Students read this

Mrs_pbradley936

Now that it costs such a lot of money to get a degree and many of you will be graduating with huge debts, did you know that where you study and what you study has a direct effect on your employability?

My daughter-in-law is in the HR dept of a big firm in London and she was telling me that they only recruit from certain universities. If you have a BSc from a Russell Group you immediately jump several places up the system. Also I read the other day that Cambridge and LSE were listing A levels that they deemed unsuitable for their courses. It is all very well for this to be happening since the expansion of university places (previously a degree was a degree) but has anybody told our students about it?

LOST

students from red brick universities (ie. not the polys) are always more employable.

A-levels also have an effect - media studies is the main subject I come across as not being taken into account when employers look at academic history

Work experience gained - whether part time, during the summer or in a sandwich placement year does count for a lot when employers recruit - this is the most important factor which I would stress is the best way of being employable if you are not from a high grade uni!

cupid_s

I was always under the impression that the russell group were by far the best to go to in terms of employability afterwards. I would not have bothered going if i couldn't have gone to one of these. Getting a job after uni is difficult enough without having to worry that an employer sees the uni you went to as inferior.

And in terms of a-levels i think it's good that some aren't counted.

Unfortunately a lot of people now think going to uni is the be all and end all of getting a job and don't seem to realise that degrees from some unis aren't worth the paper they're written on.

I was always made to feel like the only option for me was to go to uni, and the government certainly push this idea. whereas in reality students need to be told about this stuff before they even decide whether to continue in higher education or not

Bennifred

So which universities are included in the Russell Group, please?

ffeindadifyr

IMHO I think only generic employers would be so short-sighted as sorting employability down to the Russell Group - yes in general these Unis are good... but there are some really useless departments in each one of them which wouldn't be able to compete with some other great dept's in other (non-russell group) red brick unis.

University of Birmingham

University of Bristol

University of Cambridge

Cardiff University

University of Edinburgh

University of Glasgow

Imperial College London

King's College London

University of Leeds

University of Liverpool

London School of Economics & Political Science

University of Manchester

Newcastle University

University of Nottingham

University of Oxford

University of Sheffield

University of Southampton

University College London

University of Warwick

netally

I would have thought people would take more into account that where you went. Work experience, doing extra-curricular stuff and personality all count for a lot. To be honest i'd rather work for an open minded company than one who pigeonholes me for going to a certain uni. A lot of people don't know anything about my uni (Sussex), which is good because I don't get constant comparisons to other places.

DrFluffy

The Russell goup is nothing more than a research procurement consortium. It has no bearing on undergraduate education. The only thing it has going for it is the fact that it is made up of mostly Red Bricks... There are some notable hard hitters missing from it...

melancholly

DrFluffy wrote:

The Russell goup is nothing more than a research procurement consortium. It has no bearing on undergraduate education. The only thing it has going for it is the fact that it is made up of mostly Red Bricks... There are some notable hard hitters missing from it...

very true
e.g. for modern languages hull is one of the best places to go, for many many things york is higher than almost all of the russell group unis listed.
on one hand, a university ranked bottom in the UK tables is not going to be the best option for a career, but at the same time, university is such a great experience that people should go and enjoy it if they want - rather than only going if they can get the As and Bs needed for most red brick unis.....

http://education.guardian.co.uk/universityguide2006/0,,1595180,00.html
the guardian website has lots of tables of different ways to look at unis (there's also a link to a nice article about league tables and how artificial they really are!)

Mrs_pbradley936

The purpose of this thread was not to denigrate universities or students it was to alert you to the fact that some employers place universities in a pecking order which never used to exist .If you are a student now, I am old enough to be your mother so forgive me for pointing out what used to happen in the "olden days". Very few people went to university and if you were a girl it was remarkable. However it was totally free and some people even got grants and help with housing. Having any sort of degree got you into a well paid job. There was no need for a “pecking order” because employment status was largely equal for graduates. These days perhaps every university and every subject is equal in the eyes of some employers, but not in at least one large firm in London.

melancholly

pbradley936 wrote:

The purpose of this thread was not to denigrate universities or students it was to alert you to the fact that some employers place universities in a pecking order which never used to exist .If you are a student now, I am old enough to be your mother so forgive me for pointing out what used to happen in the "olden days". Very few people went to university and if you were a girl it was remarkable. However it was totally free and some people even got grants and help with housing. Having any sort of degree got you into a well paid job. There was no need for a “pecking order” because employment status was largely equal for graduates. These days perhaps every university and every subject is equal in the eyes of some employers, but not in at least one large firm in London.

that makes complete sense - i don't think anyone would disagree with you! i'd just argue that there are many universities outside of the russell group who would still be considered to be some of the best places to go to. this is especially true of the last 5/10 years where places like bath and oxford bookes have rushed up the league tables and are very highly rated. i would be very surprised (and a bit worried!), given the level of media coverage, if anyone genuinely did believe that any degree was a guarentee of a job.

chugalug

pbradley936 wrote:

The purpose of this thread was not to denigrate universities or students it was to alert you to the fact that some employers place universities in a pecking order which never used to exist .If you are a student now, I am old enough to be your mother so forgive me for pointing out what used to happen in the "olden days". Very few people went to university and if you were a girl it was remarkable. However it was totally free and some people even got grants and help with housing. Having any sort of degree got you into a well paid job. There was no need for a “pecking order” because employment status was largely equal for graduates. These days perhaps every university and every subject is equal in the eyes of some employers, but not in at least one large firm in London.

Is that necessarily true?? There've always been certain universities that were held in high esteem over others. Before poly's became uni's there was a distinction between the 'old' uni's such as Cambridge and Oxford and the new uni's such as Sussex. It was accepted that if you wanted a good job in law or certain other professions you needed to get into the 'old' uni's.

Still, agree with you on the rest. My kids can't believe students used to get grants and benefits.