grammer its due to me being very tired, im home for xmas and cant sleep in my old bed for some reason.....go figure......

 

[Kryten]

My views on further education have always been simple, it's not for everyone - and as we all already know you can't expect to do a degree and be any wiser or better for it afterwards, walking straight into a well paid job. However they will hugely benefit many folks and will certainly be the difference between stacking shelves and coding software, serving fries or frying servers.
Not everyone can start from the bottom and work up, some people are happy to be stuck in a certain place, some people can be qualified to run the country yet can't seem to figure out how to run a corner shop.
So the only person qualified to decide whether it's the right choice or not is you, not some old fuddy duddy on the street, a family member who's worked for the same firm for 55 years and could never read, or some random sod from the internet who think's otherwise

 

[SawTooTH]

The increased numbers of students passing through Universities has actually devalued the Degree to such an extent that having a degree is worth what having A levels was 15-20 years ago.

I think that Labour's aim to have virtually everyone go to university was a bad thing. Opportunity should be for all but entry should be hard. There was nothing wrong with using the old Gaussian Distribution approach to limit numbers yet maintain a free higher education system.

You end up now needing a Masters or more likely a PhD to mark yourself out from the herd.

My Eldest son finished University with a 2:1 in International Relations and Politics and is really struggling to find work. My youngest is doing Computer Science so hopefully will be more marketable.

The lamentable thing of it is the cost to the student when there are no guarantees of a job at the end of it.

All that aspiration will have been for nothing for the majority.

 

[Zenith.UK]

I disagree with the idea of *everyone* being put through uni. Everyone should have the opportunity to study for a degree, IF THEY WANT TO. As a couple of people have already said, uni isn't necessarily the best option for some people.

Using myself as an example, I left school in lower sixth (17) to get a job. My first job paid for me to get a BTEC ONC on day release while training me up.
My next main job after that was more of the same, but with more responsibility. I quit that job to go back to college and got some BTEC certificates which enabled me to study an accelerated Computing HNC (9months fulltime instead of 2 years part time). I got an IT job for 6 months off the back of the HNC, and then used the HNC to get onto a HND Computing course. What this meant was that the HNC wiped out 4 of the 12 HND modules, which I then completed in 1 year fulltime.
That Computing HND, in addition to 10 years of work experience got me the job I'm doing right now.

The OP has 3 simple choices...
1) Go to uni, study and get the degree.
2) Forget uni for now, get a job and build up his experience, then return to higher education later.
3) Forget uni altogether. Get a job and become successful by his own means.

I know a number of people who did option 1 and are stuck in dead-end jo-jobs because the job market was saturated with young graduates.
I personally took on option 2 and I've done okay with it.
I know someone who never went to uni, never got a degree, and yet is now a Network Consultant in the city of London commanding £60-£100 per hour.

Life is what you make it. If you have drive and determination, you can succeed... with or without a degree.

 

[old.user4556]

Life is what you make it. If you have drive and determination, you can succeed... with or without a degree.

Very true words, although some careers like law or dentistry can't be done on the job or without years of study at uni.

From an IT perspective, I was the same. I didn't go straight to uni, I wasn't ready, it wasn't for me.

However, I did an HNC, then an HND; then I felt ready to up the anté and go further. I went straight into third year at uni and finished it off. Like I said though, I ended up working for 12 months in a non-IT job until I finally got taken on as a graduate into an 18 month trainee programmer role (by complete sheer luck I might add).

 

[rynnor]

Speaking from a UK PLC perspective we need as many people as possible to get degrees so we can compete on the global market.

The saddest thing in this country are the reams of unskilled labour whose jobs have evaporated - many are middle aged and unable/unwilling to retrain.

With manufacturing all but wiped out we need to ensure that people have at least some skills and ideally all those that could benefit from Uni should go.

A degree in anything these days will mean you know how to use a computer and have a chunk of knowledge that can be valuable on the market.

 

[Jeros]

Well im off to uni no matter what anyone says, its important i get a degree not just for myself but so i can migrate back to Australia, ive seen the promised land, i just gotta get to it

Ta for the views peeps

 

[throdgrain]

What a load of old bollocks.

 

[SilverHood]

Seeing as you failed to get onto CS, try something like Business I.T. - It's a more businessy approach to IT, where the good ones still allow you to go for Computer Science related jobs, at least if you pick the CS modules instead of the Business ones. I ended up as a programmer for a major investment bank on the back of mine, and I got a 2:2 (I didn't go through graduate recruitment though, waste of time).

For me, Uni was always about 3 things: Skills, projects and life experience.
If you don't learn new valuable skills, work on meaningful projects and have a good fun, you're wasting your time. Might as well learn on the job and get paid

 

[Aoami]

I decided to go to Uni because i started working 9 to 5 at 18 and by 21 i was fed up with it. I've had various jobs in that time, only struggling to find work once when i moved, when i was on the dole for a month or so. I've never been on more than 15k p/a, but had a got a fairly solid job working for the council at 19 but it was mind-numbing. Decided Uni was the way to go because it might get me a job in something i enjoy doing (web design, even though people who use IRC will have discovered, i'm currently hopeless at.)

There are so many students I know that have come to University for no other reason than to go to University. My housemates study History (why?), English with Drama (useful!), Sociology (what?) and Astrophysics (fair enough on that one). While Education for Education's sake is not neccesarily a bad thing, I do sometimes why money is wasted on degree programmes which will have no real benefit in later life.

 

[DaGaffer]

What a load of old bollocks.

Care to elaborate Throd?

My 2c...there's nowt wrong with going to Uni for 3 years, just to learn and have a good time. All this whining about how much money you'll make afterwards...believe it or not, not everyone cares.

Most importantly though, go to the best university you can. Better an irrelevant degree from a good university than a relevant degree from an also-ran. This is the problem these days, not that there are too many students, just too many crap universities.

 

[old.Tohtori]

Life is what you make it. If you have drive and determination, you can succeed... with or without a degree.

Given you're born in some form of a place you can that is

 

[Raven]

Nothing wrong with going to Uni, I wish I had gone. I don't necessarily think it means you automatically walk into a decent job at the end of it. There are a lot of pointless courses out there, or at least pointless unless your chosen career is highly specialised. There are tons of courses that are either utterly pointless and really should only be treated as an access course or are so specialised that unless you are lucky enough to find a job that exactly matches what you have studied then it will be useless to you. I have a friend that studied social anthropology and now works in an office answering the phone and doing a little filing.

Either way, go for it, 3 years isn't much of a difference in starting your career and you will make new friends and learn to live away from home which will come in handy for later life. I pissed about with warehouse jobs and generally dead end crap while half my mates were at Uni, it was only my early 20s that I started to think about a career, which I have since changed. Going from ultra dull accountancy to construction/contract law with a little accountancy thrown in. I am still CIMA qualified so could walk into a decent accountancy job (well, probably not at the moment) but its just soul destroying work. Make sure if you do go to Uni its as useful as it possibly can be to your chosen career path. Having a 2:1 in David Beckham will not get you a job at Cisco for example

Getting a degree so that you can blow this hell hole and move to Australia is a good enough reason

 

[throdgrain]

Care to elaborate Throd?

No.

 

[DaGaffer]

No.

Fair enough.

 

[chipper]

im in two minds on this frankly

everyone should have the right to education i firmly believe that but if your not going to put the effort in and just gonna fuck about for 3 years on a bull shit degree then no fuck off i seem to remember a few years back you could get a degree in train spotting seriously WTF?

one of the big problems in this country is the lack of workers for unskilled labour and its only going to get worse because everyone who goes to university sees it as beneath them as such this means we have to pull foreigners in to fill the gap but thats another discussion

our education system is misleading and its bullshit, basically these youngsters are promised they could get jobs earning big money, when the simple cruel fact is its not true. yes a small percentage will the rest who are only mediocre will mebbe end up doing ok but will still feel like theyve been dealt a cruel hand and those that just scraped a pass well back to flipping burgers or processing chicken feed im afraid

a big problem now as has been pointed out is that degrees in alot of subjects are just worthless now medicine engineering yes these are invaluable degrees your IT ones not so anymore simply due to the mass influx of people doing them many jobs now ask for experience and i think its going to get to the point where experience is gonna be more important than how many quals you got.

in answer to your question yes go to uni but go with the idea in mind youll take it to the next step and go for a masters or phd because these are the only ones that will take you above the crowd academically

 

[DaGaffer]

in answer to your question yes go to uni but go with the idea in mind youll take it to the next step and go for a masters or phd because these are the only ones that will take you above the crowd academically

Like I said before, you won't necessarily need the Masters or the Phd if you get a good first degree from a good university. Case in point, met a girl when I was on holiday a few weeks ago, 24 years old, degree in History, worked as a management consultant, probably going to earn a fortune. Key point here is not the history degree, its the fact she got it from Cambridge. Now we can't all go to Cambridge, but unless you have very specific aspirations (e.g. you want to be a doctor or something), its better to get a less relevant degree from a good university, than slave away doing something like engineering at a former poly (this isn't to denigrate people who did that, its just a much harder road in the long run). And by that I mean proper 'old' uni, the top 20, oxbridge, UCL, the red bricks and a few others. If you can't get into one of these, then be very selective about your course, because there's every chance you'll be associated with the "bullshit degree" stigma, and you'll have to work extra hard to rise above it.

 

[Furr]

Rules for university (in my opinon)

I found CS pretty damned hard to be honest, well final year is anyway with all the math that's involved. There are as some have said a very many mickey mouse courses, i know at my place for instance, maybe unfairly, we did look upon people going Computing & Information Systems as the people who tried to do CompSci, couldn't hack it, and changed to the easiest course who were paying shit loads to do little more than learn how to use programs...

Don't be swayed by the first year doesn't matter method of thinking, it does! it builds the foundation for the rest of the course and if you do well in your first and second year it takes some of the pressure off for your final year.

Try to go to a red brick and plus university if you can, one of the members of the 1994 group or Russell Groups would be a good guide to go by, the league tables are meaningless in some respect. Some institutions that lead in certain fields are low down because of their size or for because the subjects they excel in may have specialised focus that aren't commercial market valuable.

There is a view by many academics that the value of UK degree's is acutely and continuously damaged by the pledge of 50% into higher education, and if anything the pumping out of low quality "graduates" from low quality institutions has created an even more stringent "Class based" attitude to the degree system. Where before degree's from all over were considered at least valuable, it is becoming more the case of being even more important of where you get the degree, with places like "Thames Valley" being a running joke.

Plus there is the whole personal development aspect that University add, and for some jobs having a degree "ticks" that box.

 

[Embattle]

Judging by the quality students I saw at Uni I got the impression that for Uni's it was little more than a bums on seats exercise and to be utterly honest I've found complete idiots with and without degrees.

At the end I would say it is always worth giving it a bash, you've little to loose in most cases.

 

[Tallen]

At the end of the day a degree only tells a prospective employer one thing, that you have the capacity to learn.

This is not strictly true ofc for specialist degrees, but it most certainly is the case for general degree qualifications.

Qualifications aside, university is about partying, smoking pot and getting the wrong girl up the duff.....god i miss uni

 

[Kryten]

Not sure about the capacity to learn thing - learning is different for everyone, people learn in different ways. I for example can't be taught something in a lecture or classroom - at least not anywhere near as well as being in front of an example of the subject putting it to use. This is where the better apprenticeships come up trumps, and even some courses and degrees to do this to a point, just not anywhere near enough.

 

[xane]

Well im off to uni no matter what anyone says, its important i get a degree not just for myself but so i can migrate back to Australia, ive seen the promised land, i just gotta get to it

I may have spotted the minor complaint the "older generation" of British taxpayer may have with your cunning plan.

And just who are they to complain ? I'm sure their hard earned tax is going toward a worthwhile cause, be it in a different hemisphere.

 

[Trem]

I may have spotted the minor complaint the "older generation" of British taxpayer may have with your cunning plan.

And just who are they to complain ? I'm sure their hard earned tax is going toward a worthwhile cause, be it in a different hemisphere.

Best post of the week.