University fees.

daytona0

ARandomMiser wrote: »

If you are correcting English, then you should not use contractions in the written word except when quoted - slovenly practice.

WOW! Do you own the English language?

Please note that most users on here have used contractions in their posts. Do you extend that disdain towards them too?

Plus, even in academic writing it is only preferable for contractions to be omitted. There is no rule set in stone which forbids the use of them.

Using phrases like "you should not use" in relation to English shows a distinct lack of understanding of how the English language evolves.

summerlady_2

Cakeguts wrote: »

Two that come to mind are fashion and photography. Fashion needs a lot fewer people working in it due to online shopping and the reduction of high street shops. The new jobs in fashion will be working in a warehouse. These warehouses for goods for online shopping are already being built. So fashion degrees are slowly becoming hobby degrees.
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Fashion is one of the biggest contributors to the British economy and there are so many more jobs in the field than simply selling - suggest you do a little research.


My degree is in maths.


Maths is not a vocational course - indeed there are very few. A law degree doesn't qualify the holder to practice law. A vocational degree such as medicine does not guarantee the holder will practice medicine as fully qualified doctors - some of my acquaintances went into business and into banking after taking a medical degree.


To the Telegraph reader - students nowadays work much harder than we did because good jobs are scarcer while there are many lower paid roles around. They are also in competition with many more degree holders. Surely this is a major factor?

Cakeguts

Sharon87 wrote: »

I disagree with the fact you think you can't get media with production courses - the one I was on is still available! You may get less people deciding to do the course, but those courses were oversubscribed anyway.

Nowadays you may get in a lot of debt going to uni, but as you say if you don't earn a lot of money you don't pay it back. Just another way the Tories want to bankrupt the country! Whereas I have to start paying money back when I earn 15k or more, future students pay when they start earning more. The courses aren't the issue it's the tuition fees and student loan conditions that are the problem.

Fashion and Photography I sort of get - although there's a lot more to fashion and photography than you're suggesting. Yes digital cameras are more sophisticated, but knowing how to use them is a different story. Believe me I used to do motor sport photography for a race team when I was younger and it's a lot harder than point and shoot. Having a degree in photography could help, but also any other courses could help. As for fashion, it's more about designing the clothes people go uni for, not for working in the shops! I know people who work at online fashion companies and they have degrees (not sure what it was in though)

Yes I agree with what you say about fashion and photography but there are too many courses for all of the students paying their £50,000 to get jobs. Many fashion students get retail fashion jobs but if there is no retail fashion except in these large warehouses that is what they will be doing. Did you need a degree in motor sport photography to take the photos? Yes I know that you have to know how to use a camera but you can learn photography at evening class.

One of the problems is that it appears to be impossible to get hold of the actual figures for graduate level student employment for each course.

Going back to the student loans and looking into the future. There is the possibility that the student loan companies will cease to give loans for courses that they know they will never get the money back for. So in the future it may not be possible for people to study these hobby courses. There is also the possibility that the level of salary needed before the loans start to have to be paid back might not be raised. This could mean that although someone does not earn enough to pay back the loan when they leave university they might have to start when wage inflation causes their minimum wage job to reach that level.

The student loans company is there to make money. The universities are there to make money which is why they run these hobby courses. Someone has to pay for these hobby courses. Will the taxpayers eventually have to bail out the loan company? If that happens it will mean that taxpayers are paying for other people to have hobbies. Could you expect tax payers to pay for membership of golf clubs or pony club membership?

Cakeguts

GwylimT wrote: »

As some who attended a physical uni and the Open Uni, while grade boundaries are higher with the Open uni, content of lectures and exams in my experience were far easier.

Surely this would depend on the standard of the physical university? No one is going to argue that a degree from the OU is going to be worth the same or be a similar level of difficulty as one from Imperial College.

However the last time I looked you couldn't study for all degrees at Imperial College while holding down a full time job. You can do this with the OU. It is also cheaper to study with the OU because you don't have to pay for student accommodation for the whole academic year. The reason why OU degrees are considered to be difficult is because of how you study. The student does the time management and the organisation. This can be difficult if you are working full time as well as studying.

Bogalot

Cakeguts wrote: »

The student loans company is there to make money. The universities are there to make money which is why they run these hobby courses. Someone has to pay for these hobby courses. Will the taxpayers eventually have to bail out the loan company? If that happens it will mean that taxpayers are paying for other people to have hobbies. Could you expect tax payers to pay for membership of golf clubs or pony club membership?

Student Finance England is a non profit organisation, it comes under the Department for Education. They are there to administer student finance, not to make money.

SFE is financed by the state, so your so called hobby courses are already paid for by the tax payer. Sorry to disappoint!

Jackieboy

Cakeguts wrote: »

Surely this would depend on the standard of the physical university? No one is going to argue that a degree from the OU is going to be worth the same or be a similar level of difficulty as one from Imperial College.

However the last time I looked you couldn't study for all degrees at Imperial College while holding down a full time job. You can do this with the OU. It is also cheaper to study with the OU because you don't have to pay for student accommodation for the whole academic year. The reason why OU degrees are considered to be difficult is because of how you study. The student does the time management and the organisation. This can be difficult if you are working full time as well as studying.

I don't think that's any different really - the OU is pretty structured on when assignments have to be presented and if you don't comply you can be failed.

And, by the way, Imperial offers many part time courses.

Cakeguts

summerlady wrote: »

Fashion is one of the biggest contributors to the British economy and there are so many more jobs in the field than simply selling - suggest you do a little research.

I would have said that exporting is more to do with business and marketing than the actual product. So this means that you could technically work in fashion if you had a business/marketing/management type degree that happened to be focused on fashion rather than a degree in trying to design new clothing?

By fashion I was referring to the "creative" type hobby degrees that only lead to selling fashion in shops or warehouses not the business type degrees. The business type degrees are run by universities that are difficult to get into the hobby type fashion courses are run by universities that will take anyone.

summerlady_2

Perhaps you could give some specific examples of courses that you object to?

ARandomMiser

agrinnall wrote: »

There is nothing incorrect about it though, it is just your opinion, whereas my comment related to an actual error.

I did not say it was incorrect, just that it is slovenly. I would expect better when attempting to correct someone else.

ARandomMiser

summerlady wrote: »

Perhaps you could give some specific examples of courses that you object to?

Would that not depend on the role being applied for? For example theology may be useful if you want to become a priest but otherwise not something anyone else would look for.