23, back from travelling, and can't afford a house in London

economic

kabayiri wrote: »

I had the 'benefit' of attending a few of these Universities recently where they were [STRIKE]selling[/STRIKE] oops promoting Geography (DD was considering it as a course).

I shall be frank, and of course there are exceptions, but ...

- they are more tuned up now as to how sell courses to people

- they claim that Geography gives a variety of technical skills which makes you a sort of Swiss Army Knife.

- they do showcase a couple of ex-students who are doing work in Geography. It is often very 'showy', with some young lad / girl doing GIS mapping in an exotic location.

Very few will find a career in GIS mapping going forward.

- they know how to appeal to the young prospective student. They get to meet happy students already on the course.

Perhaps I'm a cynic, but it felt like a shallow and empty sales pitch.

It's maybe unfair to judge this girl harshly. She was probably idealistic, and bought into the whole thing. She is one of many thousands to do so.

Once there, she did apply herself though. A 1st is something to be proud of. She could do no more.

A first does not mean much if its in a mickey mouse course at a low ranked uni (less then top 10). If you go to cambridge and do a maths degree and get a 2:1 or even a 2:2 , is that inferior to a first in geography even from cambridge?

Getting a 2:2 from cambridge shows to me the person is intelligent enough to get into Cambridge - i am much more inclined to hire that person then someone who did a mickey mouse course at a bottom uni but getting a first.

kabayiri

economic wrote: »

A first does not mean much if its in a mickey mouse course at a low ranked uni (less then top 10). If you go to cambridge and do a maths degree and get a 2:1 or even a 2:2 , is that inferior to a first in geography even from cambridge?

Getting a 2:2 from cambridge shows to me the person is intelligent enough to get into Cambridge - i am much more inclined to hire that person then someone who did a mickey mouse course at a bottom uni but getting a first.

Only a fraction of students can get into Cambridge though. There's only a handful of Uni's with the cachet of Cambridge. Sheer demand will mean many good students have to look elsewhere.

I think we need to recognise where we are regards Higher Education. There has been a massive punt into making it a product sold in volume, and that's not going to change in the short term.

economic

kabayiri wrote: »

Only a fraction of students can get into Cambridge though. There's only a handful of Uni's with the cachet of Cambridge. Sheer demand will mean many good students have to look elsewhere.

I think we need to recognise where we are regards Higher Education. There has been a massive punt into making it a product sold in volume, and that's not going to change in the short term.

By far most jobs dont actually require the knowledge and skills taught at uni. You can do these jobs without a degree. Companies want to hire the best and smartest. Why not just use Alevels as a way to see who is the smartest? Or give IQ tests to everyone and base selection on that plus a few face to face interviews?

Why the need to waste 40k on an education that only really benefits the university and its surroundings? Not just mickey mouse courses at rubbish unis but even maths at cambridge? Why bother?

kabayiri

I'm not justifying the way Higher Ed has gone. I can easily see just how much some of the accommodation blocks have cost though. These things are like mini hotels. They need the volume to achieve payback.

It's a mass volume product, no doubt.

economic

kabayiri wrote: »

I'm not justifying the way Higher Ed has gone. I can easily see just how much some of the accommodation blocks have cost though. These things are like mini hotels. They need the volume to achieve payback.

It's a mass volume product, no doubt.

Mass volume product yet the benefits do not get passed to students who pay 10k a year for a useless degree.

I feel sorry for the taxpayer who are losing out on all this. All this is is a net wealth transfer from the taxpayer to the universities.

Cakeguts

kabayiri wrote: »

I had the 'benefit' of attending a few of these Universities recently where they were [STRIKE]selling[/STRIKE] oops promoting Geography (DD was considering it as a course).

I shall be frank, and of course there are exceptions, but ...

- they are more tuned up now as to how sell courses to people

- they claim that Geography gives a variety of technical skills which makes you a sort of Swiss Army Knife.

- they do showcase a couple of ex-students who are doing work in Geography. It is often very 'showy', with some young lad / girl doing GIS mapping in an exotic location.

Very few will find a career in GIS mapping going forward.

- they know how to appeal to the young prospective student. They get to meet happy students already on the course.

Perhaps I'm a cynic, but it felt like a shallow and empty sales pitch.

It's maybe unfair to judge this girl harshly. She was probably idealistic, and bought into the whole thing. She is one of many thousands to do so.

Once there, she did apply herself though. A 1st is something to be proud of. She could do no more.

That advertising/promoting thing is what worries me most about the whole university "experience." It seems to me that the less opportunities that there are after a certain degree at a certain university the more likely the university is to spend large sums of money on promoting it.

You would think that it they were not getting enough students applying for a particular course they would just cease to run the course. So now why don't they do that? Why all the advertising?

The news article that has bothered me this week is a university where they claimed to be "helping" less able students be socially mobile while offering degree courses in non vocational subjects. If you really were helping people to get better jobs why would you offer courses that didn't help them to get jobs? That cannot be for the benefit of the students? After all if they ceased to offer a certain course because it didn't help students to get employment the students attending the university for better employment prospects wouldn't care. So for whose benefit are they running these courses?

Cakeguts

A friend of mine who lives in a non EU country has told me this week that the UK universities that can't attract enough UK students are sending agents to poorer countries to attract students to study in the UK and they then charge them international fees.

So for me a warning sign now includes how many international non EU students attend the university because that is a sign of a university that isn't attractive to UK students. The international students don't know that they aren't getting a top university.

It is quite interesting actually. If you look on random university websites and see where the word international comes on the home page. I reckon you could choose which universities to avoid by just doing that. Saves going to the open days. One of the ones I looked at the word International came sooner than the word business. The business section was about local businesses recruiting graduates and the International about the university offering places to international students. Of course the universities don't have to help international students find jobs do they?

westernpromise

I did an English degree at Cambridge and I use none of the knowledge, but have always used and needed the skills.

In my observation, degrees with "- studies" in the name are almost always "knowledge" degrees in which you assimilate facts. It's a useful flag that there's no intellectual content.

Geography was always the A Level you did, along with Economics, if you were too stupid to do a science or a language or a discursive subject. If you were numerate you'd then do an Business Studies degree and if your forte was colouring in maps and things, you did a geography degree.

I remember being amused during A Levels by the fact that the geography candidates were the only ones who still took their Caran d'Ache colouring pencils into their exams.

kabayiri

westernpromise wrote: »

I did an English degree at Cambridge and I use none of the knowledge, but have always used and needed the skills.
...

Honest moment here.

Did you do English at Uni because you enjoyed it?

I suspect that this girl chose Geography because she enjoyed the subject matter, and obviously displayed ability in the topic.

I picked a subject, not because I enjoyed it, but because I was led to believe it would deliver the best job opportunities. Pretty mercenary I guess.

I couldn't foresee the future any more than this girl. We are sold an education product in some way.

westernpromise

I wanted to go to Cambridge because my brother had gone to Oxford. By the time it got to A Level choices I was still getting As in languages and history, but I was getting Bs in maths and worse in sciences, so my A Levels picked themselves given you didn't get into Cambridge with anything less than AAA.

I chose English rather than Modern Languages because I didn't fancy the 4 year course. It was 3 years of literature, plus a year abroad. I was interested only in becoming fluent in French or German, and I figured I could organise that for myself by working in Swiss or Austrian holiday resorts during the vacations, which I duly did.

Beyond that I had no idea what I wanted to do but I figured Oxbridge plus language fluency would look good on the CV.

My first grad job was as a sales rep. I was given minimal guidance or support and was expected to work out priorities and organise my workload unsupervised. This was exactly what my degree had been like.