Graduates and school leavers face jobs crunch

dylansmum

dieselhead wrote: »

I am a Architecture student (well for the next few weeks) I have now been studying for 6 years (architecture requires 2 degrees). There are very very few jobs out there. The construction industry has been very very hard hit by the recession.

As far as I can see I have done all the right things, I have had part time jobs in term time, worked in architectural practices in the holidays, participated in architectural conferences and other extra curricular activities, but still work is hard to find.

I hoep you get something. So crap for everyone. Our Arch dept is at risk of being axed - nice, short-term thinking as ever (they've lost lots of consultancy fees).

donaldtramp

The whole problem is Labour's socialist dream of 50% of people going to university.
This attempt to make life "fair" is an absolute nonsense and is ruining our standards of education and our country.
The last thing the UK needs is expansion of our universities to include courses such as joinery.
Please note. I am in no way knocking joiners or plumbers or anything similar, in fact quite the opposite.
Trades are far more useful for people who study them and the country as a whole. The individual and country actually see a benefit from doing a vocational course.
The country gets a valuable and worthwhile tradesman and the tradesman gets a wage whilst studying.
The massive expansion of nonsensical university degrees to include "hotel management" "media studies" and "sports science"(I could go on and on here reeling off arts degrees) gets no-one (the country or the student) anywhere.
A huge amount of degrees have only came about due to the expansion of university's courses to meet the labour governments socialist targets.
3 or 4 wasted years, massive debt and no job at the end of it.
Where does that get us?

We need to ditch these ridiculous targets.
We need to stop wasting years of peoples lives studying crap courses and wasting taxpayers money on them.
We need to stiffen up the exams back to how they used to be so that the qualifications actually mean something.
We need to bin all these ridiculous degrees for halfwits and get back to studying courses that actually have a meaning and a purpose.

As for all the graduates struggling to get a job, try doing a course like engineering, chemistry or medicine. I think you'll have no trouble getting a job.
If you made the choice of a "hotel management" degree, you've made you're own choice and can only look to blame the present government for giving you the impression that you were entitled to a job "cos you have a degree".
But then that's Labour all over isn't it? Everyone entitled to everything and wondering who's going to pick up the tab!

dieselhead

donaldtramp wrote: »

The whole problem is Labour's socialist dream of 50% of people going to university.
This attempt to make life "fair" is an absolute nonsense and is ruining our standards of education and our country.
The last thing the UK needs is expansion of our universities to include courses such as joinery.
Please note. I am in no way knocking joiners or plumbers or anything similar, in fact quite the opposite.
Trades are far more useful for people who study them and the country as a whole. The individual and country actually see a benefit from doing a vocational course.
The country gets a valuable and worthwhile tradesman and the tradesman gets a wage whilst studying.
The massive expansion of nonsensical university degrees to include "hotel management" "media studies" and "sports science"(I could go on and on here reeling off arts degrees) gets no-one (the country or the student) anywhere.
A huge amount of degrees have only came about due to the expansion of university's courses to meet the labour governments socialist targets.
3 or 4 wasted years, massive debt and no job at the end of it.
Where does that get us?

We need to ditch these ridiculous targets.
We need to stop wasting years of peoples lives studying crap courses and wasting taxpayers money on them.
We need to stiffen up the exams back to how they used to be so that the qualifications actually mean something.
We need to bin all these ridiculous degrees for halfwits and get back to studying courses that actually have a meaning and a purpose.

As for all the graduates struggling to get a job, try doing a course like engineering, chemistry or medicine. I think you'll have no trouble getting a job.
If you made the choice of a "hotel management" degree, you've made you're own choice and can only look to blame the present government for giving you the impression that you were entitled to a job "cos you have a degree".
But then that's Labour all over isn't it? Everyone entitled to everything and wondering who's going to pick up the tab!

Although I agree with the majority of what you are saying, as in my post above I have studied architecture, a profession, requiring 2 degrees and professional recognition and regulation, and yet I am still struggling to find employment, as are my peers, in engineering and law. A recent article in the guardian outlined Architecture and Law as being two of the professions most hit by the recession. I think regardless of what your degree is in at the moment everyone is struggling to find work.

treliac

Not only has the govt led would be graduates down the swany, I've recently been doing the tour of prospective unis with DS.

I was surprised how many lecturers said that it doesn't matter what degree a student takes as lots of employers are merely looking for the evidence of ability rather than wanting a specific degree and, anyway, it's normal to change direction after graduating.

I started to feel like a lone voice in the wilderness. :rolleyes:

Note: I guess a number of unis must be feeling pretty fragile, having invested in growth to absorb inflated student numbers, at the possibility of applications dropping off.
.

lynzpower

baby_boomer wrote: »

Tony Bliar's justification for charging tuition fees - ie that graduates would earn 40% more than their contempories - may not ring true for the current crop of finalists.

Good luck to all MSErs in that situation.

Why can't government be straight with us? All of a sudden, with RPI heading into negative territory, the government changes the rules on what students owe in 2009/10 so that debts don't reduce once we have deflation .

That's not fair.

The state of graduating youth in todays economic situation is a clear example ( IMO) of Labour itself treating debt as "wealth" . Another huge burden of debt to pay off for young adults in an shot-to-bits economy based upon debt itself :eek:

Graduates have been lured in by this huge expansion of universities/ grads/ course spaces. Generated by labour and thier insessant targets, meanwghilwe diluting the degree due to oversupply, the next earning generation are financially crippled. Students only option is to live on debt, in the main . The majority of these grads will have over 20ks worth of debt to try and pay off.

So on the face of it the country has loads of graduates, all highly educated, so - a walth- get fuelled by debts of effectively children!

(BA Hons Politics, top 10 uni 18k deb= totally pointless bit of paper! :rotfl:)

lynzpower

treliac wrote: »

Not only has the govt led would be graduates down the swany, I've recently been doing the tour of prospective unis with DS.

I was surprised how many lecturers said that it doesn't matter what degree a student takes as lots of employers are merely looking for the evidence of ability rather than wanting a specific degree and, anyway, it's normal to change direction after graduating.

I started to feel like a lone voice in the wilderness. :rolleyes:

Note: I guess a number of unis must be feeling pretty fragile, having invested in growth to absorb inflated student numbers, at the possibility of applications dropping off.
.

This happened when I went to look around Unis too!1v If id had any doubt, once I heard it, unfortunately as a 17 year old girl, thought it was perfect! I was told that all grads from that department get snpped for jobs. So why was I struggling to find work part time in a call centre then :rolleyes::rotfl:

donaldtramp

dieselhead,
I wish you all the very best.
You are in a far better position (it might not feel like it at the moment) than the many thousands who will graduate with crap degrees

lostinrates

treliac wrote: »

Not only has the govt led would be graduates down the swany, I've recently been doing the tour of prospective unis with DS.

I was surprised how many lecturers said that it doesn't matter what degree a student takes as lots of employers are merely looking for the evidence of ability rather than wanting a specific degree and, anyway, it's normal to change direction after graduating.

I started to feel like a lone voice in the wilderness. :rolleyes:

Note: I guess a number of unis must be feeling pretty fragile, having invested in growth to absorb inflated student numbers, at the possibility of applications dropping off.
.

Ironically, I chose, after great deliberation the better scientific content course over the prestige name alternative course.

I often think life would have been easier if I'd done the softer option with the different social connections.

DH was at Oxford and did his law conversion at College of Law and an ex Poly. He said the standards at the ex poly were in very many ways higher and more demanding than at Oxford. For example: DH had no IT lessons at school and for undergrad degree hand wrote assignments (appart from thesis) so in his whole life he'd done one piece of word processed work, with no IT lessons ever: in that respect he was totally ill prepared for the workplace!

chewmylegoff

dieselhead wrote: »

Although I agree with the majority of what you are saying, as in my post above I have studied architecture, a profession, requiring 2 degrees and professional recognition and regulation, and yet I am still struggling to find employment, as are my peers, in engineering and law. A recent article in the guardian outlined Architecture and Law as being two of the professions most hit by the recession. I think regardless of what your degree is in at the moment everyone is struggling to find work.

there is always an oversupply of law graduates - getting a training contract at a law firm has always been difficult and competitive, as has getting a pupillage as a barrister. loads of wannabe solicitors/barristers spend years as paralegals before realising they're never going to make it. several of the people i did my accountancy training with had spent a few years trying to get a solicitor's training contract and eventually given up and did accountancy instead.

the situation is worse at the moment, although i suspect it is actually more difficult for newly qualified solicitors than it is for those looking to get taken on straight from uni, as trainees are much cheaper to employ than associates are, and the law firms will all need associates in a few years time when the economy is getting better.

don't know anything about architecture although i suspect that it is probably also pretty competitive for graduate jobs even in good times.

chewmylegoff

treliac wrote: »

Not only has the govt led would be graduates down the swany, I've recently been doing the tour of prospective unis with DS.

I was surprised how many lecturers said that it doesn't matter what degree a student takes as lots of employers are merely looking for the evidence of ability rather than wanting a specific degree and, anyway, it's normal to change direction after graduating.

I started to feel like a lone voice in the wilderness. :rolleyes:

Note: I guess a number of unis must be feeling pretty fragile, having invested in growth to absorb inflated student numbers, at the possibility of applications dropping off.
.

this is generally true in my experience - most graduate employers are just looking for a 2:1 from a decent university. some employers "like" science/maths type subjects more. (i don't mean this is all they are looking for, but they will generally filter applicants on that sort of criteria).

when i went to uni i was convinced i needed to get a science degree in order to do anything useful with my life. i changed my a-levels after a year and dropped history, which was my favourite subject, in order to pick up biology, because most science courses i had looked in to wanted all your a-levels to be maths or science subjects.

i then worked through 3 years of biochemistry & biochemical engineering, getting more and more bored with it each year, and realised at the end of it all that i didn't want anything to do with it.

i wish someone had bloody well told me that degree subject wasn't that important, and all i needed to do was get a 2:1 from a decent university to open the door to grad schemes - i would have done history at uni and enjoyed it (and probably still become an accountant).

obviously if you have a specific career in mind at 17/18 when you are choosing uni, and that career requires a specific degree, then you need to read that subject. but most people don't know what they want to do at that age, and therefore it doesn't really matter what they do. degree result is more important than subject, in the end.