Tonight with Trevor McDonald (degrees worth it?) 24/11

studentphil

Really people like me wasted our time spending hours and hours on our A levels to go to good unis , when we could just have dossed about and got grade E and D and gone anywhere and still been as employable!!

StudentSaver_2

studentphil wrote:

Really people like me wasted our time spending hours and hours on our A levels to go to good unis , when we could just have dossed about and got grade E and D and gone anywhere and still been as employable!!

I don't agree with this. It really depends on what type of degree course you are taking - establishments often specialise in either academic and vocational degrees, with the former tending to be red-bricks, and the latter offered by the newer universities.

Please don't take offence anyone, but someone who graduates with a 2:1 in French and German from a red-brick, for example, University of Newcastle upon Tyne (entry requirements: ABB), will, in my opinion, be more attractive than someone that graduates from the University of Ulster in the same subject (entry requirements: CCC).

However, in some circumstances, the supposedly "lower class" universities do specialise and excel in certain fields, often vocational. Going back the the University of Ulster, their physiotherapy course requires AAA at A Level and full A* and As at GCSE, and is ranked as one of the best in the UK.

So the university does matter - it just depends what you're studying.

Bamber19

The main problem is that going to University has become the norm, and the government is constantly trying to get people to go who wouldn;t have went otherwise...but regardless of this, the number of jobs available remains the same, so you now find that jobs that you could get without a degree in the past now requires a degree. On top of this universities are creating degrees which would never have been a degree before to accomodate these extra students. Another problem is that the majority of students i know don't seem to think about the job prospects of their degree (also many lecturers lie about these) I have friends studying Philosophy, whilst it's an enjoyable degree if anyone asks them what they're going to do with their degree the answer is that they don't know, they're not going to use it to be a philosopher are they?

Bamber19

studentphil wrote:

There is no logic for that!

Writing a good English exam or an English Essay will not make you a good employer, there is no logical connection betwwen the two!

got to agree there, it's just the way it is but for the most part you're not being tested on intelligence but dilligence, I've went into exams having done no revision and passed based on my memory skills and being good at picking things up and understanding them and got the exact same grade as people i know who have spent the 3 weeks prior to the exam studying away. This doesn;t show anything about our employability...it doesn't show that i am naturally more intelligent, but it also fails to show that the other guy is not a lazy sod whilst i am and at the end of the dya we could bothe be crap at the job.

ont he subject of what classification your degree is there's a rumour that seems to be going about, and i can't confirm or deny the truth of it, that some employers look more favourably on a 2.1 than a first for the reason that a first can create the image of someone who is low on people skills and has spent their entire university career in the library, although there are exceptions to this stereotype.

Edit: coherent typing is not a core requirement of my course

StudentSaver_2

Bamber19 wrote:

I have friends studying Philosophy, whilst it's an enjoyable degree if anyone asks them what they're going to do with their degree the answer is that they don't know, they're not going to use it to be a philosopher are they?

Supposedly 60% of graduate jobs are non-subject specific. However, most are classification-specific, with a 2:1 increasingly becoming necessary to gain a place on graduate schemes and 2:2 becoming just not good enough.

Bamber19

StudentSaver wrote:

Supposedly 60% of graduate jobs are non-subject specific. However, most are classification-specific, with a 2:1 increasingly becoming necessary to gain a place on graduate schemes and 2:2 becoming just not good enough.

I guess that pretty much supports the view that the market is being flooded with people who have degrees to such an extent that jobs which no longer required a degree now do although in fairness it could equally be interpreted to not support this at all. There does seem to be many fewer degrees about now that you can expect to use to get into a relatively high paying job now.

GoldenEye

I read that there were 260,000 graduates to 90,000 graduate-level jobs. Too many people are studying the same degrees. It's not surprising that they cannot get jobs but I do feel sympathetic. What I don't like is that we have a shortage of Doctors in the NHS and there are newly qualified Juniors not able to get jobs, mainly due to the interference of our Government. This is where the system is also failing.

It does have repurcussions for the Economy because Doctors are in demand worldwide and as a Nation, we will end up losing out. The taxpayer has helped educate a graduate from pre-school to university.

My field is getting worse each year and I suspect a lot of people will end up moving abroad where jobs are available because there is no alternative.

executiverocker

well after watching some of the program, i didnt really think much of it. I want to do computing, and seeing as so many other people these days try to get experience ahead of education , I didn't even get a look in with various companies around the north west! So now I go to uni at UCLAN and I am confident that by putting in the hard work I will come out with a good job in the end! I will certainly be in a better position than if i hadn't had gone to uni!

The computing/science sector is well underskilled, so im hoping getting a job in this area , with placements and the degree, will turn out for the best.

Horasio

I found my degree to be useless in 1986

The sort of work I got I could have got with my secretarial studies certificate.

It looks good on the CV tho'

andyrules

Well, over the last few years there's been a recruitment drive in our area for civil servants. Entry requirement - zero, they organise their own selection tests in order not to discriminate against people who don't have any qualifications. If the government's own department is blatantly disregarding the value of A-levels and degrees, what message does that give?