University Degrees

[MinisterofCucumber]

Education improves your life even if it doesn't lead to you earning more money than if you hadn't bothered. You can get pleasure out of reading, talking and using your mind instead of having to buy more expensive things than your neighbour to feel good about yourself.

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Education also equips you with the tools to fight an aggressor without resulting to threats and violence, a lesson that an NEC member, who now has no political future in the Labour Party, has learnt to his cost.

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[dvbuk55]

I'm just about to finish my Accounting degree, so do i fall in the layabout category. Oh wait i'm from scotland......free tuition.

Now call me a cynic steve but getting an accounting degree for a scot is a no brainer really, they are natural accountants, they are too tight to spend any money consequently the books are always balanced

[Tommase]

I have a Degree and only joined Royal Mail as a Postie for a couple of months ....... that was 5 years ago ! I have looked for other jobs and career paths. but there is not alot out there for the money we earn. Granted I work six days a week every week and the student loan company take their cut each week in turn.

Would you care to say what the degree is Tommase, because quite frankly many degrees are totally pointless. I'm convinced it is merely a con by the academics to justify not having to work for a living.

Not at all, Business Management BA HONS.

Left a good entry level job as a customer services manager when I left Uni as I didnt enjoy it what so ever, hated it in fact. So I left to join Royal Mail thinking it would be temp, but enjoy the job and here I stay ! Have done the deputy managers course and went on to deputise on a number of occassions but again not for me. I agree with you on the whole that media studies and performing art degrees should be removed and a higher significance placed on core subjects such as maths, english and science throughout ones academic path. But going back to the original post even a McDonalds employee would break the pay thresh hold to pay back the loan, likewise so do I.

[Tman]

Beats me why they don't repay all a student's loan on graduation if he studies a "useful" subject, like Medicine, Engineering, Teaching etc, but let the meejah,travel and tourism, Sociology,Nigerian vase art, etc students pay the full costs of thier course fees.
Too many graduates in nonsense degrees, it seems. Does no-one guide them re careers advice when choosing a degree course...?

[clashcityrocker]

You see you highlight my point exactly "education for educations sake" - and precisely why would we fund someones desire to learn something which will be of no practical use to the people who are funding it?

Most of what we learn after primary school is of no practical use. How often have you had to rely on your knowledge of congruent triangles?
I agree with Harry - a better educated population benefits us all.
Next you will want to burn down the libraries - why should the taxpayer fund someone wanting to read a book?

[fishtank]

I agree with Harry - a better educated population benefits us all.

I don't think anyone argues with that.
I think the question is..is someone who leaves Uni after 3 years and £20,000 of debt with a degree in Drama and Media Studies better educated?
It's doubtful.

[dvbuk55]

You see you highlight my point exactly "education for educations sake" - and precisely why would we fund someones desire to learn something which will be of no practical use to the people who are funding it?

Most of what we learn after primary school is of no practical use. How often have you had to rely on your knowledge of congruent triangles?
I agree with Harry - a better educated population benefits us all.
Next you will want to burn down the libraries - why should the taxpayer fund someone wanting to read a book?

Well snooker players may find the discipline useful. How does a better educated checkout girl with an attitude benefit us. On the contrary clash I believe libraries are the places where people go who have a desire to learn. Universities? - well they are places where people go who have a desire to want to be seen to be learning. Education is a lifelong journey, you should never stop learning.

[Harry_Perkins]

I agree with Harry - a better educated population benefits us all.

I don't think anyone argues with that.
I think the question is..is someone who leaves Uni after 3 years and £20,000 of debt with a degree in Drama and Media Studies better educated?
It's doubtful.

Yep, there are transferable skills with any degree. Naturally, I think we need some planning to go along with this though, so as many people as possible can make practical use of their degrees. Britain has struggled in areas like science in recent times and we need to encourage more to study it and allow some of the media courses to die away.

[taurus88]

We can glorify degrees as much as we like but the reality of university education has changed profoundly in the past twenty years. More and more people are going to university, pursuing largely meaningless courses with little vocational training. The 'degree market' is saturated with people who were barely qualified to go to university in the first place, and the result is a generation of ostensibly over-qualified people fighting for a scarce number of jobs, the inevitable consequence of which is, first of all, a rise in unemployed graduates and, second, a rise in seemingly over-qualified individuals in jobs that one might deem to be beneath them.

Sending more and more people to university is short-sighted, but successive governments have used university education as a means to flatter the unemployment statistics. And a lot of youngsters are buying into the university dream because no frakker is going to give them a job ... but the same will be true in three years time, probably more so with the way this economy is going. If you ask me, I'll stick to any old job I can get for the time being, where the money is going into my account, rather than playing a dangerous game of russian roulette involving £30k worth of debt, and the faintest glimmer of hope of a job at the end of the frakking rainbow.

Not that you were asking for my opinion.

[George door to dawes]

Iam quite surprised how dismissive people on here are about degrees. Sure there are a few dodgy ones out there such as 'surf science' but most are in depth courses with real career prospects! I am heading to uni in September and personally I would rather aspire to a better life/career and fail then to be a postman all my life!!!

[dvbuk55]

Iam quite surprised how dismissive people on here are about degrees. Sure there are a few dodgy ones out there such as 'surf science' but most are in depth courses with real career prospects! I am heading to uni in September and personally I would rather aspire to a better life/career and fail then to be a postman all my life!!!

And exactly what course are you taking George that holds such promise for the future. Most people you meet that have a degree it's "Media Studies, Business Management, Man Utd, The Beatles" - taught to them by the previous generations no hopers that cling to academia like a life raft. Look how the clearing houses operate - "sorry you didn't get the grades for Oxford studying politics but we can place you at Milton Keynes on Turkish Belly Dancing" - a course which is snapped up because it's a degree at the end of the day. They would probably be better getting a job at Spearmint Rhino as a pole dancer and earning a few bob instead of getting a massive debt and still end up working at Spearmint Rhino.

[DGP1]

Iam quite surprised how dismissive people on here are about degrees. Sure there are a few dodgy ones out there such as 'surf science' but most are in depth courses with real career prospects! I am heading to uni in September and personally I would rather aspire to a better life/career and fail then to be a postman all my life!!!

And exactly what course are you taking George that holds such promise for the future. Most people you meet that have a degree it's "Media Studies, Business Management, Man Utd, The Beatles" - taught to them by the previous generations no hopers that cling to academia like a life raft. Look how the clearing houses operate - "sorry you didn't get the grades for Oxford studying politics but we can place you at Milton Keynes on Turkish Belly Dancing" - a course which is snapped up because it's a degree at the end of the day. They would probably be better getting a job at Spearmint Rhino as a pole dancer and earning a few bob instead of getting a massive debt and still end up working at Spearmint Rhino.

I tried that Spearmint Rhino, although the tips where good I couldn't stand the hours

[fishtank]

Pouring £30k into the coffers of the Combined Polytechnic/University of East Dulwich so that some can't do/can teach can sleepwalk you through the theory of modern reality television just so you can have DiKHed after your name seems like a waste of money to me.
Take the money to a casino and put it all on black...if you win we get our money back immediately and you can go off and study Gothic Tapestries...if you lose you have to go out and find a proper job.

[dvbuk55]

Pouring £30k into the coffers of the Combined Polytechnic/University of East Dulwich so that some can't do/can teach can sleepwalk you through the theory of modern reality television just so you can have DiKHed after your name seems like a waste of money to me.
Take the money to a casino and put it all on black...if you win we get our money back immediately and you can go off and study Gothic Tapestries...if you lose you have to go out and find a proper job.

I just knew I should have chosen Black - I chose Red and have been in it ever since - more than likely subsidising huge salaries and pensions of the ne'er do wells of Redditch College of Further Education. Have you also noticed that the title "comprehensive" has disappeared from schools nowadays? Now they are Science Colleges or some other term indicating a higher form of education which inevitably churns out the same churlish ignorant louts they have done for the last 20 years. It seems strange that despite all the hard work and money that is poured into the education system pre-secondary school children are less educated now than they ever were.

Here we are when the fire service, police, armed forces are all experiencing cuts yet we can find oodles of cash to pour into education for an end result which is questionable.

[box_shana]

Well I am currently working as a postie on a 3 month temp contract, while I finish my Phd in nuclear physics. I did my first degree in astrophysics through the OU and then got funding for my masters in photonics and also for PhD. Tough the funding ran out last October for my PhD, which is why I decided to get a part time job to support me while I wrote my thesis. Even tough there are jobs that I could apply for with better pay, I think I am going to stick being a postie for a while, simply because I enjoy the job, it beats sitting in front of a computer all day analyzing data, thats what I reckon anyway.

I decided to not tell the Royal mail about my qualifications when I applied, as I applied before and did not even get an interview, but when I did not mention my qualifications I got the job, anyway as I say I am really enjoying it