Nice people thread part 3- Nice as pie

lostinrates

lemonjelly wrote: »

The local area has a lot of single moms. .

shouldn't they go back to America, and take their ''z''s replacing ''s''sand ''er''s replacing ''re''s with them?

LJ....what about the computer programmers already looking for jobs because too many are being produced by too many courses? Or is that not a problem in that area of employment? (I genuinely don't know, but do know my old course produces FAR too many people than there are industry jobs for!)

I sympathise with your 19 year old, I know as well as any what it is to be ''invalided'' out of work and to be dependant. I do not have a child, but goodness knows if I'm to ill to work a bit I'm too ill too mother full time (friend's baby for a few hours exhausts me enough!)

Motherhood is a wonderful, valuable thing (to society), even as a ranting right I think mother's of young children should be supported. but then I also think in general they should be in a position themselves to support before they have children.

silvercar

When I taught in FE, there were young (very young) mums who would enrol on courses every year just because they were free. So they got a string of low level qualifications. Their main benefit was that it gave them access to a good creche at cheap prices (possibly free); a cheap coffee shop and subsidised canteen. They also got some finance for education stuff, cheap travel, a discount student card.

Some of them worked on their studies and were a good addition to the classes, but others were just there for the lifestyle and you would waste loads of admin time chasing them up for work and cajoling them into attending and working.

PasturesNew

lemonjelly wrote: »

However consider a young girl, just turned 19 years old. Suffers from ill health, so is on income support. However is a whizz on computers, & harbours ambitions to be a computer programmer. Can she afford to pay £600.00 plus for course fees?

What about anybody of any age? Although you picked a bad one there because anybody who is a whizz, especially at programming, will find all they need - and more - and help/support/encouragement online for free.

When I was working I never had the money for, nor access to courses. Many courses these days are in fact useless and just run to enable an organisation to put them on. I was on a really super-useless event yesterday (still spitting really)... I could see straight through all the fluff that this was just groups of people who had organised themselves in such a way that they could get paid for putting people onto useless courses.

I've such rage inside of me.... and the environment I was in was so bad for me that I'll be feeling the knock on effects for days.

Courses used to be useful, affordable and put on during the evenings. Then they became unaffordable, unless you were on benefits when you got full funding - and put on in the days for people who weren't working.

Useless they all are.

PasturesNew

lostinrates wrote: »

...what about the computer programmers already looking for jobs because too many are being produced by too many courses?

This is something I don't get. Why are people being paid to go on courses, and being convinced to go on courses, when people already qualified/experienced in the jobs that could be done are kicking around on the dole queue.

There's no advice. None whatsoever. Nobody can tell you what these 'skills shortages' are - it's a buzz word that's put about, but nobody actually lists these alleged skills shortages.... or where the jobs are ... of which courses might be useful to somebody in a particular region.

It's all about getting people onto useless courses, to add to the number of existing people who have the piece of paper, so everybody can wonder why they've got no job still.

There's no advice at all. None. Everybody's just wandering around in the dark, clueless as to what would be the best job for them, best route to that job, where/what the courses for that would be.

So nobody can make decisions and plan.

It's all ad-hoc.

Somebody yesterday clearly wanted me to go onto a Life Coaching course. They were scripted to put people on it - in return for some funding no doubt. My answer: "Why on earth would I want to go on a happy clappy cr4ppy course that's all middle class stuff and nonsense... and I don't even have a clue what it is?" They'd not said why, just pretty much wheeled me in and wanted to sign me onto it. Funding, box ticking = waste of bl00dy money. So, exasperated as I'd not just fallen over with gratitude at this "free funding" they were offering me, she said to me "Go to XYZ website, pick a course, tell us which one you want". So I looked... what a load of old sh1te that is. Beauty courses and dog grooming.

tomterm8

lemonjelly wrote: »

In theory I agree, the ones who really want to study will be here. However consider a young girl, just turned 19 years old. Suffers from ill health, so is on income support. However is a whizz on computers, & harbours ambitions to be a computer programmer. Can she afford to pay £600.00 plus for course fees?
.

Er, there is no way a computer programming course costing £600 would be any good. No way. Trust me on this, it would be rubbish.

It is possible to teach yourself programming. And often it is possible to get a mentor who will teach you... especially if you help out on an open source project.

But to become a decent programmer, up to pro levels, takes around 1000 hours. And to be frank, most of that is 'on your own time', that is time spent programming. rather than in an actual course, even if you go to uni.

lostinrates

This is really interesting tomterm and pn. An unemployed bf of an acquaintance was telling me recently he couldn't get a job in this field with out ''the certificates'', but it sounds as if this is not so. (I feel its hard to get a job without having a shower).

lostinrates

PasturesNew wrote: »

Beauty courses and dog grooming.

A professional friend of mine did a dog grooming course a couple of years ago. It was ace, she was always borrowing one of the big dogs to practise their show ring hair style.

She's planning on it being her early retirement career. she's VERY good (lots of dog groomers look blank at the request for correct breed turn out).It takes me a good 3/4 of a day to do big dog myself, doing it more efficiently and without wafting about doing other stuff she does it in three hours, and better than me..:o

tomterm8

lostinrates wrote: »

This is really interesting tomterm and pn. An unemployed bf of an acquaintance was telling me recently he couldn't get a job in this field with out ''the certificates'', but it sounds as if this is not so. (I feel its hard to get a job without having a shower).

I've met lots of programmers who have got their job without a certificate. And some with a certificate. But employers who want a certificate aren't going to go for one provided by a £600 course, when there are people with full degrees unable to get into the industry.

Programming is actually a blue collar job. It looks a bit of a white collar job from the outside, but if you are good enough at it you'll be employed.

I'm also going to say: people tend to get the certificates after they are already good programmers. The people at my uni who passed the programming courses didn't learn it at university. All the university did was supply the certificate. Those people who didn't know how to program, and didn't teach it to themselves, dropped out. Courses are a bad way to learn programming.

John_Pierpoint

lemonjelly wrote: »

MP's lose their jobs for doing stuff like that...

Don't worry, the train did stop at Clapham Junction - but we were not allowed to get off - the train.

So no walks on the common.

tomterm8 wrote: »

I've met lots of programmers who have got their job without a certificate. And some with a certificate. But employers who want a certificate aren't going to go for one provided by a £600 course, when there are people with full degrees unable to get into the industry.

Programming is actually a blue collar job. It looks a bit of a white collar job from the outside, but if you are good enough at it you'll be employed.

I'm also going to say: people tend to get the certificates after they are already good programmers. The people at my uni who passed the programming courses didn't learn it at university. All the university did was supply the certificate. Those people who didn't know how to program, and didn't teach it to themselves, dropped out. Courses are a bad way to learn programming.

Correlates with ability in the use of English - or it used to in the old days.

Not Maths as most supposed.

LydiaJ

neverdespairgirl wrote: »

But then you pour another cup, and have to go back to the kitchen to get the milk / sugar out again?

Pour it out without going back to the kitchen to do so? You are presupposing a teapot, which most people don't use any more. You make the tea directly in the mug (which is significantly bigger than a teacup) and if you do end up wanting more, you go back to the kitchen for the kettle as well as the milk and sugar - if you ever left the kitchen in the first place, which you probably didn't, because we're all now supposed to believe that the kitchen is "the hub of the home".

PasturesNew wrote: »

Even though tomorrow IS Thursday?

I posted that at 9 minutes past midnight, and I hadn't realised it wasn't still Tuesday.