Graduates 'Could be Jobless For Years'

Cleaver

amcluesent wrote: »

I believe I am the board misogynist/racist/whatever...

I certainly think 'whatever' quite a lot when I read your posts.

treliac

And the unis were still telling my son, as he was looking round them last year, that it didn't matter which degree he took as employers were only looking for evidence of a graduate's ability. :mad:

Fortunately he had a mother who countered this with "Codswallop."

Either they're stuck in a past ideology, or a desperate need to fill places at any cost or they're not in tune with the world of work at all.

In talking to DS's friends as they are leaving 6th form (and their parents), I'm amazed how many still only have no idea of what they are going to do in the long run and of how many are planning to take 'hobby' degrees or subjects like history and psychology which, in themselves, don't lead anywhere and with no thought thereafter.

StevieJ

Cleaver wrote: »

Of course, more people go to University these days and this devalues having a degree. But we're certainly not at the stage where having a degree means you are 'illiterate, arrogant or unworldly'. The higher amount of people getting degrees just means that you need to ensure that your experience, personality and choice of uni / course is top notch.

A degree now is the same as 'A' levels a generation ago, the kids spend three years building up debt and have no more employment oportunity than an 18 year old 20 years previous. I exclude from this degrees from the aknowledged top universities and certain job related and technical degrees/science degrees.

Cleaver

treliac wrote: »

And the unis were still telling my son, as he was looking round them last year, that it didn't matter which degree he took as employers were only looking for evidence of a graduate's ability. :mad:

Fortunately he had a mother who countered this with "Codswallop."

I think that nicely sums up the difference. Even when I went to uni (99 - 01), you could 'get away with' going to a bit of a random uni to do a bit of a random degree, have not much of a plan and still get jobs somehow. I might just be evidence of that (although I went to a redbrick, but my degree was certainly just a "ooh, that looks interesting, I'll do that..." one).

If I was going to Uni as an 18 year old now I would have a plan infront of me. What uni, what degree, what job do I want at the end, and what non-uni activities am I going to need on my CV to enable me to stand out.

However, the view of some that graduates are somehow useless idiots is just as stupid as the view that simply having a degree will get you a automatic job.

Cleaver

StevieJ wrote: »

A degree now is the same as 'A' levels a generation ago, the kids spend three years building up debt and have no more employment oportunity than an 18 year old 20 years previous. I exclude from this degrees from the aknowledged top universities and certain job related and technical degrees/science degrees.

But this simply isn't true Stevie. A lot of roles and organisations will ask for a degree. Right or wrong, they just do.

I agree that maybe doing a degree now is as common as doing A levels a generation ago, if that's what you mean.

olly300

thescouselander wrote: »

According to the statistics at the time there were some 150,000 graduates chasing only 15,000 proper graduate vacancies. Add to that the graduates from previous years who had failed to find a job.

The other graduates presumably went into jobs that didn't necessarily need a degree.

Nope.

They went to work for small businesses who did require the degree but due to employing a maximum of one or two graduates every few years, the companies don't have a traditional graduate training program.

StevieJ

Cleaver wrote: »

But this simply isn't true Stevie. A lot of roles and organisations will ask for a degree. Right or wrong, they just do.

I agree that maybe doing a degree now is as common as doing A levels a generation ago, if that's what you mean.

What I mean is the entry requirement was 'A' levels (or even 'O' levels in the distant past) for certain professions, same as specs for certain jobs. now these tend to be graduate entry.

PasturesNew

When I left school (hated that place) at 16, I was clutching 2 grim O levels and a CSE in typing. Subjects offered weren't varied like these days and you chose 1 subject from each of 6 columns - so if everything you wanted to do was in the 1st column, you just "made do" and randomly picked stuff from the next 5. So I had to pick stuff that wasn't even an O level because O levels weren't done in those subjects. No exciting subjects back then like now.

Back then, if you wanted to be a nurse you had to have 5 O levels and then go off to work in the hospital/go to nursing college. I am feeling ill just typing about hospitals.

I chose to do the typing thing ... and trotted off to secretarial college for 2 years.

I started work when there were 3 million on the dole, went straight into a job ... and after that I would pretty much walk straight into the next one all the time. But then one day, you realise it's getting harder. It's not just the degree thing, I think it's the age thing. Over 40 it does get tougher to just walk into an interview and walk out with the job.

I did years of them thinking I was about to have babies, so overlooked... then when you stop that phase you're into the "nobody wants to work with somebody as old as their mum" phase.

SingleSue

treliac wrote: »

And the unis were still telling my son, as he was looking round them last year, that it didn't matter which degree he took as employers were only looking for evidence of a graduate's ability. :mad:

Fortunately he had a mother who countered this with "Codswallop."

Either they're stuck in a past ideology, or a desperate need to fill places at any cost or they're not in tune with the world of work at all.

In talking to DS's friends as they are leaving 6th form (and their parents), I'm amazed how many still only have no idea of what they are going to do in the long run and of how many are planning to take 'hobby' degrees or subjects like history and psychology which, in themselves, don't lead anywhere and with no thought thereafter.

That is the thing I can't understand about the youngsters today, a fair few have no idea what they want to do after they leave school yet I knew exactly what I wanted to do from the age of 4!

My eldest has now finally got some sort of idea of the route he wants to take and has already picked the Uni he wants to go to...now all he has to do is get the grades in his GCSE's and then the grades at A Level. :rolleyes:

baileysbattlebus

My experience in engineering with several large corporations was that they would invite for group selection / pyschometric testing and potential interview both graduates and experienced non graduates for normal entry routes and then they had graduate selection for new graduates.

Sometimes experienced non graduates got the positions through normal entry routes, it was abitlity not potential that counted. And for the new graduate route it was potential, because they were not able to work without extensive training, help and some form of mentoring. And it could be a couple of years before they were of any real value to the business, (if ever, because obviously potential was not alway realised).

One of the things that struck me about some young people, graduates and non graduates was often the complete lack of what I would term almost basic mathematics. I think some universities are trying to tackle this, especially for engineering and physics. It should be tackled long before then though.

I have lost count of the number of spreadsheets I have had to build where they just had to plug numbers in, because they were unable to work out themselves how to get the answer. And you had to make it so only certain cells could be used, otherwise they would decide to change something and screw the whole thing up. It was quite scary really.

Obviously maths is a problem for a lot of people not just young people. But you would think with 16+ years in education 3 of them in higher education, people might realise that there is just a slight possibly they might have to use maths in the business world. Or English for that matter or even analysis.

I'm not knocking graduates, I have met and worked with some great ones and also some not so great ones. Sometimes I think they come into the workplace with unrealistic expectations of both jobs and money. There are only so many "graduate" jobs and with so many more young people gaining degrees there is bound to be a shortfall somwhere and a rude awakening for some. Especially those who have no real idea of what career they want to follow before they go to university.

I think the sheer numbers coming out of university with degrees has devalued the degree - whether it is easier now than it was 30 years ago is irrelevant. If we carry on the way we are and the majority of people have degrees, jobs that used to require a degree will require a Masters. The goal posts will move - they will have to.

I think Cleaver hit the nail on the head, have a plan, what degree, what university, what career.