I'm too clever for my job - and my manager says so

Manxman_in_exile

John-K wrote: »

I don!!!8217;t understand, reading my qualifications would help with a reply.

I disagree with your view on Oxford Music degrees by the way, we!!!8217;re looking for good people. One of my traders has a degree in art history, and one of our best salespeople has a classics degree. Degrees do (at least) two distinct things,. Yes, they show that you!!!8217;ve reached a certain level of competence and expertise in your subject, but they also show that you are someone who can learn, and make it through a relatively brutal process.

A degree in (nearly) anything from Oxbridge or another top university tells you something special about the candidate.

I think you are probably correct. I don't think it matters what subject you've done (unless you want a highly specialised career as an actuary or something) so long as the degree has proper academic rigour and you learn to think for yourself and to reason properly. But I do think that degrees from some institutions are likely to be more rigorous than from others.


What concerns me is the decision by the idiot Blair to open up university access to 50% of school leavers. I was listening to a discussion on Radio 5 about university fees and one of the contributors said that she thought students from poorer working class families were being conned into getting degrees from third rate former polys that were essentially worthless. Unfortunately, I think that is true.


As I said before, I did my first degree at a poly (Leicester, 1979) and then a master's at LSE (1983). The standard of teaching at LSE was probably higher than at the poly, but not that much better. On reflection I was probably lucky to have excellent law lecturers at Leicester.


(PS - as my first degree was a CNAA one, law students were required also to study a non-law subject. Ours was sociology and the lecturers were woeful! I knew that at the time but it was definitely confirmed for me at LSE where even the lesser sociology lectures knew what they were talking about. But that's a whole different story!)

Manxman_in_exile

Les79 wrote: »

Did you know that Oxford University has a Faculty of Music which offers a music-related degree to prospective students?

I only mention that because a Music-related degree from Oxbridge may not set you up for a career investment banking.

Maybe you should "read the qualifications you have" before making a post? I mean, I appreciate your helpfulness towards OP but intelligence is not simply measured in terms of numerical ability.[/QUOTE]


I was in a redundancy situation some years ago and our employers brought in consultants to "support" us. One of the consultants gave us a battery of psychometric/personality tests. I scored really well on the general IQ, logical/numerical reasoning and vocabulary etc. dimensions, but apparently I was significantly below average on all the other recognised dimensions of intelligence! So much so, in fact that the consultant was concerned for my well-being and how I functioned with colleagues...


Actually, I was already pretty much self-aware of these deficiencies, and went out of my way not to be irritating, annoying or infuriating to colleagues. But I know I wasn't always successful. I think the fact I was quite good at my job often kept me out of trouble.

LABMAN

Can all you educated people please drop your use of the apostrophe until MSE gets their finger out and sort it.

Manxman_in_exile

LABMAN wrote: »

Can all you educated people please drop your use of the apostrophe until MSE gets their finger out and sort it.

Arrrghh! That was me! Funnily enough, me pointing things like that out to people at work was one of the things that really annoyed them.


EDIT: not that I'm implying you are annoying, Labman - you're quite right to point it out!


EDIT2: My only excuse is that for the last two weeks I've been staying up until stupid o'clock to watch the Winter Olympics and my brain has turned to mush. Unfortunately, my brain is more than six months old and I don't think I'll be able to get an expert report to prove that it was inherently faulty - even if it probably was!

Smodlet

If you recorded it, maybe try watching it at more suitable times. If you didn't...

Manxman_in_exile

LABMAN wrote: »

Can all you educated people please drop your use of the apostrophe until MSE gets their finger out and sort it.

Did that need a question mark at the end? :rotfl:

Les79

John-K wrote: »

I don!!!8217;t understand, reading my qualifications would help with a reply.

Look, I was just making a point about how intelligence is not necessarily measured in numerical/logical ability. You seemed to assume that OP's "cleverness" was linked to this. Especially when you said "but as long as you!!!8217;ve a couple of good, strong numerate degrees from one of the top universities"

You can be "clever" and follow a career in Music, which has little need for strong numerical ability.

I disagree with your view on Oxford Music degrees by the way, we!!!8217;re looking for good people. One of my traders has a degree in art history, and one of our best salespeople has a classics degree. Degrees do (at least) two distinct things,. Yes, they show that you!!!8217;ve reached a certain level of competence and expertise in your subject, but they also show that you are someone who can learn, and make it through a relatively brutal process.

You disagree with my view that a Musical degree from Oxbridge may not set you up for a career in investment banking? The use of "may not" was very deliberate by the way... I think it is quite a logical assumption that many Music graduates will go into that field of work.

I mean I could theoretically be wrong here, but I feel that you'd need to show me evidence that a fair number of people with Music degrees end up going into investment banking in order to disagree with what I said...

A degree in (nearly) anything from Oxbridge or another top university tells you something special about the candidate.

Indeed it does. But you were very specific in the sort of degree OP required to gain a job in investment banking. To quote you again:

"but as long as you!!!8217;ve a couple of good, strong numerate degrees from one of the top universities"

Maybe be a bit more neutral? There are, after all, at least 9 distinct types of intelligence (Gardener).

John-K_3

LABMAN wrote: »

Can all you educated people please drop your use of the apostrophe until MSE gets their finger out and sort it.

Im trying to, but between autocorrect, and the awful feeling like nails down a blackboard that leaving them out gives, its hard.

Reading other peoples posts without them feels like stepping on a loose paving stone, it jars.

Manxman_in_exile

John-K wrote: »

Im trying to, but between autocorrect, and the awful feeling like nails down a blackboard that leaving them out gives, its hard.

Reading other peoples posts without them feels like stepping on a loose paving stone, it jars.

Shouldn't that be "people's posts"? Sorry - I'm being annoying again!

PersianCatLady

I have tried to read all of your posts but I must have missed the thing that I want to know.

What qualifications do you have??