AMAZON on BBC1 Undercover

dktreesea

sniggings wrote: »

I understand what you are saying but not sure it's the case.

Being able to correctly structure an essay, which lets face it is about all that is taught, may help with forming a coherent argument but not sure how far that will get you in a career that was not related to the subject you had taken at uni, there's a bit more to most jobs than forming a structured argument.

I was always told that the main benefit to going to uni was not the subject or what you learnt but the effort and conmitment having gone to uni shows about the person, which again comes back to, you probably were what they were looking for before you even went to uni, you can just prove you are now, with your degree, no guessing involved.

I have to say though, that was probably more true a few years ago, now everyone goes to uni so god knows how they judge the good from the not so good.

Surely the main point of going to uni is to get knowledge about whatever subject you are studying? I don't see why gaining that knowledge should guarantee you anything beyond that acquired knowledge.

Aquamania

dktreesea wrote: »

Surely the main point of going to uni is to get knowledge about whatever subject you are studying? I don't see why gaining that knowledge should guarantee you anything beyond that acquired knowledge.

I don't think you really understand.

Other than a very few notable exceptions (e.g. professions in Medicine, Dentistry, Law, etc), then the actual subject studied at University is often unimportant to the employer.

In fact about 70% of graduate employers do not care what discipline the degree was awarded in, but seek graduates for the other transferable skills & experience they gain when studying e.g. learning ability, confidence, social diversity, presentation & report writing skills, time management, etc

dktreesea

Aquamania wrote: »

I don't think you really understand.

Other than a very few notable exceptions (e.g. professions in Medicine, Dentistry, Law, etc), then the actual subject studied at University is often unimportant to the employer.

In fact about 70% of graduate employers do not care what discipline the degree was awarded in, but seek graduates for the other transferable skills & experience they gain when studying e.g. learning ability, confidence, social diversity, presentation & report writing skills, time management, etc

You think that is still the case nowadays? Even when I graduated, many years ago, the employers were still looking for a good match. It's much harder as a graduate to get onto a graduate programme these days. The financial times claim half of graduates are in non-graduate jobs, and the BBC in June this year, claimed more than 20,000 university graduates were still unemployed 6 months after graduating. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-23080323
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/5a6a66a0-5103-11e3-b499-00144feabdc0.html

Denning.

dktreesea wrote: »

You think that is still the case nowadays? Even when I graduated, many years ago, the employers were still looking for a good match. It's much harder as a graduate to get onto a graduate programme these days. The financial times claim half of graduates are in non-graduate jobs, and the BBC in June this year, claimed more than 20,000 university graduates were still unemployed 6 months after graduating. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-23080323
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/5a6a66a0-5103-11e3-b499-00144feabdc0.html

Majority of graduate schemes are rubbish and not worth the time of day.

The whole 'non-graduate' jobs is misleading too. My first job was an analyst on £19.5k (outside London). Technically it would be a non-graduate job but in reality it was a graduate job in all but name. I have a friend on 26k in a non-graduate job, likewise another on 40k. So I would take it with a punch of salt.

sniggings

dktreesea wrote: »

Surely the main point of going to uni is to get knowledge about whatever subject you are studying? I don't see why gaining that knowledge should guarantee you anything beyond that acquired knowledge.

You would be nieve to believe that.

What ever the reason for the existence of unis was in the past, the main reason people use them today is to help get a better paying job, I did not say it would guarantee they would get one, in fact I made the point that with so many people going these days it would mean a lot/most would fail.

I agree there will be some people wanting knowledge for knowledge's sake, if that were the case for most that attend uni it doesn't explain why so many courses are employment focused, to argue that most people that attend uni are not there to improve their employment prospects is daft.

dktreesea

sniggings wrote: »

You would be nieve to believe that.

What ever the reason for the existence of unis was in the past, the main reason people use them today is to help get a better paying job, I did not say it would guarantee they would get one, in fact I made the point that with so many people going these days it would mean a lot/most would fail.

I agree there will be some people wanting knowledge for knowledge's sake, if that were the case for most that attend uni it doesn't explain why so many courses are employment focused, to argue that most people that attend uni are not there to improve their employment prospects is daft.

While there are some areas where a degree is a prerequisite to getting full qualifications ( medicine, engineering, architecture, accounting and law for example), imho students who think studying the more "arts" subjects, like sociology, politics, English, psychology, media studies, marketing, is going to give them an edge when it comes to getting work (unless in their specific field of endeavour) are being naive.

Studying at a uni if you are an English student (thank goodness this hasn't yet spread to the rest of Britain) is a very expensive endeavour. Russell Group universities think they are worth the £9,000 a year they charge for arts degrees. But I question whether people coming out of uni with those kinds of degrees and £30k to £40k of debt hanging over their heads, will ever catch up financially with their peers who went to work straight after school, maybe doing a college degree at night.

sniggings

dktreesea wrote: »

While there are some areas where a degree is a prerequisite to getting full qualifications ( medicine, engineering, architecture, accounting and law for example), imho students who think studying the more "arts" subjects, like sociology, politics, English, psychology, media studies, marketing, is going to give them an edge when it comes to getting work (unless in their specific field of endeavour) are being naive.

Studying at a uni if you are an English student (thank goodness this hasn't yet spread to the rest of Britain) is a very expensive endeavour. Russell Group universities think they are worth the £9,000 a year they charge for arts degrees. But I question whether people coming out of uni with those kinds of degrees and £30k to £40k of debt hanging over their heads, will ever catch up financially with their peers who went to work straight after school, maybe doing a college degree at night.

if we are talking England here, then even a college degree at tonight costs, so not sure what point you are making there.

I believe you are more likely to get a job or a better paying job if you have a degree, any degree.

TBH I'm lost with what point you are making here, having a degree is better than not having one, if you are not otherwise trained, and most go because they hope it will lead to a better paying job or a job in the field they wish to work.

dktreesea

sniggings wrote: »

if we are talking England here, then even a college degree at tonight costs, so not sure what point you are making there.

I believe you are more likely to get a job or a better paying job if you have a degree, any degree.

TBH I'm lost with what point you are making here, having a degree is better than not having one, if you are not otherwise trained, and most go because they hope it will lead to a better paying job or a job in the field they wish to work.

That's the belief, but given how many graduates don't get work, let alone work in their field, AND the prejudice they seem to encounter when competing for jobs against their rivals who have worked, while studying part time, I wonder nowadays if it really is the road to a prosperous future most graduates hope for. According to the Statistics office, 47% of graduates don't work within their field.

Take computer science graduates. They should be a shoo in for a job writing code, but they don't seem to have written much code during their degree. Hence the poor employment prospects.

sniggings

dktreesea wrote: »

That's the belief, but given how many graduates don't get work, let alone work in their field, AND the prejudice they seem to encounter when competing for jobs against their rivals who have worked, while studying part time, I wonder nowadays if it really is the road to a prosperous future most graduates hope for. According to the Statistics office, 47% of graduates don't work within their field.

Take computer science graduates. They should be a shoo in for a job writing code, but they don't seem to have written much code during their degree. Hence the poor employment prospects.

I agree with that, the quality of degrees are poor in many cases.

But the fact still remains, if all things are equal the person with the degree would be more likely to get the job then the person without.

Yes having a degree doesn't guarantee you a job but it does help.

It amazes me that so many degrees are not employment focused, when most people taking degrees will hope to base their career on that degree, yet they still offer them and people still do them, then come out of uni and say I can't get a job...well they can but just not the job they want, it would have been different if they had focused their education on the career in mind, so these people have to hope the employer gives some weight to a degree in "Elvis", they may get some credit for the work that went into getting it, but not sure what career they were thinking they could walk into with it.

Aquamania

dktreesea wrote: »

You think that is still the case nowadays? Even when I graduated, many years ago, the employers were still looking for a good match. It's much harder as a graduate to get onto a graduate programme these days. The financial times claim half of graduates are in non-graduate jobs, and the BBC in June this year, claimed more than 20,000 university graduates were still unemployed 6 months after graduating. [Links removed as I'm not allowed to include them as a new user]

Well I have to say I am a little confused by this post you made at 3.45am on Boxing Day morning.

However, yes I do believe that is the case today.

In fact your post kind of confirms it really.
You say 50% of graduates are in a non-graduate job so presumably they are not using the academic knowledge they learnt at university anyway

If we add that to the fact that 70% of graduate employers are not seeking graduates for their specific acedemic knowledge, then I reckon it's probably only about 15% of graduates that actually do use that knowledge ... and they are probably the doctors, dentists, paramedics & lawyers etc.