Nice people thread part 5 - nicely does it

Doozergirl

michaels wrote: »

Don't they (also) say that the way a man drives is like the way he makes lurve....

:rotfl:

:T

I have never heard that!

zagubov

michaels wrote: »

Interesting outlook - when I graduated I had a trip to the US for 3 months lined up but not a job just the intention to find work when I got there then when I got back I temped a bit then went to work in a ski resort - there is quite enough time in life to be sensible and have a job but once you start getting ties the option to do anything else other than a job closes off completely. Surely with the way the student loans work (after my time) there is no penalty from not starting to work straight away?

When I was a student there were organisations like Campamerica and BUNAC that could organise summer work.

One fellow-student went over there and, when switching planes, explored NY and was robbed at gunpoint, which rather reinforced some stereotypes everyone had heard about the US.

This was at the time of Skytrain and Jetsave (some of my fellow-students came from the US on a £97 return ticket )

JonnyBravo

michaels wrote: »

Don't they (also) say that the way a man drives is like the way he makes lurve....

And do you find yourself in the wrong gear often?? :eek: :rotfl:

lostinrates

I'd not heard that saying either, but its true dh refuses to be rushed and the world can wait for him.

JonnyBravo

Went to see







at the Artrix last night. Great stuff!

neverdespairgirl

zagubov wrote: »

I've got issues with how the A level system prematurely specialises you before you know what you want to do later on.

I feel exactly the opposite - by the time I had done by GCSEs, I was delighted to be able to abandon a large range of subjects that I didn't enjoy, and spend more time and effort on ones I did find interesting.

I also don't see the point of general degrees. One of the points of a proper, academic degree is to learn about something in detail - and the actual substance of that learning isn't necessarily the most important part of the process. It's more about focusing, specialising, getting really involved in one subject, and those are skills which are helpful.

A year or two in a degree doing a bit of this, t'other and which seems like a waste of time, to me, really. By the time you've reached tertiary education, you should be perfectly capable of reading and investigating any subject in which you are interested to a superficial level, and such a level is all you could get in a general degree.

If you want to be a lawyer in America, you have to p!ss about doing a 4 year general degree, then 3 years at law school, which seems like a fantastic waste of time and energy, to me.

Here, I did a 3 year law degree, 1 year master's degree, and a year of vocation training, before starting pupillage. So although I was still younger than an American equivalent would have been, I'd actually done a lot more law-specific stuff.

Davesnave

JonnyBravo wrote: »

Went to see




at the Artrix last night. Great stuff!

The real Charlie lives near here. His wife has 56 horses.... and counting! :eek:

Charlie was always the tidy, sensible one.

vivatifosi

neverdespairgirl wrote: »

Here, I did a 3 year law degree, 1 year master's degree, and a year of vocation training, before starting pupillage. So although I was still younger than an American equivalent would have been, I'd actually done a lot more law-specific stuff.

I'm currently reading Defending the Guilty by Alex McBride ndg. You've probably heard of it, but if not, its about how the criminal barrister system works in this country. I've found it very interesting as well as scary in places and funny in others (my ideal combo in a book). If you have read it, I wonder what you think of it.

In terms of the generalist vs specific degree issue, I think its horses for courses. I did an early OU degree studying economics and politics. You couldn't specialise more at that stage, but it was still useful in different ways. My Masters is an MBA which is also generalist, in that you can also do a finance degree or a marketing degree for example, but with an MBA you get to do a bit of everything.

DH on the other hand has three degrees in specific subject areas: chemistry, energy studies and maths and used the first two to do his PhD which was even more concentrated into one particular area.

What I find interesting is the new degree subjects. When I worked in media 30 odd years ago nobody had a media studies degree, though some had journalism degrees and many had english, history, etc. The technicians had taken technical courses (for example in camera work) as well as learning on the job. It seems strange that a whole industry functioned very well without a qualification which is now ubiquitous.

lostinrates

neverdespairgirl wrote: »

I feel exactly the opposite - by the time I had done by GCSEs, I was delighted to be able to abandon a large range of subjects that I didn't enjoy, and spend more time and effort on ones I did find interesting.

I also don't see the point of general degrees. One of the points of a proper, academic degree is to learn about something in detail - and the actual substance of that learning isn't necessarily the most important part of the process. It's more about focusing, specialising, getting really involved in one subject, and those are skills which are helpful.

A year or two in a degree doing a bit of this, t'other and which seems like a waste of time, to me, really. By the time you've reached tertiary education, you should be perfectly capable of reading and investigating any subject in which you are interested to a superficial level, and such a level is all you could get in a general degree.

If you want to be a lawyer in America, you have to p!ss about doing a 4 year general degree, then 3 years at law school, which seems like a fantastic waste of time and energy, to me.

Here, I did a 3 year law degree, 1 year master's degree, and a year of vocation training, before starting pupillage. So although I was still younger than an American equivalent would have been, I'd actually done a lot more law-specific stuff.

That said, tne us grads i habe met in recent years are generally more likely to be polymathamatic intellectuals, more cultured, appreciative, intellectually curious......

Dhs siblings and father are all working in us atm and gind they are enjoying the stimulation of their students who approach things from wider bases and with more hunger. The hunger at least might grow in new wave grads.

zagubov

vivatifosi wrote: »

In terms of the generalist vs specific degree issue, I think its horses for courses. I did an early OU degree studying economics and politics. You couldn't specialise more at that stage, but it was still useful in different ways. My Masters is an MBA which is also generalist, in that you can also do a finance degree or a marketing degree for example, but with an MBA you get to do a bit of everything.

DH on the other hand has three degrees in specific subject areas: chemistry, energy studies and maths and used the first two to do his PhD which was even more concentrated into one particular area.

What I find interesting is the new degree subjects. When I worked in media 30 odd years ago nobody had a media studies degree, though some had journalism degrees and many had english, history, etc. The technicians had taken technical courses (for example in camera work) as well as learning on the job. It seems strange that a whole industry functioned very well without a qualification which is now ubiquitous.

I can't praise the OU highly enough but I did work for them once as a tutor so I better come clean on that.

Does anyone else feel that more and more people seem to be doing /considering doing a Master's degree now, and using the first degree to get generally educated and the Masters to prepare them for something career-related?

It's as if the Masters is evolving into the new standard degree (which I'm told is how it works in the US).