Your thoughts on university

Flugelhorn

claire21 wrote: »

Ok I don't want to side track it and I had to look up hierarchies lol

So what you are saying is the exam pass levels can be the same but it's a bit of snobbery where you got it from, for what of a better word?

Sort of - take 2 universities, they will have average entry tariffs for the same sort of degree eg History somewhere like Exeter / Durham / oxbridge/ St Andrews has an entry Tariff of over 500 (this is calculated from A levels / IB etc etc ) where an A* A level is 140 points.
Then look at somewhere local to me like Leeds Met where the Tariff is 236.
All of the unis will give out similar proportions of first, 2:1s 2;2s etc - a good degree from a harder to get into uni is likely to have more kudos than one from a uni with lower entry requirements.
Of course as mentioned before, there is no guarantee of any common sense or self motivation coming with the said degree.

DigForVictory

These days a degree does not shield you from the dole as much, but not having one means you comepte with graduates for service jobs.
If you've a vigorous social network with businesses who can & will take on so & so's lad or lass as they're bright & hard working & keen to learn, maybe the degree is less essential.

For those of us with less formidable contacts, (and/or children with less hair-raising readiness to go knock on doors & cope with the rejection oomph) a degree is much more to be anticipated as a sort of bolt on to A levels where the last independent polishing into largely autonomous young adults is achieved. And where the stupidities of being young, with money & no minder can occur out of obvious earshot.

There are those who have to get a degree - those who want to be doctors, vets, archaeologists etc. Ther are also those who just love curling up pondering the whichnesses of why & if you've got a philosopher, better they go study & dicker with others than try it at home (say I). Whether it'll make them a nicer person to live with, or even an employable one is moot (so much depends on the housemates!), but at least they'll be out of your hair for a while.

Then there are the bright but unfocussed, where uni can provide a bit of direction or at least provide a safe place whilst they try to figure one. Schools love these to go and read at Uni as it looks so good on their statistics, but in truth if they can join a multinational, they'll get as diverse an exposure to the real weorld & get paid for it. Even multinational HR departments prefer employees who have an idea of where they want to go, though.

Finally you've the pupils who are chivvied into university almost exclusively for the statistsics, with no passion for any particular subject, little idea of self structured study & no real grasp on what they're supposed to be doing other than racking up debt away from their support net. For whom a job might have been a preferred choice but they've been told they must get a degree. Sometimes they catch fire and uni is the making of them - but all too often they do not thrive on the transplant, drop out & end up with a strong feeling of failure as well as a stonking debt.

In your case you have schools with frankly a vested interest in getting your children into university & a firm belief that this is the right place for them - why else would you pay for their education to date? School will be able to steer them towards certain subjects & universities a bit & certainly their applications will have a better polished lustre than those of other candidates. "Should you be thinking your children have to" go to University? - your school certainly will.

Whether thay can catch a bus, balance a budget, cope with cultural and social differences, and so forth might be learned as a young adult seeking work, but at University there are more opportunities to learn more off-curriculum things. If school hasn't covered the local family planning clinic & when & why you should visit, & how to register for a GP or dentist, those are gaps which are better filled (in the abstract) pronto.

I've yet to meet any place of education teaching common sense. Whilst universities do have more practice at coping with the shatteringly bright but not safe-in-traffic, it isn't their job to run sheltered accomodation for them. Nurturing academic genius is not quite the University job, but the R&D wing of a large company.

claire21

Thanks I sort of get the uni status thing now.

The uni "experience" I am beginning to understand now, and I see many similarities as to why I sent mine to private school (not wanting this to go off topic )

I'm again not sure what stops you being a party person though and perhaps I think too many party people go , I think I would have been one of them and not fully achieved so perhaps that's something in my head about my kids too.

System

I would only go to uni if it was required for a specific job, eg a degree in pharmacy, optometry, medicine...

Otherwise, I would look for alternative ways into a career..apprenticeship, trainee, etc. Unfortunately I am not sure if there are enough of these jobs around


I dropped out of uni twice, just wasn't my scene, I consider myself very lucky that I somehow came up with a business idea and now at 24 paid for my own house in cash, without help from parents! Business is slowing down now, so I may go back to uni to become a teacher which has always been my dream

notanewuser

HR. I had no idea what I wanted to be at 18. I took academic and arty A levels despite advice not to. I had worked 30+ hours a week at a hotel through my GCSEs and moved out at 17. I was restaurant manager by 19 (and studying an HNC in my own time), then moved to Conference and Banqueting manager at 21.

I covered the finance manager's maternity leave and enjoyed it so much that I moved into accounts for the chain rather than the hotel. From there I sidestepped into HR and was Head of Recruitment and Training for a large international hotel group by 28. I always studied outside work. I am fully CIPD qualified (chartered) and now do consultancy as and when I want to around caring for my daughter.

My sister earns £50k+ despite not going to uni. She's a civilian in the police.

Our dad was a university professor!

Flugelhorn

claire21 wrote: »

Thanks I sort of get the uni status thing now.

The uni "experience" I am beginning to understand now, and I see many similarities as to why I sent mine to private school (not wanting this to go off topic )

I'm again not sure what stops you being a party person though and perhaps I think too many party people go , I think I would have been one of them and not fully achieved so perhaps that's something in my head about my kids too.

I think some of the unis have some serious partying and in all of them there is a hardened minority who will still be drinking wine during the 0900 lecture. As to why people are party people or not - who knows? - DS isn't a party person but his cousin who is also at uni most definitely is a highly qualified party person. Just the way they are - share 25% genes on average and one went to private senior school and t'other didn't. Not sure how the future careers will pan out, we will have to see.

claire21

DigForVictory

I just want to answer something but so don't want it to go off topic as I really want to hear peoples own views on their lives.

But just a little bit more background about my situation.
The furthest thing from my mind when I sent them there (2 years ago ) was about university. I sent them there as the class sizes were so much smaller and I believe that if they "had something" the school would bring it out of them. I was of just above average brightness at school and think I just coasted through, I think I could have achieved more with a bit of a push but didn't get it. The next reason was it had lots to offer outside of schooling, a bit like what we have heard of the "uni experience" they are in an Octopush team, fencing, DJing, sugar craft, trampolining, green team environmental work, horse riding, DofE none of these hobbies will get them a job but I thought what a great thing to try (I just went to youth club as a kid and brownies etc) the next was the school had a large number of overseas students so meeting people who just lived in our small village I thought was a huge learning plus. The school is very heavy in volunteering and local community etc which I thought was a good thing to be in as I never was and bluntly never gave it a second thought as a child. Finally, confidence ...the school is really big on being an individual and being confident in your self, again I think I lacked in confidence. So I guess I'm saying I sent them there as it offered things that I think I missed out on. I don't think I missed out by not going to uni, but who knows.

Of course I would love to see them do financially well in a job at the end but how they get there I'm not really sure I know. I think I'm really quite a basic person, a treat as you find type of person and I would just like to think they end up with a job they like rather than having to go through the motions of having to work just to earn money.

I hope that make sense (was never that great at English Language at school lol)

Flugelhorn

Claire, I think when it comes to getting a good job it is quite unpredictable and there is an element of good fortune in it. Some on the forum have done v well without uni while others have needed to go for their career. The job market is hard and TBH I wouldn't have a clue - one thing about medicine is that 6 weeks after your finals there is a job and you basically move from one to another with the odd diversion filled by locuming or university lecturing etc. I find it hard to advise my kids other than saying to enjoy uni and consider doing postgrad degrees.

ciderwithrosie_2

DS3 wants to go to Uni this year on a very specific course so he can get into the film/TV industry hopefully by going on work experience and making contacts. He's very talented now, but they're not going to employ just anyone off the street and I can't wait to see what he's capable of after 3 years training.

When it comes down to it though, it won't be your decision - they'll be 18 and able to choose for themselves.

theoretica

Buzzybee90 wrote: »

The degrees are worth exactly the same, but some people view them differently - either because they think the degrees differ in rigour, or because they're snobs and will think their 2.2 from Durham is inherently better than anything you can get from an ex-poly.

What is 'worth'? If you sent off two identical CVs to lots of companies one with a degree from Oxford and one from Oxford Brookes one might come back with more offers to interview than the other. If this were the case, and one university name led to more interviews wouldn't the one degree be worth more than the other?

I knew someone who looked into different universities' exams in a little more depth - the exam papers from different universities in her subject looked very similar. However, for one university every quesion on the exam had occured in a worksheet during the year. In another they hadn't. So while the students were answering much the same questions, one lot could do so by working hard during the year and remembering what they had done before. The others had to produce fresh thinking.